Is there a Catholic problem with basic evolution theory?

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Wesrock said:
In addition to what I said about narrative, I suppose this is a bit of a problem for the believer in Intelligent Design. Granted, as a Thomist, I don’t take much issue with the idea of blind chance and randomness from a quantifiable standpoint. It’s the conclusions one draws from that data that are potentially at issue.

If we have free will and God knows exactly what we’re going to do in His eternity, I’ve no qualms with accepting that God made a quantifiably random, undirected (by all measurements) process in which He knew the intended results. It’s the difference between (a) seeing God as something separate and outside existence reaching in and tinkering and nudging and designing in time, and (b) accepting Him as creating in one act from all eternity and His act of creation being the composition of existence and essence, and matter and form, and act and potentiality, and ultimately holding natural processes as operating according to their ends.
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The problem is one wrong turn in the process, one genetic mistake, and we all look like lizard men today.

Ed
 
edwest2 said:
The Bible is called the Word of God. How do we know about Christ and why He was born, lived and died? Yes, God is revealed to many by what He has created but that’s nonsense to a lot of people. Nature only “looks” like it was designed. It wasn’t. Richard Dawkins, a Biologist, will tell you that.

Ed
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God has revealed himself fully through the second person of the Trinity. We know about God because he has sent his only Son, in person.
Christianity is embodied in Jesus Christ. Scripture is an expression of the Word. But the Word is a person, not a book.

Really the problem we have here is one of fundamentalism vs the fullest Catholic sense of revelation.
 
buffalo said:
Yes there is a problem. A scientific one, The Darwinian model has fallen. They are struggling to explain and come to grips with the deep programming of the cell.
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You are being lied to by lying creationist websites I’m afraid. See The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism for more such predictions, going back to 1825.

1825! That is worse than the Great Disappointment, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Harold Camping.

I suggest that you follow Dr. Dembski’s example and abandon Intelligent Design. It isn’t going anywhere.

rossum
 
edwest2 said:
The problem is one wrong turn in the process, one genetic mistake, and we all look like lizard men today.
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How can there be a “wrong” turn? God knew exactly every turn before He created the universe. All turns were known in advance. The result we see today is exactly the result God expected.

rossum
 
edwest2 said:
The problem is one wrong turn in the process, one genetic mistake, and we all look like lizard men today.

Ed
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This is like speculating on Mary saying no or Jesus not being crucified. You underestimate God’s providence in His eternity. Genetics can operate naturally by random chance without God ever needing to roll dice.
 
I was feeling a bit heated about ten minutes ago. I’m going to step away for a bit. I’m glad we’re able to have a civil discussion on this topic.
 
rossum said:
You are being lied to by lying creationist websites I’m afraid. See The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism for more such predictions, going back to 1825.

1825! That is worse than the Great Disappointment, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Harold Camping.

I suggest that you follow Dr. Dembski’s example and abandon Intelligent Design. It isn’t going anywhere.

rossum
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You and I know better as we have debate in detail for many years. IDvolution uses modern science. These by no means are creationist.

What we know:

Here are some of the top points:

Life is a lot tougher now than ever before for evo fans.
  1. Junk DNA - gone
  2. Epigenetics
  3. Rapid Adaptation
  4. Natural selection is a conservative process not a creative one
  5. Complexity and machinery of the cell
  6. The Language of DNA
  7. Convergent evolution - common design
  8. Facilitated variation
  9. Genetic Entropy
  10. DNA actively fights through several iterations against mutations
  11. ATP Synthase motor
  12. Cell membrane complexity
  13. Human Chimp similarities - less than 70%
  14. Bacteria have latent antibiotic capabilities
  15. Horizontal Gene Transfer and now “theft”
  16. Tree of Life has fallen
  17. Protein folding
  18. DNA language complexity can be read forward and backward with layers
See IDvolution.org for the details.
 
Wesrock said:
Thanks, mVitus.

To all, it’s a speculative proposal, not my own. It doesn’t propose itself to be true, it is simply putting forth an idea of how Church teaching on monogenism and the polygenism of the evolutionary theory of man can be reconciled. The idea is that a distinction can be made between what the Church absolutely teaches and requires on monogenism and what the modern data seems to indicate regarding a polygenism being the best model, such that the two are no longer in conflict.

Let me add that the Church clearly taught “no salvation outside the church” in language that at face value seems pretty clear. However, while absolutely true, the truth of that statement is nuanced and makes distinctions for the invincibly ignorant.

