Evolution and Vatican I - Question

[Ziggamafu]

Well if I recall correctly the Bible states that God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree for on that day he would surely die. Adam proceeds to eats from the tree and then lives to an old old age.
So either God was pulling Adam’s leg or the editors of the Bible made a big error OR the text is not talking about physical death.

Right. Another thing to bear in mind is that such a warning would have been meaningless if Adam had never seen death before.

We should not elevate the plants and animals to the level and perfection of man with regards to his state before the Fall. The “circle of life” idea is not good with regards to man but is good with regards to plants, animals, etc. If there was no death of plants and animals you would run into all sorts of problems very, very quickly.

 

[Genesis315]

That canon is simply affirming that before creation, there was nothing but God. There are no substances (spiritual or material) that are eternal like God or that came to be of their own power. It’s using substance in the broader sense.

It was not dealing with the Manichees (who were long gone), but rather to counter the “Naturalists” of the day (one branch of the Liberal Rationalists), who were claiming that the natural world always was and that even if there were a God, there is no need to invoke him to explain how the universe exists and works. In fact, all of the First Vatican Council deals is geared towards combating the errors of the Liberals/Rationalists/Naturalists who sought to exalt reason over faith, to reduce all truth to that which can be gained through natural means, rather than supernatural revelation,and to reduce the doctrines of the Church (especially those definitively proclaimed by the Roman Pontiff) to mere human opinions that could be rationally argued against, rather than divine revelation which must be accepted with faith.

It has nothing to do with whether or not God used previous biological material to form new animals or even humans after He created all “substance” from nothing (as Pope Pius XII explains in Humani Generis).

 

[mschrank]

Substance is another word for form or idea, it’s a philosophical term not a scientific term. Every physical thing has both substance and accident (not as in mistake but as in contingent qualities), that is, the inner being of a thing and the appearance it takes.

To be honest, modern science is not easily reconciled with the substance/accident idea of creation… evolution essentially denies forms, or substances and says accidents beget accidents.

I think that really, it’s all a mystery and its good that we try to reconcile the philosophical facts with the scientific ones. However, such things always remind me of Job 42… “I have pondered things too deep for me”

 

[cpayne]

Regarding Post 23, which raises some good questions, I’d like to post something I’ve written elsewhere:

After all, the essence of natural law theory is that everything comes in a natural type, a genus. What happens to natural law if those natural types are shown to be fluid and ever-changing through the processes of evolution? In addition to the challenge to human beings as a “natural type,” perhaps evolutionary theory poses another challenge: that human beings are “just another animal,” and therefore human rationality, though it exists, does not carry the metaphysical significance Aquinas and Aristotle think it does. As a contemporary Thomist writes:

One of the important presuppositions of classical natural law theory is the presence of such a thing as human nature. But modern biology has raised all sorts of interesting questions for natural law theory, particularly associated with the theory of evolution. Does the theory of evolution, for instance, simply negate all natural law theory whatsoever, as well as natural rights claims, by reducing us to just one more animal species?

If one is dealing with a strictly reductive and materialistic evolutionary theory, such a theory does in fact reduce humanity to “just one more animal species,” by eliminating the metaphysical significance of human rationality. (This is not meant to imply that Homo sapiens is not an animal species.) On the other hand, even if the evolutionary theory under consideration is not necessarily materialistic, the idea of an unstable, still-developing humanity seems contrary to the idea of a stable, developed human form. In Thomistic terminology, the changes in humanity itself due to evolution would not seem to be “incidental” changes, but rather “substantial.” One theologian has even argued that Thomistic natural law theory can no longer be a “cohesive social force,” since evolutionary theory requires that “human nature no longer be depicted in terms of a basic human essence or purpose.”
However, evolutionary theory does not in fact invalidate the two-fold basis of natural law theory: that humans today are of a specific and unique kind, and that this specific and unique human nature points toward a natural human telos. As Koterski continues:

Even if evolutionary theory proves true, this does nothing to attack natural law theory, insofar as natural law theory is based on the difference of kind and an analysis of what that difference in kind (i.e., our rationality, our ability to make free choices) includes within the scope of its rationality. Even if, for instance, we should find that the dolphins or the chimpanzees are our kissing cousins in ways that we have never imagined . . . all it would do is move the line of what species are protected by rights, precisely because of their rationality. . . . It would simply move the line of what it is that deserves moral protection, rather than erase the line. It would not do anything to erase the fact that there is a difference in kind; it would simply give us other creatures who are different in kind and also deserve such moral protection.

