Do you believe in Adam and Eve?

[Contarini]

Why are you trying to line up the whole theory of evolution with what God’s Word says?

Because we do not set God’s revelation of Himself in creation (as discerned by science) over against God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture.

Does God agree with you, that you can discard some bits of the Bible

No one is discarding anything.

You are now at enmity with God when you say “…we can’t be literalistis, because God can NOT be reduced to words…”

Saying that God is greater than our language amounts to enmity with God? Rejecting literalism is enmity with God?

You try to explain away things God’s Word says He did that you cannot take at face value.

Taking any text at face value (i.e., without stopping to think about genre, idiom, intent of the author, etc.) is generally an extremely bad idea. Ancient texts written in a completely different culture much more so. Divinely inspired texts infinitely more so again.

God populated earth in 6 thousand years. Not billions.

Actually populating the earth isn’t the problem.

How do you then comprehend the concept that God created Man from the dust of the earth?

I comprehend that clearly there is nothing degrading in saying that God created us from apelike primates, if the metaphor Scripture uses is creation from dust. . . .

Humility will drive you to a place of wonderment at the awesome power of God.

Exactly. But you describe such humility, above, as “enmity with God.”

Precisely because God is above us, reading Scripture literally is an extraordinarily bad idea–even worse than reading texts in a wooden manner usually is, which is pretty darn bad under any circumstances. (Just think about all the silly people who go berserk about satirical fake news articles because they don’t stop to ask themselves about the genre of the text they are reading.)

you are saying that God has provided salvation, planned it for us but did not make it understandable to us?

I won’t speak for the other poster, but I’ll state my view: we can understand of course enough to be saved, but we can’t understand the depths of God’s wisdom, as St. Paul says in Romans 11.

How can we avail ourselves of His Grace and salvation if we are unable to conceive or understand it?

Treating the Bible as a set of instructions for “how to be saved” shows a lack of humility before the wonder of God’s revelation. That isn’t how God works. That isn’t how salvation works. It is quite possible to be saved without having the least idea 'how to be saved." We are not saved by our ability to understand instructions.

Scripture is a means of grace–it transforms us if we approach it with faith and humility. Of course we understand something–God works through our minds, not without our minds. But we don’t fully understand.

A lie is a little sin. Murder is a big sin. But does God view sin that way?

Certainly all sin needs God’s forgiveness. But the idea that all sins are equal is not found in Scripture. It’s a Protestant invention. (A lie may, in fact, be a very great sin. Sin is an offense against charity, and the gravity of the sin depends on the extent to which it offends against love.)

Search the bible and nowhere will you find God making a reference to big and small sins, or mortal and venial sins.

Completely untrue. 1 John 5:16 distinguishes between the sin unto death and sins not unto death. (I actually don’t think this refers to what Catholics now mean by “mortal” and “venial” sins, though I think that concept is a necessary development of what Scripture does say about sin.) John 19:11 says that the one who delivered Jesus to Pilate (Judas or Caiaphas?) has a greater sin than Pilate does. And of course several other passages speak of people receiving greater condemnation or ending up in a worse state, implying that not all sins have equal effect.

That is man’s concept not God’s.

Actually it’s the other way round. The notion that all sins are equal is an invention of Luther, as far as I can see.

There is one unforgivable sin. That is the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Which refutes your argument all by itself.

What are you basing your belief on? “if God used evolution” To say this you are trying to mesh the theory of evolution with God’s Word. What if God didn’t use evolution. Is it still logical?

Logical, sure. But there would be a lot of evidence to explain away, and creationist attempts to do so are miserable failures.

The single, important theme which God is giving us in the bible is that we are in a fallen state. Dead in our sins. We need to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. His blood pays for our sins and we can be reconciled to God. Simple.

If you think that’s simple, then you think Einstein’s general theory of relativity is a proper subject for kindergarten

Have you read the Bible?  If not I would get started, beginning at Matthew.  Then tackle the Old Testament.