IMO, the danger of modern theory on the evolution of man isn’t itself the danger, but the idea that it’s accepted without knowledge of Catholic doctrine regarding our origins and original sin, brushing those things off as moral stories and not as history. I think the theory also allows for very traditional readings if one wishes, of Adam living in a literal garden and Eve being formed from a literal rib even. When they’re exiled from the garden, they’d enter back into a world/region populated by these “proto-humans,” whom their children may have interbred with, explaining the genetic diversity.
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I agree that there may be ways to reconcile theological monogenism with evolutionary polygenism. But I also think the Church is moving slowly and carefully away from monogenism. It is original sin that seems to require monogenism (not Genesis), and theologians have been rethinking the understanding of original sin. Pope Benedict wrote on this topic. I realize that is a sticking point from some people, but I think the Church is heading that way, with the help of theologians like Pope Benedict.
 
TMC said:
I agree that there may be ways to reconcile theological monogenism with evolutionary polygenism. But I also think the Church is moving slowly and carefully away from monogenism. It is original sin that seems to require monogenism (not Genesis), and theologians have been rethinking the understanding of original sin. Pope Benedict wrote on this topic. I realize that is a sticking point from some people, but I think the Church is heading that way, with the help of theologians like Pope Benedict.
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What did Pope Benedict say?

Ed
 
Roseeurekacross said:
I am a bit confused with your question. To answer it correctly
  1. The theory of evolution needs to be defined scientifically. Not specutively etc.
  2. Then it needs to be broken down and examined from Catholic view points
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It is the “populations” in the theory of evolution which can cause problems when one is reading the first three difficult chapters of Sacred Scripture.
 
edwest2 said:
There is definitely a conflict, which is why threads like this appear on a regular basis. There is no Church teaching that aligns with proto-humans. It all started with Adam and Eve.

Ed
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👍
 
edwest2 said:
Respectfully, while respecting anyone who wishes to discuss this proposal, what is its purpose? Not to overdo it, but variations of this theme or idea have been posted here on a regular basis for some time.

Ed
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Could it be that the purpose is that the wheel can re-invented?
;)😉
 
goout said:
Popularity has nothing to do with it.
Humanii Generiis is not unpopular, it’s misunderstood and taken in isolated context apart from what comes before and after it. It’s cherry picked in fundamentalist manner.

The Church wisely allows science room to breathe and inform us about the world we live in. We should do that also.
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Thank you for the correction. You are right. Humani Generis is misunderstood. 😃
 
edwest2 said:
What did Pope Benedict say?

Ed
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Pope Benedict’s XVI Easter Homily Creative Reason

“Ultimately it comes down to the alternative: What came first? Creative Reason, the Creator Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth, or Unreason, which, lacking any meaning, strangely enough brings forth a mathematically ordered cosmos, as well as man and his reason. The latter, however, would then be nothing more than a chance result of evolution and thus, in the end, equally meaningless. As Christians, we say: I believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in the Creator Spirit. We believe that at the beginning of everything is the eternal Word, with Reason and not Unreason.”
– Pope Benedict XVI

I think the Pope would like Idvolution. 👍
 
Wesrock said:
Anyway, the point isn’t to prove it. The point is only to point out how being an orthodox Catholic does not require rejecting modern theory of the evolution of man.
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It is the “population” base of evolution which clouds the Catholic understanding of original man/Original Sin.
 
Pope Benedict and Nature’s Genius
…It’s unlikely these bestselling atheists will listen, but the pope may have had another audience in view. Many Catholic thinkers lately have proven wary of any attempts to show that (contra the phalanx of atheists) nature does proclaim the glory of God, and even more, that the latest science unambiguously declares His presence. By and large, these Catholic thinkers steer clear of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement and are satisfied with a declaration of peace in our time: science is one thing; theology another; each may go its own happy way and keep to its own borders; science has promised not to invade theology, if theology will only keep from meddling in science.

…
As he insists, the atheists’ view of reason is too small. That is why it seems to exclude the existence of God. The problem, in the pope’s words, is “the modern self-limitation of reason,” a self-limitation that amounts to self-strangulation if not properly understood. As he was careful to note, this critique “has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age.” Instead, he calls for a “broadening [of] our concept of reason” to “disclose its vast horizons.”

How did the constriction of reason occur? “This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology.” The synthesis consisted of a double-shrinking of reason to make it more powerful. Let’s look at each element of the synthesis in turn, beginning with the empirical.

According to Benedict, the empirical or Baconian element focused on “nature’s capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty.” Francis Bacon hoped to cut through the philosophical wrangling and mystification of the natural philosophers of his day by shifting the definition of science from what nature is to what we want nature to do. Experiment was the way to “vex” the desired result from nature. Utility, therefore, pushed truth to the back burner.
 
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