The activities of thinking and choosing make humans distinctive creatures; not only that, these activities make humans distinctively moral creatures. This would remain true even if species identification ultimately collapses even further than it already has, for a biological collapsing of categories would not necessarily entail an ontological collapsing of categories. It would be possible to defend natural law moral theory “even if the scientific evidence eventually points to the existence of no more than two distinct ontological species—rational animals and everything else."

Hope this helps somewhat.

 

[rossum]

I just got done reading the documents of the First Vatican Council. It was very enjoyable.
One part, which I have heard something about in the past but never gave much thought until now, stood out. It was in the Canons of “God creator of all things”:
5. If anyone

• does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their whole substance, out of nothing by God; or
• holds that God did not create by his will free from all necessity, but as necessarily as he necessarily loves himself; or
• denies that the world was created for the glory of God:
  let him be anathema.
  The above part in red appears to go directly against evolution, in that it condemns the idea one “substance” morphed into another “substance”. Rather any substance that exists was created out of nothing.

Now the question is: what is a “substance”?

Almost certainly “substance” here is the Thomist “substance”, as in “accident and substance”. It does not mean “ordinary material stuff” because then pretty much any form of material causation is denied - and I am certain that Vatican I did not intend that. For example, it is commonplace to say that an oak tree grows from an acorn. We do not see oak trees produced “according to their whole substance, out of nothing” - we see them growing from acorns. In Thomist philosphy oak trees and acorns are different “accidents”. In Thomist terms evolution can be seen as formulating the relationship between different “accidents”, not between different “substances”. Since the theory of evolution deals only with the physical (“accidental”) and not with the ideal (“substance”) there is no contradiction here between Vatican I and evolution.

All the comment is saying is that theough there may be immediate material causes (acorns) the ultimate and ideal cause of the oak tree is God.

Also, how does the theory of evolution mesh with the above condemnation?

Your question is irrelevant since the two are talking about different things. Evolution is a theory of Thomist accident, not Thomist substance.

rossum

 

[JimG]

I guess I dont fully understand what a “substance” is then. You end with saying humans beget humans, trees come from seeds, rain from vapor, but has the “substance” changed in those?

In regards to chemistry I dont know how to think about it, after all you can “create” water and such in the lab.

Just to clarify, in my reply, relating to substances morphing into one another via chemistry, I was using “substance” in the chemical sense–i.e., matter. That is quite different than “substance” used in the philosophical sense (as in transubstantiation), meaning the reality of a thing vs its appearances which are perceptible to the senses. In a way, the meanings are nearly opposite.

 

[wildleafblower]

As for what Ludwig Ott says about theistic evolution on page 93-95 I quote here:

Ott gives the following comments on the “science” of Genesis and the Fathers, and the compatibility of biological evolution and Catholic faith: [snip] "The doctrine of evolution based on the theistic conception of the world, which traces matter and life to God’s causality and assumes that organic being, developed from originally created seed-powers (St. Augustine) or from stem-forms (doctrine of descent), according to God’s plan, is compatible with the doctrine of Revelation. However, as regards man, a special creation by God is demanded, which must extend at least to the spiritual soul [creatio hominis peculiaris Denz 2123]. Individual Fathers, especially St. Augustine, accepted a certain development of living creatures… (Ott, pages 93-94, 95)
[snip] Phil P

Hi Phil, my sugestion would to refrain from using Ludwig Ott for these reasons:

