Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

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No. This is God’s work. The writer wrote what he did to convey a day as people of the time period would understand it. Now, the final interpretation of a day in this context might be: each day was a thousand years. God could have provided the necessary light without an actual sun.
 
Your last sentence is a statement that is not Church teaching. So, to answer the OP, yes, it does contradict Catholicism. Simply repeating this in different ways does not matter. From the point of view of the Catholic Church, this sort of thinking is incompatible with the faith. It can be studied but in no way can it be admitted as part of the faith.
 
rossum said:
That beach has the appearance of design without any actual design. The action of waves has sorted the pebbles into order of size. No intelligence required.
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The waves and the pebbles are part of an intelligently designed world.
 
Yes. And bees and flowers were designed to work together.

“In the waggle dance, which is performed on the vertical surface of a honeycomb, bees indicate the azimuthal direction of the food source relative to the azimuth of the sun as the angle between the vertical and the direction of the axis of the waggle. The sun is used as a reference in the bee’s internal compass.”
 
Look at my avatar picture, the Prajnaparamita of Java. I am Buddhist; I don’t know if you consider that pagan or not.
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I’ll put it this way–I didn’t conclude ‘pagan’ based on the Buddist avatar, but on your statement that you are “…10’s of 1,000’s of gods.” away from atheism (i.e.–that you recognize multiple gods).

“Pagan” generally means not Jewish, Muslim or Christian; though I generally use it as synonymous with polytheist (influenced by St. Augustine’s City of God, which I cited above–you may have noticed…).
There is a third option besides chance and design: necessity. See Monod, Dembski and others.
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What is ‘necessity’, in the absence of intelligence, design, or purpose???

If there is no purpose…there is no need…and therefore there can be no ‘necessity’.

Ergo…accidental. (still).
Specifically, evolution is a combination of chance (random mutations) and necessity (natural selection). That combination can give the appearance of design without actual design.
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Perhaps, if one subscribes to the theory of omnipotent happenstance and infinitely convenient accidentalism…

(It’s evidence of intelligence).
For a non evolutionary example, look at the sorting of the pebbles on Chesil Beach. Local fishermen could tell where they were at night by checking the size of the pebbles which told them how far north on the beach they were.

That beach has the appearance of design without any actual design. The action of waves has sorted the pebbles into order of size. No intelligence required.
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Never heard of this beach, but I don’t see the differentiating of pebble size along a beach, as a very compelling analogy. That order can happen accidentally (or rather, be perceived) in nature, does not buttress the notion that order can re-order itself, and grow more complex, efficient and effective as if seeking to discharge a purpose…though there be no purpose at all (then it becomes a matter of one accident piled on another, building on the last, and conveniently ever more complex and sophisticated…).

btw, shall I take it that your gods don’t have an answer for the origin of complexity and intelligence either?
 
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edwest2111m2 Glark
Look at it this way. The Church, rightly or with bad intent, gets asked questions. This subject has been promoted - heavily - for over a century. What changed? Darwin’s book. Before, anyone could give any or no reason for not believing in God. After The Book, here were scientists AND influential people like Marxists and Communists who could use it to manipulate people and entire countries. I’m not saying all scientists suddenly became atheists, but people who wanted to spread a certain ideology just had to make it official policy and it had to be taught from the “See! No God.” angle. In the West, all you needed were enough people to teach this, year after year after year, to poison generations. At first, it was “their word was enough,” followed by elaborate guesswork and speculation. Pope Pius XII mentions this threat regarding theologians in 1950 in the encyclical, Humani Generis. Pope Benedict reinforced the fact that evolution can’t be proven. Cardinal Schoenborn reinforced this fact in his book, Chance or Purpose? Read the description:
amazon.com

Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution and a Rational Faith

Cardinal Christoph Schnborns article on evolution and creation in The New York Times launched an international controversy. Critics charged him with biblical literalism and creationism. In this book, …
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Excellent book!
 