Carmen

Oh please. I’ve read the Bible. That’s an insulting question. You won’t get far in a discussion assuming that people who disagree with you do so out of ignorance.

You keep saying that we have to choose between the Bible and evolution, but you don’t explain why, except that you have to read the Bible literally in order to read it as a simple set of instructions for salvation. But leaving evolution aside, a literal reading of the Bible (in the way you seem to mean, treating it all as history and/or reading it in the way that it first appears to you as a 21st-century person) is nonsense, and on no reading of the Bible can it possibly be described as a simple book giving clear instructions for salvation.

Edwin

 

[carmenp1]

How on earth do you know what the Bible “would say”?

How are you such an expert on how the Almighty God ought to express himself using human authors who wrote in a culture radically different from your own?

Creation from the ground implies that humans weren’t created out of nothing but out of previous creation.

You are, again, reading in a woodenly literal manner. Why?

Why would you expect a divinely revealed account of creation to read like a cookbook recipe? (Actually I have some cookbooks that are quite imaginative, but hopefully you get the point. . . . )

Edwin

I don’t claim to be an expert. I got saved in 1988. Since then God has been the One to protect, comfort and provide for me and my children. In July 1991, I learnt how to pray. How to put my trust completely in God, not myself.

I came home after church, with my disabled son, about 10 yrs old then. My husband was gone. He had taken my 3 yr old and 2 yr old daughters.

I didn’t sleep that night but prayed in anguish all night for the return of my daughters. The next day, my solicitor told me, he couldn’t serve my husband wihl court orders unless I knew where he was. I had no idea if he was even still in Launceston, Tasmania. My solicitor said, go and come back in half an hour. His office was very close to the City park. I crossed the road to the park to pray. I walked, my arms lifted to God and crying out loud asking God to bring my husband to me. “God, I need you to bring him to me. I don’t know where he is”. I didn’t care who heard me, or what anyone thought. I prayed for that half hour, walking thru the park and crying.

My son and I made our way back to the street and waited at the lights to cross the road. There, stopped at the red light was my husband, in our blue mini van. I ran across the road and tried to wave him down. The lights had turned green. I saw the van go past me and I thought he was going to keep going. But he stopped. I talked to him and we made a time to meet at our home.

I rushed back to my solicitor’s office. He would organise the police to be ready and I was to ring them before I answered the door when my husband arrived for our meeting.

When I heard my husband knock on the door, I rang the police. I let my husband in. He immediately stood over me with a clipboard and started to tell me what I had to do if I wanted to see my daughters again. It was July. He told me I might, maybe see them in October, maybe.

There was another knock at the door. I said. “I’ll see who that is” I was stressed, intimidated and fearful of what was happening. I let two police officers in. They served my husband with the court orders. He had sent my girls to Melbourne to his mother.
It took 7 tortured days but God returned my children to me.

I was a trusting wife but my husband was very ruthless. Weeks before he left he hounded me to agree to a 2nd mortgage that would take all the equity out of our house. I said no every time. Finally, I prayed about it. Not knowing what the right thing was to do. I asked God to let the loan get approved if it was a good thing. But if it wasn’t to shut that door and dont let it go ahead.

We got to the Teacher’s Credit Union. My husband’s friend wasn’t the one we had our meeting with. The loan officer who was there said “No! Absolutely no way”

It was after this failed attempt to get all the equity in the house for himself that he left. The night before he knew he was leaving, he made me pay for a calendar that someone was selling door to door. I was then left with $5.00.

I went to withdraw money the next day and found he had emptied all our bank accounts. My husband had moved us from Melbourne where we had family to Tasmania so he could do a Maritime engineering degree. I had no family in Tasmania. I had to rely completely on God when my world came tumbling down.

This was the beginning of a horrendous time where I was continually in serious difficulties. I spent 13 lonely, tear-filled years in Tas. before God moved us back home to my family in Melbourne.

