M
Marocchino
Guest
You wondered if I would call you a heretic, thereby contradicting what I said before – that only the proper authorities can declare someone a heretic
. Or am I just being paranoid?
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. Or am I just being paranoid?
O
Orogeny
Guest
Well, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that no one is out to get you!You wondered if I would call you a heretic, thereby contradicting what I said before – that only the proper authorities can declare someone a heretic
Peace
Tim
M
Marocchino
Guest
Hey Tim,
Here is an answer to the question you ask so many members on this forum who question the last two popes’ apparent acceptance of evolution despite its unresolved conflict with certain articles of the faith – eg, original sin, monogenism, historicity of Adam and Eve.
Pope Adrian VI:
Here is an answer to the question you ask so many members on this forum who question the last two popes’ apparent acceptance of evolution despite its unresolved conflict with certain articles of the faith – eg, original sin, monogenism, historicity of Adam and Eve.
Pope Adrian VI:
So when you ask people who are critical of the popes’ apparent acceptance of evolution “Is the pope a heretic?”, judging from the above an answer in the affirmative is quite possible. Or do you think that Pope Adrian was a heretic?
F
firstmode
Guest
What did early Christians believe about…?
(Before 300 AD)
Uninspired records of how early Christians worshipped and what doctrine they believed!
170-215 AD Mark Felix “Some men deny the existence of any Divine power. Others inquire daily as to whether or not one exists. Still others would construct the whole fabric of the universe by chance accidents and by random collision, fashioning it by the movement of atoms of different shapes.” (M. Felix Octavius chap. 30 [Notice the term “atom” isn’t a twentieth century invention, but a term coined by Greek philosophers.])
181 AD Theophilus of Antioch “On the fourth day the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, he understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on earth come from the stars, so that they might set God aside. In order therefore that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into existence before the stars. For what comes into existence later cannot cause what is prior to it” (To Autolycus 2:15).
181 AD Theophilus of Antioch “All the years from the creation of the world [to Theophilus’s day] amount to a total of 5,698 years and the odd months and days. . . . *f even a chronological error has been committed by us, for example, of 50 or 100 or even 200 years, yet [there have] not [been] the thousands and tens of thousands, as Plato and Apollonius and other mendacious authors have hitherto written. And perhaps our knowledge of the whole number of the years is not quite accurate, because the odd months and days are not set down in the sacred books” (To Autolycus, 3:28-29).
234 AD Origen “The text said that there was evening and there was morning'; it did not say the first day,’ but said `one day.’ It is because there was not yet time before the world existed. But time begins to exist with the following days” (Homilies on Genesis).
234 AD Origen “And since he [the pagan Celsus] makes the statements about the days of creation' ground of accusation--as if he understood them clearly and correctly, some of which elapsed before the creation of light and heaven, the sun and moon and stars, and some of them after the creation of these we shall only make this observation, that Moses must have forgotten that he had said a little before that in six days the creation of the world had been finished’ and that in consequence of this act of forgetfulness he subjoins to these words the following: `This is the book of the creation of man in the day when God made the heaven and the earth [Gen. 2:4]’” (Against Celsus 6:51).*
F
firstmode
Guest
234 AD Origen “And with regard to the creation of the light upon the first day . . . and of the [great] lights and stars upon the fourth . . . we have treated to the best of our ability in our notes upon Genesis, as well as in the foregoing pages, when we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world” (ibid., 6:60).
260-330 AD Lactantius “Some people teach that the first men lived nomadic lives among the woods and plains. They were not united by any bond of speech or laws. Instead, they lived in caves and grottos, using leaves and grass for their beds. They were prey to the beasts and stronger animals. Eventually, those who had escaped, having been torn [by wild beasts] … sought out the company of other men for protection. At first they communicated to each other by nods; then they tried elementary forms of speech. By attaching names to various objects, they little by little developed a system of speech.” (Lactantius Institutes bk. 6, chap. 10)
370 AD Basil The Great “And there was evening and morning, one day.' Why did he say one’ and not first'? . . . He said one’ because he was defining the measure of day and night . . . since twenty-four hours fill up the interval of one day” ().
370 AD Ambrose of Milan “Scripture established a law that twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if one were to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent. . . . The nights in this reckoning are considered to be component parts ofthe days that are counted. Therefore, just as there is a single revolution of time, so there is but one day. There are many who call even a week one day, because it returns to itself, just as one day does, and one might say seven times revolves back on itself. Hence, Scripture appeals at times of an age of the world” (The Six Days Work 1:1-2).
F
firstmode
Guest
408 AD Augustine “With the Scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the Scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation” (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, 2:9).
408 AD Augustine “Seven days by our reckoning, after the model of the days of creation, make up a week. By the passage of such weeks time rolls on, and in these weeks one day is constituted by the course of the sun from its rising to its setting; but we must bear in mind that these days indeed recall the days of creation, but without in any way being really similar to them” (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, 4:27).
AD Augustine “They [pagans] are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of [man as] many thousands of years, though reckoning by the sacred writings we find that not 6,000 years have yet passed” (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, 12:10).
O
Orogeny
Guest
I don’t know anything about Pope Adrian.
My reason for asking this question is because there are posters on this forum in different threads that claim (or at least strongly suggest) that the Church has definitively taught that either evolution is not allowed or that polygenism is specifically banned. Yet the most recent two popes have written, in official capacities, things that at least suggest that they accept evolution and polygenism. If so, and if the aformentioned posters are correct, the current and previous popes are teaching something that is contrary to doctrine, making them heretics.
I ask that question to see if those claiming that have the courage to state that which they strongly imply. Most don’t.
Peace
Tim
M
Marocchino
Guest
Oh, I see. For me it is not a matter of courage but of respect for the proper teaching authority of the Church. Like I have said, only the Magisterium has the authority to declare the Pope a heretic. Your question made it seem like you thought it was impossible that a pope should be a heretic, but it is quite possible as papal infallibility only extends itself to ex cathedra declarations.
Plus, I am not of the opinion that support of evolution makes one a heretic. My bone of contention is that the last two popes have failed to explain how we are to think of Adam, Original Sin, and the Fall in light of evolution. Evolution may be compatible with all of these teachings but, as Pope Pius XII said, it is in no way apparent how evolution and certain Catholic dogmas are compatible. The only thorough attempt to reconcile them was made by Fr Teilhard and it landed him in heresy; I guess that’s why no one else has given it a serious attempt since then.
O
Orogeny
Guest
There are several posters here that have no problem declaring heresies on others yet won’t do so regarding a pope. To me, that is a question of courage. It is one thing to accuse a lay person of heresy. It is a totally different thing to accuse a pope of heresy.
Peace
Tim
M
Marocchino
Guest
Well, they are clearly being inconsistent. To me, if a pope says that evolution is acceptable and still holds to related dogmas like the historicity of Adam and Eve, original sin, and the fall, he is not a heretic but merely logically inconsistent. I will retract my accusation of logical inconsistence only when the Pope clearly and precisely answers questions regarding Adam’s non-human parents, how we are to understand the genealogies of Genesis (which list 19 men between Adam and Abraham but would have to encompass about 50 to 150 thousand years according to theistic evolution), how original sin is imputed in a polygenistic scenario, and why Genesis says that God did not create death when evolution requires the death of millions of near human creatures (including Adam’s alleged grandparents).
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