Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

[Glark]

Even when I was a kid growing up reading the Bible this thought would nag me in the back of my mind that it seemed like the creation story was based on the Jewish week. Of course there was no way to be sure I thought. When I heard Jimmy Akin expound on the framework hypothesis I was intrigued that I was not the only one to consider this and that there was good reasons to think it true apart from speculation. Jimmy does a good job here explaining the view which is why I posted the link for those interested.

Gee, let me guess … Jimmy Akin is a evolutionists? Evo-Catholics will go to any lengths to deny that the Genesis account is literal - including inventing a nonsense back-to-front theory about the six days of creation being based on the Hebrew working week. Hey Jimmy, read Exodus 20:8-11 and stop making up rubbish for the sake of Darwinism! It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Jimmy’s theory was unheard in Judaeo-Christian theology until Darwin came along.

Akin argues that the creation story was written in a way that even the original audience would recognise as symbolic.

What a pity history makes a mockery of Jimmy’s silly little evo-argument:

• 99.99% of the early Church Fathers held that the six days of creation were literal. Were these men too dumb and backward and unenlightened to interpret the six days as Akin’s claims the “original audience” did?
• very, very few (pre-Darwin) Christians or Jews ever interpreted the six days in a non-literal sense.

What do you think the original audience would have thought of each of the six days in Genesis 1 being characterised by “an evening” and “a morning”? They would have naturally associated these words with a literal day of 24 hours. It ain’t rocket science.

Akin says the author is asserting that God created all these things but the author is writing in a literary framework dividing the first 3 days as the creation of the realms and the second 3 days as populating those realms.

My interpretation is that the realms were created in Genesis 1:1. The six days describes furnishing, completing and populating those realms with the other phases of creation (of which there are eight - each preceded by the words, “And God said …”).

Read Exodus 20:11 carefully - I don’t think it’s describing “the heavens and the earth” of Genesis 1:1 as being created during the six days. I believe it’s describing the earth’s atmosphere, land and sea. In Genesis 1 there are two diiferent meanings for “earth” - one is the planet earth and the other is the land created on Day 2. The “heavens” in verse 1 is not the same the “heaven” in verse 8, which is the earth’s atmosphere. I believe “heavens” in verse 1 refers to the rest of the universe - expect for our Sun and moon, which were created on Day 4.

At the end of the six days, “Thus the heavens and earth were finished, and all the host of them” (Gen 2:1). The “heavens and the earth” being the initial realms created in 1:1 (ie, the universe and the planet earth).

 

[Glark]

And God rests on the 7th day. Do you think God literally rested? Of course this must be symbolic.

Of course it must be symbolic? The Scripture doesn’t say “God GOT TIRED so he needed a rest on the seventh day”. It simply says “God … rested on the seventh day from all the work which He had done” - meaning he ceased creating.

 

[Glark]

How on earth does any Christian come to the conclusion that God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, is not an intelligent designer? That sounds like something an ATHEIST would say.

 

[Seeksadvice]

Interesting question. One can demonstrate evolution in the laboratory with some E. coli; some plasmids/bacteriophages/etc. and some petri dishes with varying concentrations of antibiotics. Infect the E. coli with the bacteriophages containing a gene conferring antibiotic resistance and place them on a petri dish with a low-level concentration of the antibiotic in question. Select the colonies that survive and spread them onto a higher concentration petri dish. Repeat a few times, and you’ll find that you have a bunch of bacteria that are highly resistant to the antibiotic due to the competitive advantage of having high resistance (might also find some that transferred the DNA between bacterial cells). Works the same way for antibiotic resistance in the “real-world.”

With regard to dinosaurs/birds/etc., there are quite a few similarities between chemical components. However, a T. rex is not, and never was, a cross between a chicken and a gator. The confusion probably comes from the fact that many underlying genetic and chemical components are similar across species. If there wasn’t some similarity, things would have issues (i.e. the human body cannot synthesize some amino acids for proteins and must obtain them from elsewhere).

A big part of the timing problem, etc. comes from literal interpretation of Genesis; something that doesn’t work with the language of the text. For example… Cain and Able. Cain is afraid that wherever he goes, people would kill him on sight. Problem… we have Adam + Eve + Cain as the only people in the world at the time Cain is afraid. Cain would know where Adam and Eve are, so unless he is afraid of them killing him, why does he fear being killed on sight? Later, Cain takes a wife and produces offspring… where did the wife come from since Eve was the only woman in the world at the time?

Remove the literal interpretation and many of the issues fall away. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Glark]

From the beginning of creation or of man? You’ve told us life started 5778 years ago, but that you are ok with a view that the earth could be far, far older. Are you recanting? Or was Jesus in error? Or are you misreading Jesus?

Good point. It must be referring to the same phase of creation mentioned in Exodus 20:11.

 

[Rau]

What do you think the original audience would have thought of each of the six days in Genesis 1 being characterised by “an evening” and “a morning”?

Better question is how might belief in such a process of creation contribute to the salvation of souls, particularly when our God-given enquiring minds lead us to an altogether different assessment of the details of creation? Would God mean us to take literal details from Genesis as central to its message while handing us a world that, on inspection, tells us something entirely different?

 

[Glark]

They weren’t made at the “beginning”, the Bible says so. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” No mention of Adam and Eve there. Adam and Eve came later, between 120 and 144 hours after the beginning. The Bible shows that your interpretation is faulty here.

If you are going to use a woodenly literal Bible interpretation then you need to be consistent. Adam and Eve were days after the beginning.