God used all the pain, lonliness and dependance on Him to show me how He is faithful, true to His Word. I learnt not to depend on money. I had little and the little I had I gave to the church I was attending thinking I was giving it for church planting. When I needed clothes for the kids, I would pray before I went shopping. “God I have $30. I need to buy Steven new jeans” I went shopping and found good quality jeans for $10 each. God did so many wonderful things for me. I have only told you a fragment. I know from living my life for God that every single Word that is in the Bible is true.

I can only share what God has done for me. But if you or anyone else were to do what I did, I know you would also receive His promises as I did. There are so many promises in the bible. Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.” Seek God and you shall find Him. Mark 11:24 “whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” Romans 10:17 “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”

I cannot carry the burden of proof as perfectly as my God does.
Carmen

 

[carmenp1]

Carmen, not sure what denomination you belong to, but we Catholics accept that God created the diversity of the living world through the process of evolution. We call it Theistic Evolution.

Denomination isn’t really important but what I believe is. I believe that I am a sinner, Jesus shed His blood for my sins and I need God’s forgiveness. I need to live for God, renew my mind with the Word of God. I can do nothing to pay for my sins. It’s not by works but by faith in the perfect sacrifice that Jesus Christ offered God on the cross.

Is this different to what you believe?

When did the Catholic Church embrace this Theistic evolution. Is this biblical?
Carmen

 

[carmenp1]

How could “Creation “from the ground” very easily refer to evolution?”
The Bible would instead say …‘God took a fish, a mammal or a primate & breathed life into it & called it - man!’
Everyone could understand that, without knowing evolution.

If we evolved from primates, why doesn’t the bible say that God created an ape? Rather than Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”

God didn’t start with an ape from the animal kingdom and end up with man. How much twisting of God’s Word is needed to arrive at a forced conclusion that evolution is valid.

Do you believe this evolution lie as others seem to on this thread?
Carmen

 

[carmenp1]

Does the bible accurately represent real events?

Short answer yes. Why? Mathew 4:4 “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”

If Jesus Himself quotes this portion of scripture, it’s validity and relevance is for us also. Every word God has said would include Genesis right through to Revelation. So Adam was created in God’s image not a monkey. Daniel was thrown into the lions den and did not perish. Herod, a historical figure referred to by Josephus did kill children up to 2 years trying to kill Jesus. If God said it, you can believe it.

Carmen

 

[Hans_W]

I don’t claim to be an expert. I got saved in 1988. Since then God has been the One to protect, comfort and provide for me and my children. In July 1991, I learnt how to pray. How to put my trust completely in God, not myself.

I came home after church, with my disabled son, about 10 yrs old then. My husband was gone. He had taken my 3 yr old and 2 yr old daughters.

I didn’t sleep that night but prayed in anguish all night for the return of my daughters. The next day, my solicitor told me, he couldn’t serve my husband wihl court orders unless I knew where he was. I had no idea if he was even still in Launceston, Tasmania. My solicitor said, go and come back in half an hour. His office was very close to the City park. I crossed the road to the park to pray. I walked, my arms lifted to God and crying out loud asking God to bring my husband to me. “God, I need you to bring him to me. I don’t know where he is”. I didn’t care who heard me, or what anyone thought. I prayed for that half hour, walking thru the park and crying.

My son and I made our way back to the street and waited at the lights to cross the road. There, stopped at the red light was my husband, in our blue mini van. I ran across the road and tried to wave him down. The lights had turned green. I saw the van go past me and I thought he was going to keep going. But he stopped. I talked to him and we made a time to meet at our home.

I rushed back to my solicitor’s office. He would organise the police to be ready and I was to ring them before I answered the door when my husband arrived for our meeting.

When I heard my husband knock on the door, I rang the police. I let my husband in. He immediately stood over me with a clipboard and started to tell me what I had to do if I wanted to see my daughters again. It was July. He told me I might, maybe see them in October, maybe.

