Genesis v Evolution

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Well, you certainly wanted to have things your way before joining the Church. A conversion and following Christ is spiritual. First, the Father draws you to Him, then you accept Him and then the Holy Spirit comes to live inside you. The Trinity is all involved in your salvation. However, there is no scientific way to prove that happened.

But, the Church confers sainthood on people all the time. It requires two miracles that are thoroughly investigated. Do you believe that?

Do you believe there was an actual, physical Jesus Christ that died for you?

God bless,
Ed
 
drpmjhess said:
Buffalo, Darwin developed his theory not intentionally to explain the origins of humanity without God, but rather to account historically for the diversity of species. He saw this as a developmental process, not as a miraculous and instantaneous creation. The fact that God is not invoked as a scientific explanation in evolution no more implies “atheism” than does the refusal to invoke God to explain why the moon orbits the earth, or why hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water.

I respect your right to reject evolution as you wish, but if you ever decide to work credibly in a biological or related field you will have to offer a replacement theory that accounts for (1) anatomical homology, (2) apparent genetic histories, and (3) the undeniable fossil record.

Prayerfully yours,
Petrus
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For the record, I am not the author of the article.

But as for the special creation of man, one can remain entirely neutral about evolution, it doesn’t matter either way.
 
abu_kamoon said:
Petrus,

The thoughts are my own. I don’t know who Kent Hovind is. I am just a little more skeptical than you are. I can’t believe that humans are descended from some type of ape like creature. There is such a wide gulf between humans and apes that the idea that they had a common ancestor is ludicrous to me.

Imagine, humans being on Earth for hundreds of milllions of years, and leaving no records until a few thousand years ago. Does that make any sense? Evolution is a mindset. People who believe in evolution refuse to look at the absurdities of their theory. They are true believers. Anything that contradicts their theology of evolution is ignored. The fossil recored is only reliable so long as it supports evolution. The same goes for carbon dating. Any evidence that supports the theory is accepted. Any that contradicts it is ignored. And you call that science?
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Abu kamoon, Phil has provided the background for the quotation you borrowed.

(1) The gap between humans and apes is not very wide genetically.

(2) Evolution is a theory, not a mind set. Biologists are constantly testing the theory, and it is more firmly substantiated every year.

(3) No one has proposed that humans have existed for hundreds of millions of years. Our ancestry diverged from that of the apes about five million years ago.

(4) The fossil record supports evolution, not YEC (Young Earth Creationism).

(5) Carbon dating is a reliable and useful tool.

(6) Don’t trust things you read on the websites of Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, or the Institute for Creation Research. Those are not scientifically-informed sites.

Petrus
 
I do not support ICR, Answers in Genesis or any other middleman group.

In fact, I find God directed Intelligent Design (not the political variety) far more plausible than evolution but that’s another topic.

God bless,
Ed
 
SpiritMeadow said:
The first thing I enquired about from Catholic friends and the Church itself before I signed on board was whether they believed in literal biblical creation. I was told NO by every single one of them from 4 different friends and a priest and a nun. I would never had joined the Church had it maintained that I had to swallow creationism as a tenet of faith. It should also be noted that all RCIA material was in agreement as well.
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I have been Catholic my whole life. My entire family is Catholic. Most of my friends are Catholic. I have met a number of Young Earth Catholics on forums. I have never, not once, met one in real life.
 
TMC said:
I have been Catholic my whole life. My entire family is Catholic. Most of my friends are Catholic. I have met a number of Young Earth Catholics on forums. I have never, not once, met one in real life.
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TMC, I gave a public lecture at a large suburban parish last Monday night, on the theme “Can I believe in God and accept evolution?” The pastor noted that once woman in the audience scowled throughout, most angrily whenever the word “evolution” was mentioned. What surprised him was that she was the wife of one of the permanent deacons. Since she had gone through theological training with her husband, she ought to have known better! There you have it.

Most of the audience were very engaged, and eager to discussion the texture and outlines of dogma in light of the evolutionary theory (creation, theological anthropology and the soul, Christology, sin and soteriology, suffering and theodicy, eschatology and the far future of the universe.

Petrus
 
drpmjhess said:
If humans have an immortal soul, then humans prior to Adam an Eve had immortal souls.
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No, actually one doesn’t necessilly follow the other. There may have been “humans” who did not have a soul in the same sense that Adam did.
Populations evolve together…
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Actually, entire lifeforms evolve in tandam with other entire lifeforms as they are all ecologically shaped by the environments they interact with. Technically speaking, there is no real distinction on a purely biological level, because there wouldn’t be some “pure human” spontaniously popping up all at once-- simply different configurations of the same genetic material. Even punctuated equilibrium’s “hope monsters” doesn’t allow for this dramatic of a shift.

Furthermore, souls don’t evolve period.

And the Church has made it clear that our souls are not the result of natural processes. The soul is something that only God can grant, something very supernatural.
there is no sudden dividing line between non-human parents and human children.
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There is a sharp dividing line if some have a soul and some don’t. It seems to me that only humans “created in the image of God” have an immortal soul. The others probaly do not.