A Catholic theologigian might suggest you are splitting hairs and reading the text too literally and not pragmatically.

What is your Buddhist interpretation, then?

 

[Rau]

99.99% of the early Church Fathers held that the six days of creation were literal.

I imagine that’s right. Given there was no basis to propose anything different, why not accept literalism?

 

[Glark]

It’s a case of harvesting the wheat and leaving the weeds - same thing I find necessary to do in the Catholic Church.
Doesn’t the Church teach that even pagan religions contain some truth? Did you complain when John Paul II publicly kissed the Koran or praised voodoo when he was in Africa?

 

[Glark]

I imagine that’s right. Given there was no basis to propose anything different, why not accept literalism?

The point is, Jimmy’s pro-evo theory that the “six days” have long been interpreted symbolically by most readers is made to look stupid by history.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I know you want to be right, but resorting to name calling (evo-catholics) and unsupported assertions (like Evo-catholics will resort to anything…) only serve to undermine your credibility. Your interpretation must be right, right, because…? I imagine there were people like you around the time of Galileo who insisted that the sun must go around the earth because that is what a literal reading of the Scripture implies. I imagine 99% of the Church Fathers believed the sun went around the earth too. So it must be true. Therefore, why don’t you believe that the sun goes around the earth anymore?

The fact is that cosmologies change. Even St. Augustine in the 4th centuries taught that one should not insist on a literal interpretation of everything in genesis so as to appear ignorant of the science of his day. Even in his day he faced a cosmological change since the time genesis had been written with an even older cosmology. Religion that doesn’t adapt to a changing cosmology tends to die off.

 

[Glark]

I would recommend that you re-read it. The text doesn’t say it has a tail like a cedar tree – it says he carries his tail like a cedar tree. (Ever see a hippo whip it’s tail around to and fro? Ever see the tip of the tail, which looks like a branch on a tree?)

What a poor argument. It’s tail is likened to a cedar tree - not a twig!

. Seriously, I find it difficult to believe you’ve read the text of Job 40. Would you mind pointing out where, in the text, we see “smoke coming out of [Leviathan’s] mouth”?

In an earlier post I mentioned that Behemoth and Leviathan are described in two chapters of Job … 40 and 41.

From Job 41:

[ 6]" His body is like molten shields, shut close up with scales pressing upon one another. [7] One is joined to another, and not so much as any air can come between them: [8] They stick one to another and they hold one another fast, and shall not be separated. [9] His sneezing is like the shining of fire, and his eyes like the eyelids of the morning. [10] Out of his mouth go forth lamps, like torches of lighted fire.

[11] Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, like that of a pot heated and boiling. [12] His breath kindleth coals, and a flame cometh forth out of his mouth. [13] In his neck strength shall dwell, and want goeth before his face. [14] The members of his flesh cleave one to another: he shall send lightnings against him, and they shall not be carried to another place. [15] His heart shall be as hard as a stone, and as firm as a smith’s anvil.

[16] When he shall raise him up, the angels shall fear, and being affrighted shall purify themselves. [17] When a sword shall lay at him, it shall not be able to hold, nor a spear, nor a breastplate. [18] For he shall esteem iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. [19] The archer shall not put him to flight, the stones of the sling are to him like stubble. [20] As stubble will he esteem the hammer, and he will laugh him to scorn who shaketh the spear."

 

[Rau]

The point is, Jimmy’s pro-evo theory that the “six days” have long been interpreted symbolically by most readers…

I don’t know how it’s been interpreted, I only know that we should not be expected to believe there was no life on earth prior to date X when our God-given intellect discovers compelling evidence that there was.

 

[Glark]

“Behold behemoth, whom I made with thee, he eaterh grass like an ox” - Job 40:15.

This describes how God created behemoth AT THE SAME TIME as humans - contrary to the theory of evolution.

 

[Glark]

Wait – didn’t you claim, upthread, that you were ok with an earth that was billions of years old, while humanity was less than 6000 years old? Now you’re claiming “Adam and Eve were created at the very beginning of creation”? Self-contradict much, do ya?

Read Exodus 20:11 and Job 40:15.

 

[Glark]

Nobody would ever associate it with a cedar tree.

… unless dinosaurs existing at the time as humans threatens their quasi-religious belief in billions of years of evolution.

 

[Rau]

unless dinosaurs existing at the time as humans threatens their quasi-religious belief in billions of years of evolution.

We can worry about that if and when we find a dinosaur bone that dates to less than 5778 years. So far, it hasn’t happened…

 

[Glark]

We can worry about that if and when we find a dinosaur bone that dates to less than 5778 years. So far, it hasn’t happened

Start worrying. Soft tissue and blood cells have been found in the remains of dinosaurs that have supposedly been extinct for millions of years. Google it.

 

[Rau]

Soft tissue and blood cells have been found in the remains of dinosaurs that have supposedly been extinct for millions of years. Google it.

That does not suggest to me that dinosaurs walked the earth 5778 years ago or less, and not at all earlier as you insist. If you have a link to evidence to the contrary, please provide it.

 

[Glark]

There is no “embarrassing discrepancy” in science as theories are readily modified to better fit the evidence.

The fossil record has revealed that the most fundamental prediction of Darwinian evolution - gradualism - has failed miserably.
In any other field of science, if a theory’s most fundamental prediction fails miserably, that theory’s worth is seriously questioned. But, oh no, not with Darwinism - scientific rigour goes right out the window when pseudo-science takes over.