There was another knock at the door. I said. “I’ll see who that is” I was stressed, intimidated and fearful of what was happening. I let two police officers in. They served my husband with the court orders. He had sent my girls to Melbourne to his mother.
It took 7 tortured days but God returned my children to me.

I was a trusting wife but my husband was very ruthless. Weeks before he left he hounded me to agree to a 2nd mortgage that would take all the equity out of our house. I said no every time. Finally, I prayed about it. Not knowing what the right thing was to do. I asked God to let the loan get approved if it was a good thing. But if it wasn’t to shut that door and dont let it go ahead.

We got to the Teacher’s Credit Union. My husband’s friend wasn’t the one we had our meeting with. The loan officer who was there said “No! Absolutely no way”

It was after this failed attempt to get all the equity in the house for himself that he left. The night before he knew he was leaving, he made me pay for a calendar that someone was selling door to door. I was then left with $5.00.

I went to withdraw money the next day and found he had emptied all our bank accounts. My husband had moved us from Melbourne where we had family to Tasmania so he could do a Maritime engineering degree. I had no family in Tasmania. I had to rely completely on God when my world came tumbling down.

This was the beginning of a horrendous time where I was continually in serious difficulties. I spent 13 lonely, tear-filled years in Tas. before God moved us back home to my family in Melbourne.

God used all the pain, lonliness and dependance on Him to show me how He is faithful, true to His Word. I learnt not to depend on money. I had little and the little I had I gave to the church I was attending thinking I was giving it for church planting. When I needed clothes for the kids, I would pray before I went shopping. “God I have $30. I need to buy Steven new jeans” I went shopping and found good quality jeans for $10 each. God did so many wonderful things for me. I have only told you a fragment. I know from living my life for God that every single Word that is in the Bible is true.

I can only share what God has done for me. But if you or anyone else were to do what I did, I know you would also receive His promises as I did. There are so many promises in the bible. Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.” Seek God and you shall find Him. Mark 11:24 “whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” Romans 10:17 “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”

I cannot carry the burden of proof as perfectly as my God does.
Carmen

Carmen, I am very, very sorry to hear your story and cannot begin to comprehend all the pain you had to go through!

Make sure that you have support from your minister and other people around you. Be assured that God has created you and is with you at any moment. We all believe that.

 

[carmenp1]

Because we do not set God’s revelation of Himself in creation (as discerned by science) over against God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture.

No one is discarding anything.

Saying that God is greater than our language amounts to enmity with God? Rejecting literalism is enmity with God?

If you reject Mathew 4:4 “For it is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” How can you be in agreement with God. Jesus quotes this scripture. It is as relevant to us today as it was then.
If you accept Mathew 4:4 then you and I agree that the Word of God is true. Every word. God means what He says. He made Adam in His image. Not a monkey as science would have us believe. It is difficult to accept God’s Word as He has given it to us when church doctrine is different from God’s Word. For example idolatry, penance, praying to Mary, to saints, and other doctrine not supported by scripture.
Carmen

Takthaknet at face value (Ie, without stopping to think about genre, idiom, intent of the author, etc.) is generally an extremely bad idea. Ancient texts written in a completely different culture much more so. Divinely inspired texts infinitely more so again.

Actually populating the earth isn’t the problem.

I comprehend that clearly there is nothing degrading in saying that God created us from apelike primates, if the metaphor Scripture uses is creation from dust. . . .

Exactly. But you describe such humility, above, as “enmity with God.”

Precisely because God is above us, reading Scripture literally is an extraordinarily bad idea–even worse than reading texts in a wooden manner usually is, which is pretty darn bad under any circumstances. (Just think about all the silly people who go berserk about satirical fake news articles because they don’t stop to ask themselves about the genre of the text they are reading.)

I won’t speak for the other poster, but I’ll state my view: we can understand of course enough to be saved, but we can’t understand the depths of God’s wisdom, as St. Paul says in Romans 11.