1. ** Vatican City Law & Government** 12) Other An important source for Catholic dogmatics, neatly, if* somewhat misleadingly**, dividing Church teachings as “de fide” and other wise, is the work of Ludwig Ott. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic dogma edited in English by James Canon Bastible, 4th ed., (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder, 1960) -Translation of Grundriss der Katholischen dogmatik. Catholic Resources Network It is also useful to know about Catholic Resources Network.*lawresearch.com/v10/global/zva.htm
   http://www.lawresearch.com/v10/global/zva.htm
2. FUNDAMENTALS OF CATHOLIC DOGMA[1] by Dr Ludwig Ott **Recently, on a Q & A Forum, Fr. Joe Horn, O.Praem.[2] requested of an enquirer the source of a particular statement; the reply was from Fundamentals Of Catholic Dogma, by Dr. Ludwig Ott. As the particular matter appeared to be questionable, Fr. Horn’s response was: "Good book. But it’s not an official document of the Church . . .Secondly, the number of discrepancies between the translations is so great that we have been obliged to limit our detailed comparison to a mere ninety pages (E.352-415) . . . . *
   *jloughnan.tripod.com/critott.htm
   http://jloughnan.tripod.com/critott.htm
   which I’ve earlier mentioned on this topic…
   forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=118488&page=21
   http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=118488&page=21

…
How do fossils and bones that dwell in the earth and buried prove the age when they died, if they had children, and when they lived? Any credible paleontologist will tell you that they don’t get the age of the fossils from radiometric dating, but from where the bones are found in the strata of the earth. But, how does one determine the age of the strata?..Not by radiometric dating, any credible paleontologist will tell you that this method cannot be used for this! Modern scientists determine the age of the earth by where the fossils are found! …Now, I’m not sure that I believe the bible word for word, but Genesis definitely explains how God created all that exists from NOTHING. De Nihilo. And that God’s judgement on all living (the flood) accounts for all the fossil records in the ground…

Hi Cole aka Koru, you give me the impression that you are a fan of Kent Hovind as Alec (hecd2) mentions here:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=174023&page=12
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=174023&page=12

Kent Hovid
ncseweb.org/resources/news/2007/FL/789_kent_hovind_sentenced_to_ten_y_1_24_2007.asp

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2007/FL/789_kent_hovind_sentenced_to_ten_y_1_24_2007.asp

M.

 

[rossum]

I guess I dont fully understand what a “substance” is then. You end with saying humans beget humans, trees come from seeds, rain from vapor, but has the “substance” changed in those?

For “substance” see the article in New Advent: Substance. In this philosophical context, “substance” refers to the inner non-material essence of something. The outer material wrapper is not relevant. Is is in this sense that the outer material wrapper of the host is the body of Christ in its inner substance. The material wrapper is called the “accident”.

In regards to chemistry I dont know how to think about it, after all you can “create” water and such in the lab.

Like all sceince, chemistry refers only to the accident, not the substance. Chemically analysing a consecrated host will only show wheat, not flesh and blood.

If changes and adaptations are possible then is the substance staying the same or mutating? You say it is not the same as creating a “new substance”…that leaves only the idea of a single substance mutating into everything then doesnt it?

Mutations are changes in DNA, which is accident and not substance.

That is a good point. But the new question is does this “microevolution” involve changing substance?

No, science does not deal with substance, only with accident. In the context of a human being, the substance can be thought of as the soul (I am open to correction from Thomists here) and the accident as the body. All of science, evolution included, deals with accident and not substance.

HTH

rossum

 

[Koru]

Why do people keep saying I am a fan of Kent Hovind?

Go here please

I am a fan of Robert Sungenis, Patrick Madrid and Bill Marshner. They are THE leading Catholic apologists of the day.

Be very careful calling someone a liar, especially if you don’t truly understand that which you are discussing.

Would you care to please reread the bolded part of the quote that my bolded statement was referring to? If you refuse to, I can simply requote it here:

There is no question that animals (and insects, and plants, and cells, etc) lived, died, and went extinct millions of years before humans came on the scene.

