To be honest, I did a search for āevolution compatibleā and I found ten pages, of which I searched three. I did not find a direct thread about this topic, so I apologize if there are a gazillion.
I am currently praying both Catholic and Islamic styles (Rosary, attending the mosque, etc). I have tried to discuss this with Catholic and Muslim friends, however most of them are steadfast that the religion is either incompatible with evolution or only in parts, but not fully.
I thank you for the links and will read them diligently.
There is no incompatibility between Catholicism and evolution in one sense, though it is in another.
Catholicism does not condemn evolutionary theory in a physical sense. In other words, the Catholic Church does not condemn the notion that, say, microbes of some sort evolved into more complex combinations, which eveolved into beings with interactive parts, which evolved into something like mollusks, which evolved into fish, etc, etc, etc, right down to man.
What Catholicism does depart from is the purely secular version; specifically that there is no Divine participation in the process at all. It is the Catholic position that everything in creation happened the way it did through the will of God. Secularists would say itās all just random and that God had nothing to do with it, including the creation of man. Consequently, they would say, man is just one more combination of amino acids that, over time, became complex. Such people also tend to be atheists or at least agnostic.
I think a lot of people (including some Catholics, but mostly protestants) get confused about all of it because of the biblical creation stories. But if you read them, they really arenāt incompatible with evolution. Fundamentalist Christians, for instance, insist that God created the world, including all the creatures on it, in six literal, 24 hour days. But one has to consider what a ādayā is to God, who is in no way limited by time and is, in fact, outside of time. Some say that the original Hebrew word which English versions of the bible render ādaysā, actually can mean ādaysā or āperiods of timeā of unspecified length. Iām not a Hebrew scholar, so i canāt say about that. But to me, an almighty God is free to do His creative activity in whatever way, and over whatever period of time He chooses, and for the reasons He chooses, and we arenāt necessarily privy to all of His thoughts and ways. To think otherwise is to think of a limited God, not an almighty God. And that view is entirely compatible with Catholicism. Whether it is compatible with Islam, I couldnāt say.
