Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

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Darwin’s theory is just that a theory. While there maybe some parts of it that is OK not all of is. Not everything in Darwin’s theory has been proven correct there are still plenty of gaps to it. There is not doubt in my mind that God created man in His own image but we do not know what that image of God is only that we are. How God created man is not known, only what has been passed down thousands of years before anything was ever written and when it was written it was handed down from oral traditions based upon what man understood at the time to explain or try to explain how and why he is. if we take the creations stories literary I think we miss the point of the story.
 
For me po18guy: i don’t worry about Darwin’s theory being one way or the other it does not change my belief in God nor what the Catholic Church teaches me concerning my faith and how I need to live the way Jesus taught
 
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Joe1
Wow, that is actually some very good points. Thank you. He calls himself an atheist so that’s why I called him that. But you changed my mind.

I never looked at evolution that way but now I see why there is something wrong with it
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:hugs:

You don’t have to put your brain up on a shelf to believe in God. In fact, if God did it, then it’s real on all levels. We can come to belief through science (many scientists are realizing that “God” is the best explanation – over a hundred constants have the appearance of having been precisely set so life as we know it is possible, and so many more).

…but in the end, faith is a spiritual thing. Jesus told Thomas (Jn20:29) “you believe BECAUSE you see? Blessed are those who have NOT seen, and yet believe!”

🙂

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen (Hebb11:6). Faith is a decision, as our voluntary obedience of the Great Command (“You shall LOVE GOD”), is a decision. Embrace science, prove to yourself the credibility of God, and — have faith.

(BTW – another dynamic between parents and children, parents have trouble accepting their kids as “credible”. So kindness, patience, and sound Scripture peppered with real science can be persuasive…)
 
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edwest21 said:
Yes, it does. First, all humans alive today have literally two parents. They committed Original Sin and all of us descended from them. That is why Christ was born. To show us how to live and to tell us how to gain eternal life.
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It’s true that Darwin’s theory offers no support whatsoever for the idea that all humans are descended from precisely two first parents. It naturally relies on large populations which has been the model (so far as anyone can tell) for the evolution of all other species. Whether or not Science can ever conclude that there was indeed an Adam and Eve - I have no idea.

That a theory does not lead to a particular conclusion that we may hold (on some other basis) does not demolish the other 99.9% of the theory which has proved a compelling explanation for the origin of species.
 
If one believes in God, then at some point scientific theory runs into something it can’t explain. We don’t ditch all theories for that reason. Analogously, we don’t ditch Newtonian mechanics because it does not explain (observable) relativistic effects. We note that Newtonian theories have a deficiency (or omission), but happily hold to and use them in contexts where they are effective.
 
ChunkMonk said:
A better way for this discussion would be for an Evolutionist Christian to give his or her theory that unites the “science” of evolution with the historical facts of Genesis and then we could discuss the merits of that specific theory.
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If God “anointed” Adam and Eve to their roles as progenitors for all of us, the best that might be hoped for (scientifically speaking) is that it may be possible to observe evidence of that today. But such would simply leave open the question of how we all come to have exactly the same two parents. It would likely be scientifically unexplained, though fitting with a Biblical story.
 
As I understand it Darwin’s theory of evolution wouldn’t be at odds with Catholic teaching. Darwin didn’t address where life came from but only changes in existing life. I don’t think some species evolving into man, who is then given a rational soul, is incompatible with Catholic teaching. At the same time it doesn’t match well with how people conceived of man coming to be. But that doesn’t mean it violates some dogma of the faith.

I do absolutely agree the Darwinism defies logic and common sense. I do think that even the media and the chattering classes will soon have to admit it is a bunch of nonsense.
 
