Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

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Has it ever occurred to you that the reason why the author speaks of a snake (as opposed to any other animal) is not because Lucifer chose to posses a snake (of all things) in real life but rather it was because a snake is a sneaky slippery shrewd poisonous creature and if it gets its fangs into you then you will die.? In the story, the snake carries within it the poison of sin and it will surely bring death. This creature is being used by the author as a plot device. Its being used to represent the cunning wickedness of the devil.

The temptation to become gods, to eat from the tree that holds the knowledge of good and evil, these are all plot devices sown together into a story that represents the fall of man kind. There is no tree of good and evil and no fruit grows on it. To think so would be to completely miss the point the author is trying to convey and is in my opinion a sign of biblical illiteracy…

Original sin and the fall is real, but the way by which genesis expresses that reality is not to be taken literally.
 
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IWantGod said:
Original sin and the fall is real, but the way by which genesis expresses that reality is not to be taken literally.
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Moreover, the lesson of scripture is not found in the literary devices of trees and snakes. Substitute alternatives and the truths are unchanged.
 
I’d point again to Humani Generis wherein Pope Pius XII utilized his authority as pope, mentioning figurative language, reinforcing the truths we must hold true, and all while saying evolution doesn’t contradict Teaching.
Yes the Church cannot say evolution happened. That belongs to the realm of science. But it is perfectly and justly in the Church’s competence to judge whether or not evolution is able to coexist along Truth, and on that matter the answer is yes.
If you want to say you don’t believe evolution happened and discuss those merits, that’s fine. But you vastly overstep your bounds to condemn the Church as teaching heresy and showing outright disdain for her authority on the theological ramifications surrounding evolution. I beg you please speak with a priest or otherwise theologically knowledgeable person to find an accurate understanding on why evolution is not in contradiction to the faith. In the meantime you may wish to consult Catholic Answers’ apologetics and priest answers regarding evolution and the faith. Again I really don’t care whether you come away thinking evolution is hooey, but please do at least do come away with an understanding of why it does not violate Truth.
 
ericc said:
Possibly any flying creatures will be deemed birds if seen from afar. Flying insects and flying reptiles predate birds and land mammals.
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No. That was before the first humans. If anyone ‘saw’ them, then it would have been God. Are you telling us that God is short-sighted?

rossum
 
Glark said:
The claims of science depend on the reasoning and intelliegence of fallible man. Therefore science is fallible.
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The claims of theologians depend on the reasoning and intelligence of fallible man. Therefore theology is fallible.

I can find a few hundred (thousand?) different interpretations of scripture if I look through the many Christian denominations. I can find Young Earth creationist interpretations; I can find Old Earth creationist interpretations; I can find Theistic Evolutionist interpretations. I can even find all three interpretations from Catholics, see the Kolbe Centre and Ken Miller to name but two.
If you choose fallible science over the infallible Scriptures, you are falling into the “evolu[t]ion” trap that Satan set for you. God tests everyone.
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If you choose fallible theology over the infallible World God created, you are falling into the “Galileo” trap that Satan set for you. Why does God need to test people? He already knows the result.
Truth cannot contradict truth. Reality cannot contradict Scripture. Evolution is not reality.
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Truth cannot contradict truth. Human interpretations of Scripture cannot contradict the Work of God. A literal interpretation of Genesis is not reality.

rossum
 
Glark said:
I beliefe the thread is about the theology of evolution, not the science. But since you mentioned the fossil record …

Chances are you are depending on a relatively tiny number of paleontologists to tell you what has been found.
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You are wrong.
Glark said:
I would wager that most paleontologists are atheists and they see what they want to see in the evidence - evolution. Don’t be so naive as to suggest that all scientists are dispassionately objective when it comes to origins science. Or they are simply brainwashed victims of the Zeitgist and follow the herd (how far do you think a “six days” creationist would get in an academic environment dominated by atheism?)
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Whether dominated by atheism or not, there are plenty of paleontologists who do not fit your stereotype. See: Large Gaps in the Fossil Record
Glark said:
Charles Darwin didn’t see the evidence for his theory (as in, gradualism) in the fossil record.
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How the gaps are explained by evolution

Some people (who are typically not biologists) think that the gaps in the fossil record present a problem to the theory of evolution, because they do not show a gradual and smooth change of one species changing into another. But precisely! Modern evolutionary theory claims that species do not change gradually, but “abruptly”!

