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Orogeny
Guest
marciadietrich said:
I accept each of those totally.
Yes that is true. But as is stated in 1016, without our souls, our bodies would not be resurrected.
Peace
Tim
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I accept each of those totally.
Peace
Tim
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Orogeny
Guest
I’m definitely Catholic!
Many also point out that the whole story is figurative. I don’t know.
Peace
Tim
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marciadietrich
Guest
I’m definitely Catholic!
{/quote]
HI Tim,
I am trying to find official documents and teaching as much as I can. There is a fairly wide variety of viewpoints on this, I hope someday I can figure out what is definately not negotiable and what is definately open for discussion and then how it all can be tied in with science. Not sure I will get it all figured out in this lifetime. :whacky:
Marcia
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Orogeny
Guest
Hi, Marcia. As a “cradle” Catholic, let me offer you a great big (belated) welcome!
Personally, I am not trying to figure it out. As a Catholic geologist, I believe what the Church teaches, but I also understand that science is not intrinsically counter to the Church, even though many scientists are. I know that the basic tenants of my faith will not be changed based on science. My faith and science can coexist quite well.
Peace
Tim
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wanerious
Guest
Chris W:
What do you reject, and why?
I agree with you, conclusions drawn from evidence is always questionable. Thus the scientific process places great weight on the peer review process — an open disclosure of practices and data for others to see and evaluate. You may consider the possibility, however, that if you disagree with a large number of really smart people who have devoted their professional lives to researching a certain branch of science, that it may be your understaning of the science that is flawed.
It is consistent, but it is possible to be consistent and wrong. ($1 to John Kerry!). So what happens when your Christian truths are not the same truths as those held by the Papacy? You are now in conflict with your Holy Leader, who declares that one may be a good Catholic and subscribe to the theory of evolution (and to the evolution of the human body, not the soul). There is no fundamental conflict, as far as the Vatican is concerned, with evolutionary theory and Christian doctrine, if each be rightly understood.
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Matt16_18
Guest
Evolution must be rightly understood. The question is this, how does one reconcile a belief in evolution without contradicting Catholic doctrine? What is the Catholic position concerning belief or unbelief in evolution? The question may never be finally settled, but there are definite parameters to what is acceptable Catholic belief.
Catholic Answers: Adam, Eve, and EvolutionFor faithful Catholics, there are parameters within which the question of evolution must be debated. The problem that I have with almost every Catholic that tries to defend their belief in evolution is that they go outside of these parameters, and by doing so, they end up embracing the heresy of Modernism in their defense of evolution.
To conclude this whole question of faith and its various branches, we have still to consider, Venerable Brethren, what the Modernists have to say about the development of the one and the other. First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must in fact be changed. In this way they pass to what is practically their principal doctrine, namely, evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject under penalty of death – dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself. … for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: “These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.”
PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS
ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE MODERNISTS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X, SEPTEMBER 8, 1907
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Gene_C
Guest
Thanks to all for taking part in this thread.
I didn’t mean to make anyone rehash what has already been discussed. I just wanted to know what the Church’s official stand is.
Personally, based on Jesus’ miracle at Cana when he changed water into wine, I believe that although the universe appears very old, it can actually be quite young. How so? The wine that Jesus made tasted like fine wine that had been aging for some time. It wasn’t the cheap stuff. Think about it. He just made the wine but it tasted like aged wine. The universe looks old but is really young.
Thanks again,
Gene C.
I didn’t mean to make anyone rehash what has already been discussed. I just wanted to know what the Church’s official stand is.
Personally, based on Jesus’ miracle at Cana when he changed water into wine, I believe that although the universe appears very old, it can actually be quite young. How so? The wine that Jesus made tasted like fine wine that had been aging for some time. It wasn’t the cheap stuff. Think about it. He just made the wine but it tasted like aged wine. The universe looks old but is really young.
Thanks again,
Gene C.
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wanerious
Guest
Gene C.:
I think the above link is the one you are interested in. The Church appears to permit adhering to the scientific view, as long as one understands that evolution occurs to physical forms — evolution of life into the form of the human body. The soul must be understood to have been created and breathed into these “mere” animals at some point.
Perhaps. It is impossible to argue with. Could the Universe have been created last Tuesday, with all our memories and history already in place? Sure. In any case, if the deception is complete enough so that we may discover natural truths through careful investigation of the deception, then we should play along.
