Pope Benedict admits evidence for evolution

[wildleafblower]

Now, as far as … "*“In forma specifica documents have deliberate papal approbation, and so the documents, even though issued by a Vatican office, take on the character of speaking to a papal concern. … In forma communi documents, in contrast, have been reviewed by the pope as one aspect of the pontiff’s daily activities. They do not indicate the pope’s explicit approval, even though they might have it.” *. The Word From Rome Novmber 25, 2005

My error. Please note correction highlighted in red. Keep in mind that anything *in forma specifica *by a Cardinal isn’t the same as by a Pope. Here is further information about “in forma specifica”:

“C. Addendum: Post-Codal Instruction
Congregation for the Clergy (et al). On Certain Questions Regarding Collaboration of Nonordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priests, August 15, 1997 (instruction)
The 1997 inter-dicasterial instruction On Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priests6 was approved ***in forma specifica ***by Pope John Paul II. Its purpose “is simply to provide a clear, authoritative response to the many pressing requests which have come to our dicasteries from bishops, priests and laity seeking clarification in the light of specific cases of new forms of “pastoral activity” of the nonordained on both parochial and diocesan levels.” (Forward) Following theological principles, the instruction provides several practical provisions which intend to offer “remedies … to correct abuses which have been brought to the attention of our dicasteries.” (Theological Principles, 4) Article 5 of the instruction’s Practical Provisions is about collaborative structures in a particular church.”
http://www.usccb.org/laity/dpc3.shtml

 

[Montalban]

Does this mean the Pope disagrees with Jesus? Jesus says we were created. Not evolved!

Matthew 19:4
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’

 

[Contarini]

Does this mean the Pope disagrees with Jesus? Jesus says we were created. Not evolved!

Matthew 19:4
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’

Why do you think creation and evolution are incompatible?

Why couldn’t evolution be the means by which God created us?

Edwin

 

[First_of_9]

The soul was created from nothing. Church teaching. End of story.

Body was NOT created. Not even Genesis says the body was created–God formed it from dust. How God formed it is the debate–instantly or through an evolutionary process.

Oh, While God created man in His image, it is the Soul that in in God’s image. Since God does not have a material body, man was not created in His physical image.

 

[Montalban]

Why do you think creation and evolution are incompatible?

Why couldn’t evolution be the means by which God created us?

Edwin

I’ve already stated this.

The theory of evolution - as it’s actually taught by scientists and not how people here might like to imagine it, is a process of explaining the rise of species by purely naturalistic means.

There is NO PLACE FOR GOD in that system. Evolutionists might grant you the right to believe in God, per se but will say that in the evolutionary model there is no evidence for God, and that Evolution happened in a manner wholly un-supernaturally.

However, I also note that God *might *have used wholly naturalistic means, if He chose. There’d be no evidence for this, one would have to rely on faith.

If one relies on faith for this, one should note that several Church Fathers (cited earlier) say we were created, and by this they mean supernaturally. And Jesus says we were created. He talks of two, a male and a female being made.

Evolution is opposed to this

 

[Montalban]

The soul was created from nothing. Church teaching. End of story.

Body was NOT created. Not even Genesis says the body was created–God formed it from dust. How God formed it is the debate–instantly or through an evolutionary process.

Oh, While God created man in His image, it is the Soul that in in God’s image. Since God does not have a material body, man was not created in His physical image.

If God formed it from dust, he created it. It wasn’t dust, and now it’s flesh. Jesus says we were created

Matthew 19:4
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’

 

[First_of_9]

If God formed it from dust, he created it. It wasn’t dust, and now it’s flesh. Jesus says we were created

Matthew 19:4
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’

Create does not mean make or change something from something. It means make something from nothing.

Reading Genesis, the dust came before Adam, so I might agree that God created the dust. But it is also very clear that Adam was formed form the dust of the earth, not from nothing.

If you want to get nitpicky, Matthew doesn’t say “male and female” were created (something from nothing) but rather made (soething from something).

 

[Montalban]

1. to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes.
   dictionary.reference.com/browse/create

What was ‘natural’ about man being made from dust? What was ordinary about it?

Create does not mean make or change something from something. It means make something from nothing.

And that’s what God did. Where there was lifeless dust, there became **living **man

He caused man to happen, where there was no man.

All that’s confusing you is that man was not created from nothing, but from something.

 

[Steve40]

Why do you think creation and evolution are incompatible?

