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

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Atreju said:
We shouldn’t believe anything with absolute certainty. To do so is to declare ourselves infallible, because it is a refusal to admit the possibility that we are wrong.
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Is God’s Revelation always true?
 
Truth necessary for salvation, but not all truth. Look at the resistance to accepting a heliocentric solar system.

Besides I am fairly certain the Catholic Church has not declared the earth to be about 6,000 years old.
 
Pope Pius XII

“For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council’s definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.”

“However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of faith.[11]”
 
That does not say the earth is 6000 years old.

There is a part of the Bible that, if taken literally and exactly, implies that pi is exactly equal to 3.0. Am I then required to abandon all sense and experiment and insist that pi equals 3.0?
 
Atreju said:
Truth necessary for salvation, but not all truth. Look at the resistance to accepting a heliocentric solar system.
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This comment really shows that the Galileo affair is not really understood.

Having said that though, modern science leaves us with two options still standing. Geocentrism and acentrism. Both can say the earth is the center,

Side note: See the newest findings on “the axis of evil” and the universe being non-Copernican.
 
Read me carefully. I am not saying the church declared infallible that Galileo was wrong. I am saying that people not so different from yourself insisted that Galileo was wrong because he contradicted the “clear meaning of Scripture” (the earth is immovable" etc.), insisting that their own interpretations are infallible.

Everyone brings to their interpretation of Scripture their own biases. We should recognize that and be very cautious that we do not confuse our interpretation of scripture with the true meaning of scripture.
 
"The Time Question

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”
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Ed this still doesnt say the earth is 6,000 years old. In fact I think it bolsters my point because if the clear undeniable meaning of scripture was that the earth is 6000 years old the church would surely clarify that and end all doubt. The church has left that question to science and physical evidence, which all point to a universe billions of years old.
 
Atreju said:
Ed this still doesnt say the earth is 6,000 years old. In fact I think it bolsters my point because if the clear undeniable meaning of scripture was that the earth is 6000 years old the church would surely clarify that and end all doubt. The church has left that question to science and physical evidence, which all point to a universe billions of years old.
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In other words, the Church allows that evolution by means of the mutation of genes over time could be a mechanism that was employed by Providence to create diversity of species. The proposal is not opposed to what is known from the Deposit of Faith, per se.

As Pope St. John Paul II put it:
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points.
For my part, when I received the participants in the plenary assembly of your Academy on October 31, 1992, I used the occasion—and the example of Gallileo—to draw attention to the necessity of using a rigorous hermeneutical approach in seeking a concrete interpretation of the inspired texts. It is important to set proper limits to the understanding of Scripture, excluding any unseasonable interpretations which would make it mean something which it is not intended to mean. In order to mark out the limits of their own proper fields, theologians and those working on the exegesis of the Scripture need to be well informed regarding the results of the latest scientific research.
AND
And to tell the truth, rather than speaking about the theory of evolution, it is more accurate to speak of the theories of evolution. The use of the plural is required here—in part because of the diversity of explanations regarding the mechanism of evolution, and in part because of the diversity of philosophies involved. There are materialist and reductionist theories, as well as spiritualist theories. Here the final judgment is within the competence of philosophy and, beyond that, of theology.
AND
It is by virtue of his eternal soul that the whole person, including his body, possesses such great dignity. Pius XII underlined the essential point: if the origin of the human body comes through living matter which existed previously, the spiritual soul is created directly by God (“animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides non retimere iubet”). ( Humani Generis )
As a result, the theories of evolution which, because of the philosophies which inspire them, regard the spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a simple epiphenomenon of that matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. They are therefore unable to serve as the basis for the dignity of the human person.

https://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp961022.htm
 
You error again. I said with God all things are possible not with me all things are possible. You do not believe which is your free will of choice.

2John:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds
 
With respect to Father Schonborn, it is clear from that article that he does not know what he’s talking about and is tossing around words like “neo-darwinian” without understanding.

Moreover in that article he says that common ancestry, the main descriptive finding of evolution, is true. Meaning we have a common biological ancestor with apes.
 
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I regard the last sentence as speculation and inconsistent with Church teaching.

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” ( Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”
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None of this has anything to do with the age of the earth, or even evolution and common ancestry really.
 
edwest said:
For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all
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Which says nothing about almost-true men who had physically human bodies and human DNA but not human souls.

A great deal of thought has gone into that statement; it says a lot more then first appears on the surface.

rossum
 
For science, souls do not exist. They can not be shoehorned into a scientific theory.
 
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