Treating the Bible as a set of instructions for “how to be saved” shows a lack of humility before the wonder of God’s revelation. That isn’t how God works. That isn’t how salvation works. It is quite possible to be saved without having the least idea 'how to be saved." We are not saved by our ability to understand instructions.

Scripture is a means of grace–it transforms us if we approach it with faith and humility. Of course we understand something–God works through our minds, not without our minds. But we don’t fully understand.

Certainly all sin needs God’s forgiveness. But the idea that all sins are equal is not found in Scripture. It’s a Protestant invention. (A lie may, in fact, be a very great sin. Sin is an offense against charity, and the gravity of the sin depends on the extent to which it offends against love.)

Completely untrue. 1 John 5:16 distinguishes between the sin unto death and sins not unto death. (I actually don’t think this refers to what Catholics now mean by “mortal” and “venial” sins, though I think that concept is a necessary development of what Scripture does say about sin.) John 19:11 says that the one who delivered Jesus to Pilate (Judas or Caiaphas?) has a greater sin than Pilate does. And of course several other passages speak of people receiving greater condemnation or ending up in a worse state, implying that not all sins have equal effect.

Actually it’s the other way round. The notion that all sins are equal is an invention of Luther, as far as I can see.

Which refutes your argument all by itself.

Logical, sure. But there would be a lot of evidence to explain away, and creationist attempts to do so are miserable failures.

If you think that’s simple, then you think Einstein’s general theory of relativity is a proper subject for kindergarten

Oh please. I’ve read the Bible. That’s an insulting question. You won’t get far in a discussion assuming that people who disagree with you do so out of ignorance.

You keep saying that we have to choose between the Bible and evolution, but you don’t explain why, except that you have to read the Bible literally in order to read it as a simple set of instructions for salvation. But leaving evolution aside, a literal reading of the Bible (in the way you seem to mean, treating it all as history and/or reading it in the way that it first appears to you as a 21st-century person) is nonsense, and on no reading of the Bible can it possibly be described as a simple book giving clear instructions for salvation.

Edwin

 

[grannymh]

I believe in Adam and Eve as taught by the Catholic Church. This means that Adam and Eve are the two sole real true fully-complete human parents of humankind.

Natural science is a gift from God, which benefits human society in many ways, especially in the medical arena. This does not mean that all natural science theories about human society are necessarily equally true. The Catholic Church specifically challenges the science of human evolution regarding origin of the human species.

Considering that the Catholic Church insists on a human originating population of two, the theistic evolution position appears rather difficult for Catholics.

For example. The current genetic model (cladistics system of classification) claims that all species, including the human one, had a common ancestor population. Over time, going thousands of years backwards, large ancestor populations diverged into various lineages. One such lineage culminated in the extant human species. The Homo/Pan split is a pertinent example. Note: Google has a variety of websites explaining the current cladograms (drawings) of the cladistics system.

The Catholic Church opposes the current cladogram based explanation for Genesis 1: 26-28. Cladograms for plants and ants are proper.

Polygenism in Humani Generis w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html
requires a large population. Logically, there will never be an “apparent way” to declare that a large population of hundreds to thousands is actually the same as a population of two. The Catholic Church continues to hold that the originating population of the human species is a population of two. I am not really sure how that position fits in with theistic evolution.

 

[Dorothy]

If we evolved from primates, why doesn’t the bible say that God created an ape? Rather than Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”

God didn’t start with an ape from the animal kingdom and end up with man. How much twisting of God’s Word is needed to arrive at a forced conclusion that evolution is valid.

Do you believe this evolution lie as others seem to on this thread?
Carmen

Catholics are free to believe that God created the world in 6 days, or in a very long time.

As long as we agree that at some point a spirit was breathed into the original couple.

A lot of what you hear in this thread is opinion, and some of it hits the nail on the head.

Our egos and human knowledge can get in the way when we focus on that.

We must not get into heated arguments, but focus on the Lord and love Him more each day.

Thank you for sharing what you went through and your relationship with the Lord. May He be praised forever.