Why couldn’t evolution be the means by which God created us?

Edwin

Sure and God could say it is perfectly fine for you to have sex with your cat. Are you asking me to accept that God said it was OK for Adam and Eve to have sex with the animals and we can’t? Until I see proof I won’t believe it. Maybe everyone who must believe in evolution should move to Washington state. I hear you can leagally have a sexual relationship with your horse there.

 

[First_of_9]

Sure and God could say it is perfectly fine for you to have sex with your cat. Are you asking me to accept that God said it was OK for Adam and Eve to have sex with the animals and we can’t? Until I see proof I won’t believe it. Maybe everyone who must believe in evolution should move to Washington state. I hear you can leagally have a sexual relationship with your horse there.

As the GEICO Caveman said, WHAT??:whacky:

 

[rossum]

Sure and God could say it is perfectly fine for you to have sex with your cat.

The problem of Seth’s and Cain’s wives does not admit to an easy solution. Either incest or bestiality, take your pick. Given that the “beasts” in question would have been genetically part of the same population as Adam and Eve, interbreeding would have been perfectly possible and would not have resulted in a genetic bottleneck, for which there is no evidence. If incest was not immoral until God said so later in the Bible, then the same would apply to bestiality.

Are you asking me to accept that God said it was OK for Adam and Eve to have sex with the animals and we can’t?

That is indeed the normal explanation given for incest among Adam’s family - incest was not forbidden until later.

rossum

 

[rossum]

And Jesus says we were created. He talks of two, a male and a female being made.

This is irrelevant. The discussion is about how we were made.

rossum

 

[Contarini]

I’ve already stated this.

The theory of evolution - as it’s actually taught by scientists and not how people here might like to imagine it, is a process of explaining the rise of species by purely naturalistic means.

Of course the theory concerns itself only with natural means (not “naturalistic” which has philosophical connotations). And many, but not all, scientists believe that this does away with the need for God. Others say that the process is so improbable that God would need to guide it. Others say that God is seen precisely in the natural laws He has created. Others believe in God for completely other reasons.

However, that doesn’t explain how evolution contradicts creation. You can believe in both, and many do.

There is NO PLACE FOR GOD in that system.

Yes, there is. Obviously there is never a “place” explicitly set aside for supernatural causation in a scientific theory. There’s no “place for God” in the hydrologic cycle either–does that contradict the Biblical claim that God makes it rain? I think not.

However, I also note that God *might *have used wholly naturalistic means, if He chose. There’d be no evidence for this, one would have to rely on faith.

This makes no sense. There is scientific evidence for a process of evolution of species. Most scientists, including most Christians who are scientifically trained, accept this evidence as convincing. It doesn’t rely on faith. Science gives us insights into how God created us.

If one relies on faith for this, one should note that several Church Fathers (cited earlier) say we were created, and by this they mean supernaturally.

Aquinas talks about God creating everything in an instant and causing creation to develop into different forms over time. The Fathers weren’t discussing the question of scientific vs. directly supernatural causation. That’s an anachronistic question to pose.

And Jesus says we were created. He talks of two, a male and a female being made.

Evolution is opposed to this

No, it’s not. You simply assert that it is.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Sure and God could say it is perfectly fine for you to have sex with your cat.

De potentia ordinata God could certainly do no such thing (i.e., we know that as God has created us this is unnatural and wrong). De potentia absoluta–I don’t know. I am strongly inclined to think that sexual intercourse between a rational and an irrational being is contrary to natural law. But since humans are the only rational species we know of, it is perhaps hasty to generalize on such a basis.

Are you asking me to accept that God said it was OK for Adam and Eve to have sex with the animals and we can’t? .

No, I’m not. However, the traditional, more literal interpretation of Genesis requires you to believe that Adam and Eve’s children had sex with each other. That may very well be what happened–arguably brother/sister incest is not unnatural if there are no other humans in existence. The only way out would be to postulate, as C. S. Lewis hinted, that “Adam and Eve” in fact stand in for a larger group of people all of whom received rational souls at about the same time. (I know that this was ruled out by Pius XII, but of course I am not bound by that decision.) Certainly either way sexual intercourse between the newly rational humans and their humanoid relatives is not a necessary implication. The Genesis account indicates that Eve was a rational being before she had intercourse with Adam (indeed, intercourse isn’t mentioned till after the Fall, which led to a lot of speculation on the part of the Fathers!).

