Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

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Techno2000 said:
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ProdglArchitect:
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Techno2000:
How many semi human creatures got souls ?
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All of them, but only humans have rational, immortal souls.

I’m curious, do you understand the Catholic understanding of souls? In Catholic theology, the soul is the animating factor of any living being. There are different kinds of souls. Plants have plant souls, lower animals have animal souls. Humans have rational, human souls.

Of the three, only human souls are rational and immortal. They are distinct from other kinds of souls. When we die, our souls are judged and go to Heaven or Hell. When plants and animals die, their souls cease to exist.

This is all pretty basic Catholic theology.
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How many of these creatures got their animals souls changed into rational, immortal souls By God ?
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The answer by a Catholic who believes in evolution, that human offspring were begotten by animals, should have been one.

You try to keep things short and are attacked. I do the converse, all the while trying to stop myself from writing treatises that are too long to be read, only to end up being called obtuse. Go figure.
 
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God causes all things to be. The supernatural is God. And we still have miracles today.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
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Techno2000:
How many of these creatures got their animals souls changed into rational, immortal souls By God ?
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… None of them…

If you are created with an irrational soul, you die with an irrational soul. Adam’s soul wasn’t changed from irrational to rational; at the moment of his creation, God intervened and gave him a rational soul instead of an irrational one. There was no point when Adam had an irrational soul. The same is true of Eve, and all of their descendant. In terms of souls, NOTHING ELSE ON THE PLANET WAS AFFECTED BY THIS SHIFT.

Whatever, like I said, I’m done with this thread. It’s a waste of time arguing with people who’ve made up their minds.
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So, in other words, God created humanity, beginning with one man. To be picky about semantics, which can reflect ideas, Adam is a rational soul. A creature with an “irrational”, i’d say an instinctive animal soul, would not be human. Eve came from Adam and the rest of humanity descended from these two original parents. As parent to Adam, there is God.

I disagree that “NOTHING ELSE ON THE PLANET WAS AFFECTED BY THIS SHIFT”, and am willing to discuss this assumption, unlike “people who’ve made up their minds” but believe themselves to be open minded while writing in caps.
 
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Aloysium said:
The answer by a Catholic should have been one.
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No it shouldn’t have.

Nobody’s soul was changed. Either creationism is true, and Adam was created with a rational soul, or the evolutionary model is accurate, and Adam was conceived with a rational soul. Either way, nothing changed about the first rational soul. Adam’s soul was always rational, regardless of how he physically came into being.

I am not attacking, I’m and stating my exasperation at constantly being misrepresented, and or just so far misunderstood as to be laughable. Neither of you have actually address that substantive aspects of my arguments, and simply claimed that I am wrong because evolution is false, or because you don’t understand what I’m saying.
 
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I will lay it out, one last time, for both of you, and then I will leave. I will put it as plainly and simply as I can. Before I do this, I will kindly remind each of you of something: In Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII Made it explicitly clear that belief in evolution was licit, so long as that belief did not claim that God had nothing to do with it. Despite what you seem to think Aloysium, I find the evidence for evolution to be overwhelming, while also punctuated by periods of intense and rapid development. A recent study seemed to indicate that there was one of these periods of intense development around the emergence of humanity.

My position is this: God’s act of creation, and the evolutionary development of species, are one in the same thing. There is no distinction between them. Creation can be as much a process as an instant act, and I believe that God’s act of creation, which began with the big bang, has been a process which spans the entire life of the universe. He has been involved every step of the way.

When the Earth had formed, God intervened and created the first instance of life. Whether He did that through a process that can be know through the rational sciencese or not is unknown. I persoanlly believe it is not, and that there is no method built into this reality which can allow life to form, it took direct intervention from God in the form of a miracle to create the first instance of life, the first single-celled organism.

Simultaneously, when creating this single-celled organism, God imbued it with a an irrational soul.

continued…
 
From here, God guided the development of species over time. Massive extinction events, like the "Great Dying,’ were followed by periods of rapid development of new species to fill various niches. I believe that in these periods of time, God was actively “manipulating” the development of species to guide them towards the forms that were proper for that stage of existence. I put “manipulating” in quotes because it would seem to indicate a break from the mechanics built into the “natural” laws. This is not the case, as I believe these eventualities were accounted for in the very foundations of life as God created it. However, it is important to make it clear that I believe these rapid periods of development were simultaneously natural and God-driven, as the two things are not contradictory.

Eventually, we reached the point when it was time for God’s pinnacle of creation, proper Humanity, to come into being. Prior to this point, all conception by irrationally-souled being produced new irrationally-souled being. However, with Adam, God intervened directly, as He did at the creation of the first life. Rather than the offspring being conceived with an irrational soul, he was conceived with a rational soul. This was the first Human in the theological sense. The first being with a rational, immortal soul. There was never a point where his soul was not rational, and as such there was never a point in which he changed.

From there, either a second offspring was born which God also allowed to be conceived with a rational soul, or God literally created Eve from Adam’s rib. Personally, I have no issue with either understanding, as neither is outside the scope of God’s abilities.

Adam and Eve mated, and each of their children had a rational soul.

That is it. That is my view as briefly and succinctly as I can spell it out. If you cannot understand this, I cannot help you, because I cannot put it any plainer than this. If you disagree, that is all well and good. I don’t really care. There is nothing theologically unsound in my presentation, as we are permitted to believe in evolution. I believe that God is our sovereign creator, I merely disagree with you on the tools He used to enact our creation.
 