Personally, I think you’re allowing your scientific view to interpret too much of your theology for you.
 
Mr.Ex_Nihilo said:
Could drpmjhess or Orogeny elaborate further.

Sorry, but there are a lot of posts in this 1000+ post thread from various points of view, so I’ve probably missed more than a few crucial points brought up in this discussion.

Just as a general answer, no, I don’t think “humans” before Adam had an immortal soul. But I’m willing to hear reasons why people would think that humans prior to Adam would be considered to have an immortal soul.

Sound fair?
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I don’t know who Adam and Eve were other than they were the first humans. I don’t know if they represent actual individuals or populations. Honestly, it isn’t important to me one way or the other.

However, no I don’t think that any animal, hominid or not, has had or will ever have an immortal soul. I think that the first “humans” were the first hominids given an immortal soul by God.

Peace

Tim
 
drpmjhess said:
Well, Tim, the question of what an immortal soul is, and who has one, is not easy to resolve.
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Well, let’s see.

What is an immortal soul? From the CCC 363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human *life *or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

Who has one? From the CCC **1703 **Endowed with “a spiritual and immortal” soul, the human person is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake.” From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude.

I don’t need to resolve those questions, they have already been resolved for me.

I’m curious though. Do you struggle with the concept of an immortal soul?
You have argued that possessing an immortal soul does not depend on ever enjoying consciousness – fair enough. But would you argue that souls go with consciousnesses, or with genomes?
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I’m not sure what you are asking here regarding whether souls go with consciousness, especially in light of the sentence preceding that question. Has that question not already been answered?
Could one consciousness possess more than one genome? Or if there were two genomes in one person – as with a chimera – would there be two persons and two souls in one physical body?
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I don’t know.

Now, could you answer my original question? Do you disagree that all humans have immortal souls?

Peace

Tim
 
The scriptures don’t say that animals have souls but they do say that they have spirits.
 
Orogeny said:
I don’t know who Adam and Eve were other than they were the first humans. I don’t know if they represent actual individuals or populations. Honestly, it isn’t important to me one way or the other.

However, no I don’t think that any animal, hominid or not, has had or will ever have an immortal soul. I think that the first “humans” were the first hominids given an immortal soul by God.

Peace

Tim
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Then what is drpmjhess talking abut then?
 
Let’s utterly bury the competition. Do I smell 2000 posts?

I am so proud of you folks! Especially the “new people” 😃

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Phil P 👍 :eek: :eek:
 
<< Then what is drpmjhess talking abut then? >>

Something along the lines of John Haught, let’s re-define what immortal soul is, and allow it to “evolve” to…

“Perhaps, then, Darwinian science compels us now to reconsider what we mean by the ‘soul.’ … But even in a scientific age it is not too speculative to attribute an interior aspect to each living being. Maybe all living organisms have an aspect of ‘subjectivity’ hidden from scientific objectification. In each of us this interiority would be associated with a distinctively human soul. But other living beings may possess a hidden ‘subjectivity’ – widely varying in the degree of experiential awareness – where they are intimately touched by and participate in the divine Spirit whom we may refer to as Life-Itself. Once we allow for this broader understanding of soul, we may interpret evolution as the momentous story of soul-emergence. Evolution is the adventure of life gradually becoming more conscious, centered, free and capable of love – but also capable of great evil. This understanding allows us to move beyond the artifice of thinking that God abruptly ‘injects’ prefabricated ‘souls’ into our species or into our bodies at certain artificially defined points in evolution or embryogenesis. Instead we may understand the Spirit of God as present in all of life, animating each species in a manner proportionate to its characteristic mode of organic or informational complexity. The emergence of the human soul, then, would not be a glaring exception to this animating process, but instead a most intense exemplification of a general aspect of creation and evolution.” (Haught, Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution [Paulist Press, 2001], question 19, page 27-28)

I dunno, we can also re-define the resurrection of Jesus as meaning “he is bodily dead” but the apostles “experienced” mass hallucinations. We’re walking a fine line here… I may be too fundy Catholic to understand what Haught is talking about. :confused:

By fundy Catholic I mean of course: Catechism, Ludwig Ott, Denzinger, etc. 👍

Phil P
 
Here’s a challenge to all Catholics who consider themselves to be theistic evolutionists also:

When was the first time in actual history that God performed a Miracle that could not be expained according to the scientific laws of the universe?

Why did God wait until then to perform such a miracle?

Would the big Bang be a miracle?

If it was a miracle why did God Suspend working in miracles so that man wouldn’t be created miraculously yet later on began working miraculously?
 
Orogeny said:
I’m curious though. Do you struggle with the concept of an immortal soul?I’m not sure what you are asking here regarding whether souls go with consciousness, especially in light of the sentence preceding that question. Has that question not already been answered?I don’t know. Peace,Tim
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Actually, yes I do struggle with this question. Many Catholics would argue that the soul is infused at conception. And yet in the case of tetragametic chimeras, two sperms fertilize two eggs, and these two zygotes fuse to form one person with two complete genomes. So did each zygote have a soul from the moment of its conception? Or does God wait in this case until after conception to implant only one soul in the dizygotic embryo? If souls are implanted at the moment of conception, the person must have two souls in one body and one consciousness. Which soul will be responsible for the person’s actions at the moral reckoning of the last judgment?