To which I have stated as a lie. How can one bluntly state that there is “no question” about the extinction of animals BEFORE the creation of Man?! To one who has no proof (and the burden of proof for this evolutionary theory is on itself… not what was taught throughout the entire history of the Church) to make such an accusation surely has meritted the claim of fallicy.

That canon is simply affirming that before creation, there was nothing but God. There are no substances (spiritual or material) that are eternal like God or that came to be of their own power. It’s using substance in the broader sense.

You should try to understand this doctrine a little better than what you have interpreted it to be.

1. If anyone
   does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their WHOLE substance, out of nothing by God;… let him be anathema

It specifically states that both the totality (which means not partially) of the spiritual and material was created de nihilo. The final form of Man was created from NOTHING, not created partially then over the results of the Lord’s guidance over periods of time. God made this world for mankind, and let him be anathema if one should oppose this.

Catholic Doctrine of Creation ~ R. Sungenis (PART 2)

Catholic Doctrine of Creation ~ R. Sungenis (PART 3)

These sections of this seminar explicitly address this area of the discussion. If you want to continue arguing with me on evolution and the Catholic teachings regarding so, you will need to watch the entirety of this seminar AT LEAST before asking more questions, because I believe that the majority of the issues if not all are addressed in this complete seminar.

And another thing, Phil.

The link with the “short answer” says that it determines some ages in strata based on radiometric dating. Would you please explain how non-living rocks absorb carbon-14 to even represent a plausible half-life for dating? And to add on, could you please explain why you still think that radiometric dating is accurate past the recorded history of mankind (the calculations required to adjust the results need to figure in many MANY scenarios such as volcano eruptions and natural disasters). To add MORE on, there is no proof that states that the atmosphere in the world today is as it was before the flood. These all need to be figured into the equation for ANY sort of accuracy and it’s impossible to determine anything close if there is no knowledge on how to calibrate the formula.

The other answer was that they determine that the dirt below upper layers of dirt are older than the dirt on top… are you serious? That doesn’t prove age at all! At best, it proves that the dirt is on top of another layer of dirt… how does this equate to proving how old the dirt itself is? The dirt may be older than the dirt on top, but how old is the dirt on top? Oh, they use the index fossil… how did they find the age of the index fossil? Gee, I already explained this on my previous post.

Well if I recall correctly the Bible states that God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree for on that day he would surely die. Adam proceeds to eat from the tree and then lives to an old old age.
So either God was pulling Adam’s leg or the editors of the Bible made a big error OR the text is not talking about physical death.

God did not lie to Adam… that is the ONLY thing God cannot do. The editors did not make an error because it’s the exact same recordings written in the original writings! Read the Greek and Hebrew translations, they both explain the same scenario.

Adam’s sin brought the judgement of death into the world, but God NEVER stated that Adam was going to be the first to die. Cain murdered Able… this was the FIRST achievement of Man after the fall. DEATH.

 

[PhilVaz]

Koru << I am a fan of Robert Sungenis, Patrick Madrid and Bill Marshner. They are THE leading Catholic apologists of the day. >>

Pat Madrid still has a respectable apostolate, Sungenis was respectable before 2000 among lay apologists. After 2000 unfortunately he marginalized himself with the geocentrism and “Jewish” issues. But I still support him when I can.

Bill Marshner is an expert in Church history, convert from Lutheranism, and a college professor. But I’m not sure I would call him an apologist. I think he was the “weak link” in the chain of the three at that 1995 Catholic vs. Protestant debate with Madrid / Sungenis / Marshner vs. Horton / Godfrey / Rosenbladt.

I am THE debate junkie so I know these guys. But your science arguments are coming from folks like Kent Hovind, ICR, Answers In Genesis, The Kolbe Center or other creationist web sites, not from science textbooks or science organizations. You really need to read the real thing, the real science. Go to your local university library, its all there.

