Evolution In The Classroom

[buffalo]

I imagine you’d be the one telling Galileo he was dangerous because you already believed something different.

If I didn’t have the truth of Revelation, then I could choose what I believe.

 

[StAnastasia]

Clearly the idea that animals changed and improved themselves over time is much sillier than God literally making woman from man’s rib one day.

Don’t forget the talking snake.

 

[buffalo]

That is not the official teaching of the Catholic Church, but your own personal belief. As indicated below there could have been creatures with physical bodies that appeared to be human or human like, but “souls are immediatly created by God.” So Adam getting a soul could have been the “creation” of the first true man. This is from a Pope by the way.

"Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are. "

On the point of Eve, the Church appears to be silent. I searched and I only came back to the text that you provided in ARCANUM, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII. ON CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. This paper is speaking on the topic of marriage and not on creation or evolution. The Catholic Church is very good about being specific about what is required belief. I have asked a apologist on this site to clarify the matter, but at this time I do not believe that this paper is ment to be a declaration of what Catholics must believe specifically with regards to Eve’s creation.

The Church is not silent of Eve, pay attention to the citations.

DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?
A DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE
Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., M.A., S.T.D.
Associate Professor of Theology,
Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico

 

[buffalo]

Don’t forget the talking snake.

It is a really cool coincidence that the rib is a fantastic source of stem cells.

Talking snake? I suppose it would be impossible for the devil to take on the form of or speak through an animal.

 

[buffalo]

So you’d be just as against geology, cosmology, paleontology, anthropology, Organic Chemistry, etc?

I am never against empirical science. In any one of these disciplines where experiment can show testable, repeatable and predictable results I support 100%.

When anyone of these venture into philosophy then it should be understood as such.

 

[reggieM]

I suppose it would be impossible for the devil to take on the form of or speak through an animal.

I think it’s impossible that the devil exists. Evolution has proven that.

 

[buffalo]

I think it’s impossible that the devil exists. Evolution has proven that.

StA certainly seems convinced. Out atheist friends cite the problem of evil as an argument against God. They at least acknowledge him this way.

 

[carinapir]

The Church is not silent of Eve, pay attention to the citations.

DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?
A DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE
Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., M.A., S.T.D.
Associate Professor of Theology,
Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico

Thank you! I will read this. However, this is not the official teaching of the Catholic Church but rather one man’s interpretation of various Church writings to argue this position. If the Church had an official position written out it would be on the Vatican website.

 

[edwest2]

That is not the official teaching of the Catholic Church, but your own personal belief. As indicated below there could have been creatures with physical bodies that appeared to be human or human like, but “souls are immediatly created by God.” So Adam getting a soul could have been the “creation” of the first true man. This is from a Pope by the way.

"Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are. "

On the point of Eve, the Church appears to be silent. I searched and I only came back to the text that you provided in ARCANUM, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII. ON CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. This paper is speaking on the topic of marriage and not on creation or evolution. The Catholic Church is very good about being specific about what is required belief. I have asked a apologist on this site to clarify the matter, but at this time I do not believe that this paper is ment to be a declaration of what Catholics must believe specifically with regards to Eve’s creation.

From the Library of this site:

catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

Please note the last paragraph under the heading: The Catholic Position. It explicitly states that Catholics are not allowed to believe in atheistic evolution. That is the one thing I want all Catholics to know.

Peace,
Ed

 

[carinapir]

From the Library of this site:

catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

Please note the last paragraph under the heading: The Catholic Position. It explicitly states that Catholics are not allowed to believe in atheistic evolution. That is the one thing I want all Catholics to know.

Peace,
Ed

I don’t believe in atheistic evolution. I believe in evolution caused by God. Evolution taught in a class room teaches the theory and not the ultimate cause. Besides, as a Catholic parent all you would need to do is explain or discuss with your child that the Church teaches that no matter how the human form was made, God was behind all of it.

