Theistic evolutionism and Scripture

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sparrows
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Sparrows said:
Dear friends,

Even worse: I was not raised in the Church but only baptized. And I have been educated by liberal / modernist Catholic schools that taught me virtually nothing about Scripture, Tradition, and morality. They did teach me about Darwin though.

Now I attend a secular university in which many of my professors are materialist / atheists who openly mock the Catholic faith. What got me interested in this debate was my reading of a book called “The Third Chimpanzee” by Jared Diamond, in which he argues that humans are merely a third variation of the chimp species - along with common and pygmy chimps.

After reading this Darwinist tract, I fell into a bout of depression. I thought: why do humans continue to live if 1. the point of life is just to spread your genes, 2. the rule is survival of the fittest, and 3. chance is the only god?

So I attempted to meet the atheist / Darwinists halfway with the haphazard theory of theistic evolution. But I soon came to realize that this theory is at variance with Scripture and Tradition. It is, however, difficult for me to accept young earthism because I have accepted the notions of a Jurassic Period, a Stone Age, and a big bang billions of years ago (to name a few) since my early childhood in the 1990s.

I am beginning to realize, though, that it is better to stay firmly grounded in Scripture and Tradition than to take even one step towards the deep abyss of Darwinism in an attempt to find a compromise stance (ie, theistic evolutionism).
That is Sparrows CV above.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
cassini said:
Sparrows;4497168:
That is Sparrows CV above.

Ok lads and Lassies, time to get back to ground level and help sparrows learn more about theistic evolutionism and Scripture. for the most comprehensive thesis ever written on the subject read:

THIRTY THESES AGAINST THEISTIC EVOLUTION. By Paula Haigh . . .based on the conviction that “Theistic Evolution” is heresy, debilitating the Church today and …
www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/evolution/etheistic.htm
Click to expand...
  • 322k -
Now beware the enemy’s ad hominum ploy, attacking the writer in order to undermine her scholarship. it is standard practive in the battle of Principalities and Powers.

Wow. Jackpot. Way to go, Cassini. I am so blessed and encouraged by Ms. Haigh’s remarkable paper.
Thus, the theory of evolution is not just a scientific theory or hypothesis. It is a systematically developed world view, a consummate web of
error able to twist any fact to fit its own perverse ends. It has penetrated and deformed every academic discipline and every area of ordinary
life. It is the best preparation one could imagine for the reign of evil in the world, for the (temporary) defeat of Christianity (as Our Lord suffered
a seeming defeat on the Cross) and for the (again, temporary) sovereignty of Satan in the world.
Click to expand...
As such a systematic counterfeit of the true, divinely revealed truth about man and his history, his origin and his destiny, the evolutionary
ideology is worthy of the totally perverted but still angelic intelligence of Satan himself. The success it enjoys is but a further proof of its diabolic
origin and we are indeed laboring under “the dominion of the Devil” (see Thesis 25).
Click to expand...
ONLY the truth of God’s Word can set us free from this net of error and darkness that Satan has so ingeniously woven and continues to weave with such cunning and tenacity of purpose. All the clear proofs of reason and of faith do not affect those who have chosen to embrace this error. Against these Our Divine Lord says: “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” But to His disciples He says: “If you continue in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8: 32,44)
Click to expand...
This is what I have been trying to say in my weak and wobbly words, and she says it beautifully.
Click to expand...
 
The theistic evolutionist goes along with this view of science and thereby contributes to and reinforces the fragmentation of knowledge and the fideistic necessity for an unreal leap of faith across artificial chasms constructed by a false science. **This is nowhere better illustrated than in those **Catholic schools where some variety of creation is taught in Religion courses and straight evolution is taught in science courses. (More and more, though, the compromise is wholly on the side of the Religion courses and the variety of creation taught is not creation at all but the evolutionary process itself, hiding under the name of “creative processes” or some such euphemism.)
Click to expand...
This was my personal experience. I was taught TE in Catholic school for 7 years (grades 1-7). by the time I was 15 I was a practical atheist even though I went to Mass and received Communion every Sunday. By the time I was 20 I was an atheist/pagan spiritist. My life was consumed by ambition, lust, and idolatry. By the time I was 23 I was used up, and literally dying of guilt. It was at that point that I contemplated suicide - and would have gone through with it were it not for Christ’s supernatural intervention in my miserable life. When I encountered the Risen, Living Lord Jesus Christ, I was like a newborn baby totally dependent on its mother (Church) and threw myself into the scriptures with all the garbage and confusion of my previous education systematically destroyed precept by precept as the Divine Fire of God’s Holy Word threw down every argument, every objection, every other authority. I live by this injuction of St. Paul from II Corinthians 7:
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 6 and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.
Click to expand...
 