The idea that species “morph” gradually into other species is an old one, dating to Charles Darwin’s time (mid-19th C.), though not necessarily to Darwin himself.(*) Back then evidence was scarce, so it was impossible to determine the rates at which species change.

*In the fifth edition of The Origin of Species Darwin wrote: “the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form.”
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Glark said:
Charles Darwin didn’t see the evidence for his theory (as in, gradualism) in the fossil record. Neither did Gould and Eldredge, who resorted to a ridiculous twist on spontaneuos generation to explain away “sudden appearance” and “stasis” - two predictions of creation theory.

Pierre-P. Grasse: “Assuming that the Darwinian hypothesis … [paleontologists then] interpret fossil data according to it … The error in their method is obvious.”
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Lets let Dr. Gould speak for what his views are. In his “Evolution as Fact and Theory” he wrote:
We [Gould and Niles Eldredge] proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the differential success of certain kind of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuations and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether though design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled “Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution is a Hoax” states: “The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge…are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan insisted on, and which God revealed to us in the Bible.”

Continuing the distortion, several creationists have equated the theory of punctuated equilibrium with a caricature of the beliefs of Richard Goldschmidt, a great early geneticist. Goldschmidt argued, in a famous book published in 1949, that new groups can arise all at once through major mutations. He referred to these suddenly transformed creatures as “hopeful monsters.” (I am attracted to some aspects of the non-caricatured version, but Goldschmidt’s theory still has nothing to do with punctuated equilibrium…) Creationist Luther Sunderland talks of the “punctuated equilibrium hopeful monster theory” and tells his hopeful readers that “it amounts to tacit admission that anti-evolutionists are correct in asserting there is no fossil evidence supporting the theory that all life is connected to a common ancestor.” Duane Gish writes, “According to Goldschmidt, and now apparently according to Gould, a reptile laid an egg from which the first bird, feathers and all, was produced.” Any evolutionist who believed such nonsense would rightly be laughed off the intellectual stage; yet the only theory that could ever envision such a scenario for the origin of birds is creationism—with God acting in the egg. [Author’s emphasis.]
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IWantGod said:
Has it ever occurred to you that the reason why the author speaks of a snake (as opposed to any other animal) is not because Lucifer chose to posses a snake (of all things) in real life but rather it was because a snake is a sneaky slippery shrewd poisonous creature and if it gets its fangs into you then you will die.? In the story, the snake carries within it the poison of sin and it will surely bring death. This creature is being used by the author as a plot device. Its being used to represent the cunning wickedness of the devil.

The temptation to become gods, to eat from the tree that holds the knowledge of good and evil, these are all plot devices sown together into a story that represents the fall of man kind. There is no tree of good and evil and no fruit grows on it. To think so would be to completely miss the point the author is trying to convey and is in my opinion a sign of biblical illiteracy…

Original sin and the fall is real, but the way by which genesis expresses that reality is not to be taken literally.
Click to expand...
Along these lines, it should be considered that science presents us with a vision of the world that can also be considered a “literary device” that people may take for reality. There is something that we connect with when we think of such entities as molecules, quarks, space-time, and the concept of trees in this case, but the ideas, the symbols and theories, they are all fruits of those trees in the garden that represent the reality of our participation in the world. These trees include art, music, philosophy, sports and festivals, and their fruit are God’s gifts of which we partake and which now cause us suffering in their absence. They manifest themselves in time and space, spiritual in nature and taking physical shape within the relationship that is our being in the world. They too are grown from the dust of the earth, in the very structure of our brains, which when they are intact, may allow for their expression as mental phenomena. As we contemplate such things, we are eating of one such fruit whose origin is the spirit, actualized here and now in the world. What better way to visualize that truth of our existence.

With his first choice and subsequent acts, the serpent, evermore rejecting the eternal Divine Source of existence, has relinquished his arms, his capacity to love, to give and create. He silently slithers in the dust, that to which we will all return and which he is said to eat for his sustenance, the purveyor of transient and illusory goods. As God’s messenger destined to bring us news of the Light, Lucifer cannot but fulfill that destiny in spite of himself; turning from God, he does so by seducing us from that heavenly light, only to reveal the true depth of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.
 
