We should first remind ourselves that although its various theories are presented to us through the media and in school books as being definitive, science is an area of ongoing heated debate and thereby optimally growing in its explanatory value. This sometimes happens in dramatic ways that overturn the preceding t world view. History demonstrates that it is difficult to let go of the way we see things. An understandable big deal is made of Galileo and the Scopes monkey trial as examples of how society seeks to impose restrictions on the freedom to seek the truth. In such circumstance we understand it to be, and it very well might be a seduction away from the truth. Currently, the trend is away from revealed truth, as if it were not an equal, in fact a superior way to connect with reality. There is one truth, and the truth about our CREATION is to be found both in the tradition of the Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit and founded in Jesus Christ, and in the historical record constituted by the remnants of our having been here in the past, to be interpreted in the present. The interpretation, how we put the mosaic together, is only as good as our assumptions.
The Theory of Evolution assumes that we were not created, that human beings are a species of animal. I don’t think we can understand how it is that God brought us into being. It is sufficient to know that He did so. It is possible as many here believe that a human being was ensouled and grew within the womb of a primate. It would not have been a Neanderthal, since they were likely human, but stockier than almost all of us today. But, it may have been Australopithecus. I personally don’t like the term Homo sapiens, since the quality that defines us as human is our free will and capacity to love. It’s not the development or health status of our cerebral cortex that defines our humanity.
At any rate, God could have created us any way He wanted. And, at our beginnings, we could have lived with the potential to conceive for many hundreds of years, There is absolutely no way to know this one way or the other. The Theory of Evolution assumes that we had a life expectancy of some thirty years based on research into primates and modern isolated hunter-gatherer societies. Genetic differences among different populations in the world, can trace the spreading out of mankind throughout the world, and reflect the influence of microevolution. An initial flourishing of genetic diversity could have occurred immediately following our creation, in a similar manner that we observe in the appearance of the great variety of life forms that exists in the history of the earth. The underlying “mutations”, changes in the genotype, can be understood as have been directed by God. Mere randomness truly doesn’t cut it, except for the strict believers in materialism. God did it, and how He did it will be known to us when we come face to face, but for now, chasing shadows on our cave wall, we can only imagine.
Would have more to say, but later.