cassini said:
Ok lads and Lassies, time to get back to ground level and help sparrows learn more about theistic evolutionism and Scripture. for the most comprehensive thesis ever written on the subject read:

THIRTY THESES AGAINST THEISTIC EVOLUTION. By Paula Haigh . . .based on the conviction that “Theistic Evolution” is heresy, debilitating the Church today and …
www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/evolution/etheistic.htm - 322k -
Click to expand...
Most of those 30 theses are accurate. Some are not. The author’s problem is that she wants to make theological statements and then tries to inject some science into the arguement. She fails.

"29. The Deluge described in Genesis 6-8 was a Flood that covered the entire globe, that is, it was universal both anthropologically and
geographically, and the fossil record of the geologists is a Monument-Memorial-Reminder for modern man of this watery catastrophe sent upon
the earth as a punishment for sin."

Anyone who believes this is completely ignorant of the fossil record AND of the geological record. Those are facts and cannot be ignored.

Her worldview sure seems to be at odds with the Church. Perhaps I am one of the enemy and that statement will be viewed by cassini as an ad hominum, but it would be good to hear what the Church, rather than Paula Haigh, teaches.

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
Most of those 30 theses are accurate. Some are not. The author’s problem is that she wants to make theological statements and then tries to inject some science into the arguement. She fails.

"29. The Deluge described in Genesis 6-8 was a Flood that covered the entire globe, that is, it was universal both anthropologically and
geographically, and the fossil record of the geologists is a Monument-Memorial-Reminder for modern man of this watery catastrophe sent upon
the earth as a punishment for sin."

Anyone who believes this is completely ignorant of the fossil record AND of the geological record. Those are facts and cannot be ignored.

Her worldview sure seems to be at odds with the Church. Perhaps I am one of the enemy and that statement will be viewed by cassini as an ad hominum, but it would be good to hear what the Church, rather than Paula Haigh, teaches.

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
Tim, the Church has spoken and spoken and spoken again about all these matters. You cannot take the personal rumination of a single Pope (JP II) which was posited as speculation, not proclamation and hold it up against Providentissimus Deus, Lamentabilli Sane, Humani Generis and Divino Afflante Spiritu.

The Church has spoken, and Ms. Haigh’s theses are an exposition of Church teaching.
 
Catholic_Johnny said:
Tim, the Church has spoken and spoken and spoken again about all these matters. You cannot take the personal rumination of a single Pope (JP II) which was posited as speculation, not proclamation and hold it up against Providentissimus Deus, Lamentabilli Sane, Humani Generis and Divino Afflante Spiritu.
Click to expand...
It is the current Pope as well.

I will ask you the same question I have asked others before: Does the Church REQUIRE me to accept a literal interpretation of Genesis?

If a bishop, cardinal or pope teaches anything that is not an explicit literal reading of Genesis, is that man teaching error? If so, isn’t that a heresy? Can a heretic hold any of those positions?

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
It is the current Pope as well.

I will ask you the same question I have asked others before: Does the Church REQUIRE me to accept a literal interpretation of Genesis?

If a bishop, cardinal or pope teaches anything that is not an explicit literal reading of Genesis, is that man teaching error? If so, isn’t that a heresy? Can a heretic hold any of those positions?

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
Peace be with you, Tim.
If the Church actually abided by it’s Magisterial Standards, the answer would be yes, it is teaching in error. Yes, it is heresy, and yes, a heretic can/does ascribe to theistic evolution and claim such doctrine to be Catholic. It never has been, is not, and never will be Catholic doctrine.

