Reconciling Humani Generis with the human genetic data showing that there never were just two first parents

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Cool. 🙂 I still think you’re making this much, much more difficult than it needs to be. Again I do not advocate “bomb shelter theology” that is completely and absolutely unfalsifiable but if we’re all genetically related to each other, which we are, and were a long time ago, then the doctrine of original sin holds. Reconciling the scientific data with the particular opinion and intention of Pope Pius XII is its own project. And to be fair, if that’s the strict approach, we should only be using the scientific data available in 1950, not 2020. I think there is a confusion here between dogma and the “mind of the church” or the theological teaching, or between de fide revelation and sententia theologice certa.
 
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Proposing fiction results in more fiction. Taking the wrong path means the odds of getting back on the right one decrease very quickly. Evolution is all about storytelling, as opposed to explanations that can be tested in the real world. This means anything can be re-explained to suit the idea. The way real world science works is to realize that the level of complexity required cannot be demonstrated to be true. Like a leaking ship, attempts are made to patch it but new holes in the theory continue to appear.
 
gama232 said:
Proposing fiction results in more fiction. Taking the wrong path means the odds of getting back on the right one decrease very quickly. Evolution is all about storytelling, as opposed to explanations that can be tested in the real world. This means anything can be re-explained to suit the idea. The way real world science works is to realize that the level of complexity required cannot be demonstrated to be true. Like a leaking ship, attempts are made to patch it but new holes in the theory continue to appear.
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No to all of the above. DNA is a source for real world data from which we can understand the past. Read this book, and then come back and explain what you think. He discusses how the mutations needed came together to make us.

 
There is no way to prove any of that. Discrediting the Bible writers ignores the Catechism: “God is the author of Scripture.” Catholics either accept that or they don’t. Yes, the Church tells us the Bible was written for those less educated but Jesus, who is God, could have provided an explanation of some sort of a lengthy process told in simple terms. He did not. He did make reference to times past but those references are ignored or re-explained to suit an idea. Jesus certainly had the knowledge we have today. The correct version.

What about these fossils? What about fossil trees that pass through many layers, or strata? This is ignored as well. And what about extinction events? Those can ignored? Today, you can buy a tree that has gone missing for millions of years or catch a fish that looks just like its fossil ‘ancestor.’

I encourage all reading to realize that this story has more than enough arguments against it.
 
This site, Catholic Answers, does not allow for anything but what Pope Pius XII wrote and nothing more. If Pope Pius wrote to defend the spiritual only then there would be nothing to write about. He wrote about error and he asks for evidence for and against evolution - ignore that and you ignore the whole point of this.

To insist otherwise involves promoting an idea, nothing more.

Let’s go to 2002 and thec document Communion and Stewardship. What did it do with Humani Generis? Correct it?

“In continuity with previous twentieth century papal teaching on evolution (especially Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis ) …”

It included it and made a direct link to it.
 
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gama232 said:
What about these fossils? What about fossil trees that pass through many layers, or strata? This is ignored as well. And what about extinction events? Those can ignored? Today, you can buy a tree that has gone missing for millions of years or catch a fish that looks just like its fossil ‘ancestor.’
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None of these things have been ignored. Re fossil trees: Polystrate fossil - Wikipedia

Re extinction events: these mass extinction events are due to rapid climate change that can be brought on by some large catastrophe like the asteroid that impacted the Yucatan or the Siberian Traps.

Re living fossils: they were fit enough to survive cataclysms.

This is not difficult.
 
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A modern interpretation of some information to fit a preexisting mold. In this way, only one explanation can be used. Nothing else can be considered. This is doing science while looking down a narrow tunnel. As Pope Francis recently said, the Church is not afraid of the truth. As Pope John Paul II wrote, man cannot be explained in purely scientific terms (in reference to the ‘ontological leap’). So, some are constrained to look in only one direction, but the Church is not.
 
gama232 said:
As Pope Francis recently said, the Church is not afraid of the truth.
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Then why are you afraid to read the book? Or to consider any explanation that is not found in a Church document. You are the one who keeps seeking to confirm your bias and narrow view of the world.
 
Neithan said:
I think there is a confusion here between dogma and the “mind of the church” or the theological teaching, or between de fide revelation and sententia theologice certa .
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That confusion certainly exists for some participants, and some discussion could be helpful I am sure. For instance, does a de fide or certa teaching bind us to scientific or historical facts? This is where Pius XII saw the difficulty, and what John Paul II opposed when he contrasted physical continuity with metaphysical discontinuity.
 
gama232 said:
Today, you can buy a tree that has gone missing for millions of years…
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How can you use this as an argument when you don’t believe anything has been around for more than a few thousand years?

It’s truly hard for me to understand how you can quote people, link to papers and articles and make claims yourself which are directly opposed to what you believe.

It’s like saying that there are problems with orbital mechanics when you think the world is flat…there’s no logic to your position.
 
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I don’t think the world is flat. I do think the world is younger than advertised. All of the dating methods are suspect. You can choose to ignore extinction events as well. As if everything went in a straight line from the beginning.
 
Then why did it survive after supposedly millions of years? There are reports of climate change as well.
 
gama232 said:
You can choose to ignore extinction events as well.
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Did you even read my comment on this that I made above? Or did you skip over it because you know I know what I am talking about?

I am told that you are not a Poe, but man, it sure seems like it sometime…
Allyson said:
None of these things have been ignored. Re fossil trees: Polystrate fossil - Wikipedia

Re extinction events: these mass extinction events are due to rapid climate change that can be brought on by some large catastrophe like the asteroid that impacted the Yucatan or the Siberian Traps.

Re living fossils: they were fit enough to survive cataclysms.
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This type of reply goes like this: They survived because they survived. Those that didn’t survive didn’t survive.

Throughout these sorts of ‘explanations’ of evolution, anything is possible. Any twist or turn can be explained away. This led to this and then to that. But are those actual explanations or just stories? It appears that the only creative aspect of evolution is the storytelling aspect which is around because it is hidden by supposedly millions of years of development. I understand why people are skeptical of just so stories.
 
gama232 said:
This type of reply goes like this: They survived because they survived. Those that didn’t survive didn’t survive.
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Actually, those member of the living species and us are all the descendents of the survivors of those cataclysms. Part of it is luck, and part of it is adaptability. They did not need to adapt as much as our ancestors or there were not niches to be filled. It is a most fascinating story when you think about it.

What killed your curiosity?
 
Why start with more assumptions? I am constantly researching things. You don’t know anything about me. Is that how you deal with other people? Just start making assumptions?
 
There must be some contact with historical facts, such as the the dogma of the Resurrection for one: a historical and miraculous claim.

As for scientific facts: something that can be tested now, monogenism, or common descent from a single human, would be one of those claims. A sententia certa teaching, even though clearly decided for by the magisterium, is fallible doctrine. So if we somehow had discovered that there was no anatomically modern common ancestor of all living human beings then we could dispense with monogenism. I don’t know if a certain theological teaching has ever been “reneged” so to speak; but there must be a reason why the church maintains that bright line between fallible doctrine and infallible dogma.

It is dogma that every human being has inherited original sin as a privation of grace by natural descent. If we had somehow discovered that separate anatomically modern human populations were specially created at different times and places on earth, with no natural descent and disconnected from each other, for example if we discovered that the Aztecs or Incas had appeared suddenly 1000 years after Christ, this would cause a serious problem for Christianity. Evolution, the theory that all life descends from common origins in the distant past, makes that problem moot and the dogma of natural descent solidly supported by science.
 
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