Genesis v Evolution

[buffalo]

“Souls fall into hell like snowflakes” – John Corapi. Gee, sounds like a really cheerful guy! Why is it so many converts to Catholicism become raving fundamentalists?

Petrus

Is this Father John Corapi?

 

[drpmjhess]

Is this Father John Corapi?

He seems to be a realtor - convert - priest - lecturer.

 

[buffalo]

He seems to be a realtor - convert - priest - lecturer.

You are picking on the wrong guy. I am surprised based on your beig a theolgian and all that you do not know his story. Read up on him and listen to his lectures. He is a rare commodity in today’s church telling it like it is.

Father John Corapi

Father John Corapi. S.O.L.T.
Father John Corapi is what has commonly been called a late vocation. In other words, he came to the priesthood other than a young man. He was 44 years old when he was ordained. His experiences prior to ordination have been termed simply astounding, but that is probably somewhat of an overstatement. They might be called extreme, however. From small town boy to the Vietnam era US Army, from millionaire businessman in Las Vegas and Hollywood to drug addicted and homeless, to religious life and ordination to the priesthood by Pope John Paul II, to a life as a preacher of the Gospel who has reached millions with the simple message that God’s Name is Mercy!
Father Corapi’s academic credentials are quite extensive. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Pace University in the seventies. Then as an older man returned to the university classrooms in preparation for his life as a priest and preacher. He received all of his academic credentials for the Church with honors: a Masters degree in Sacred Scripture from Holy Apostles Seminary and Bachelor, Licentiate, and Doctorate degrees in dogmatic theology from the University of Navarre in Spain.

 

[drpmjhess]

I haven’t heard of him before, but I’ll read up.

Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

Father John Corapi is what has commonly been called a late vocation.

That is to say, although I know a lot of priests in the Dominican, Jesuit, Franciscan, Carmelite and Trappist orders, and in a number of dioceses, I haven’t run across Fr. Corapi before. I was shocked to read that statement about souls falling into hell like snowflakes – that is an extremist eschatological vision, which fortunately I haven’t been subjected to in a sermon! I have heard some bizarre sermons, though.

Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

A conservative friar with whom I was in graduate school delivered as one of his first homilies a Christmas Midnight Mass sermon at a convent nursing facility for elderly nuns, boasting an average age of 85. His topic for Christmas? What else but the relevant and burning issue of the wildly evil practice of artificial contraception! His superiors were bemused; one of them told me that the elderly Christian Brothers at a neighboring retirement house simply turned off their hearing aids.

But I digress – back to the rejection or acceptance of science.

Petrus

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Oh Ed…thanks for that site to the Washington Post. Their on Faith forum is interesting. I’ve bookmarked it. your a busy guy around the internet. Thanks.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

I don’t see why evolution can’t be true and that Adam and Eve were both specially created by God directly and really were historically and factually the first homo sapiens.

How many people believe that?

For the Catholics out there who do believe in theistic evolution: Did any Neaderthals or humans prior to homo sapiens have souls or did God bestow souls only on homo sapiens?

 

[drpmjhess]

How many people believe that? For the Catholics out there who do believe in theistic evolution: Did any Neaderthals or humans prior to homo sapiens have souls or did God bestow souls only on homo sapiens?

Jerry-Jet, that depends on what your conception of “soul” is. I don’t regard “soul” it as some sort of thing, an immaterial quantum that is temporarily associated with body. Rather, soulishness is the life principle of animated matter. “Soul” lies along a continuum from the most primitive to the most rational. Like all animals, Neanderthals had “souls” in the same way that their Homo sapiens cousins had them. But the greater the neural endowment of a creature, the greater its moral responsiveness to God will be, and concomitantly the greater its capacity for openness to spirituality.

Petrus

 

[Montalban]

I don’t see why evolution can’t be true and that Adam and Eve were both specially created by God directly and really were historically and factually the first homo sapiens.

How many people believe that?

For the Catholics out there who do believe in theistic evolution: Did any Neaderthals or humans prior to homo sapiens have souls or did God bestow souls only on homo sapiens?

Evolution suggests that man evolved. There’s evolutionary ancestors for man!

Good points about Neanderthal. When did God decide to instill a soul into an ape-like creature to make it ‘man’?

 

[edwest2]

I don’t see why evolution can’t be true and that Adam and Eve were both specially created by God directly and really were historically and factually the first homo sapiens.

How many people believe that?

For the Catholics out there who do believe in theistic evolution: Did any Neaderthals or humans prior to homo sapiens have souls or did God bestow souls only on homo sapiens?

This is speculation at best. The scientists would say they cannot comment on two individual members of humanity. Also, supposedly, they have nothing to say about God. Either you believe God created Adam and Eve or you don’t. The issue of souls is a non-issue scientifically, and where in the Bible are you getting conjecture about people before Adam and Eve?

God bless,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

Jerry-Jet, that depends on what your conception of “soul” is. I don’t regard “soul” it as some sort of thing, an immaterial quantum that is temporarily associated with body. Rather, soulishness is the life principle of animated matter. “Soul” lies along a continuum from the most primitive to the most rational. Like all animals, Neanderthals had “souls” in the same way that their Homo sapiens cousins had them. But the greater the neural endowment of a creature, the greater its moral responsiveness to God will be, and concomitantly the greater its capacity for openness to spirituality.