Peace,

Dorothy

 

[truetofaith]

How on earth do you know what the Bible “would say”?

How are you such an expert on how the Almighty God ought to express himself using human authors who wrote in a culture radically different from your own?

Creation from the ground implies that humans weren’t created out of nothing but out of previous creation.

You are, again, reading in a woodenly literal manner. Why?

Why would you expect a divinely revealed account of creation to read like a cookbook recipe? (Actually I have some cookbooks that are quite imaginative, but hopefully you get the point. . . . )

Edwin

The reason I give an example of what the Bible would say…is because… Genesis 1 :20-30 tells how God made fish & birds, then from the land He made animals, **according to their own kind, then made man in His own image.
Genesis 2 starts to give more detail on how God formed man , from the dust of the earth.

There is no woman, yet, so from Adam’s rib, God fashions the woman. This is important because Gen. 2:23 tells us the man said "this is now bone of my bones & flesh of my flesh, etc…"for this reason man will leave father & mother & be united to his wife & they will become one flesh.

These are important points that God wanted the Bible authors to include and should not be ignored with a lot of THEORY of evolution! If they weren’t important, the Bible would have said otherwise.
God knew what He wanted us to remember.**

 

[truetofaith]

If we evolved from primates, why doesn’t the bible say that God created an ape? Rather than Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”

God didn’t start with an ape from the animal kingdom and end up with man. How much twisting of God’s Word is needed to arrive at a forced conclusion that evolution is valid.

Do you believe this evolution lie as others seem to on this thread?
Carmen

Carmen, you have gone through a lot of pain but have a very strong Faith in God because He brought you through it all.

I believe in the Bible & also in the Catholic Church, as being given the power to change bread & wine into the Body & Blood of Jesus…directly from Jesus at the Last Supper.

I was taught evolution in Catholic school but we were taught that it was still a theory.

The part in Genesis that said the animals were created “according to their own kind” doesn’t quite agree with evolution.
People here say don’t take the Bible literally …but EVERY word or concept in the Bible is there for a reason.
Our God is not the God of confusion! :tsktsk: :juggle:

 

[clem456]

The Catholic Church specifically challenges the science of human evolution regarding origin of the human species.

Not true. Sources please, where the Catholic Church specifically challenges the science of human evolution. Some overreaching conclusions, maybe. Overreaching conclusions about matters of faith are not science. The Church does not challenge the science of evolution in any way.

 

[clem456]

If we evolved from primates, why doesn’t the bible say that God created an ape?

Because the bible is not a science textbook. It is God’s revelation of himself to human beings, through human words.
Apes are wonderful but they are not human beings with rational human souls.
Scripture details the relationship of God to humanity. From the beginning, Genesis was never intended to be scientifically accurate, but rather to communicate God’s life giving truth, presence, and action in our lives.

Rather than Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”

God didn’t start with an ape from the animal kingdom and end up with man. How much twisting of God’s Word is needed to arrive at a forced conclusion that evolution is valid.

Do you believe this evolution lie as others seem to on this thread?
Carmen

The Catholic Church does not do science. There have been and are scientists who are part of the Church, but the Church doesn’t exist to propose and validate scientific theories. It allows science it’s proper “sphere of competence”. The Church welcomes scientific study of evolution, and recognizes (but does not endorse) the many varied theories the science proposes.

I find this to be probably the best statement of the Catholic Church’s thinking on this issue.
Please read in it’s entirety and with care.
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp961022.htm

 

[grannymh]

Not true. Sources please, where the Catholic Church specifically challenges the science of human evolution. Some overreaching conclusions, maybe. Overreaching conclusions about matters of faith are not science. The Church does not challenge the science of evolution in any way.

It is proper for the Catholic Church to specifically challenge the science of human evolution because in contemporary natural science there are specific differences between the human species and animals, plants, bacteria, etc. Even when one considers human intellective reasoning powers in degrees, there is a significant difference between the abilities of humans and other species.

