Is Darwin's Theory Of Evolution True?

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Glark said:
That would entail a miracle - you know, like transforming bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ or something. Do you know of any God who can perform such miracles?
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God can perform such an act. I am not limiting God.

My point is the Genesis account does not explain what happened from the moment it was clay to the point where it was flesh. It does not say it changed directly in one moment either, or rule out the possibility that the clay was taken millions of years before then and shaped into man through other animal generations and forms.
 
Glark said:
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LeafByNiggle:
it makes no sense to complain that God is left out of evolution.
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You expect Catholics to leave God out when discussing the origins of life? How very odd.
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Not the origins of life. The origins of species.
And yet we still have God parting the Red Sea for Moses as a miracle.
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Your aversion to miracles is pretty obvious.
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You missed my point. I was not claiming that the parting of the Red Sea was not a miracle. I was claiming that despite the fact that it was a miracle, we still study fluid dynamics in engineering without reference to that miracle, without denying the parting of the Red Sea. So studying speciation without reference to God does not discount any miracles of God either.
 
Glark said:
If so, what happened to that race of soul-less humans that Adam was taken from? Are we to believe that they happily survived for hundreds of thousands of years and then suddenly vanished from the face of the earth?
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The whole race was taken over by ensoulment, and we are it. There are no remains.

We certainly have a fossil record of human like apes before man proper. We certainly have neanderthal DNA in us, but they don’t exist any longer.
 
edwest211 said:
"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

Source: Catholic Answers
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None of this contradicts what I wrote.
 
Glark said:
It the teaching that Adam was formed from a pre-existing creature that bothers me. This seems to me that this teaching cannot be supported by Scripture, which I believe clearly indicates Adam was formed from inanimate matter.
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Scripture, as interpreted by the Church, does not insist on the “inanimate matter” part.
 
Please provide a reference from Scripture and the Church that supports this.
 
edwest211 said:
The writers of the Bible could have wrote: “In ages long past, men looked like animals and lived like animals and thought like animals. As time passed they changed and after long ages became the men you are today.” BUT it doesn’t say that.
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Very Good point 👍

And how could God hold Adam and Eve responsible if they were raised by soulless animals creatures ?
 
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Glark said:
The Church has somehow decided that Genesis 2:7 can be interpreted as Adam being formed from a pre-existing creature.
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That’s not what I understand from its statements. It has decided that there exists one truth which has been revealed and that science can confirm. A scientific theory is falsified when evidence is found that contradicts it. The Theory of Evolution should be discarded where it strays from revealed Truth.

But then, there remains the issue of our interpretation of the Truth.
Glark said:
a wolf and a non-wolf can belong to the same species, so in that sense there has been no evolution at all.
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I suppose I could be accused of being unclear about the nature of the forest because there are trees in the way, but I’m not sure what is a species. I know that individual wolves exist, and that each has some doggyness about them. I would bet that the doggyness doesn’t evolve. Although the Theory has to do with species, it speaks only superficially about what they actually might be.
 
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Techno2000 said:
If I could see animals right now, with my own eyes, that are half one thing, and half another… I would believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
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Mammals are ground based, fish live and swim in the water and birds fly.

So you’d want to see some strange creature like a bird or a mammal that could swim better than some fish, or a bird that couldn’t fly. Or a mammal that could fly. Or a fish that could fly or could live out of the water and, I don’t know, climb trees.

Well, yeah, I guess anyone would believe in the theory if such mythical creatures existed.

By the way, is there a zoo near where you live?
 
Techno2000 said:
how could God hold Adam and Eve responsible if they were raised by soulless animals creature .
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They may have been cared for by animal nannies, or perhaps angels.

It’s clear that they had sufficient grace to understand and choose correctly, and that their Father had made clear what was required of them.
 
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Well… Why can’t they breed? Because the mastiff is too big? But id you took Chihuaha sperm and inseminated a mastiff then would that really result in no offspring?

I’m not so sure.
 
I’ve put up the references more than once. They’ve been ignored.
 