Koru << To which I have stated as a lie. How can one bluntly state that there is “no question” about the extinction of animals BEFORE the creation of Man?! >>

Because of these, there is no question about this as far as science is concerned:

On the age of the earth:

The Age of the Earth from 4004 BC to AD 2002 edited by C.L.E. Lewis and S.J. Knell (Geological Society Special Publication No 190, 2001)
The Age of the Earth by G. Brent Dalrymple (Stanford University Press, 1991)

On human evolution from a secular standpoint:

Bones, Stones, and Molecules: “Out of Africa” and Human Origins by David W. Cameron and Colin P. Groves (Elsevier, 2004)
Where Do We Come From? The Molecular Evidence for Human Descent by Jan Klein and Naoyuki Takahata (Springer, 2002)
The Human Fossil Record (volume 1, forthcoming in 4 volumes) by Schwartz / Tattersall (John Wiley and Sons, 2002)
Extinct Humans by Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey H. Schwartz (Westview Press / Perseus Books, 2000)
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution edited by Steve Jones, Robert Martin, David Pilbeam (Cambridge Univ Press, 1992)
The Search for Eve by Michael H. Brown (Harper and Row, 1990)
Guide to Fossil Man by Michael H. Day (Univ of Chicago Press, 1986, 4th edition)
Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind by Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey (Simon and Schuster, 1981)

And at least three books from Catholic or Christian religious prespectives:

Perspectives on an Evolving Creation edited by Keith Miller (Eerdmans, 2003)
Origin of the Human Species by Dennis Bonnette (Sapientia Press, 2003, 2nd edition)
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology by Glenn R. Morton (DMD Publications, 1997)

These are all books I own, or have checked out from Univ of South FL library.

“We now know, to within 1% or better and from a variety of evidence, that the age of the Earth-Moon-meteorite system is about 4.51 - 4.55 Ga [billions of years old].” (G. Brent Dalrymple, from “The Age of the Earth in the Twentieth Century: A Problem (Mostly) Solved” in The Age of the Earth From 4004 BC to AD 2002 edited by C.L.E. Lewis and S.J. Knell [Geological Society, 2001], page 219)

From the 2004 ITC statement: “While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.” (From the International Theological Commission, headed by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God" published July 2004)

ERGO: the earth and many of its creatures lived, died, and went extinct millions of years before human beings came on the scene. Science places homo sapiens about 150,000 years ago and the earth is 4.5 billion years old. This is an established fact of science, as much a fact as the earth is a sphere which rotates and revolves around the sun.

Phil P

 

[cpayne]

In the context of a human being, the substance can be thought of as the soul (I am open to correction from Thomists here) and the accident as the body. All of science, evolution included, deals with accident and not substance.

HTH

rossum

I don’t think this is exactly Aquinas’s position. A human substance is the soul and body together, what he calls the hylomorphic union. Even though the human soul can exist separately and subsistently, it by itself is not what we would call a human being, a human person. What you are describing sounds more like Cartesian dualism, in which the soul IS the human substance and the body is a different substance. Maybe I’m misreading what you’re saying.

In other words, for Aquinas the body develops as it does because of the soul. If the characteristics of a body were incidental to its form (“accidents”), the body wouldn’t necessarily have to develop as what it is. This IS a serious threat from evolution to the idea of the form / matter composite which is the human substance, because a Homo sapiens soul could not exist as the animating principle for a non-Homo sapiens body. However, I don’t think the threat is insurmountable—as per the really long post I stuck above.

As you said, so I will say also: I’m open to correction on this subject.

 

[hecd2]

And another thing, Phil.

The link with the “short answer” says that it determines some ages in strata based on radiometric dating. Would you please explain how non-living rocks absorb carbon-14 to even represent a plausible half-life for dating? And to add on, could you please explain why you still think that radiometric dating is accurate past the recorded history of mankind (the calculations required to adjust the results need to figure in many MANY scenarios such as volcano eruptions and natural disasters). To add MORE on, there is no proof that states that the atmosphere in the world today is as it was before the flood. These all need to be figured into the equation for ANY sort of accuracy and it’s impossible to determine anything close if there is no knowledge on how to calibrate the formula.