ChunkMonk said:
This eliminates the possibility of Adam as we commonly understand him. It also presupposes the existence of death, disease, corruption, and concupiscense before Original Sin and therefore not as punishment for Original Sin. However, we known from the Apostle that “sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin”
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I agree this does eliminate the common conceptions of man. But was there absolutely no death before the fall? Were Adam and Eve vegetarians before the fall? What if they stepped on an ant or swatted a fly? Maybe the death refered to here is spiritual death? Or maybe it means man alone would not have experienced death and these other things prior to the fall.

I don’t want to defend evolution, because I don’t believe in it. But I’m not convinced it posses a problem if it were true.
 
Which part of Darwin’s theory? He wrote a lot, some parts are true, many parts are not substantiated by evidence. Microevolution is true and accepted by the Church. Mendel, father of modern genetics, was a Churchman. Darwin’s macroevolution barely got off the starting block and for most intent and purpose, difficult to revive. Plagued by fraud and ommission. If you can get “Progenesis 95 Theses against Evolution” , it is a convenient collection of works that makes it hard to support macroevolution. I don’t agree with all 95 (because it has a bias for creationism) but some are solid ones. I read only portion of it via googlebook. My favourites against macroevolution:
  1. Cambrian explosion
  2. Haldane’s Dilemma
  3. Origin of information in the cell, DNA and reproduction.
  4. Age of the universe vs the calculated required time to evolve. Earth started to be livable 4 billion years ago. Not enough time by a long shot to start life, speciation etc. See Haldane’s Dilemma.
  5. Origin of life not supported by natural nor random processes. None.
  6. No tree of life. Perhaps bush is the better description.
Some of these are overlapping.
 
Stick with Genesis and Six-Day. (At the very least, until we get a better theory than “evolution”)

Or until we get a better Genesis (At the very lest, until we get a better creation story)

Evolution is a flawed theory, but accepting Genesis as scientific fact, is equally dubious. Case in point, I keep asking the question if Adam and Eve were created exactly as Genesis states, and you accept that Eve had three sons, Cain, Abel, and later Seth. Cain slays Abel. God sees this reprehensible act and banishes Cain, putting a mark on him. Next, it states that Cain and his wife (here I’ll stop) My question is, if you are going to believe Genesis as scientific fact, one has to ask either, what did Cain take as a wife (for there were no other female human beings at the time), or where did this human woman come from? From scripture there is no answer, from man there is only conjecture. I can’t buy evolution as fact, but I can’t buy Scripture as face either.

Shalom
 
I do absolutely agree the Darwinism defies logic and common sense. I do think that even the media and the chattering classes will soon have to admit it is a bunch of nonsense.

The interesting thing about Darwin is that his theory is that all life originated from single celled organism in a warm pool. When asked where the organisms and the pool came from, Darwin’s answer was; “from the Creator.” Hhmmmmmm!🤔
 
There is some wonderfully erroneous 'fact ’ giving on the Theory of Evolution here in this post.

Abraham is the first historical human in the Bible.

Pope Francis stated what scientists, also Christian, know…

“”“Pope Francis told an audience from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Vatican City on Monday that theories of evolution and the Big Bang are not inconsistent with creationism and biblical teaching. “The evolution in nature is not opposed to the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve,” Pope Francis said, according to a Vatican newswire transcript of the event.”"

It is arrogance and denial of the God who is I Am to deny Him the creation of Evolution.
 
I don’t know how to quote on this new format.

In any case, edwest21 already referred to Humani Generis, an encyclycal of Pius XII in 1950. It available at the Vatican web site: Humani Generis (August 12, 1950) | PIUS XII

John Paul II also covered evolution in a letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp961022.htm

John Paul clearly says in his letter that “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.”

The short answer is that there is no conflict between the theory of evolution and Catholic doctrine. Having said that, you could add elements to the actual theory of evolution which would put it in conflict with Catholic doctrine: for example, if you argued that the spirit or soul was was formed by natural rather than supernatural means or if you argued that mankind was descended from more than one pair of original humans. But these are not basic elements of the theory of evolution.

