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

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Monkey1976 said:
It’s scary because it’s something that flies in the face of reason. Even St. Augustine - way back in the early 5th century - saw a completely literal reading of Genesis as something that could keep people from converting to the Faith, because even the science of that day argued against it. He expressed this using fairly strong language: When a Doctor of the Church calls something idiotic, it ought to make one refrain from proclaiming it as truth. Holy Scripture records the history of Salvation, not the universe.
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Science is claiming that everything has come from nothing. What would St Augustine say about that?
 
buffalo said:
Science is claiming that everything has come from nothing. What would St Augustine say about that?
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St. Augustine would probably say “You’re confusing what some scientists claim with what science claims.”
 
buffalo said:
Science is claiming that everything has come from nothing. What would St Augustine say about that?
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That nothing in the dogma of ex nihilo creation opposes it. But that has nothing to do with evolution.
 
buffalo said:
Science is claiming that everything has come from nothing. What would St Augustine say about that?
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Science is saying that everything has come from nothing and it seems like no one wants to point out the glaringly obvious similarities between that and Christian doctrine on the subject.
 
buffalo said:
St Augustine would call God “nothing”?
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Where exactly does science presume to speak on the subject of God? Not scientists, but science.

God - being the Creator, Sustainer, Unmoved Mover, and Uncaused Cause - is outside of this Universe’s laws, and therefore not a subject of scientific inquiry. Science is the study of creation. That such study can reveal certain things about God in an indirect way - such as His apparent fondness for beetles 😃 - seems to be lost on those who want to force God into an image closer to Zeus or Enki - a magician rather than the transcendent God.
 
Evolution in the general sense of development may not be inconsistent with the notion of creation,but the theory of evolution isn’t consistent with the doctrine of creation. The theory is a naturalistic and mechanistic explanation of the origins of species. It portrays species as coming into existence by natural causes alone. It is not just about descent with modification. The theory does not acknowledge that species have particular beginnings,but instead the origination of species is portrayed as a gradual developmental process. This view disallows for God to have created anything in particular. It does not even make logical sense from a natural point of view,because species exist as individual creatures that come into existence immediately. Evolutionists say that individuals don’t evolve,populations evolve. But populations exist as individuals,so they must come into existence as individuals also.

As for the Catholic doctrine of creation,it does not just say that all things were created by God and that he loves what he has created,it also says that God created all things by himself,that he is the cause behind all secondary causes,that nature is utterly dependent upon him,that creation is not the result of chance or necessity,and that God’s providence in nature is immediate and concrete. And the traditional understanding of God’s creative action is that he creates things immediately. We know that human beings come into existence at the moment of conception. All other living creatures come into existence immediately also. The theory of evolution is not consistent with these truths. Since it takes a naturalistic,mechanistic view,its interpretation of natural causation is flawed. It attributes creative powers to natural causes that they cannot possibly have. When knowledge of God’s power in nature is ignored and everything is explained according to natural causes alone,then natural things are sometimes attributed with abilities that are beyond them.
 
buffalo said:
St Augustine would call God “nothing”?
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Many mystics would. God is not a thing. If He’s not a thing He is no-thing. The Cloud of Unknowing said that God is nowhere. Neither mean that He doesn’t exist, just that He transcends any catagory we try to put Him in.
 
franklinstower said:
Science is saying that everything has come from nothing and it seems like no one wants to point out the glaringly obvious similarities between that and Christian doctrine on the subject.
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The scientific explanation attributes the origin of the universe to natural mechanisms. That makes a huge difference from the doctrine that God created the universe ex nihilo. We can’t just put a Christian spin on a naturalistic,mechanistic explanation of origins. The different views of causation do not fit. And it doesn’t make sense to say that nothing produces matter anyway. Nothing does not have any power to produce anything.
 
anthony022071 said:
Evolution in the general sense of development may not be inconsistent with the notion of creation,but the theory of evolution isn’t consistent with the doctrine of creation. The theory is a naturalistic and mechanistic explanation of the origins of species. It portrays species as coming into existence by natural causes alone. It is not just about descent with modification. The theory does not acknowledge that species have particular beginnings,but instead the origination of species is portrayed as a gradual developmental process. This view disallows for God to have created anything in particular. It does not even make logical sense from a natural point of view,because species exist as individual creatures that come into existence immediately. Evolutionists say that individuals don’t evolve,populations evolve. But populations exist as individuals,so they must come into existence as individuals also.