 

[cassini]

From Pope John Paul:

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19860416en.html

"The reply of the Magisterium was offered in the encyclical Humani Generis of Pius XII in 1950. In it we read: “The magisterium of the Church is not opposed to the theory of evolution being the object of investigation and discussion among experts. Here the theory of evolution is understood as an investigation of the origin of the human body from pre-existing living matter, for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold firmly that souls are created immediately by God…” (DS 3896).

It can therefore be said that, from the viewpoint of the doctrine of the faith, there are no difficulties in explaining the origin of man in regard to the body, by means of the theory of evolution. But it must be added that this hypothesis proposes only a probability, not a scientific certainty. However, the doctrine of faith invariably affirms that man’s spiritual soul is created directly by God. According to the hypothesis mentioned, it is possible that the human body, following the order impressed by the Creator on the energies of life, could have been gradually prepared in the forms of antecedent living beings. However, the human soul, on which man’s humanity definitively depends, cannot emerge from matter, since the soul is of a spiritual nature."

If one is permitted to contradict ‘Pope John Paul the Great’, the above is NOT a conclusion of Pope Pius XII’s Humani Generis but licence taken by evolutionists like himself.

Humani Generis permitted DEBATE in the area of evolution of the human body. Debate does not indicate the Church allows or disallows Catholic belief in bodily evolution. Only when this debate ceases and the Church makes a judgement one way or another will anybody, whether pope or nun, be able to say the Church has no problem with the bodily evolution of Adam.

If you want PROOF of this remember the Church allowed debate in artificial contraception, both for it and against it. When this debate was completed Pope Paul VI declared the original teaching remained, that is, it was forbidden under pain of mortal sin to use artificial contraception.

 

[gearhead]

I am never against empirical science. In any one of these disciplines where experiment can show testable, repeatable and predictable results I support 100%.

Evolution fits that bill. Off the top of my head:

• it predicted that the Earth formed orders of magnitude earlier than mid-19th Century thinking thought the Earth had existed. This prediction was validated by later repeated discoveries in geology.
• it predicted that all living things have a mechanism that allows the inheritance of traits that is subject to a small but non-zero rate of random mutation. This prediction was validated by the discovery of chromosomes and then DNA.

 

[carinapir]

If one is permitted to contradict ‘Pope John Paul the Great’, the above is NOT a conclusion of Pope Pius XII’s Humani Generis but licence taken by evolutionists like himself.

Humani Generis permitted DEBATE in the area of evolution of the human body. Debate does not indicate the Church allows or disallows Catholic belief in bodily evolution. Only when this debate ceases and the Church makes a judgement one way or another will anybody, whether pope or nun, be able to say the Church has no problem with the bodily evolution of Adam.

If you want PROOF of this remember the Church allowed debate in artificial contraception, both for it and against it. When this debate was completed Pope Paul VI declared the original teaching remained, that is, it was forbidden under pain of mortal sin to use artificial contraception.

Cool! A resonable point. Thank you! That is a good point and was indeed in the back of my head, though not as concrete as you put it. Yes, the Church has not yet declared that Catholics cannot believe in evolution, but it also has not declared that evolution is fully accepted. That is fine. I simply wanted to argue against those who seem to have a problem with evolution when the Church has not yet made a declaration. People say that they are against “atheistic” evolution but I would say that evolution is one thing and the cause of evolution is another so I don’t see the theory of evolution as being atheistic or theistic.

 

[reggieM]

From the Library of this site:

catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

Please note the last paragraph under the heading: The Catholic Position. It explicitly states that Catholics are not allowed to believe in atheistic evolution. That is the one thing I want all Catholics to know.

Peace,
Ed

\

That was an excellent summary. Thanks for posting it.

While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.

I like that term – “Developmental creation”.

 

[buffalo]

Thank you! I will read this. However, this is not the official teaching of the Catholic Church but rather one man’s interpretation of various Church writings to argue this position. If the Church had an official position written out it would be on the Vatican website.