M
Matt16_18
Guest
The Church has never taught that there was physical death in creation prior to the Fall. On the contrary, the Church has always taught that the sin of Adam brought about the fall of creation, and that death entered into the created world as a consequence of original sin. The Church also teaches that creation will be “set free from slavery to corruption” (Romans 8:21), and restored to its original state at the end of the world.
M
Matt16_18
Guest
Well said.
Even in the fallen world one can eat an apple without killing the apple tree.
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rossum
Guest
No it could not! Unless that is you wish to be considered a heretic. The universe was created last Thursday. As the link says, last Tuesdayism is “obviously heretical.”
Repent now, before it is too late.
rossum
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marciadietrich
Guest
Thanks MattWell said.
Even in the fallen world one can eat an apple without killing the apple tree.
I hadn’t thought of it that way. Though in a sense when detached from the tree (their source of life) even if not eaten the apples as an individual entity would rot (decay or die) and going to seed to make those little baby apple trees. Would you say that pre fall there wasn’t even that in terms of decay? Do you have any Catholic sources of teaching that speak on there not being any plant or animal death or decay pre fall?
Marcia
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Matt16_18
Guest
If you trim some of your hair, are you less alive because some of your hair is detached from your body? (BTW, apple trees in apple orchards do not come from apple seeds. There is more than one way to grow a tree, even in the fallen world.
To answer your question, no, I don’t that there was any death in paradise, not even plant death.)When God created the plants and animals, he called it good. Can the good include death, the enemy of God?
I asked my prayer group tonight if anyone thought that there was death and decay in the plant and animal kingdom before the Fall, and specifically, if they thought that animals were killing other animals in paradise. The reason I asked this question is because I am surprised to find so many Catholics on these boards that think that there was death in paradise before the Fall. I always just assumed that most Catholics did not believe that there was death in paradise, and that the meaning of the Fall includes not just the fall of man, but the fall of all creation - that creation became subject to death because of sin.
No one in my prayer group thought that death and decay could be in paradise, for exactly the same reasons that I have been saying, namely, that if death was already in creation before the Fall, then that means that God is the author of death. The idea that God is the author of death pretty much destroys the meaning of Christ’s death on the Cross. How could Christ’s death on the Cross ever be conceived of as a conquering of death, if God is the author of death? If death is part of the good, then Christ conquered part of the good that God created!
One woman from El Salvador in my prayer group made the observation that she has never seen a painting of paradise where animals were killing other animals. In every painting that she has ever seen, the animals are living in peace with one another. Scriptures tells us that the lion will lie down with the lamb. If creation is going to be restored to its original state, then that means that the lion and the lamb once lived in a Peaceable Kingdom.
http://www.albrightknox.org/ArtStart/art/1940_18.jpg
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PhilVaz
Guest
Matt16 << that if death was already in creation before the Fall, then that means that God is the author of death. >>
Then I take it you don’t buy Glenn Morton’s argument that God indeed created the “death codes” in the cell. For example:
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What is interesting is that God uses apoptotic death to create each and every animal. In the case of human development, our hands look like paddles at the end of the sixth week of development. But then the cells between the fingers undergo apoptosis and die. What they leave behind are the fingers. Look at the inside of one of your fingers now. The ancestor of the cells you are now looking at barely escaped death during your development. If they had been a smidgen closer to the webbing, they too would have been instructed to die.
So, what does this have to do with Eden? Well if God created the cellular biochemistry, then He also created the instructions for cellular death and God himself used death to create us!
What is even more amazing is that God created a system in which death is the primary state.
And as we develop from a single cell, our cells become mortal. The death gene, designed by God, is still active.
So the question for the YECs who believe that there was no death before the Fall is: Why did God Himself create special security codes, instructions and machinery for death if there was NO death before the Fall?
Many young-earth creationists will then respond that cellular death is not real death. But it is. If the cells in a small region of your heart die due to lack of oxygen, your heart will stop beating effectively and cut off the oxygen to your brain. If the cells of Adam’s children’s brain could die during development (as God intended and designed) then it proves that they are not immortal.
More here Cellular Death Before the Fall by Glenn Morton
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I think it’s inescapable that if the Garden of Eden or “Paradise” was somewhere on this earth, and the earth is indeed 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old as geology tells us, then there was death before the Fall since literally billions of creatures lived and died before mankind showed up (or were created).
If however as you believe, Paradise was somewhere else like in another or “parallel” universe not tainted by death, and Adam/Eve were created there, and the Fall occured there, then okay that might work with the “no death before the Fall” concept. At least no death in that parallel universe before the Fall.