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Since Moses was given the privilege to write about the 6 days of creation, he probably will describe the scene based upon the view/vision presented to him, if that was how it was communicated to him. We can’t tell. If he saw a pterosaur, for a bronze age person, it is a flying creature and just a “bird” to him.

On the other hand , he may be just writing down what was narrated to him. If he was told it is a flying creature, that will be just “birds” to him again as the science of taxonomy did not exist for thousands of years and he has no knowledge of any other flying creatures other than birds.

Regardless, flying creatures existed before land mammals. I’m not even sure whether ancient Hebrew has any word to describe ancient animals such as pterosaurs. The Hebrew in Gen 1:22 for birds is “wə·hā·‘ō·wp̄” of which the root word is “oph” which mean “flying creatures” in Strong’s Concordance. Perhaps the translation is not precise but the Hebrew is generic enough to cover all flying creatures. Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Definition includes:
  1. flying creatures, fowl, insects, birds
    1a) fowl, birds
    1b) winged insects
Having a translation of flying creatures instead of bird seems pretty apt then.
 
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ericc said:
Since Moses was given the privilege to write about the 6 days of creation, he probably will describe the scene based upon the view/vision presented to him, if that was how it was communicated to him.
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Here is a short screenplay I wrote a little time ago:

Why the Bible is not a science textbook
FADE IN:

SCENE: Inside a tent in the desert. There is a small table and chair in the middle of the tent. Some baggage is stacked at the back.

Characters: GOD invisible and omnipresent. MOSES offstage.

MOSES enters the tent.

MOSES: “What a day! If I ever see another grain of sand I swear that I am goi…”

GOD: “Moses!”

MOSES: (surprised) “Yes Lord!”

GOD: “Get pen, ink and papyrus.”

MOSES goes to the baggage and fetches a pen, ink and papyrus. He takes them to the table and sits down.

GOD: “Begin writing.”

MOSES: “Yes Lord.”

GOD: “In the beginning I created a quantum fluctuation at the hyper-sub-quark level …”

MOSES: (interrupting) “Sorry Lord. Was that spelled K-W-A-H-K?”

GOD: “Hmmm. I see a problem. Humans will not discover hyper-sub-quarks for another 8,726 years three months and sixteen days. Perhaps something less cosmological might work better. Moses, begin a new sheet of papyrus.”

MOSES picks up a new piece of papyrus and prepares to write.

GOD: “In the beginning I created deoxyribonucleic acid …”

MOSES: (interrupting) “Sorry Lord, but could you spell that please?”

GOD: “Oy vey! Why did I make these people so dumb?”

GOD touches a finger to Moses’ forehead.

MOSES: “Ah, now I understand. Thank you for giving me all that knowledge Lord. Unfortunately I see a problem. If I write ‘deoxyribonucleic acid’ then none of the other Israelites will know what the he… heck I have written about unless you touch all their foreheads as well.”

GOD: “Hmmm. A good point Moses. Let me think about it for a few thousand years.”

MOSES: “But what do I do while I am waiting?”

GOD: “Never mind, I have finished thinking.”

MOSES: “That was never thousands of years.”

GOD: “Do you doubt Me! Time is Mine to command. It is subject to Me, not Me to it.”

MOSES: (humbly) “Sorry Lord.”

GOD: “Start a new piece of papyrus.”

MOSES picks up a new piece of papyrus and prepares to write.

GOD: “In the beginning I created the heavens and the earth …”

FADE OUT:
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😀

rossum
 
Did God create the steam engine? In a sense, he did because he creted all the component parts and created the men who put them together and even created the creative drive and intelligence they used to envision to project. But did he create the steam engine? In the sense most people mean, he did not.

God did not create evil because evil is the turning away from God to follow another, lesser good. God cannot turn away from himself. He did not create evil in man because he did not create man to turn away from himself, but to remain fixed on him. Original Sin is what reordered (disordered) our nature to be set against God.
 
ChunkMonk said:
God did not create evil
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The it is incorrect to call God the creator, as I said. He is reduced to one of many different creators in your theology.