Edwin

 

[Jerry-Jet]

I believe in theistic evolution but I don’t believe that Seth and Cain mated with the animals.

That’s Satanically ridiculous.

Incest would have been OK until God forbid it.

It would have been possible for both evolution and special creation of Adam and Eve to have both been true.

It doesn’t have to be either or.

The Catholic Church teaches that Adam and Eve were the parents of us all.

That must be believed period!

That’s why I lean more to evolution + special creation of Adam and Eve as the first Homo Sapiens.

If the Neanderthals evolved from monkeys that doesn’t bother me because they died out and all of us currently descend from a literal Adam And Eve who were the first Homo Sapiens.

Which also means that the Earth is billions of years old and that dinosaurs did in fact exist.

Why is it that people are incapable of having a brain large enough to believe both?

 

[Contarini]

I believe in theistic evolution but I don’t believe that Seth and Cain mated with the animals.

That’s Satanically ridiculous.

Incest would have been OK until God forbid it.

No, incest is contrary to natural law. It’s wrong even in the absence of a specific revelation from God. However, since the reason lateral (brother-sister) incest is wrong is that marriage needs to form new bonds among human beings and extend human community, this would not apply to the first generation of humans.

Edwin

 

[PhilVaz]

mont << The theory of evolution - as it’s actually taught by scientists and not how people here might like to imagine it, is a process of explaining the rise of species by purely naturalistic means. There is NO PLACE FOR GOD in that system. >>

Two quotes that respond to this:

“The doctrine of creation really says nothing about ‘How’ God creates. It does not provide a basis for a testable theory of the mechanism of change. If it does not address this issue, then it does not contribute anything to a specifically scientific description of the history of life. I believe that all of creation is designed by God and has its being in God, but that does not give me any insights into the processes by which God brought that creation into existence. That is the role of scientific investigation, a vocation in which I find great excitement and fulfillment…It is the continuing success of scientific research to resolve previous questions about the nature and history of the physical universe, and to raise new and more penetrating ones, that drives the work of individual scientists. For the theist this simply affirms that, in creating and preserving the universe, God has endowed it with contingent order and intelligibility, and given us as bearers of the divine image the capability to perceive that order.” (Keith Miller, Perspectives on an Evolving Creation [Eerdmans, 2003], pages 13,14)

“…‘scientific’ Creationism fails to be a science not because of what it says…about a Divine Creator, but because of what it does not say about the natural world. The theory has no infrastructure, no ways of articulating its vague central idea, so that specific features of living forms can receive detailed explanations.” …“Creation ‘science’ is spurious science. To treat it as science we would have to overlook its intolerable vagueness. We would have to abandon large parts of well-established sciences (physics, chemistry, and geology, as well as evolutionary biology, are all candidates for revision). We would have to trade careful technical procedures for blind guesses, unified theories for motley collections of special techniques. Exceptional cases, whose careful pursuit has so often led to important turnings in the history of science, would be dismissed with a wave of the hand. Nor would there be any gains. There is not a single scientific question to which Creationism provides its own detailed problem solution. In short, Creationism could take a place among the sciences only if the substance and methods of contemporary science were mutilated to make room for a scientifically worthless doctrine.” (Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism [MIT Press, 1982], pages 126, 164)

Science studies the natural world through natural causes and natural means. Now having quoted these, you are free to put God anywhere you like: at the Big Bang, at the creation of the soul, or he can intervene whenever he likes: at the first cell, at the Cambrian Explosion, at the first truly human being, etc. I do not see the conflict. God intervening however, is not a testable or measurable idea by the scientific method. The Bible and Catholic dogma does not tell us HOW or WHEN God created, only why and that He created:

– God was moved by His Goodness to create the world. (De Fide)
– The world was created for the Glorification of God. (De Fide)
– The Three Divine Persons are one single, common Principle of the Creation. (De Fide)
– God created the world free from exterior compulsion and inner necessity. (De Fide)
– God has created a good world. (De Fide)
– The world had a beginning in time. (De Fide)
– God alone created the world. (De Fide)
– God keeps all created things in existence. (De Fide)
– God, through His Providence, protects and guides all that He has created. (De Fide)
– The first man was created by God. (De Fide)
– Man consists of two essential parts – a material body and a spiritual soul. (De Fide)
– Every human being possesses an individual soul. (De Fide)
– Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace. (De Fide)
– The donum immortalitatis, i.e. the divine gift of bodily immortality of our first parents. (De Fide)
– Our first parents in paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment. (De Fide)
– Through the original sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God. (De Fide)
– Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil. (De Fide)

