Pope Francis: ‘Evolution … is not inconsistent with the notion of creation’

[LeafByNiggle]

I learned in grammar school that the Bible is not a science book…but certain things are clear…God’s creation of man is given a lot of attention. Very definite on it being separate and not an evolution from an animal.

Yes, God’s creation of man is given a lot of attention.
Yes, the Bible is very definite on it being something very special.
But here we come to your personal interpretation. You apparently feel that having our bodies evolve from lower animals is inconsistent with the very high importance that God and the Bible place on the creation of man. On this point I must disagree.

Something very similar went on during the transition from the sun revolving around the earth to the earth revolving around the sun. The thinking at the time was just as you said. The Bible gives a lot of attention to the creation of the earth. By contrast the creation of the sun is just one of the many things God made to enhance our life on earth. Therefore the earth is supremely more important than the sun. So of course God would make the sun revolve around the earth to give glory to this very important creation.

 

[10gr8kids]

Only humans have an eternal soul made in the image of God.

Yes, but that is not what was said, this is

Many creatures have bodies, only man has a soul.

iWhen theories are being discussed at least the facts should be clear. Just a thought.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Yes, but that is not what was said, this is

iWhen theories are being discussed at least the facts should be clear. Just a thought.

This is really for another thread…

 

[NeedsMercy]

I learned in grammar school that the Bible is not a science book…but certain things are clear…God’s creation of man is given a lot of attention. Very definite on it being separate and not an evolution from an animal.

What might take you a lifetime to ponder, may take the Creator an instant. You don’t know what God’s attention span is or how complex His attention to detail is. You just can’t use that as an argument against evolution.

 

[Faxero]

Are we still having this argument?

Well, I suppose this is a US forum…

People, just because the Evangelicals down the street believe it to be true doesn’t mean we have to. Literalist creationism is largely the work of fundamentalists and fideists, not Catholics. Drop it. It contributes nothing to the faith.

Evolution doesn’t necessarily, either. But it’s at least scientifically tenable. It has evidence to back it up.

But you don’t have to hold to either of them. It doesn’t matter. Just as long as we both agree God made the heavens and the earth, and the human soul, I think we can get along just fine without the fine points.

I agree with you 100%. The Catholic Church allows for us to believe that God created the Universe via blasting it into existence. (Big bang) The theory of evolution is also morally acceptable to believe in, provided that we still acknowledge our special connection with God and our perpetual domination over all other animals.

We don’t need to take Genesis literally. As long as the main messages are clear, then everything is fine. Genesis asserts our special existence, not *how *we were made, but *who *we were made as.

Atheists commonly believe that Creationism is innately against evolution, but this isn’t the case. We don’t oppose evolution, we oppose the idea that we came from apes.

 

[RGCheek]

True. But Francis said God was not able to just do anything…???
God was “omnipotent”, remember? SO while I DO believe in evolution, I am VERY disturbed at this pope’s statement…

Some things that cannot be done are that way not due to any amount of power required but because they are logically self-contradictory or false by definition, like 4 sided triangles, etc.

No matter how powerful God or anyone else is, no one can, for example, draw a flat 2 dimensional map with regions that cannot be colored by using only 4 colors so that none of the same colors border each other. There is no such map.

God is omnipotent and omniscient, and so He would know He couldn’t do it, if that helps.

 

[RGCheek]

I agree with you 100%. The Catholic Church allows for us to believe that God created the Universe via blasting it into existence. (Big bang) The theory of evolution is also morally acceptable to believe in, provided that we still acknowledge our special connection with God and our perpetual domination over all other animals.

We don’t need to take Genesis literally. As long as the main messages are clear, then everything is fine. Genesis asserts our special existence, not *how *we were made, but *who *we were made as.

Atheists commonly believe that Creationism is innately against evolution, but this isn’t the case. We don’t oppose evolution, we oppose the idea that we came from apes.

I believe that human beings are classified as apes.

Genesis tells us moral truths about the beginning and some science truths also that we can accept by faith, no? or not, but biological evolution does not contradict that notion that God created the universe at all.

 

[Faxero]

I believe that human beings are classified as apes.

Interesting point of view.

If we are made in God’s image and likeness, and we evolved from apes, then apes too would be in God’s image and likeness.

The problem is… our DNA is more similar to pigs, and pigs are smarter than apes.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Would not the miracle of creation be all the more magnificent if God not only created our complexities but also a process from which such complexities evolved?

Seems like that’s pretty impressive to me.

Indeed.

See also the comments by Catholic physicist Stephen Barr in his article The Miracle of Evolution:

“If biology remains only biology, it is not to be feared. Much of the fear that does exist is rooted in the notion that God is in competition with nature, so that the more we attribute to one the less we can attribute to the other. That is false. The greater the powers and potentialities in nature, the more magnificent must be nature’s far-sighted Author, that God whose “ways are unsearchable” and who “reaches from end to end ordering all things mightily.” Richard Dawkins famously called the universe “a blind watchmaker.” If it is, it is miracle enough for anyone; for it is incomparably greater to design a watchmaker than a watch. We need not pit evolution against design, if we recognize that evolution is part of God’s design.”

 

[Al_Moritz]

Are we still having this argument?

Well, I suppose this is a US forum…

People, just because the Evangelicals down the street believe it to be true doesn’t mean we have to. Literalist creationism is largely the work of fundamentalists and fideists, not Catholics. Drop it. It contributes nothing to the faith.

Evolution doesn’t necessarily, either. But it’s at least scientifically tenable. It has evidence to back it up.

Evolution, the physcial evolution of the universe, as well as chemical (origin of life) and biological evolution, very much contributes to my faith because it increases the awe and wonder of God’s universe for me (see also my post above).

