316 << PhilVaz you are so quick to be a spokesperson against the Bible. I wonder – whose team are you on, God or satan’s? What if when you get to Heaven and the Judgment Seat of Christ, He is upset with you for defending a lie from the pit of Hell? Have you ever wondered if there might be some sort of judgment for that, a longer stay in Purgatory perhaps? >>
You dare challenge me???
Not by the hair on your chinny, chin chin??? Well then I will Huff, and I will Puff, and I will blow your house in!!! And may this be the very LAST creation-evolution thread I participate herein…
I am on God’s Team of Theistic Evolutionists, while Satan and his demons are young-earth creationists and want you to join them and be one too. Please don’t go to hell. Purgatory is kind of a combination of theistic evolutionists, creationists, and maybe a few atheists like Alec.
316 << Phil, paragraph 159 that you mentioned from the Catechism states that “there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason,” and that “God cannot deny Himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.” Thus the Truth God reveals in the Bible cannot contradict what we find in the Universe. The Bible says, “In the Beginning GOD.” Evolutionists say, “in the beginning, DIRT.” >>
Creationists say In the Beginning God. Evolutionists say In the Beginning Particles-Dirt.
HOWEVER, THEISTIC EVOLUTIONISTS say, In the Beginning God-Particles-Dirt. In that order.
And the
International Theological Commission statement of Cardinal Ratzinger and paragraphs 283-284 of the
Catechism agree with that. Actually, the Bible says for the creation of man, in the beginning DUST, so evolution got it right. We are from the earth. Who made us? God made us. Evolution made us. Both are true.
“Now, more reflective spirits have long been aware that there is no either-or here. 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… by Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI)
316 << God says that He created the Heavens and Earth in seven days. >>
Not so. God says he created the heavens and earth in 6 days. He rested on the seventh day. And because that rest is still continuing (see Hebrews 4) that tells us the days are not literal.
316 << These must be literal days and not long periods of time because He created the sun a day after He created plants. Think about it… I know, Phil, that He did things like that just to humble the proud and foolish people that believe in evolution, or the people that want to believe both the Bible and evolution. It is reason that says this beautiful Universe must have a Creator. And, Phil, faith tells us the same. >>
This beautiful and sometimes not-so-beautiful universe does have a Creator. And all the scientific evidence the Creator left for us to discover on this planet tells us the Creator created and designed by evolution.
The days are not literal for any number of reasons: the Hebrew allows it, the context allows it (sun which determines a “day” was not created until the fourth day, while the seventh day is one of “rest” and God is still resting, see Hebrews 4), and science (geology) demands it. Scientists have known the earth is 4.5 - 4.6 billion years old since the 1950s, and geologists have known the earth is very old well before Darwin.
The history of this is all documented on my site.
See John Paul II on Genesis in
Cosmology and Fundamental Physics (10/3/1981). In short, according to John Paul II: (1) the Bible is not a scientific treatise; (2) the main point of Genesis 1 is that God is our Creator; (3) the Scripture uses the cosmology in use at the time of the writer (not a modern cosmology); (4) the Bible wishes to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens were made; (5) any other teaching about the origin and nature of the universe is alien to the intentions of the original biblical authors.
NEXT: Eye Evolution…
Phil P