Tradition and Genesis

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Where are these “traditionalist circles”? People have made other posts like this and I’d like to know where these impressions are coming from.
 
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Oh please. “The Protestants did it!” Again? No, there is no Protestant virus going around. I grew up in a Roman Catholic home, and I had no interest in Protestant thought. I don’t know anything about Calvinism.
 
A prominent example is Fr. Ripperger of the FSSP who has videos on YouTube denying evolution and the Big Bang based on a faulty view of creation
 
joshringsell said:
Have become slightly disillusioned upon learning that traditional Catholic teaching believes in a fundamentalist, literal reading of Genesis - creation in a literal week etc. I cannot accept such a blatantly false reading of Genesis, both because in its content it is clearly not a scientific textbook, and because of empirical scientific observation. Was this ever dogma? I am a traditional Catholic and keep seeing online people who deny evolution and the Big Bang, as if when properly understood these have anything to say about the faith.
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Saint Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century did not take a strictly literal view of Genesis. The scientific understanding he had at the time suggested that the universe was created in an instant, and that’s what he held. Granted, that’s not the 14 billion year model we have now, but they didn’t have evidence of that. The interesting part is that he was okay not accepting a literal seven day creation, and he is called Saint, not heretic, and advocates for the use of reason over strict fundamentalist interpretations when fundamentalist interpretations mean denying the obvious. Other Church Fathers from around the same period expressed similar views.
 
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Bear with me here. If Fr. Rippinger denies evolution, what practical effect would this have?
 
My post about Saint Augustine isn’t to say that a literal seven day creation wasn’t held by most Catholics or clergy, but simply about the fact that some of the greatest theologians in the Church have held different views and, again, are called Saints and not heretics.
 
The seven day Creation is less of a problem for me because the Bible itself says to God a day is like a thousand years. I struggle more with the background of the first humans, the background of Cain/Abel is a stone-age agricultural society, not nomadic hunter/gatherers.
 
On the faith you mean? Well, it’s outside of the deposit of faith, so none really in that respect. However, it certainly would negatively affect the faithful’s view of scientific theories and essentially turn them into fundamentalists. You know in the Church we often say that atheists, when speaking on philosophy or theology have no idea what they’re doing and should stay within their own disciplines? This is how I feel when theologians or philosophers weigh in on scientific theories. They may have some metaphysical or ontological consideration to add, but beyond that, leave it to the pros.
 
I just had a Facebook argument with a Catholic who believed in a literal reading of Genesis - it’s tiring having to explain the obvious i.e. Genesis isn’t a science textbook, shocking, I know, and also having to explain that questions of ontology are different from cosmology and have nothing to do with each other.
 
joshringsell said:
I just had a Facebook argument with a Catholic who believed in a literal reading of Genesis - it’s tiring
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Why are you wasting your time on fruitless debate with incurable ignoramuses? Don’t you have better things to do? What about tutoring a high school student who actually wants to learn, for example?

People like the one you mention are parasites that feed on your time and attention. Put them on a starvation diet.
 
Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation but by descent.

Original sin is transmitted by natural generation.

Considering these 2 dogmas, we all have the same “first parents”.

Am I to believe that there are Catholics who do not believe we are all descendant from Adam?
 
I am an old earth creationist who accepts neither a literal reading of Genesis nor the theory of evolution. I believe the universe was created billions and not thousands of years ago, but also believe in the special creation of Adam and Eve. Most see this as an “either/or” proposition but I prefer to see it as “both/and.”
 
edwest211 said:
No, there is no Protestant virus going around. I grew up in a Roman Catholic home, and I had no interest in Protestant thought. I don’t know anything about Calvinism.
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You read “Storm Warning” by Billy Graham, a Calvinist preacher, and liked it. Just by being alive in America, you have been exposed to a lot of Calvinism, especially if you are conservative. It’s in the air you breath. It’s inescapable.

Conservative Catholics picked up a lot of Calvinist thought after they started interacting with Conservative Protestants in the late seventies. One of the things they picked up was Creationism, which was entirely absent in Catholicism before then, and is still unknown to Catholics around the world except to Americans and some of the other English speaking countries, but always originating from Fundamentalist Protestants in the US.

There was essentially no creationism-evolution debate in the Catholic Church until the early 1980s, except for an encyclical by Pope Pius XII that was basically ignored.
 
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Billy Graham wasn’t a Southern Baptist? I have watched radicals and anarchists slowly poison the body of Christ in the West. It’s documented. I watched them come into our neighborhoods to preach their “ignore the Church (all), ignore mom and dad and have lots of sex with anyone” gospel, along with using illegal drugs. Destroy the family. Encourage people - for decades - to abandon true sacrificial marriage and even relationships because everything should be “easy.” Don’t like your wife? Don’t reconcile, get a No-Fault Divorce. Don’t want a baby? Get an abortion. Don’t like reality? No need to learn how to cope, just light up a joint.
 
Wesrock said:
Saint Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century did not take a strictly literal view of Genesis. The scientific understanding he had at the time suggested that the universe was created in an instant, and that’s what he held. Granted, that’s not the 14 billion year model we have now, but they didn’t have evidence of that.
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Actually, the most common creation theory we have now is one that is instantaneous–the big bang. This is what St. Augustine proposed. In Book 6 of his “Literal Meaning of Genesis," the instantaneous creation he proposed was of things in potency and causation, but not necessarily their final visible form which would be shaped later over time.

For example, he places the actual formation of man’s body after the seventh day (thus, the second creation account in Genesis):

St. Augustine
There can be no doubt, then, that the work whereby man was formed from the slime of the earth and a wife fashioned for him from his side belongs not to that creation by which all thing were made together, after completing which, God rested, but to that work of God which takes place with the unfolding of the ages as He works even now.
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He even compares this to how mountains and rivers, etc. are shaped over time.
 
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sevenswords said:
I just told you Evolution is not real so how could it disprove God? unless you didn’t know God and thought that all knowledge should come from men/high priests and why in the name of all that is holy would you believe in some fairy tale wrote by sheep herders thousands of years ago?
There is a reason why Atheism is the fastest growing religion in the world.
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We are allowed to believe is DIVINE EVOLUTION (also called “Divine Design”), which is very different from the atheistic view of evolution which says that life came from non-life.

We are allowed to understand creation in a figurative way, without negating the truths it teaches.

Finally, the ancient Jews always believe that the seven days of creation were “God days,” if you will, and not 7 24 hour periods.

However, you are right - the devil loves it when we either 100% dismiss Genesis. But he also loves it when Christians tell people that Adam and Eve were on the Earth 144 hours after the Big Bang.

God Bless
 
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Roseeurekacross said:
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sevenswords:
I Heard that some Catholics even believe in a literal transubstantiation of Bread and wine, and science tells us clearly
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You are not Catholic.

This is clear by this statement. Please stop leading the op astray with your false errors
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FYI to everyone: Individual Catholics are allowed to choose to either believe in a literal creation, as @sevenswords does, or in Divine Evolution (which confirms that Adam & Eve were our first parents). But Catholics are not allowed to believe in “atheistic evolution” or an evolution that denies Adam & Eve.

UPDATE: What I called “Divine Evolution” above is often refereed to as “Divine Design.” The point is, what science sees as “evolution” is actually God’s design in action.

God bless
 
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I wouldn’t use the term “divine evolution” as that seems easily misleading. In my own case, I’d say I believe that evolution is part of the natural order and that natural order is created knowledgeably by God, and also that I reject a purely mechanical view or nature (devoid of purpose/teleology/qualitative elements), and also that I affirm the theological truths about the origins of original sin and the Fall as a primeval, historical event.
 
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