Humans are currently evolving resistance to the various forms of malaria, resistance to HIV, resistance to the effects of too rich a diet and many other things. The selection pressures have changed since we were hunter-gatherers, but there are still selection pressures and we are still evolving in response to them.
Their environment hasn’t remained constant. Rather, their biological forms are such that radical changes in the environment that might kill off other life forms completely, and/or push evolution in other life forms, don’t affect them as much. In other words they are like a solid boulder that remains on the landscape in a windstorm, while the pebbles and dust are blown around. Their forms are so well suited for survival that there’s nothing to “improve on” through most environmental changes.
This isn’t a necessary conclusion of evolution at all. The human soul can’t be “evolved”, it must be given by God directly, so there couldn’t be any other Adam and Eve’s “evolving”. From an evolutionary stand point, God could have simply allowed His world, working by His own design and transcendent causality (not requiring direct “efficient causality”, contrary to what Intelligent Design advocates insist) intervention to produce the precise physical form He wanted, and then directly and miraculously provided a new kind of soul to two members of this species. All true humans would have to be descended from these two, but there could be animals prior to them (and perhaps for a time afterwards) that were physically very similar, or even identical. No matter how physically similar these other animals might have been, they remained utterly distinct from true humans in a spiritual sense.
nothing in the theory of evolution says that man evolved from monkeys. this is a legitimate topic of debate, but worthless if we are not debating what the theory actually proposes. Why don’t we restate the argument based on what Darwin actually wrote and begin from there.
This is true, just as racial variations continue to occur. I think Strider was refering to speciation, however, which is likely to not occur in the human branch any more.
Maybe the fact that Adam translated means “mankind” is because Adam was honored by having his name designated to represent mankind, he being the father of mankind.OP, I believe you misread the story of Adam and Eve. I dont think it was ever to bbe taken literally but allegorically.
Why even the name Adam translated means mankind. Adam was only a figure representing all of mankind.
Human beings don’t grow, change, or evolve! Come on! That would mean that the Church’s teaching on what’s “natural” or not could change. And, as all Catholics know, the Church never changes. How do we know that the Church never changes? Because God never changes. How do we know that human beings never change? Because human beings are made in the image of God. How do we know that human beings are made in the image of God? Because human beings don’t change - just like God.
The story of Adam and Eve might be allegorical, but the fact that one male and one female existed, commited original sin, are the parents of the entire human race is not one of those optional beliefs. Modern research into genetic ancestry has only tended to agree with this fact anyway, so I really don’t see what the point in arguing about this in the first place is.
Wrong. Sorry, but no, it doesn’t. It can’t.
Man has a spiritual soul. Animals don’t. Man is still just as unique as he ever was.
The moment at which God infused a rational/spiritual soul into Adam.
Yes. Because monkeys don’t have spiritual souls. They aren’t persons.
Again, no. Adam recieved a spiritual soul, which other animals do not have.
No, because even if man did evolve into something else (take an example such as X-Men if you wish), then that event still would have had to fall under the realm of Divine Providence. Such men, while genetically different, would still be rational persons, descended from Adam, with spiritual souls that are capable of knowing and loving God.
But the human person, body and soul is unique. The “body” if evolved was simpy a phase in the evolution.
Overall I thought this was a good article, I accept evolution exists to a degree but to what extent does it go? The article didnt explain.
Here are some important quotes I saw:29. The central dogmas of the Christian faith imply that the body is an intrinsic part of the human person and thus participates in his being created in the image of God. … Finally, that the body belongs essentially to the human person is inherent to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body at the end of time, which implies that man exists in eternity as a complete physical and spiritual person.
While I agree with this to an extent I see no evidence it can occur over such a long timespan. Your describing a top of the food chain type creature, however for somereason when the lower ends of the food chain disappear or are altered somehow the top doesnt need to change? Also in regards to factors such as temperature, I know of no creature that can live in any of the spans of temperatures in the ocean.