I think Cole has a real problem with reading comprehension and a real problem with taking a strong position on subjects he knows less than nothing about.

Here he is equating, yet again, radiometric dating with Carbon-14 dating. He has read about C14 dating on some creationist website and somehow thinks that the C14 dating is the only sort of radiometric dating there is. Of course, it isn’t.

I have already pointed this out to him: “Carbon dating of once living matter is limited to a few 10s of thousands of years because the half life for C14 decay is 5,730 years. However the half life for U238 to Pb206 is 4.47 billion years, for U235 to Pb207 is 704 million years and for K40 to Ar40 is 1.25 billion years. Rb87 to Sr87 it is a whopping 48.8 billion years and this can be used for dating geological species back to the formation of the solar system at 4.5 billion years.”
Well, it’s these other decays that are used in dating schists, lavas, tuffs, and igneous rocks. He should read about uranium-lead isochron dating of zircon.

He has another problem - he thinks that his absurdly limited understanding of radiometric dating (more misunderstanding than understanding, if he claims that the C14 concentration in the atmosphere is 1/3 of equilibrium) is enough to refute, at a stroke, the work of serious and careful scientists who have developed better and better methods over many years and who have dedicated their lives to the subject. He knows nothing about concordance and discordance curves, nothing about isochrons. Talk about pride and hubris.

The fact is that Cole demonstrably knows nothing about radiometric dating, and yet, in common with many creationists, he is prepared to claim that his three and a half minutes of research on a worthless creationist website trumps the careful work and lifetime study of scientists. That is the true level of the ‘debate’.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[JimG]

1. If anyone
   does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their WHOLE substance, out of nothing by God;… let him be anathema

I think you are reading more into the quote than is actually there. It says nothing about the “final form of man,” nor I think, does it imply that all of creation was created simultaneously with no further development.

Indeed, if that were the case, one could not even hold to a literal seven days of creation, let alone development over millenia.

 

[Koru]

One, hecd2, you need to speak directly to me if you are going to direct attention to my words. If you have something to say about me, say it to ME… not as if you’re preaching your idiologies to the world by listing me as third person.

Now… you, hecd2. Explain then, WHICH radiometric dating method is used? Potassium Argon dating? Which one? How do YOU (since you apparently claim to be so knowledgible on the subject and claim that I lack comprehension) determine the age of dirt?

You sure like to go around making claims that, since you are all intelligible and seemingly know immensely more truth than half of the world, that you can automatically claim that I lack knowledge and common sense on these key issues, of course.

Why don’t you discredit the information about the earth’s radioactive equilibrium since you seem to just LOVE bringing up the subject on threads even though I happened to only mention this ONCE on a completely different thread. Provide credible evidence that the earth has reach radioactive equilibrium and that will be enough said. If you don’t support your claims, then you are simply a complainer.

Also, i’d love to see you prove that I know nothing about isochrons, concordance and discordance… especially since I never even mentioned ANYTHING about them! You sure are making an immense amount of assumptions against me aren’t you. The first mistake of mankind was that Eve assumed that the snake wasn’t trying to deceive her… assuming is everybody’s first mistake, including yours.

If I knew nothing about radiometric dating, then why, pray-tell, did I even bring it up and seem to understand that non-living material doesn’t absorb carbon-14? How can DIRT, a non-living thing, absorb carbon-14? What about rubidium-strontium dating? The half-life is SO immense that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to accurately determine the age of dirt or anything really without ASSUMING that the dirt or targetted object is already millions of years old! All of the other radiometric dating methods have extreme lengths of time for their half-life expendature except for c-14 dating. If c-14 dating can only measure very recent dates some-what accurately (not past recorded history) and these other dating methods have such a long length of half-life… how do you determine the ages between the HUGE gap? You can’t unless you make assumptions on how old the earth already IS, and that isn’t correct scientific study.

I know what science is, and science isn’t a subject. It’s an approach to find facts about existing and testable information.