Would you say that creating Satan/Lucifer was equivalent to creating evil? That might make God a sole creator again.

rossum
 
Why would the Israelites had such a hard time believeing evolution? I know people who are literally two steps above ‘special’ that believe in evolution. It doesn’t require any special knowledge to understand the basic idea of evolution, hence our ability to teach it to small children.

This fallacy that the “idiotic” tribesmen of Israel could not have understood evolution, or that teaching them the basic idea requires also teaching them advanced Chemistry and Biology is one if the most silly things I’ve ever heard. 99.9% of the people who believe in evolution know about as much biology and chemistry as the average 2nd Millennium BC tribesmen.
 
His created the angels, who were good. Some of them then turned away from God, not through a defect in-built in their creation, but purely of theor own volition, which “created” evil. Evil, in that sense, is not a ‘thing’ per se to be created. It is an action. Evil as the consequence of sin was “created” as a result of sin, which again was not in-built by God.

The evolutionist denies this. He believes (if he is being honest about the implications of his theory) that the defect was built in to man, and thus it was in man’s nature from origin to be sinful.
 
ChunkMonk said:
Evil as the consequence of sin was “created” as a result of sin, which again was not in-built by God.
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Then God created the ability to sin. Again, God is responsible for everything that exists besides Himself. Also consider, if man has the ability to sin, and man is in the image of God then …
ChunkMonk said:
The evolutionist denies this. He believes (if he is being honest about the implications of his theory) that the defect was built in to man, and thus it was in man’s nature from origin to be sinful.
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This particular “evolutionist” does not believe that at all. I am Buddhist (see my Avatar picture) and sin is not found in Buddhism. Sin is a concept from Christianity (and possibly from the other Abrahamic religions) so it does not feature at all in the Buddhist analysis of man’s nature.

The only thing that “evolutionists” have in common is evolution; nothing else. Just as all that “gravitationists” have in common is gravity; nothing else.

rossum
 
Stay comfortable in your faith. Belief in any particular view of origins is not essential to your salvation…according to scripture. Continue to study however as scripture does say to be ready to defend your faith.
 
Lol, that’s a loaded question. The only knowledge to be gained from this statement IS about the poster. Sadly I’m rapidly beginning to agree with your previous statement.
 
Just when I think you can make pertinent and legitimate statements on which one may discuss with you with reason you go and make asinine comments. If you believe you represent a “good” and true Catholic then I can only feel saddened for your future.It is clear from scripture that scientific fact and faith should be integrated with each other with reason not alienated. Only a person blinded of both scripture and science by their biased and self serving opinion and ironically lack of faith in God would believe otherwise.
Never the less…may God bless you on your journey to truth.
 
Science I believe compliments religious thinking in the sense to better understand how people came t believe the world as they understand it. When the creation stories were being told long before it was ever written down, the world as they knew and understood it is far different from the way we modern humans do. What set the creation stories in Gen. The fact that there is One God who created out of love giving free will. One top of it the story tellers wanted people of their time to understand that it was God who created not out of violence or chaos but out of love. its doubtful at the time the stories were being told and even when they began to be written down that the authors ever wondered where Cain got his wife, since that was not really the point of the story but more about death by violence and that it was wrong to kill not really about how Cain got his wife or where she might have come from. I also these stories began to be written down during the exile so that they would not forget who they were and where they came from its also about time that is a calendar to know when the sabbath was since the Sabbath was just about whatever day they thought it was depending on where one lived. Gen is also about a line of decendents from Adam to Abraham to set themselves from all others. I rather doubt anyone really lived as long as so many did in Gen.

The story tellers wanted to convey to their listeners morals and ethic’s and and how how one is to live and convey a God who is loving who created out of love and God in man’s history a salvation history if you will to give hope to man that one day he would be redeemed. No one knows what sin Adam and Eve committed nor if there was really a garden of Eden, but it was a ways to convey that somehow man sinned against God so death was the price one paid fro the sin.

Evolution while all good and well is still just a theory in science. Scripture and especially Gen is and is not ever meant to be science, but to be writings about God and His interaction with man in salvation history. History we we know it is not the same for those who told these stories and or in time wrote them down. it seems more to me to understand how man thought at the time these stories were being told rather how we think of them now.
 
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