As for the Catholic doctrine of creation,it does not just say that all things were created by God and that he loves what he has created,it also says that God created all things by himself,that he is the cause behind all secondary causes,that nature is utterly dependent upon him,that creation is not the result of chance or necessity,and that God’s providence in nature is immediate and concrete. And the traditional understanding of God’s creative action is that he creates things immediately. We know that human beings come into existence at the moment of conception. All other living creatures come into existence immediately also. The theory of evolution is not consistent with these truths. Since it takes a naturalistic,mechanistic view,its interpretation of natural causation is flawed. It attributes creative powers to natural causes that they cannot possibly have. When knowledge of God’s power in nature is ignored and everything is explained according to natural causes alone,then natural things are sometimes attributed with abilities that are beyond them.
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The theory of evolution is consistent with Catholic teaching:
From the Church document Communion and Stewardship (emphases added):
  1. The current scientific debate about the mechanisms at work in evolution requires theological comment insofar as it sometimes implies a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that, if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, ***according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. ***According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. ***Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist ***because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).
Cardinal John Henry Newman (recently beatified by the Church), said in 1868 (3 years after Darwin’s publication):

As to the Divine Design, is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. **Mr. Darwin’s theory need not then to be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill. **Perhaps your friend has got a surer clue to guide him than I have, who have never studied the question, and I do not [see] that ‘the accidental evolution of organic beings’ is inconsistent with divine design—It is accidental to us, not to God.
 
anthony022071 said:
The scientific explanation attributes the origin of the universe to natural mechanisms. That makes a huge difference from the doctrine that God created the universe ex nihilo. We can’t just put a Christian spin on a naturalistic,mechanistic explanation of origins. The different views of causation do not fit. And it doesn’t make sense to say that nothing produces matter anyway. Nothing does not have any power to produce anything.
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My belief is that TOE cannot logically mesh with random modification through descent macro-evolutionary theory.
Just a question for evolutionists: Conceding the infinitesimal possibility of a pool of paramecia floating around, explain Steps Two to Ten. Forget about the billions of other steps. Would someone come forward and explin them in detail? And have those first simple steps been reproduced in the lab? 🙂
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Accepting the science of evolution doesn’t negate the Bible.

Science makes the Bible more believable when understood correctly.

Jim
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The science of ants and plants does not negate Genesis 1: 26-27.

The science of human evolution, currently based on the cladistics system, directly negates the origin of humankind from two first sole true genuinely human parents biblically known as Adam and Eve as described in the first three chapters of Genesis.
 
Al_Moritz said:
The theory of evolution is consistent with Catholic teaching:
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I repeat.

The science of ants and plants does not negate Genesis 1: 26-27.

The science of human evolution, currently based on the cladistics system, directly negates the origin of humankind from two first sole true genuinely human parents biblically known as Adam and Eve as described in the first three chapters of Genesis.
 
RACJ said:
My belief is that TOE cannot logically mesh with random modification through descent macro-evolutionary theory.
Just a question for evolutionists: Conceding the infinitesimal possibility of a pool of paramecia floating around, explain Steps Two to Ten. Forget about the billions of other steps. Would someone come forward and explin them in detail? And have those first simple steps been reproduced in the lab? 🙂
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Something that took millions of years to occur in world teaming with life is going to take billions of years to happen in a limited lab setting. That is a totally unreasonable thing to expect to be able to duplicate in the lab.
 
grannymh said:
I repeat.

The science of ants and plants does not negate Genesis 1: 26-27.

The science of human evolution, currently based on the cladistics system, directly negates the origin of humankind from two first sole true genuinely human parents biblically known as Adam and Eve as described in the first three chapters of Genesis.
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Well, as the title of this thread indicates, the Pope disagrees with you.
 
grannymh said:
I repeat.