You claim that I have pride on the issues? I BEG your pardon, the Church condemns pride and I have no use for such petty reasoning. Pride is a hinderence and only causes problems. Don’t claim others are so prideful if you can’t look past your own assumptions.

 

[Koru]

I think you are reading more into the quote than is actually there. It says nothing about the “final form of man,” nor I think, does it imply that all of creation was created simultaneously with no further development.

Indeed, if that were the case, one could not even hold to a literal seven days of creation, let alone development over millenia.

It specifically states that God created the complete form, or the whole, of ALL his creations from absolutely nothing. The world was created whole from nothing, light was created whole from nothing, all the living creatures were created whole from nothing, Man was created whole from nothing. Man was created in God’s own image, this means that God made man directly in His own image from the START de nihilo, from nothing. I hardly think a piece of a whole evolving over billions of years until it gets to the point where it begins to resemble God and then continues to evolve until it gets more and more in the image of God until finally ends up in the image of God is what is being supported by this doctrine. If one does not agree that ALL of God’s creations were made completely whole and in it’s intended form from absolutely nothing, let him be anathema. This is how the doctrine is interpreted.

EDIT:

Oh, and hecd2… elaborate your thoughts on this:
12-inch Human footprint in strata BELOW dinosaur footprint discovered in supposedly millions of years old dirt

 

[JimG]

It specifically states that God created the complete form, or the whole, of ALL his creations from absolutely nothing. The world was created whole from nothing, light was created whole from nothing, all the living creatures were created whole from nothing, Man was created whole from nothing. Man was created in God’s own image, this means that God made man directly in His own image from the START de nihilo, from nothing. I hardly think a piece of a whole evolving over billions of years until it gets to the point where it begins to resemble God and then continues to evolve until it gets more and more in the image of God until finally ends up in the image of God is what is being supported by this doctrine. If one does not agree that ALL of God’s creations were made completely whole and in it’s intended form from absolutely nothing, let him be anathema. This is how the doctrine is interpreted.

OK, but it still seems to me that in going to the detail that you have above, you go much further than is required by the material quoted. Doesn’t Genesis say that man [adam] was created from the clay of the ground [adama]? (Genesis 2:7) It doesn’t say ex nihilo.

 

[Koru]

OK, but it still seems to me that in going to the detail that you have above, you go much further than is required by the material quoted. Doesn’t Genesis say that man [adam] was created from the clay of the ground [adama]? (Genesis 2:7) It doesn’t say ex nihilo.

Good question.

I may not have the correct answer for this one… so I’m going to have to confirm this later… but here I go!

When God explains the Creation of other things in the special creation of Genesis 1, God says that the waters brought forth the living kinds of whales and birds while the earth brought forth all the beasts and cattle. Man was simply stated that “And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.” - Genesis 1:27. This verse was taken from the Douay translation of the Old Testament.

It is also written that Adam was made from clay and was given the breath of life. Just like all other living creatures were made from parts of the earth (waters, earth, clay) so was Adam. All of God’s creations are still made “whole” as stated in that doctrine. The doctrine states that all were made as they were intended to be completely from nothing.

1. If anyone
   does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their whole substance, out of nothing by God;… let him be anathema

When referring to Man and his making, the completed form of the spiritual and material substance that was used to make man was created from nothing. The material (the body) and the spiritual (the spirit inside) was in it’s whole form at the creation of man. This is why I say it leaves no room for stages of progress INTO man. Man may be changing over time FROM the original design, but there is nothing that states that non-man progressed into mankind from a previous stage, and this doctrine certainly does not support the idea that any living thing’s creation was evolved from an incomplete form into it’s intended complete form.

It’s just one of the teachings that the Church endoctrinates… I wasn’t there to understand it completely in all it’s understandings but I’m pretty sure that the doctrine is still stating that Man wasn’t made in stages, but as he was intended to be from the start. All of God’s creations were made from nothing.