Petrus

Neural endowment is unimportant. We accept God the same today as 2,000 years ago. The current scientific myth being woven is that you do not exist. You are simply a bag of chemicals and act and react to outside stimuli due to your genetic programming. Only your genes matter. You are superfluous.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Come on now Catholic theistic evolution supporters!

At no point did any hominid have a partial soul.

Either they had a 100% soul or they didn’t have a soul.

If you don’t believe that then make the case for a retarded person or a person born brian damaged as having a partial soul!

You can’t!

And it doesn’t matter whether science can prove that or not–science can’t prove that anyone reading this has a soul–

So not to be dismissive of people reading that believe in evolution but do not believe in souls the question remains:

When did God bestow the first soul if theistic evolution without Any miraculous or special creation–exactly when did that happen?

Now I’m not of the opinion that it happened 4-10 thousands years B.C.

That’s why to me the possibility that it happened when the first homo spaiens appeared makes much more sense.

And that’s why the special creation of Adam and then Eve from Adam as the first homo sapiens makes sense!

The creation of the First Adam is special–just as the creation of the New Adam–Jesus–is also special.

And none of that negates any evoution that could have happened prior.

It lso provides for Adam and Eve being the parents of us all and does that without violating scientific reality about the evolution of the universe.

Is there a name for such a notion?

Theistic evolution + special creation seems to make alot of sense to me.

It also fits in with the Catholic notion of not either/or but both/and and also the notion that true science never violates faith.

Anyone care to comment?

 

[Orogeny]

Neural endowment is unimportant. We accept God the same today as 2,000 years ago. The current scientific myth being woven is that you do not exist. You are simply a bag of chemicals and act and react to outside stimuli due to your genetic programming. Only your genes matter. You are superfluous.

Wow, I haven’t heard that one. Can you elaborate?

Peace

Tim

 

[davidv]

This is speculation at best. The scientists would say they cannot comment on two individual members of humanity. Also, supposedly, they have nothing to say about God. Either you believe God created Adam and Eve or you don’t. The issue of souls is a non-issue scientifically, and where in the Bible are you getting conjecture about people before Adam and Eve?

God bless,
Ed

It is not speculation. Theologically all living things have souls. What distinguishes humans from the others is that our soul has an intellect.

 

[Orogeny]

At no point did any hominid have a partial soul.

Either they had a 100% soul or they didn’t have a soul.

If you don’t believe that then make the case for a retarded person or a person born brian damaged as having a partial soul!

You can’t!

And it doesn’t matter whether science can prove that or not–science can’t prove that anyone reading this has a soul–

I agree with all of that.

So not to be dismissive of people reading that believe in evolution but do not believe in souls the question remains:

I thought that you were asking questions of those of us who support thiestic evolution. What makes you conflate theistic evolution with not believing in souls?

When did God bestow the first soul if theistic evolution without Any miraculous or special creation–exactly when did that happen?

Again, why do you make this claim? You seem to have a completely different definition of thiestic evolution than I do. Perhaps you could tell me what your definition of thiestic evolution is because, based on your questions, I don’t think you and I would agree.

Peace

Tim

 

[edwest2]

It is not speculation. Theologically all living things have souls. What distinguishes humans from the others is that our soul has an intellect.

“our soul has an intellect”? How do you know that? Some animals are regarded as intelligent.

God bless,
Ed

 

[buffalo]

I don’t see why evolution can’t be true and that Adam and Eve were both specially created by God directly and really were historically and factually the first homo sapiens.

How many people believe that?

For the Catholics out there who do believe in theistic evolution: Did any Neaderthals or humans prior to homo sapiens have souls or did God bestow souls only on homo sapiens?

I have posted this many many times:

God could have supernaturally created Adam and Eve and inserted them into the timeline wherever He wished regardless of what may or may not have been happening on the earth at the time.

The crux of the issue is that Eve came from Adam and they both had preternatural gifts. These do not reconcile with the evolution of man.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Evolution suggests that man evolved. There’s evolutionary ancestors for man!

Good points about Neanderthal. When did God decide to instill a soul into an ape-like creature to make it ‘man’?

I have no particular basis for this, but it has always seemed to me that God infuses all life with his Spirit. When a creature attains sufficient sentience to think about God it kind of turns on…lol…not scientific to be sure, probably not theological either, but it seems reasonable. Not all that is reasonable is of course true. But it may well be unanswerable.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

I have posted this many many times:

God could have supernaturally created Adam and Eve and inserted them into the timeline wherever He wished regardless of what may or may not have been happening on the earth at the time.

The crux of the issue is that Eve came from Adam and they both had preternatural gifts. These do not reconcile with the evolution of man.

I’m not sure what you mean here. Of course if both stories are deemed as allegorical in nature, they would seem to have no quarrel with evolution. Of course if you posit one as allegorical and not the other, I would assume a problem arises.

PS…On the thrread about Jesus birth, I asked for the site to what you quoted from. Could you please give it to me?