Aloysium said:
So, in other words, God created humanity, beginning with one man.
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I NEVER DISAGREED WITH THIS. Seriously, I never tried to claim otherwise. Have you even been reading my posts? I cannot comprehend how you could conclude that I was claiming God didn’t create Adam… The only difference is that I believe he used evolution as his tool, whereas you believe He used instantaneous creation as his tool. Have you really misunderstood my argument on such a fundamental level? No wonder you keep twisting my words into forms they were not meant to take…
I disagree that “NOTHING ELSE ON THE PLANET WAS AFFECTED BY THIS SHIFT”, and am willing to discuss this assumption, unlike “people who’ve made up their minds” but believe themselves to be open minded while writing in caps.
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I specifically prefaced that with the clarification that I am referencing only souls. No other souls were modified in the act of granting Adam a rational soul. That is Church teaching, even if you accept creationism. When Adam was created, the irrational souls all remained irrational.

I wrote in caps because I did not believe bolding would get the point across. This is just another instance of you misconstruing, or fundamentally misunderstanding, my position, and it is why I am choosing to cease this discussion. I have written out my beliefs as plainly as I can. They are long-considered, and theologically sound. Your arguments are all based on the presupposition that evolution is wrong, despite massive evidence to the contrary. You chose to pit science and religion against one-another. That is your choice, and it is only to your detriment.
 
The constant need to create conflict where there should be harmony, and to reject a detailed and enlightening study into the nature of God’s creation.

Science can teach us about how God chooses to operate. It is funny, because evolution matches up quite well with the nature of God’s relationship with humanity.

In the OT, we see creation, then fallen humanity. Then, we see the development of God’s relationship, step by step over many centuries, until we were ready to receive Christ, His son, and the full revelation of God’s relationship with us, and the revelation of the purpose of our existence.

In evolution, we can be said to see the creation of the universe and its subsequent development over billions of years until such a time as it was ready to receive the meaning of it’s creation, Humanity.

Considering how much God likes to echo between the New and Old Testaments, I find this echo to be very interesting.

I’m leaving now though. This is it, I have work to do and I can’t keep responding here. I just hope I have the willpower to resist checking back today.
 
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Wozza said:
By the very definition of those terms we mean either an act that conforms to natural laws (such as evolution) …
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Try as one will to slip it in, evolution remains (at best) just a theory, not a law.

Now the difference between the words “mystery” and “brute-fact” is based on perspective and one’s humility in acknowledging one’s own ignorance of reality. Those who admit ignorance often use the word “mystery”; the others tend to use “brute-fact”.

One would hope for at least consistent use of terms. Either God is in or He is out of nature. If He’s in then all His acts are natural. If He’s out then all His acts are supernatural.

Reality is singular and independent of the thinking mind. Our understanding of reality – the laws of nature – does not regulate nature. Rather, reality as we come to know it regulates our understanding of natural laws. So to write that what we observe must conform to natural laws (else we label it supernatural) is to put the cart before the horse.
 
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edwest said:
What detriment?
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Actually, it is to the detriment of those you might disillusion about the Church. By propagating this false narrative that to be a Catholic one must reject evolution, some will see this as ridiculous and thus never learn the truth about salvation. Do you want that on your conscience? Recall the debate between Peter and Paul where Peter was in favor of requiring circumcision and Paul was not. Thankfully Paul’s view won the day.
 
o_mlly said:
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Wozza:
By the very definition of those terms we mean either an act that conforms to natural laws (such as evolution) …
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Try as one will to slip it in, evolution remains (at best) just a theory, not a law.

Now the difference between the words “mystery” and “brute-fact” is based on perspective and one’s humility in acknowledging one’s own ignorance of reality. Those who admit ignorance often use the word “mystery”; the others tend to use “brute-fact”.

One would hope for at least consistent use of terms. Either God is in or He is out of nature. If He’s in then all His acts are natural. If He’s out then all His acts are supernatural.

Reality is singular and independent of the thinking mind. Our understanding of reality – the laws of nature – does not regulate nature. Rather, reality as we come to know it regulates our understanding of natural laws. So to write that what we observe must conform to natural laws (else we label it supernatural) is to put the cart before the horse.
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Evolution is a theory and not a law? Well done. These threads serve some purpose it seems. And reality regulates our understanding of natural laws? Good grief, progress is definitely being made.

So observing reality allows us to determine what natural laws there are. And if something doesn’t operate within those natural laws (determined by observing reality) then I guess we can call that something ‘supernatural’.

I think you’re arguing for the sake of it.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
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Aloysium:
The answer by a Catholic should have been one.
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Nobody’s soul was changed. Either creationism is true, and Adam was created with a rational soul, or the evolutionary model is accurate, and Adam was conceived with a rational soul. Either way, nothing changed about the first rational soul. Adam’s soul was always rational, regardless of how he physically came into being.
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What I observe of life is that different kinds of living being give rise to offspring of the same kind. Two cats mating will produce cats. Two human beings will have a human being regardless of its genetics or the disorder their child weill have suffered as a consequences of let’s say the Zika virus in the womb. To say that somehow two apes produced a human offspring requires an explanation as to how that person came to be. I would say that creating the first person whole and in adult form would be a simpler task, at least no different than as a single cell, who would then go on to develop and be born, to be cared for by whom?.
 
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I’m not a demographic with specific, defined rules to follow. Let me put it this way: when the Church says something positive about evolution, she is praised. If it’s negative, there are words of condemnation.
 
edwest said:
I’m not a demographic with specific, defined rules to follow. Let me put it this way: when the Church says something positive about evolution, she is praised. If it’s negative, there are words of condemnation.
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What the church says about it I could care less. Where the evidence leads I have no choice.
 
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