Remember that I’m not infallible, I’m just trying to defend the official Catholic teachings the way they’ve been taught throughout history

 

[Orogeny]

Now… you, hecd2. Explain then, WHICH radiometric dating method is used? Potassium Argon dating? Which one? How do YOU (since you apparently claim to be so knowledgible on the subject and claim that I lack comprehension) determine the age of dirt?

If you claim it can’t be done, surely you have researched this question. C14 is not used to date strata unless it is geologically very young and it contains organic material that is amenable to that method. But of course most stata are much too old for C14 testing.

If I knew nothing about radiometric dating, then why, pray-tell, did I even bring it up and seem to understand that non-living material doesn’t absorb carbon-14?

VERY good question!

How can DIRT, a non-living thing, absorb carbon-14? What about rubidium-strontium dating? The half-life is SO immense that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to accurately determine the age of dirt or anything really without ASSUMING that the dirt or targetted object is already millions of years old! All of the other radiometric dating methods have extreme lengths of time for their half-life expendature except for c-14 dating. If c-14 dating can only measure very recent dates some-what accurately (not past recorded history) and these other dating methods have such a long length of half-life… how do you determine the ages between the HUGE gap? You can’t unless you make assumptions on how old the earth already IS, and that isn’t correct scientific study.

Keep digging your hole deeper and deeper. You really are making Alec’s arguments for him.

Just a question: are the half-lives of potassium, rubidium and lead known? Do you accept those numbers? If not, why not? If so, why do you say that the dates obtained from the methods that use those elements is based on an assumed age of the earth?

You should really study this subject before debating someone like Alec because he DOES know the subject. And I don’t mean listening to people like Sungenis, I mean listening to scientists (which, by the way, Sungenis is not).

Peace

Tim

 

[DJim]

Koru wrote:

It specifically states that God created the complete form, or the whole, of ALL his creations from absolutely nothing. The world was created whole from nothing, light was created whole from nothing, all the living creatures were created whole from nothing, Man was created whole from nothing. Man was created in God’s own image, this means that God made man directly in His own image from the START de nihilo, from nothing.

Koru–this is simply not accurate–It’s not that God “created”, it’s that God creates. Present tense, when we speak of the human soul.

Furthermore, this point of view make NO sense biologically speaking, since the “matter” that becomes a human being is NOT immediately created from nothing at the moment of conception of the human being.

It’s really simple–you have a flawed view of Vatican One’s teaching and appear to have glossed over the clear teaching of Pius XII in Humani Generis.

I hardly think a piece of a whole evolving over billions of years until it gets to the point where it begins to resemble God and then continues to evolve until it gets more and more in the image of God until finally ends up in the image of God is what is being supported by this doctrine.

Then tell me–is an egg cell created in the image of God from nothing? A sperm cell?

Exactly what does God create from nothing at the moment of conception? That’s right, the human soul, NOT the human body.

Further, to use the “image of God” as an anchor in a discussion about physical form is rather weak–God is spirit, not matter. Our bodies “image God” by analogy, more or less, but not directly.

We image God directly in our souls.

If one does not agree that ALL of God’s creations were made completely whole and in it’s intended form from absolutely nothing, let him be anathema. This is how the doctrine is interpreted.

Well, I have a rather large family, and I never experienced the birth of one of my children as a “creation” in which they were born “completely whole” from absolutely nothing.

My kids must be anathema…

DJim

 

[PhilVaz]

<< Oh, and hecd2… elaborate your thoughts on this: 12-inch Human footprint in strata BELOW dinosaur footprint discovered in supposedly millions of years old dirt >>

Oh no, you’ve found another one of these…

Arguments we think creationists should NOT use by Answers In Genesis

Which arguments should definitely not be used? according to Answers In Genesis…

“Paluxy tracks prove that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.”

From Answers In Genesis: Some prominent creationist promoters of these tracks have long since withdrawn their support. Some of the allegedly human tracks may be artifacts of erosion of dinosaur tracks obscuring the claw marks. There is a need for properly documented research on the tracks before we would use them to argue the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs…

Your best response to this nonsense is here

The Paluxy Dinosaur/“Man Track” Controversy

Phil P