I agree, humans are so unique that there is literally nothing in nature to compare them. One thing that is interesting is that we have not only the ability to create life (ie evolution a la carte) in a lab but even destroy the planet. Im not sure how evolution provides for such intelligence.
That actually brings to mind a very interesting point, humans are so superior we can at will make animals go extinct (eg hunting and pollution). In my mind there is no comparison to the superiority of humans over animals, a superiority that evolution alone cant account for.
Thats a discontinuity that science cant explain if God has to step in and stop the evolution. More over how do you explain a human person was conceived in a sub-human?
Thats just it though, at this point theology/philosphy steps in and science is either left without an explanation or its explanation is ignored.
Those are pretty long pages, I will have to read them tomorrow.
All I have ever heard is that we evolved from apes or further developed sub-humans. What did he actually write in regards to man, Im interested to know. As far as I could tell the document I read above condemned an openly atheistic position called “neo-Darwinism” where God doesnt have a place in the equation at all.
I don’t understand the last part of your statement about ocean temperatures.
Right, there is no solid evolutionary account of the development of a rational mind, especially if the rational mind is immaterial as I believe it must be even philosophically (of course I believe through Faith that the rational soul is immaterial and created directly by God). It is the rational soul that gives this intellectual capacity to humans, not merely the biological matter in between our ears.
God wouldn’t have to step in and stop evolution. These non-immortal human animals could have reached an equilibrium like the shark and crocodile. On the other hand, evolution could have ceased due to the infusion of the immaterial rational soul and the capacity to change the environment that comes with it. Either way God didn’t have to “stop” evolution by any direct intervention, it could have “stopped” due to secondary factors such as the infusion of the soul, or it could have “stopped” beforehand due to the animal-humans reaching a point where they would no longer need to change much to adapt to their environment.
Of course. I never advocate a “pure empiricle science” without the influence of at least philosophy. That’s a relatively new idea, post-dating Darwin’s work in popularity, and one that is increasingly untenable. Evolution as an idea doesn’t have to utilized only by those who would ignore the reality of philosophical questions.
Nope. Because you are creating a division where one does not exist. You are a soul with a body (gnostic) you are a soul and a body. One is not more you than the other. That is what makes death so awful, the seperation of what was never meant to be divided. Macro-evolution does undermine the dignity of those who are made, in the image of God. And respectfully, you just proved it. To embrace evolution we must deny the uniqueness of how God created us.
Of this just undermines theology this idea creates a type of new gnosticism and this idea that man was later infused with a soul is simply a brand new “doctrine” to try and haronize what really cannot be. Man was created by God, as man not from the animal kingdom that flies in the face of the fact scripture emphasizes, the unique creation of man entirely seperate from the animals. Not just his soul since we are not just souls. This demeans the human body and makes it mere souls infused meat. A completely unbiblical, unpatristic and un-catholic idea. Physically and spiritually we are sperated form creation from the animal. We are and always have been of a different “kind”. Man came into existence as a unique species. You cannot be a unique species if you are really just and ensouled super-monkey. It does not work theologically.
I’m being lazy this evening and haven’t read any other responses. This is just my two cents:
I don’t think a rational mind can be accounted for physically, therefore evolution doesn’t come into play. While a rational mind certainly provides an advantage for survival, without it being physically based it’s outside the bounds of evolutionary factors.you don’t think that a rational mind has an evolutinary advantage?
That an immaterial soul works through a body doesn’t mean that it is ultimately material. All that indicates is that the immaterial soul operates through physical mediums, and even requires them for certain operations, just like a carpenter requires a hammer to fully actualize his carpentry skills, but the hammer is not the cause of the carpenter. A faulty hammer, or a lack of one, will inhibit the carpenter’s use of skills, but it doesn’t take them away.
I’m not sure what you are saying.
Physical damage to the brain affects rationality
This is clearly an indication that a rational mind can (in part at least) be accounted for physically.
I’m uncomfortable with the notion of the body as merely a tool for the soul.