Maybe that’s what all those stupid scientists have been doing? :roll_eyes:
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…and yet somehow, so many of these otherwise sincere seekers of knowledge, have permitted their field to be used as a political instrument to promote the notion that God–nay, intelligence itself–is negotiable. It’s almost laughable in its irony–the deployment of intelligence…to disprove the need or utility of intelligence.

Satan must have a helluva sense of humor! 🤡

(or is it a matter of Adamesque arrogance, in thinking they can become God, and therefore displace Him?)
 
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Rau said:
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Goya:
Perhaps, if one subscribes to the theory of omnipotent happenstance and infinitely convenient accidentalism…
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Maybe that’s what all those stupid scientists have been doing? :roll_eyes:
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but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong;

1 Corinthians 1:27
 
“They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge … no Gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command … But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of Creation; for we knew the Universe when it was young.”
Profiles of the Future (1962) - Arthur C. Clarke
 
sallybutler said:
How can it be 6 days when the first 3 “days” were before God created the sun. You need the sun in order to create a day
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The Hebrew word yom (יום‎‎ or “day”) could be taken to mean either a specified or unspecified period of time, a period of light instead of dark, from sunrise to sunset, a year, or a 24 hour day. Any or all of those could fall under the definition of yom (יום) but so could an epoch, an age or the time when David, for example, lived. God created over a period of 6 ages or spans of time (ימים ).

So even if you need the sun to create an English “day,” you don’t necessarily need the sun even only one time to create a Hebrew יום

Genesis was not originally written in English, so there’s that.
 
And that is where the difficulty lies. Science is not promoted in the way it once was. And in the case of most media, we don’t get just news but unnecessary commentary and opinions. In the past, anything could be discussed on TV in a calm and civilized fashion. Now, if ‘sincere seekers of knowledge’ want it or not, their work is being used to create a Creation where no intelligence is needed, to be replaced by happenstance and luck. This type of issue advocacy or advocating a certain ideology, turns science into something less than what it is, or could be, in the minds of the general public.
 
Rau said:
I’m sure readers here will give these comments their due consideration.
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I certainly hope so.
Are there other parts of the CCC that you find similarly flawed, or is it just this topic?
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No, just this topic. The Church appears to have been decieved by evolution as far back as Vatican 1 in the nineteenth century, so it was inevitable that the poison would find its way into the CCC.
 
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Glark said:
No, just this topic. The Church appears to have been decieved by evolution as far back as Vatican 1 in the nineteenth century, so it was inevitable that the poison would find its way into the CCC.
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When everybody saw these pictures they knew it was true, pictures don’t lie…right ?
 
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sallybutler said:
How can it be 6 days when the first 3 “days” were before God created the sun. You need the sun in order to create a day
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God doesn’t need the sun to provide light (see Rev 21:23). The first day started in Genesis 1:3, when God said “Let there be light”. It finishes in v. 5, with the first “morning”. This is defined as “one day” (v.5). The sun is created on Day 4, so if the subsequent days are literal days of 24 hours, it makes sense that the pre-sun days were also 24 hours. If the six days aren’t literal days, then the reference to “days and years” in v.14 is rendered meaningless. I imagine the use of the words, “evening” and “morning”, are meant to convey the impression of literal days.

In Exodus 20:8-11, God directly compares six literal days of human work to the six days of creation.
 
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The following quote is taken from a Wikipedia article, “Platypus”, and is discussing two possible evolutionary “ancestors” of the platypus: “The fossilised Steropodon … is composed of an opalised lower jawbone with three molar teeth (whereas the adult contemporary platypus is toothless) … Unlike the modern platypus (and echidnas), Teinolophos lacked a beak.”

The first possibility, Steropodon, is based on no more than a lower jawbone with three teeth - this is what passes for “evidence” in Darwin World!

The article then nonchalantly mentions that the second possibility, Teinolophus, “lacked a beak”. Oh well, no problem, evolution somehow rustled up a beak to fit. How very convenient!
 
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Nevertheless, the vast majority of early Church Fathers favoured a literal interpretation.
 
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