The science of ants and plants does not negate Genesis 1: 26-27.

The science of human evolution, currently based on the cladistics system, directly negates the origin of humankind from two first sole true genuinely human parents biblically known as Adam and Eve as described in the first three chapters of Genesis.
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You are confusing genetic polygenism and theological monogenism. The two can co-exist. Feser shows how this is possible, see:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8931157&postcount=1327

As Kephart has pointed out, similar ideas are not new:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=12454303&postcount=385
 
RACJ said:
My belief is that TOE cannot logically mesh with random modification through descent macro-evolutionary theory.
Just a question for evolutionists: Conceding the infinitesimal possibility of a pool of paramecia floating around, explain Steps Two to Ten. Forget about the billions of other steps. Would someone come forward and explin them in detail? And have those first simple steps been reproduced in the lab? 🙂
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How would you explain why there are blind animals living in caves? Were they put in there blind? Or why whales have a vestigial leg bone. Or why there are extinct animals in the fossil record like giant sloths (not to mention dinosaurs). Do you have an alternative theory that explains as much observable natural phenomena as evolutionary theory does?
 
anthony022071 said:
The scientific explanation attributes the origin of the universe to natural mechanisms. That makes a huge difference from the doctrine that God created the universe ex nihilo. We can’t just put a Christian spin on a naturalistic,mechanistic explanation of origins. The different views of causation do not fit. And it doesn’t make sense to say that nothing produces matter anyway. Nothing does not have any power to produce anything.
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I am aware of the naturalist spin put on the idea that the universe comes from nothing but that does not in any way take from the striking similarities-- in this case it just leaves God out of the reach of present scientific investigation. I am aware of the dangers of attaching any religious spin to scientific theory-- especially doing so publicly because any theory that we attach Christianity to that turns out to be false only further discredits Christianity in the mind of the public. However faith and reason go together and scientific information that is available begs to be considered in the light of our Christian faith and I think that it needs to be done-- very freely in private conversations and in our own minds but without drawing concrete conclusions, and very carefully and conservatively in public.

I actually don’t hang my hat on any scientific theory in any concrete ways in regards to seeing how God is working in creation simply because I think there are going to be discoveries that radically alter the way in which we think understand and view ourselves, and the universe-- whole vistas of insight and discovery that will cast new light on everything. However not drawing concrete conclusions only frees ones imagination to consider all of the wonderful possibilities in relation to our understanding of creation and Gods interaction with it.
 
Al_Moritz said:
The theory of evolution is consistent with Catholic teaching:
From the Church document Communion and Stewardship (emphases added):
  1. The current scientific debate about the mechanisms at work in evolution requires theological comment insofar as it sometimes implies a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that, if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves
    scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, ***according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. ***According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. ***Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist ***because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).
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I’ve read that document. Paragraph 69 doesn’t show that the theory is consistent with the doctrine of creation. It shows that natural contingency can be guided by divine providence. Paragraph 64 says that theories of evolution which are materialist,reductionist or neo-Darwinian are not compatible with the Catholic faith. That would exclude the scientific theory of evolution as it is commonly known and taught.
Cardinal John Henry Newman (recently beatified by the Church), said in 1868 (3 years after Darwin’s publication):

As to the Divine Design, is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. **Mr. Darwin’s theory need not then to be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill. **Perhaps your friend has got a surer clue to guide him than I have, who have never studied the question, and I do not [see] that ‘the accidental evolution of organic beings’ is inconsistent with divine design—It is accidental to us, not to God.

The problem with evolution theory is not just the idea that species originated through accidents. The theory is a naturalistic,mechanistic explanation of the origins of species and makes illogical causal connections,giving creative powers to natural causes that are impossible. Even if we reconcile the idea of accidental processes with divine providence,we still cannot reconcile naturalism and determinism and false interpretations of natural causation with the doctrine of creation. And it goes against reason to believe that species came into existence gradually because living creatures only come into existence immediately.
 
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