If we say that these people cannot have two souls because the soul goes with the consciousness rather than the genome, then is the soul dependent on the consciousness? And yet that can’t be the case, because we’ve already talked in previous posts about parasitic twins and other teratomas, which have souls and genomes but will never have consciousness. These are fascinating questions!

Petrus
 
Jerry-Jet said:
When was the first time in actual history that God performed a Miracle that could not be explained according to the scientific laws of the universe?

Would the big Bang be a miracle?

If it was a miracle why did God Suspend working in miracles so that man wouldn’t be created miraculously yet later on began working miraculously?
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Is a miracle necessarily a suspension of natural law, or is it something that we behold in wonder? Or could the word apply to both?

I was present at the birth of both of my sons, cutting both their umbilical cords. I know that conception, gestation and birth have perfectly natural explanations, and yet the childbirth experience was nothing short of a “miracle” for my wife and me.

As regards the Big Bang, I would say that even if cosmologists eventually sort out the parameters and conditions of that event, the very facticity of the universe constitutes a miracle. Hawking asks in A Brief History of Time, why does the universe go to the bother of existing at all?

Petrus
 
Mr.Ex_Nihilo said:
Then what is drpmjhess talking abut then?
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He and I have been having a conversation about souls. I say that the first humans had the first souls and that those souls were instantly created by God. He seems to be saying that the soul evolved and that earlier non-human hominids had immortal souls.

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
He and I have been having a conversation about souls. I say that the first humans had the first souls and that those souls were instantly created by God. He seems to be saying that the soul evolved and that earlier non-human hominids had immortal souls.Peace Tim
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Yes, I agree with John Haught’s view that “immortal soul” as something “infused” into bodies is an incoherent concept. I am not suggesting that amoebas and earthworms are the sorts of beings that might live forever in the heavenly kingdom, as there is clearly an enormous difference between them and us in terms of cognition, experience, and potential.

But if you consider the problem I posed in post # 1054, you will see that there clearly are conceptual difficulties in locating the “infusion” of an “immortal soul” with the moment of conception of a human body. These conceptual difficulties extend to the evolutionary history of our species. The evolution of soulishness makes far better sense of the liminal cases we have discussed than does the unitary idea that a—humans-and-only-humans-have-immortal-souls.

Prayerfully yours,
Petrus
 
Hi Tim:)

We can’t disect the IMMORTAL soul. 😉 The immortal soul has to do with Christology. Two points to remember:
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021009_ratzinger-catechetical-congress_en.html
  1. **The Presbyter encourages community members to show their Christianity by adhering to the great commandment of mutual love and to the historical truth about Jesus. **The false teaching present among them is a *spiritualizing christology ***that may tempt some members to discount teachings about the incarnation and death of Jesus the Christ; cf ⇒ 1 John 4:2. For their protection the Presbyter forbids hospitality toward unknown or “progressive” Christians to prevent their infiltration of the community. The Second Letter preserves the Johannine concerns of doctrinal purity and active love in the form of pastoral advice to a threatened community. (The New American Bible)
    vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__P12G.HTM
    http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__P12G.HTM
No hemming or hawing, flat out, the immortality of the soul is connected to the transfigueration and christology. Being a spiritual substance, it is not composed of parts into which it could disintegrate nor be annihilated by any created force or cause. Since God does nothing in vain and that the whole moral law of God draws its strength or sanction from the immortality of the soul after the death of the body. It is a matter of FAITH that the soul is immortal, that it will live on eternally.

Also, there are people who push spiritualizing christology. That’s called panetheism. Teilhard de Chardin was a panetheist. I don’t agree with his theology. I should also mention the Intelligent Design movement is based on panetheism. :mad:
 
Jerry-Jet said:
Here’s a challenge to all Catholics who consider themselves to be theistic evolutionists also:

When was the first time in actual history that God performed a Miracle that could not be expained according to the scientific laws of the universe?

Why did God wait until then to perform such a miracle?

Would the big Bang be a miracle?

If it was a miracle why did God Suspend working in miracles so that man wouldn’t be created miraculously yet later on began working miraculously?
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I’m not clear on how these questions relate to evolution. For my part, I believe in theistic evolution in part because I do not believe that God’s work can be bound or defined. He does what He does and chooses as He does. It appears that He chose to create through an evolutionary process.

I completely agree (on this particular point) with drpmjhess when he says that the definition of ‘miracle’ is unclear. God works miracles all the time, not all are splashy. Did he reach in and snuff out the dinosaurs to make room for mamallian development? Maybe, I can’t know. If he did that with a meteorite is it less fully the work of God? Not to me. Believing in evolution is not the same thing as saying that man was not created miraculously. To me it is an acknowedgement that **all **of Creation, inlcuding all the “natural” laws and “scientific” explanations are truly miraculous. God made it all, its all a miracle.
 
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