As I said read the citations yourself. Forget whether this is his opinion. See if the citations support the claim.

 

[buffalo]

If one is permitted to contradict ‘Pope John Paul the Great’, the above is NOT a conclusion of Pope Pius XII’s Humani Generis but licence taken by evolutionists like himself.

Humani Generis permitted DEBATE in the area of evolution of the human body. Debate does not indicate the Church allows or disallows Catholic belief in bodily evolution. Only when this debate ceases and the Church makes a judgement one way or another will anybody, whether pope or nun, be able to say the Church has no problem with the bodily evolution of Adam.

If you want PROOF of this remember the Church allowed debate in artificial contraception, both for it and against it. When this debate was completed Pope Paul VI declared the original teaching remained, that is, it was forbidden under pain of mortal sin to use artificial contraception.

In addition Humani Generis stated that the Church gets the final say.

 

[cassini]

Cool! A resonable point. Thank you! That is a good point and was indeed in the back of my head, though not as concrete as you put it. Yes, the Church has not yet declared that Catholics cannot believe in evolution, but it also has not declared that evolution is fully accepted. That is fine. I simply wanted to argue against those who seem to have a problem with evolution when the Church has not yet made a declaration. People say that they are against “atheistic” evolution but I would say that evolution is one thing and the cause of evolution is another so I don’t see the theory of evolution as being atheistic or theistic.

Carinapir, as some of this threads posters know I reject evolution and despise theistic evolution. There are two main reasons for this, one theological, one scientific.

Let me give you the scientific one. The idea that evolution occurred, that is, all life as we know it today evolved from inanimate matter, is so STUPID that it insults the God-given intelligence of man and INSULTS the Catholic faith when associated with it. First of all one has to believe life came about from inanimate matter. Now you cannot get a living molecule of inorganic matter. The only possible living thing would have to be a cell. Now ever studied the make up of a cell? It took centuries for man to get some understanding as to how it works. It is a JOKE to believe one could pop out of any mixture of matter. Then this cell has to feed off something. How does a poped-out cell obtain and utilise nurishment for continuing life? Then we are asked to believe this cell became two, how? Did any poped out cell also have photosynthesis inbuilt into it. What are the necessary ingredients of photosynthesis? Man doesn’t even understand its workings, he guesses at it. Now these multuplying cells, while getting nurishment from somewhere, become plants or animals, the latter having to develop digestive systems, vascular systems, hearing systems, visual systems, etc. They cannot work unless everything is actually there. But we are asked to believe these systems evolved, that is, went from cell to cell in the direction of that perefection necessary to actual function. This would mean accepting evolution knew it needed to evolve in that direction and that to work. This is like saying evolution has an intelligence to figure out how to design itself to see, hear etc. Now none of these parts actually worked until they were finished, but evolution knew how to create eyesight before it had eyes.

I could go on with this RUBBISH but if one has not the intelligence to know by now how STUPID the idea is by now then there are some whose imagination is so gullible that it is a waste of time to argue with them.

The direct creation science is perfect, everything working together at the beginning with no STUPID theories to have to invent and no STUPID theology to get it to concord with Catholic faith.

 

[carinapir]

As I said read the citations yourself. Forget whether this is his opinion. See if the citations support the claim.

Respectfully, that is not what you said. You said “pay attention to the citations” as if to say that since he cited Church writings that his conclusions must be sound. Perhaps if you had said what you meant in the first place much of this back and forth could be avoided, however I’m probably guilty of the same myself.

The fact remains that the Church itself has not written a specific paper on the topic of Eve’s bodily origin. She is from Adam, yes, but specifically how as not yet been declared.

 

[carinapir]

Carinapir, as some of this threads posters know I reject evolution and despise theistic evolution. There are two main reasons for this, one theological, one scientific.