The only people who have a problem with the theory of evolution are people who interpret the Bible literally. And yes, there are some on this forum and some on this very thread. And no, I don’t want to enter into some pointless argument with those people. You are entitled to your opinions. Just be aware that you are opposing both science and the Church. Good luck with that!
 
Having read some of the more nonsensical comments in this thread I’ll refer you to two books:

How Life Began, Evolution’s Three Geneses, Alexandre Meinesz
The Evidence for Evolution, Alan Rogers

Of course there are hundreds, or even thousands, more, but these two refute the more common fallacies you see on the internet or fundamentalist literature.

Note that the US stands apart from other developed countries not only in its refusal to have a national health system, but in its scepticism about evolution. There are several polls about this, but here’s one: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html
80% of Europeans accept the theory of evolution vs. 14% of Americans. But of course the US also scores extremely low in science tests scores: #25 in the 2015 PISA scores. Sad, as our Great Leader would say.
 
Since someone else mentioned the Big Bang, I feel compelled to point out the this theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest in Belgium, Georges Lemaitre, in 1927.

Is evolution compatible with atheism? Sure. Do some atheists believe in evolution? Sure. So what?
Do atheists eat hot dogs? Do I eat hot dogs? Does eating a hot dog make me an atheist? Let’s try using some logic here.
 
I like to think that Adam and Eve being the first humans separate from all other life forms to be the bases of when Humans evolved from whatever that is we don’t know. many scientists say Humans are some 6 millions years old but have not been able to go back further than that since nothing has been found to show humans are even older. There is no doubt that the human race evolved over time from whatever beginnings, some dying out while others continued to evolve to where one can readily say Human form as we know it today. We don’t know how man evolved but we can say with some certainty that they did and that God created, but we can’t say how God created. One needs to remember that for centuries creation stories were oral long before they were ever written down. The creation story we have in Gen is unique in that it was far different from all other creation stories of the time. Different societies thought gods were at was with each other that different gods did different things that led to creation. whereas, Jews believed that a God created out of love not out of violence as many of the creation stories went.

One simply take the creation story in Gen. in a literal sense, it was never meant to be taken that way. When these stories were told science was not even known or thought of, but they did want to try and explain how man came about along with other life forms. Their knowledge of the world was very limited. In our day and age with more knowledge than they had one has to try and understand it as they did not as we do today. God created this we believe but how God did it is unknown to us and most likely never will be known since it would not help in salvation.

Gen is also about morals, death life and how gradually man comes to know God who reveals Himself to man and due to some transgression God thereby says at some point in mans history he will be redeemed. What Gen is then a primitive cosmology of the authors time used to teach the creation of all things by God The absolute power of the transcendent God is emphasized whereas the pagan gods depict creation as as the result of of a struggle between the gods and the forces of chaos, the Biblical account stresses the effortless activity of the one God.
 
Erikaspirit16 said:
I don’t know how to quote on this new format.
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When you press reply, highlight the text you want to quote and a quote sign comes up. Press that and you’re good to go. You can do this multiple times. And you can quote multiple posts.
 
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ChunkMonk said:
Darwinian evolution is incompatible with Catholic Dogma because it supposes a man-like creature that was not man but from whence man came.
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Catholics are only required to believe that God created the human soul. How the physical body came to be is irrelevant since God created the laws of physics in the first place. Its quite possible that God created a physical reality that designs itself which is consistent with the theory of evolution and God as a Creator. I don’t see a problem with that. The Universe may very well be a blind watchmaker.
 
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There are two types of evolution. Microevolution refers to changes within the same kind of animal, such as the development of new species. It has been observed and is a fact of science. However, macroevolution, which refers to one kind of animal changing into another kind of animal, has never been observed and is believed by faith.

There is no need to reconcile evolution with Catholicism because evolution is majorly flawed. The Kolbe Center provides a Catholic critique of evolution. Creation Ministries International and Answers in Genesis also have good arguments against evolution.
 
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