What Do Catholics Believe In Accordance With Evolution?

[Guest DanielNicholas]

So I've heard that they don't believe in human evolution, however they believe evolution has occured with animals.

What is the official opinion of this?

Also, The Catechism claims there are no conflicts with faith and science? But what about when the Catholic church put Galileo Galilei under house arrest for suggesting the Earth is flat? And they had burned people alive on the stake (I forgot his name), for the belief that the Earth is flat?

[Nihil Obstat]

(It's too late for me to start addressing any of this right now, but I just wanted to say that whoever gave that a -1 should think a bit harder next time. That was kind of an ignorant thing to do, to be honest with you.)

Welcome to Phatmass DanielNicholas. I think you'll find that a lot of what you've heard about Catholicism is biased or outright false.

[OraProMe]

The Catholic Church teaches that humans could have evolved from "pre-existent matter". So whatever you heard was wrong. You'll find that most here believe in evolution. The no conflict between faith and reason thing refers to the teachings of the Church as a divine institution, not the actions of some of its members as fallible humans. The Church has never taught that the earth was flat, even if many members of the hierarchy (like everyone else at the time) believed it was. There's an important distinction between the opinions of individual catholics and the teachings of the Catholic Church.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='DanielNicholas' date='10 January 2010 - 11:48 PM' timestamp='1263185313' post='2034410']
So I've heard that they don't believe in human evolution, however they believe evolution has occured with animals.

What is the official opinion of this?
[/quote]

"For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God." (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, 36)

"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 that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent 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 with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own." (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, 37)

[Vincent Vega]

I'll take a swing.
[quote name='DanielNicholas' date='10 January 2010 - 11:48 PM' timestamp='1263185313' post='2034410']
So I've heard that they don't believe in human evolution, however they believe evolution has occured with animals.

What is the official opinion of this?[/quote]
The official position is that there is no official position. Evolution is one of those matters that the Church leaves up to the discretion of each of Her followers. Both direct creationism and theistic evolution are acceptable in the eyes of the Church. She realises that she is an institution of God, and not of science, and therefore "renders unto Caesar what is Caesar's", so to speak. I think you'll find a wide range of opinions from individual Catholics, but it seems as though most, or at least many, have settled on a theistic evolution type stance.
[quote]
Also, The Catechism claims there are no conflicts with faith and science? But what about when the Catholic church put Galileo Galilei under house arrest for suggesting the Earth is flat? And they had burned people alive on the stake (I forgot his name), for the belief that the Earth is flat?
[/quote]
The Galilei affair is not as cut and dry as many would have you believe. See the wikipedia article for more detail (or the citations, rather, if you'd like), but the to-be Pope Urban the VIII was a fan of his, and upon his election to the papacy, even authorised him to publish his work on heliocentricism. There was miscommunication, though, and he was eventually persecuted; this, however, was more because the book was viewed as a personal attack against the pope.

If I've not gone into enough detail, feel free to ask for more, or just wait until someone else comes along, and they'll inevitably expound/correct what I've said (and, welcome to PM. ).

[Hilde]

It's a matter of science. And yes, I believe in it.

[CatherineM]

There is nothing in our teachings that are contrary to the theory of evolution. I love the term "intelligent design."

[Happy_Catholic]

Honestly, I don't think it really matters whether you believe God created the world in 6 days or if He did it over billions with the process of evolution.

Me, I accept the theory of evolution (that God started the ball rolling of course), if people want to ignore what science we have available and beleive in creationism that's up to them, and I have to respect their faith.

But I don't think I'm going to Hell because of an acceptance of evolution. And frankly, if I was God, and had all that time on my hands, I wouldn't just poke some dirt and make some people, I'd do it through evolution, it'd be interesting to watch.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='10 January 2010 - 09:54 PM' timestamp='1263185677' post='2034415']
(It's too late for me to start addressing any of this right now, but I just wanted to say that whoever gave that a -1 should think a bit harder next time. That was kind of an ignorant thing to do, to be honest with you.)

Welcome to Phatmass DanielNicholas. I think you'll find that a lot of what you've heard about Catholicism is biased or outright false.
[/quote]
+JMJ+
i'll give minuses whenever i darn well please, thank you very much. and i'll give out pluses whenever i please as well. are you going to complain when i give Chris Zewe pluses?

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='11 January 2010 - 12:06 AM' timestamp='1263189978' post='2034451']
+JMJ+
i'll give minuses whenever i darn well please, thank you very much. and i'll give out pluses whenever i please as well. are you going to complain when i give Chris Zewe pluses?
[/quote]
Does that count as criticizing a moderator? I should have said just that I thought the minus was undeserved, but if you disagree, that's fine too.

[KnightofChrist]

There of course is a difference between the Church's idea of evolution and Darwinian Evolution the latter is not compatible with the Church.

[JimR-OCDS]

Teihard De Chardin wrote that man evolved biologically rapidly in the grand scheme of things, up until about 10,000 years ago. Then, that evolution slowed down. Man still evolves biologically, i.e.
the human physic is different than our ancestors of just a few hundred years ago. We change according to our environment.

[quote]
Pope Benedict XVI stated in his address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2008, "My predecessors Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II noted that there is no opposition between faith's understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences."

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the General Editor of the [i]Catechism of the Catholic Church[/i], wrote in a letter in the New York Times in July 2005 that, "Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science." In the book "Creation and Evolution" he states, "The possibility that the Creator also makes use of the instrument of evolution is admissible for the Catholic faith. The question, though, is whether evolutionism (as an ideological concept) is compatible with belief in a Creator. This question in turn presupposes, again, that a distinction be made between the scientific theory of evolution and the ideological or philosophical interpretations thereof."

[url="http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/stevehemler/lifeslittlelearnings/27.asp"]http://www.holyspiri...earnings/27.asp[/url]
[/quote]


Jim

Edited January 11, 2010 by JimR-OCDS

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='DanielNicholas' date='11 January 2010 - 12:48 AM' timestamp='1263185313' post='2034410']
So I've heard that they don't believe in human evolution, however they believe evolution has occured with animals.

What is the official opinion of this?

Also, The Catechism claims there are no conflicts with faith and science? But what about when the Catholic church put Galileo Galilei under house arrest for suggesting the Earth is flat? And they had burned people alive on the stake (I forgot his name), for the belief that the Earth is flat?
[/quote]
Gallileo was quite free to teach Copernicanism as a theory, just not as dogma. He refused. The last straw was when he wanted to correct the Scriptures as if it were a mere textbook. The Church had no problems with reinterpreting Scripture in light of science, however Galileo had no proof his theory was correct. The Church has been the greatest supporter of science until recent times, when governments started pouring money into research. 365 craters on the moon are namedfor Jesuit priests who were astronomers. THe Big Bang Theory was first proposed by a priest

[ryansouf504]

I am taking a Creation and Evolution class this semester- Talks about the relationship between the two from a Catholic perspective. Should be pretty fun

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='JimR-OCDS' date='11 January 2010 - 04:04 PM' timestamp='1263240242' post='2034955']
Teihard De Chardin wrote that man evolved biologically rapidly in the grand scheme of things, up until about 10,000 years ago. Then, that evolution slowed down. Man still evolves biologically, i.e.
the human physic is different than our ancestors of just a few hundred years ago. We change according to our environment.
Jim
[/quote]

Explain how we are different from several hundred years ago?