What is interesting about contemporary science is that the current cladistics system (cladograms) not only contains living organisms, it also includes the Homo/Pan common ancestor for the only extant species in the hominin line. That species is us. Scientists do not consider the species populations following the Homo/Pan split as “overreacing conclusions.” Especially since genetics is a foundation for the science of human evolution. In addition, each point on the cladogram is not a matter of spiritual faith. The scientific conclusion is that each cladogram point is a population and when it comes to the human species point, that “population” is significantly more than two.

In English, the above means that the science of human evolution concludes that two sole real true fully-complete human parents are not the originating founders of the human species. Instead, an originating humanizing population of random breeding individuals in hundreds to thousands is the only source of humankind. It should not surprise people that the Catholic Church would challenge this conclusion.

Regarding the popular idea that the Catholic Church does not challenge the science of evolution in any way, one needs to clarify the evolution model as used in this century.The contemporary evolution model is no longer in the era of the Piltdown Man. Due to rapid advances in technology, current geneticists have millions of species to study. It should not surprise people that scientists separate the intense study of our species from the general study of beans, buffaloes, and bacteria. This allows multiple scientific disciplines to contribute to what was once a biological model. For example, recently there was an article about an archeologist’s opinion about the activities of a group of fossils being examined by paleoanthropologists.

Regarding the fact that the Catholic Church challenges science specifically in the areas of human origin and human nature, one needs to remember that the challenge is found in centuries old doctrines. In my humble opinion, the easiest way to find this challenge is to study
paragraphs 355-421, including the footnotes and cross-references in the margins, in the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition.

In addition, it would be valuable to read this paragraph from post 127.
Natural science is a gift from God, which benefits human society in many ways, especially in the medical arena. This does not mean that all natural science theories about human society are necessarily equally true. The Catholic Church specifically challenges the science of human evolution regarding origin of the human species.

Links to Catholic teachings

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

 

[clem456]

It is proper for the Catholic Church to specifically challenge the science of human evolution because
…

Specific references please, showing where the Church challenges the science of human evolution.

I will take a bullet and post what Saint John Paul 2 said about evolution, and you go ahead and take issue with it:
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp961022.htm

…
2. I am delighted with the first theme which you have chosen: the origin of life and evolution—an essential theme of lively interest to the Church, since Revelation contains some of its own teachings concerning the nature and origins of man. How should the conclusions reached by the diverse scientific disciplines be brought together with those contained in the message of Revelation? And if at first glance these views seem to clash with each other, where should we look for a solution? We know that the truth cannot contradict the truth. (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus) However, in order better to understand historical reality, your research into the relationships between the Church and the scientific community between the 16th and 18th centuries will have a great deal of importance.
…
3. Before offering a few more specific reflections on the theme of the origin of life and evolution, I would remind you that the magisterium of the Church has already made some pronouncements on these matters, within her own proper sphere of competence. I will cite two such interventions here.

In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points.
…
It is important to set proper limits to the understanding of Scripture, excluding any unseasonable interpretations which would make it mean something which it is not intended to mean. In order to mark out the limits of their own proper fields, theologians and those working on the exegesis of the Scripture need to be well informed regarding the results of the latest scientific research.
4. Taking into account the scientific research of the era, and also the proper requirements of theology, the encyclical Humani Generis treated the doctrine of “evolutionism” as a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and serious study, alongside the opposite hypothesis. Pius XII added two methodological conditions for this study: one could not adopt this opinion as if it were a certain and demonstrable doctrine, and one could not totally set aside the teaching Revelation on the relevant questions. He also set out the conditions on which this opinion would be compatible with the Christian faith—a point to which I shall return.

Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis (HELLO?).* In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.

…
cont’d

 

[Hans_W]

I was taught evolution in Catholic school but we were taught that it was still a theory.

Please check the meaning of “theory” in a scientific context. Theory is the highest level of explanation and understanding in science. “Facts” in science are simple observations, like “this piece of copper conducts electricity”.