Phil P

 

[Montalban]

mont {I assume you mean Montalban}

The theory of evolution - as it’s actually taught by scientists and not how people here might like to imagine it, is a process of explaining the rise of species by purely naturalistic means. There is NO PLACE FOR GOD in that system. >>

Some people claim that God wants us to understand his creation, and has used evolution - which we can see and determine. Unfortunately the very process of evolution doesn’t require God

It’d be like God saying “I want my creation to understand me, the creator by using a system in which there’s no evidence at all that I’ve been at work!”

 

[Montalban]

Certainly it contradicts a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis
talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-god.html

Of course the theory concerns itself only with natural means (not “naturalistic” which has philosophical connotations).

No. It is ‘naturalism’ a philosphy of science that so dominates modern science most people assume that the naturalistic approach is the scientific method. Naturalism is nested in evolutionary theory.
If the question is whether evolution contradicts a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis as an exact historical account, then it does. This is the main, and for the most part only, point of conflict between those who believe in evolution and creationists.
Ibid.

And many, but not all, scientists believe that this does away with the need for God. Others say that the process is so improbable that God would need to guide it. Others say that God is seen precisely in the natural laws He has created. Others believe in God for completely other reasons.

Show me the scientists who say this. What peer review is this in? Does Nature have an article “Scientists are in awe of God”
They accept that you might believe God is at work behind it, but there’d be no evidence of this at all - so God’s working on a system that there’s no evidence for God
There is no reason to believe that God was not a guiding force behind evolution. While it does contradict some specific interpretations of God, especially ones requiring a literal interpretation of Genesis 1, few people have this narrow of a view of God.
(Ibid.)
The problem is God *wants *to be known, so we can love and be loved to by him. He sent us evidence, through the miracles we’ve witnessed, the testimony of the Church Fathers, prophets, etc.

However, that doesn’t explain how evolution contradicts creation. You can believe in both, and many do.

I agree that many do. They are not compatible. Some modify evolutionary theory to have a “God of the gaps” belief, but evolution has no place for God. Others believe that God simply started the ball rolling. This of course is possible, but there’d be no actual part for God as evolution unfolded.

Yes, there is. Obviously there is never a “place” explicitly set aside for supernatural causation in a scientific theory. There’s no “place for God” in the hydrologic cycle either–does that contradict the Biblical claim that God makes it rain? I think not.

I’ve already dealt wtih this. There’s no conflict because the Bible makes no claim about the hydrologic cycle.

This makes no sense. There is scientific evidence for a process of evolution of species.

No! There’s no evidence God used this system

Most scientists, including most Christians who are scientifically trained, accept this evidence as convincing. It doesn’t rely on faith. Science gives us insights into how God created us.

Now, this makes no sense! He does this by showing a system that is without God! God wants us to know him by ascribing a system that has nothing to do with him ! That’s crazy-talk!

Aquinas talks about God creating everything in an instant and causing creation to develop into different forms over time. The Fathers weren’t discussing the question of scientific vs. directly supernatural causation. That’s an anachronistic question to pose.

What’s this to do with the Fathers supposing that God used a wholly naturalistic method?

No, it’s not. You simply assert that it is.

Edwin

No.Your accusing me of a just-so, by making one yourself. I evidenced what Jesus said. Evolution does not say man arose like this at all.

 

[PhilVaz]

mont << Unfortunately the very process of evolution doesn’t require God >>

The scientific process of biological evolution (descent with modification by natural selection) might not REQUIRE God, but it does not metaphysically or philosophically EXCLUDE God since science studies the natural world and doesn’t deal in philosophy or metaphysics (except that imposed or brought in by the scientist).

The Pope and myself agree:

“We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments.” (In The Beginning commentary on Genesis by Cardinal Ratzinger)

The Catechism and myself agree:

1. Faith and science: “…methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.” [Vatican II GS 36:1]
2. The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin…

Purposes and meaning (the “why” and “Who” questions) “goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences.”

BTW I never got back to your Sarfati article on whale evolution. I would suggest a reading of the original articles that Sarfati is referring to in Science and Nature by J.G.M. Thewissen, Phil Gingerich, and others who have summarized their work accurately.

Phil P