The Church HAS spoken. %between%
 
Catholic_Johnny said:
Peace be with you, Tim.
If the Church actually abided by it’s Magisterial Standards, the answer would be yes, it is teaching in error. Yes, it is heresy, and yes, a heretic can/does ascribe to theistic evolution and claim such doctrine to be Catholic. It never has been, is not, and never will be Catholic doctrine.

The Church HAS spoken.
Click to expand...
So my question to you is, since the current pope is a heretic, is he a valid pope? Is the Chair of Peter vacant?

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
So my question to you is, since the current pope is a heretic, is he a valid pope? Is the Chair of Peter vacant?

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
I think to be a heretic you have to clearly understand that your claim is heresy. If a Pope has made a statement without authority based on advice from others, it is unlikely heretical.
 
Orogeny said:
So my question to you is, since the current pope is a heretic, is he a valid pope? Is the Chair of Peter vacant?

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
Please produce the pronouncement of His Holiness Benedict XVI that evolution is a fact or truth.

Until you can do that, the thousands of official Catholic documents still proclaim the Traditional interpretation of Genesis. St. Basil the Great would most certanly reject your suppositions.
 
Catholic_Johnny said:
Please produce the pronouncement of His Holiness Benedict XVI that evolution is a fact or truth.
Click to expand...
There is no such proclamation by either JPII or B16 that evolution must be held as a truth for Catholics and is part of the deposit of faith. I do not think there ever will be.
 
buffalo said:
There is no such proclamation by either JPII or B16 that evolution must be held as a truth for Catholics and is part of the deposit of faith. I do not think there ever will be.
Click to expand...
And in the absence of such a proclamation, the hundreds of Papal Encyclicals and conciliar documents, writings of the Church Fathers and Doctors are in effect. See post #89.
 
Catholic_Johnny said:
And in the absence of such a proclamation, the hundreds of Papal Encyclicals and conciliar documents, writings of the Church Fathers and Doctors are in effect. See post #89.
Click to expand...
They sure are. To change would be a clear doctrinal reversal, overturning pretty much all of Catholic teaching.
 
buffalo said:
I think to be a heretic you have to clearly understand that your claim is heresy. If a Pope has made a statement without authority based on advice from others, it is unlikely heretical.
Click to expand...
Is Pope Benedict XVI ignorant of clear, consistent Church dogma on this issue? Really? He is a theologian and seems to understand the faith quite well.

He also holds that evolution is true, all be it guided by God (which is my position). Is he ignorant or heretical?

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
Is Pope Benedict XVI ignorant of clear, consistent Church dogma on this issue? Really? He is a theologian and seems to understand the faith quite well.

He also holds that evolution is true, all be it guided by God (which is my position). Is he ignorant or heretical?

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
To be quite honest - I do not know. It is quite a conundrum.

Then we must ask B16 if God knew what Adam would look like?

If so, then God actually guides evolution supernaturally?
 
Orogeny said:
Is Pope Benedict XVI ignorant of clear, consistent Church dogma on this issue? Really? He is a theologian and seems to understand the faith quite well.

He also holds that evolution is true, all be it guided by God (which is my position). Is he ignorant or heretical?

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
Please post evidence that Joseph Ratzinger holds evolution to be TRUTH.
 
Catholic_Johnny said:
Please produce the pronouncement of His Holiness Benedict XVI that evolution is a fact or truth.

Until you can do that, the thousands of official Catholic documents still proclaim the Traditional interpretation of Genesis. St. Basil the Great would most certanly reject your suppositions.
Click to expand...
From : **Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, **The July 2004 Vatican Statement on Creation and Evolution
“Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.”
bringyou.to/apologetics/p80.htm, paragraph 63.

By the way, I always wonder if people like St. Basil would reject evolution if they had access to the scientific discoveries that we have today.

Peace

Tim
 
buffalo said:
If so, then God actually guides evolution supernaturally?
Click to expand...
You know my answer to that and I think that the Pope would agree with me (boy, is that presumptuous or what?😉 ) - of course God knew what Adam would look like because God DOES guide evolution.

Peace

Tim
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top