Aloysium said:
I suppose I could be accused of being unclear about the nature of the forest because there are trees in the way, but I’m not sure what is a species.
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This about sums up the thread quite nicely. Darwins theory is set out in his book: ‘The Origin of Species, by means of natural selection’. The sixth edition is on the table in front of me.

How anyone can post so much on this subject and yet know so little about it that he readily admits not knowing what ‘species’ actually means, beggars belief.

I didn’t think my flabber could get any more gasted. You guys are taking wilful ignorance to such heights as has never before been comitted to the written word.

I have to take my hat off to you all.
 
ChunkMonk said:
Well… Why can’t they breed? Because the mastiff is too big? But id you took Chihuaha sperm and inseminated a mastiff then would that really result in no offspring?

I’m not so sure.
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If you don’t like that example, see the one I posted here. In that case a new species appeared that was unable to breed with any of its ancestor species, and not because of size but because of DNA incompatibility. That’s evolution happening right before your eyes.
 
Bradskii said:
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Techno2000:
If I could see animals right now, with my own eyes, that are half one thing, and half another… I would believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
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Mammals are ground based, fish live and swim in the water and birds fly.

So you’d want to see some strange creature like a bird or a mammal that could swim better than some fish, or a bird that couldn’t fly. Or a mammal that could fly. Or a fish that could fly or could live out of the water and, I don’t know, climb trees.

Well, yeah, I guess anyone would believe in the theory if such mythical creatures existed.

By the way, is there a zoo near where you live?
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No, I mean a animal now that is in a transition of gradually morphing into a completely new species. An example would be a tadpole to frog scenario.One can observe every stage of its progress.All I see now when I go to the zoo are complete whole animals with no signs of changing into anything new.
 
God created everything “in its whole substance” from nothing (ex nihilo) in the beginning.
(Lateran IV; Vatican Council I)

Genesis does not contain purified myths. (Pontifical Biblical Commission 1909[1])

Genesis contains real history—it gives an account of things that really happened. (Pius XII)

Adam and Eve were real human beings—the first parents of all mankind. (Pius XII)

Polygenism (many “first parents”) contradicts Scripture and Tradition and is condemned. (Pius XII; 1994 Catechism, 360, footnote 226: Tobit 8:6—the “one ancestor” referred to in this Catechism could only be Adam.)

The “beginning” of the world included the creation of all things, the creation of Adam and Eve and the Fall (Jesus Christ [Mark 10:6]; Pope Innocent III; Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus).

The body of Eve was specially created from a portion of Adam’s body (Leo XIII). She could not have originated via evolution.

Various senses are employed in the Bible, but the literal obvious sense must be believed unless reason dictates or necessity requires (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus).

Adam and Eve were created upon an earthly paradise and would not have known death if they had remained obedient (Pius XII).

After their disobedience of God, Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. But the Second Person of the Trinity would subsequently pay the ransom for fallen man (Nicene Creed).

Original Sin is a flawed condition inherited from Adam and Eve (Council of Trent).

The Universe suffers in travail ever since the sin of disobedience by Adam and Eve. (Romans 8, Vatican Council I).

We must believe any interpretation of Scripture that the Fathers taught unanimously on a matter of faith or morals (Council of Trent and Vatican Council I).

All the Fathers who wrote on the subject believed that the Creation days were no longer than 24-hour-days. (Consensus of the Fathers of the Church)

The work of Creation was finished by the close of Day Six, and nothing completely new has since been created—except for each human rational soul at conception (Vatican Council I)

St. Peter and Christ Himself in the New Testament confirmed the global Flood of Noah. It covered all the then high mountains and destroyed all land dwelling creatures except eight human beings andall kinds of non-human creatures aboard the Ark (Unam Sanctam, 1302)

The historical existence of Noah’s Ark is regarded as most important in typology, as central to Redemption. (1566 Catechism of the Council of Trent)

Evolution must not be taught as fact, but instead the pros and cons of evolution must be taught.
(Pius XII, Humani Generis)

Investigation into human “evolution” was allowed in 1950, but Pope Pius XII feared that an acceptance of evolutionism might adversely affect doctrinal beliefs.
 
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