This awe and wonder has also prompted me to write an overview article on the origin of life by natural causes for the evolution website Talkorigins.org.

 

[CarmelJerome]

I vehemently disagree with Pope Francis on this. We have enough blood vessels in our bodies to circle the globe three times! These marvelous machines we all occupy did not “evolve” cell by cell. Our brains contain a million billion synapses, all of which which fire an incomprehensible TEN million billion times every second. There is no step-by-step sequence which could have produced this. Call me disappointed with this pronouncement. Rob

Francis does not endorse the notion of evolution by chance or accident in the statement.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Francis does not endorse the notion of evolution by chance or accident in the statement.

In fact, evolution is not a chance process on the purely scientific level either (philosophy and theology aside). Yes, it originiates from random mutations (not just point mutations but also, for example, gene duplications that can serve as substrate for increase of complexity), but cumulative natural selection based on those random mutations is anything but a chance process.

 

[CarmelJerome]

Indeed.

See also the comments by Catholic physicist Stephen Barr in his article The Miracle of Evolution:

“If biology remains only biology, it is not to be feared. Much of the fear that does exist is rooted in the notion that God is in competition with nature, so that the more we attribute to one the less we can attribute to the other. That is false. The greater the powers and potentialities in nature, the more magnificent must be nature’s far-sighted Author, that God whose “ways are unsearchable” and who “reaches from end to end ordering all things mightily.” Richard Dawkins famously called the universe “a blind watchmaker.” If it is, it is miracle enough for anyone; for it is incomparably greater to design a watchmaker than a watch. We need not pit evolution against design, if we recognize that evolution is part of God’s design.”

There must be an uncountable multitude of implicit forms within material/ energy states which lead to their actualization; it wouldn’t be evident what those forms were or are at the beginning but there would be some finality of form that would stabilize species. ‘Development’ , a less freighted word, underscores the necessity for the order through which living beings are derived.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Are we still having this argument?

Well, I suppose this is a US forum…

People, just because the Evangelicals down the street believe it to be true doesn’t mean we have to. Literalist creationism is largely the work of fundamentalists and fideists, not Catholics. Drop it. It contributes nothing to the faith.

Indeed, many Catholics in the US are far too ‘protestantized’.

 

[friardchips]

Evolution, the physcial evolution of the universe, as well as chemical (origin of life) and biological evolution, very much contributes to my faith because it increases the awe and wonder of God’s universe for me (see also my post above).

This awe and wonder has also prompted me to write an overview article on the origin of life by natural causes for the evolution website Talkorigins.org.

I like this post. I agree. In the immensity of His design - length, breadth…one can become awestruck. Another aspect to the fear and love of God. And I believe also that the physical evolution really is awesome.

To quote (can’t remember the source for now - someone holy) said: if science disagrees with anything in the Bible, it is not science that needs to change, and neither is it the Bible, but it is the interpretation of the Bible that needs to be updated.

Nothing science presents will ever argue with the Bible if / when we understand the Bible in its full and true light, and read it in the correct way it was intended to be read; furthermore, absolute perfect knowledge of Truth in Scripture in one’s own life is impossible.

 

[agnes_therese]

Nothing the slightest bit controversial about 4 pages of argument with no end in sight?

Well, that’s members arguing about their personal opinions. Doesn’t mean what the Pope said is controversial, it’s not. At least, not to anyone with the slightest grounding in science.

 

[moondawg]

Only humans have an eternal soul made in the image of God.

When you are unconscious or under anesthesia or in a coma, what is the status of your soul?

 

[clem456]

When you are unconscious or under anesthesia or in a coma, what is the status of your soul?

You are not able to answer that question?

 

[Rin]

Interesting point of view.

If we are made in God’s image and likeness, and we evolved from apes, then apes too would be in God’s image and likeness.

The problem is… our DNA is more similar to pigs, and pigs are smarter than apes.

Other hominidae do not have a rational soul; this is what constitutes being made in God’s image and likeness. Not our DNA, nor which family we belong to biologically. It is a matter of metaphysics, not biology.

Similarly, the “infusion” of the rational soul may have corresponded with our biological evolution, since the soul, “that which animates”, cannot come into being separately from our bodies (pre-existence is not Catholic teaching, except in the case of Logos). The soul is not material, but it is closely “connected” to the material. Catholic teaching clearly says that we were given our souls as a result of God’s active will, however there is no reason why our evolution, while seemingly random on a naturalistic level, cannot have been actively willed. Consequently, there is no reason why our souls cannot have come into existence at the point of evolution where we attained rational thought.

The above may seem like validation of so-called Intelligent Design, but there is a major difference; the ID crowd believe such direction to be demonstrable scientifically, something for which they have zero proof. Whether or not our evolution was directed, whether or not we have a rational soul, whether or not this soul was given to us through God’s active will, and whether or not there even exists something such as a soul, are metaphysical considerations, and can be neither confirmed nor disconfirmed by natural science. This is where the ID ideologists step horribly wrong. It is also where many atheists step horribly wrong - it is the same error of thought.

Lastly: This should not even be controversial. Creationism and ID are not Catholic ideas - they stem from Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Sadly, these ideas have seemingly infected the American part of the Church. I have problems comprehending how this could have happened, since both ideas run contrary to the classic, Christian teaching about God. To borrow from someone I saw in a similar thread, they make God into a Minecraft player, rather than the Creator and Sustainer of the universe.

 

[Seamus_L]

I have a real problem with the words "God is not a divine being or a magician (or wizard). Never heard of people concluding that creation sounded like magic or wizardry.