Let me give you the scientific one. The idea that evolution occurred, that is, all life as we know it today evolved from inanimate matter, is so STUPID that it insults the God-given intelligence of man and INSULTS the Catholic faith when associated with it. First of all one has to believe life came about from inanimate matter. Now you cannot get a living molecule of inorganic matter. The only possible living thing would have to be a cell. Now ever studied the make up of a cell? It took centuries for man to get some understanding as to how it works. It is a JOKE to believe one could pop out of any mixture of matter. Then this cell has to feed off something. How does a poped-out cell obtain and utilise nurishment for continuing life? Then we are asked to believe this cell became two, how? Did any poped out cell also have photosynthesis inbuilt into it. What are the necessary ingredients of photosynthesis? Man doesn’t even understand its workings, he guesses at it. Now these multuplying cells, while getting nurishment from somewhere, become plants or animals, the latter having to develop digestive systems, vascular systems, hearing systems, visual systems, etc. They cannot work unless everything is actually there. But we are asked to believe these systems evolved, that is, went from cell to cell in the direction of that perefection necessary to actual function. This would mean accepting evolution knew it needed to evolve in that direction and that to work. This is like saying evolution has an intelligence to figure out how to design itself to see, hear etc. Now none of these parts actually worked until they were finished, but evolution knew how to create eyesight before it had eyes.

I could go on with this RUBBISH but if one has not the intelligence to know by now how STUPID the idea is by now then there are some whose imagination is so gullible that it is a waste of time to argue with them.

The direct creation science is perfect, everything working together at the beginning with no STUPID theories to have to invent and no STUPID theology to get it to concord with Catholic faith.

Wow! I see the complexity of how science says that life evolved as ADDING to the glory of God. The fact that we cannot fully understand it is no different than the fact that we cannot fully understand God himself. The intricacies of this world and the scope of the Universe are not stupid but are amazing creations of God. The fact that he created all of this via such a wonderful process rather than “poofing” them into existance like a human magician adds to his majesty.

I’m sorry that you don’t feel that way.

 

[liquidpele]

Carinapir, as some of this threads posters know I reject evolution and despise theistic evolution. There are two main reasons for this, one theological, one scientific.

Let me give you the scientific one. The idea that evolution occurred, that is, all life as we know it today evolved from inanimate matter, is so STUPID that it insults the God-given intelligence of man and INSULTS the Catholic faith when associated with it. First of all one has to believe life came about from inanimate matter. Now you cannot get a living molecule of inorganic matter. The only possible living thing would have to be a cell. Now ever studied the make up of a cell? It took centuries for man to get some understanding as to how it works. It is a JOKE to believe one could pop out of any mixture of matter. Then this cell has to feed off something. How does a poped-out cell obtain and utilise nurishment for continuing life? Then we are asked to believe this cell became two, how? Did any poped out cell also have photosynthesis inbuilt into it. What are the necessary ingredients of photosynthesis? Man doesn’t even understand its workings, he guesses at it. Now these multuplying cells, while getting nurishment from somewhere, become plants or animals, the latter having to develop digestive systems, vascular systems, hearing systems, visual systems, etc. They cannot work unless everything is actually there. But we are asked to believe these systems evolved, that is, went from cell to cell in the direction of that perefection necessary to actual function. This would mean accepting evolution knew it needed to evolve in that direction and that to work. This is like saying evolution has an intelligence to figure out how to design itself to see, hear etc. Now none of these parts actually worked until they were finished, but evolution knew how to create eyesight before it had eyes.

I could go on with this RUBBISH but if one has not the intelligence to know by now how STUPID the idea is by now then there are some whose imagination is so gullible that it is a waste of time to argue with them.

The direct creation science is perfect, everything working together at the beginning with no STUPID theories to have to invent and no STUPID theology to get it to concord with Catholic faith.

Sigh. This really is pointless…
You guys don’t seem to understand the theory, and don’t seem to want to understand it, so I give up.