But I see Genesis placing the Garden of Eden or “Paradise” clearly on this earth, and the Fall occured on this earth. Earth is used at least a dozen times in Genesis 1-2 in the creation story, obviously referring to this planet, not somewhere else.
However, there is that explicit verse in Wisdom 1 that says: “God did not make death…” So your point stands.
Phil P
Then I take it you don’t buy Glenn Morton’s argument that God indeed created the “death codes” in the cell. For example:
=======
What is interesting is that God uses apoptotic death to create each and every animal. In the case of human development, our hands look like paddles at the end of the sixth week of development. But then the cells between the fingers undergo apoptosis and die. What they leave behind are the fingers. Look at the inside of one of your fingers now. The ancestor of the cells you are now looking at barely escaped death during your development. If they had been a smidgen closer to the webbing, they too would have been instructed to die.
So, what does this have to do with Eden? Well if God created the cellular biochemistry, then He also created the instructions for cellular death and God himself used death to create us!
What is even more amazing is that God created a system in which death is the primary state.
And as we develop from a single cell, our cells become mortal. The death gene, designed by God, is still active.
So the question for the YECs who believe that there was no death before the Fall is: Why did God Himself create special security codes, instructions and machinery for death if there was NO death before the Fall?
Many young-earth creationists will then respond that cellular death is not real death. But it is. If the cells in a small region of your heart die due to lack of oxygen, your heart will stop beating effectively and cut off the oxygen to your brain. If the cells of Adam’s children’s brain could die during development (as God intended and designed) then it proves that they are not immortal.
More here Cellular Death Before the Fall by Glenn Morton
=======
I think it’s inescapable that if the Garden of Eden or “Paradise” was somewhere on this earth, and the earth is indeed 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old as geology tells us, then there was death before the Fall since literally billions of creatures lived and died before mankind showed up (or were created).
If however as you believe, Paradise was somewhere else like in another or “parallel” universe not tainted by death, and Adam/Eve were created there, and the Fall occured there, then okay that might work with the “no death before the Fall” concept. At least no death in that parallel universe before the Fall.
But I see Genesis placing the Garden of Eden or “Paradise” clearly on this earth, and the Fall occured on this earth. Earth is used at least a dozen times in Genesis 1-2 in the creation story, obviously referring to this planet, not somewhere else.
However, there is that explicit verse in Wisdom 1 that says: “God did not make death…” So your point stands.
Phil P
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Chris_W
Guest
carol marie:
Thanks Carol Marie. I often fear everyone (not just evolutionists) will think I’m a nut for my positions. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my core objection to the Theory of Evolution.
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Chris_W
Guest
I disagree completely. Science is good a profitable for mankind. However, all truth points toward God. Therefore, if science claims something is true which points toward something that contradicts God’s revealed truth, then it cannot be true. Evolution points toward Naturalism, not Creation.
As I have stated many times. I am Catholic first. Catholicism is objective truth. Anything that contradicts that objective truth is in error, by the law of non-contradiction. That a statement of faith, no doubt. But the dialogue in which I use this arguement is when we are discussion the Christian or more specifically Catholic objections to evolution.
This statement is only correct if a person places the “truths” revealed by man on the same level as the Truth revealed by God. I believe the Truth revealed by God trumps any theories developed by man.
C
Chris_W
Guest
The short answer is no I do not have proof that the dating procedures are grossly erroneous. That is why I am not convinced either way on the matter.
What I can say is that there is not sufficient proof that the dating methods are without the possibility of error, hence my hesitation in accepting “the fact that the earth is 4.5 billion years old”, and why I object vehemently to this theory being called a “fact.”
If you are looking for the reasons I doubt, the basic answer is that the whole theory of evolution relies on a great many other theories, any of which *could * be in error:
The best evidence for evolution is the fossil record. The fossil record as described by evolutionists relies on the dating of the rock or other earth matter in which the fossils are found. The fossil evidence therefore depends on the theories of dating, namely radiometric dating and the application of this to the geological column.
The geological column relies on a theory as to the age of the various layers of the earth. The ages applied to the layers of the earth are impossible to prove. It can be argued to be correct based on other theories, but this resolves nothing (using theories to prove theories is not proof). Scientists accept it as correct because other theories seem to confirm it, but those are merely theories as well. None of it is without the possibility of error.
Radiometric dating, although accepted by the majority of the scientific world, is also just a theory which relies on yet other theories. It relies on the radiometric half-life given to various elements such as , such as Uranium, Strontium, and Potassium. There is no way to prove that the half-life ascribed these elements is correct without the possibility of error.