Everything in science which we know is a theory. There is more uncertainty in quantum theory than in the theory of evolution.

 

[clem456]

cont’d
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp961022.htm

1. The magisterium of the Church takes a direct interest in the question of evolution, because it touches on the conception of man, whom Revelation tells us is created in the image and likeness of God. The conciliar constitution Gaudium et Spes has given us a magnificent exposition of this doctrine, which is one of the essential elements of Christian thought. The Council recalled that “man is the only creature on earth that God wanted for its own sake.” In other words, the human person cannot be subordinated as a means to an end, or as an instrument of either the species or the society; he has a value of his own. He is a person. By this intelligence and his will, he is capable of entering into relationship, of communion, of solidarity, of the gift of himself to others like himself. St. Thomas observed that man’s resemblance to God resides especially in his speculative intellect, because his relationship with the object of his knowledge is like God’s relationship with his creation. (Summa Theologica I-II, q 3, a 5, ad 1) But even beyond that, man is called to enter into a loving relationship with God himself, a relationship which will find its full expression at the end of time, in eternity. Within the mystery of the risen Christ the full grandeur of this vocation is revealed to us. (Gaudium et Spes, 22) It is by virtue of his eternal soul that the whole person, including his body, possesses such great dignity. **Pius XII underlined the essential point: if the origin of the human body comes through living matter which existed previously, the spiritual soul is created directly by God **(“animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides non retimere iubet”). (Humani Generis)

As a result, the theories of evolution which, because of the philosophies which inspire them, regard the spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a simple epiphenomenon of that matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. They are therefore unable to serve as the basis for the dignity of the human person.

1. With man, we find ourselves facing a different ontological order—an ontological leap, we could say. But in posing such a great ontological discontinuity, are we not breaking up the physical continuity which seems to be the main line of research about evolution in the fields of physics and chemistry? An appreciation for the different methods used in different fields of scholarship allows us to bring together two points of view which at first might seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure, with ever greater precision, the many manifestations of life, and write them down along the time-line. The moment of passage into the spiritual realm is not something that can be observed in this way—although we can nevertheless discern, through experimental research, a series of very valuable signs of what is specifically human life. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-consciousness and self-awareness, of moral conscience, of liberty, or of aesthetic and religious experience—these must be analyzed through philosophical reflection, while theology seeks to clarify the ultimate meaning of the Creator’s designs.

It would be entertaining to watch someone pick apart Saint John Paul 2’s statements here.

 

[Hans_W]

To the people who struggle with Genesis I can recommend the following read:

asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2010/PSCF9-10Harlow.pdf

The article comes from a web site asa3.org (The American Scientific Affiliation, A Network of Christians in the Sciences).

It might be too liberal for the conservative Christian. The Catholic Church is very open to the latest findings coming from the sciences. I can recommend many books by theologians, Christian philosophers and Christian scientists, if you are further interested.

 

[clem456]

Please check the meaning of “theory” in a scientific context. Theory is the highest level of explanation and understanding in science. “Facts” in science are simple observations, like “this piece of copper conducts electricity”.

Everything in science which we know is a theory. There is more uncertainty in quantum theory than in the theory of evolution.

This is correct.
The Church does not engage in scientific theorizing.
It observes naturally revealed facts, like the self-evident complementarity of male/female for instance, but does not endorse scientific explanations for facts.

 

[grannymh]

This is correct.
The Church does not engage in scientific theorizing.
It observes naturally revealed facts, like the self-evident complementarity of male/female for instance, but does not endorse scientific explanations for facts.

From the Catholic position, the issue is not endorsing scientific explanations for facts. That sounds like a strawman or whatever.

The actual Catholic issue is explained in post 133 above.

For readers information.
There are Catholics who are smart enough to recognize the difference between a population in the thousands and a population of two. By the way, knowing the difference between a quantity of a thousand and the quantity of two – Is that what is meant by engaging in scientific theorizing?