Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part 4.1

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Some like to conflate adaptation and evolution.
Though I suppose to some quick enough adaptation would be evolution.
I disagree with the idea of random allele fluctuations wherein one animal just so happens to be born with the trait that is needed to survive in the quick environmental change.
 
Intelligent Design is the better theory. It eliminates the blind watchmaker and, supposedly, millions of years of chance.
 
I write science fiction. Utopia is not possible here or out there. Evolution has no practical value. I seek out knowledge daily but without wisdom, it can lead people in the wrong direction. That wisdom comes from God.

I don’t believe in atheism or pure materialism.

Catholics certainly didn’t start this debate.
 
benjamin1973 said:
You guys are making it out as though every environmental pressure is a nuclear bomb or a comet hitting the Earth or something but that’s not the case.
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Well it’s drastic enough to cause the previous species to die out.
 
benjamin1973 said:
It depends on the type of environmental pressure. For example, we’ll probably find out in the next couple hundred years whether polar bears can adapt to the very quick change in their environment, namely the receding ice in the North.
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I would love to know what evolution has up its sleeve for the polar bear…any ideas ?
 
Excellent answer.

I like that it is honest about the knowledge we may or may not know and that it does not try claim fact where there is only an educated guess.

Thank you.
 
Hugh_Farey said:
This thought-experiment does not require validation, whatever that means. It does not contradict anything so far discovered by science or theology.
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It depends on what theology or whose theology one talks about. Before the novel advent of Darwinian evolutionary theory and the origin of species in the latter half of the 19th century, it is an historical fact that in the entire theological Tradition in the Church, the origin of the various kinds or species of plant and animal life was due to God’s direct or supernatural creative activity. This theological Tradition was founded upon the natural, obvious, and literal sense of Genesis 1-2:1-3 confirmed by many other biblical texts. This is the interpretation or the ‘literal’ sense of Genesis 1 that this long theological Tradition from the Fathers of the Church, through the scholastic theologians, down to the theologians to the 20th century gave to the creation narrative. In this sense, christian and catholic theistic evolution theories contradict the Church’s received and essentially entire creation theological tradition and the origin of things such as plant and animal life and kinds as well as other major natural phenomena of the natural world Genesis 1 describes.

Concerning traditional catholic natural theology and philosophical metaphysics, I think christian and catholic theistic evolutionary theory is either hardly compatible or not at all with it. There are definitely serious contradictions. Traditional catholic metaphysics uses concepts with precise meanings such as substance/accidents, form/matter, act/potency which are entirely foreign to theistic evolutionary thinking which is essentially based on the natural sciences and so-called ‘scientific’ theories which should probably rather be called ‘scientific’ philosophic theories.
 
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I’m not to sure Christian evolution theory can even be called a kind of natural theology. Being that the theory is based on the natural sciences and being that God and his supernatural creative activity and providence are outside the competence and study of the natural sciences, than again, I’m not sure in what sense it could be called a kind of natural theology. I think only by recourse to philosophy and presumably traditional catholic metaphysics and philosophy could Christian evolution theory be incorporated somehow into a natural theology. Then again, recourse to traditional catholic metaphysics and philosophy is going to involve possibly insurmountable difficulties for the evolutionary theory.

Regarding divine revelation and the theology of the Bible which is God’s word, neither the Big Bang Theory or Darwinian biological evolution is taught there, at least certainly not explicitly and clearly or reading into the text a preconceived idea or notion (eisegesis), performing severe exegetical acrobatics or severe allegorizing, or simply disregarding the text. In fact, the literal, natural, and obvious sense of the Scriptures throughout concerning the creation narrative of Genesis 1-2:3 paints a different picture of God’s work in the creation and formation of the world and this literal sense and interpretation of Genesis 1 is attested too in the Church’s entire theological tradition until the very recent popularizing of the Big Bang and Darwinian evolutionary theories among the scientific community in the 20th century and later half of the 19th century. There is no mention in the Scriptures of a singularity from which the world evolved, nor of plant or animal kinds or species morphing into other species, nor of a single life form of some kind from which evolved all animals and plants.
 
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Now, I’m not arguing that a catholic at present cannot hold or rather believe in some form of theistic evolution within the limits defined by the few statements concerning it by our recent popes including Pope Francis. The Church appears to allow it presently without saying that it is true obviously. Macroevolution, even if it was happening, cannot be observed, measured, or put to the test in a laboratory and simply nobody was around or could have lived long enough to observe it if it actually happened in the ancient past. It is a kind of interpretation of reality, the fossil record, a philosophic worldview of the physical world, a belief or kind of faith system. The Bible appears to have a different philosophical or rather theological worldview concerning the origin and distinction of the various kinds of beings and natural phenomena we observe in the world, namely, the result of God’s direct creative activity and work. This interpretation of the Bible and Genesis 1-2: 1-3 has an ancient theological tradition in the Church essentially uncontested until the advent of Darwinian evolutionary theory. I’m essentially just stated some facts here concerning the Church’s theological tradition.
 
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“theological tradition” is not appropriate. Divine revelation means that real knowledge was conveyed to man by God. Without God as a direct causal agent, there can be no development of life. Theistic and evolution are like oil and water. Evolution as presented here is pure materialism and amounts to a belief system. Now it may be an elaborate belief system grounded in its own worldview, but it is missing things that are essential.
 
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