The application of these theoretical half-life values relies on yet other theories or assumptions. For the process to work, one must theorize that a certain parent/daughter relationship existed in the test sample to begin with. One must further assume there were no unknown variables that could skew results, like the sample having been subjected to extreme temperatures, pressures, or other things that can cause elements to migrate.
Once the sample is given an age, based on radiometric dating, then the fossil, which is often found in a different layer of the earth (perhaps the layer above or below) is also given a date based on the presumption that the lower layers are so many millions of years older then the upper layers.
Bottom line, there are way too many variables in the processes of dating the earth (and fossils) for me to give much credence to age, much less the evolutionary conclusions drawn from those ages.
None of it can be proven without the possibility of error. That is why I completely reject the statements that evolution or the age of the earth are “facts”. To say these are facts is an absolutely false statement.
Possibly. I do not reject the 4.5 billion year age of the earth like I reject evolution, because I see no contradiction with the 4.5 billion year age of the earth and Catholicism like I do with evolution.
C
Chris_W
Guest
Answered in previous post.
The Papacy defines and clarifies what is and what is not God’s revealed Truth. Therefore anything that contradicts the Catholic Church’s official teachings cannot be true. Therefore, anything I say that condradicts Catholic teaching cannot be true (see how consistent I am
).Please do not quote the Pope and try to convince me the Chruch approves of Evolution. This has been tried more times than I can count. The only way one could arrive at that conclusion is to twist or modify what the Church leaders have said. The Church has merely said that it does not condemn the study into the theory of evolution, and that evolution is more than just a hypothesis. Granted, some leaders within the Church may personally approve of the theory, but the Church (officially) does not. This is a long way from saying evolution is approved by the Church.
So if you intend to pose those tired old arguments, I will not be responding to them in this thread.
C
Chris_W
Guest
Hmmm, Nope
We are not herein debating whether or not Catholicism is true, rossum. Rather, we are debating what is the Catholic Church’s position on evolution, which in turn leads us to discuss the possible contradictions between Catholicism and Evolution.Your example of the Hindu is good. I would expect every good committed Hindu to make the very statement I made. (I don’t think your analgy is correct between Hindu and Christianity (because there you are discussing different concepts of God’s revealed truth, rather than God’s revealed truth compared to sceince). But if the Hindu was discussing evolution, that Hindu would be completely logical and consistent in making that statement on a thread in which Hindu’s were discussing Hindu teaching and the possible contradictions between Hindu teaching and evolution.
Interesting thought though. Perhaps an idea for another thread. I would like to know how Hindu’s, Jews, Muslims, and any other religion who believes in a single Creator of the universe view evolution.
C
Chris_W
Guest
Sorry to be hogging the thread, but hey, I was gone for a while and feel the need to respond.
On the topic of the death of non-human life: I do not recall the Bible, or the Church indicating that the gift of immortality was given to any form of life other than mankind (Adam and Eve). In fact, only man was created in the image and likeness of God. Everything was created good, but good does not necessarily infer immortality. God is immortal, and only man is described as having been created in the image and likeness of God. It is reasonable to conclude, in my opinion, that the death that resulted from Original Sin was the death of man.
In fact, if plants and animals were designed by God as immortal, then to kill these would be contrary to the plan of God would it not? Wouldn’t this mean that to kill plants and animals would be a sin? How would we survive without eating (killing) plants and animals? What a perdicament man would be in, even before the fall! …unless of course Adam and Eve, being immortal, had no need to eat. But then, why would they have had the motivation to eat the apple, if eating was not a normal part of life?
On the topic of the death of non-human life: I do not recall the Bible, or the Church indicating that the gift of immortality was given to any form of life other than mankind (Adam and Eve). In fact, only man was created in the image and likeness of God. Everything was created good, but good does not necessarily infer immortality. God is immortal, and only man is described as having been created in the image and likeness of God. It is reasonable to conclude, in my opinion, that the death that resulted from Original Sin was the death of man.
In fact, if plants and animals were designed by God as immortal, then to kill these would be contrary to the plan of God would it not? Wouldn’t this mean that to kill plants and animals would be a sin? How would we survive without eating (killing) plants and animals? What a perdicament man would be in, even before the fall! …unless of course Adam and Eve, being immortal, had no need to eat. But then, why would they have had the motivation to eat the apple, if eating was not a normal part of life?
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