Reconciling Evolution & Faith

[sixpence]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1282351020' post='2160855']

If however Darwinian Evolution is true I do not see how we are not forced to believe in some form of Polygenism. Because it teaches that one species gave birth to another species and that is clearly Polygenism. And we know from the Blessed Mother that parenthood is not effected by the offspring being superior to the parent. Mary was and is still the Mother/parent of Christ even though He is God. If Adam and Eve evolved from apes or what have you those [u]apes would be our first parents[/u] not Adam and Eve.
[/quote]

I think, by this logic, our "first parents" would be the first living things that all other living things evolved from...microbes?

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1282351020' post='2160855']
I do believe God could have used both living and non-living matter to create Adam and Eve. But in such a way that the matter would have been changed and it would have ceased to be what it was and it would have became new matter. [/quote]

in macroevolution, when species B evolves from species A, Species A ceases to exist...

[dentarthurdent95]

Bravo sixpence. You said it all right there. I find it hard to believe anything other than the idea of thiestic evolution. I go to a fundamentalist Christian school and used to have books that teach young earth creationism. The teacher exagerated the 4.5 billion years old part of the evolutionary theory, which I think was saying that it was a proposterous theory that it was that old. I always answered questions the way the book wanted them but in the back of my head I was thinking "This is ridculous." Anyways, you are totally right in my opinion.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='sixpence' timestamp='1282364080' post='2160915']
I think, by this logic, our "first parents" would be the first living things that all other living things evolved from...microbes? [/quote]

Yes. Those microbes would be our first parents . Which is why such a theory of Polygenism is [i]incapable of laying the foundation for the dignity of the person.[/i] And is thus rejected by Mother Church.

[quote name='sixpence' timestamp='1282364080' post='2160915']in macroevolution, when species B evolves from species A, Species A ceases to exist...
[/quote]

That is somewhat false. Mutation + Gene Flow + Genetic Drift + Natural Selection + 3.8 Billion years = Macroevolution. Also Darwinian Theory teaches that species A ceases to exist in some cases because species B kills off species A. Nor would this or your objection change the parenthood of species A in regards to species B.

Edited August 21, 2010 by KnightofChrist

[OraProMe]

Sadly I can't contribute much to this discussion because I don't know much about science or evolution but it's a really interesting question. As far as I know evolution requires species to die off before any humans could evolve (adam and eve) so it'd seem that death for animals would have had to exist before the fall of man.

[Resurrexi]

I really do not see any conflict between the scientific theory of evolution and the Catholic dogmas in regard to the creation of the universe and of man, as long as what has been set forth by the Church is observed. Personally, I would say I support the theory of evolution from a scientific point of view. Obviously, though, there is no theological reason why one must accept the theory of evolution.

[MithLuin]

[quote]
"The faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with [the doctrine of] original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is everyone as his own." - Pope Pius XII
[/quote]

Yeah, I agree with Pope Pius, but he isn't saying what you think he's saying. When he says that Adam and Eve cannot be viewed as one couple among several 'first parents', he is saying that all of humanity has a common source in Adam and Eve. Thus, you cannot find a human being alive today who is [i]not[/i] descended from Adam and Eve. It is very important to view our humanity as having a common source, not multiple origins that may not be related.

Current scientific explanations of the origins of modern humanity happen to reflect this idea. There is [i]no way[/i] that Pope Pius XII (in 1950) could have known that the evidence would back up this idea. But, as Pope John Paul II pointed out, truth cannot contradict truth. If humans do have a common ancestry (as Christians believe) any evidence gathered now should reflect that. And it does.

[url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38786481?gt1=43001]Here[/url] is a simple article explaining how the age of mitochondrial Eve was calculated, though of course it is made clear that we aren't necessarily talking about the actual Eve here. She'd be more analogous to...Noah's wife. Now, can some assumptions made in this research turn out to be mistaken? Of course. This 1987 idea is not a 'final' answer to the question, but more of an approach. Reality is likely more complicated than they've given it credit for. Population genetics involves concepts such as 'most recent common ancestor' and 'identical ancestors point'. There are many different potential versions of the story out there.

What Pope Pius insisted on is that we are all descended from Adam and Eve (and this is what makes us human), and that we are all subject to original sin on that account. I see no reason to think evolutionary biology would contradict that. The concept of a 'common ancestor' is actually quite necessary - the idea of humanity arising independently in two separate locations is [i]highly[/i] unlikely.

Pope Pius was not saying (in the statement you quoted) anything about the materials [living or otherwise] God used in the creation of Adam, and I see no reason to take his statement as an argument against the idea of one species arising from another.


While one is certainly welcome to take the Biblical accounts of human creation literally, and to say that God formed Adam from dust and Eve from his rib, the Church does not [i]require[/i] that the text be taken as an eyewitness account. There are certain truths about humanity that are contained in the Creation stories, and that is what the Church rightly focuses on - we are created by God, [i]in His image[/i] (ie, we have souls), and that the original innocence of humanity was marred by the fall, so that original sin has been passed on to every person in history. If you have issues with macroevolution or humans having any sort of physical, genetic relationship with other species, that's fine...but the Church does not share your concerns.

Evolutionary biology doesn't really comment on these topics, not surprisingly, which is why the Church doesn't see a contradiction between studying evolution and believing in Genesis.

Edited August 21, 2010 by MithLuin

[Mercy me]

You know Rex, I don't have any issue either. I will admit to having a few problems with evolution particularly relating to bridge species. But I have always seen teh hand of God in it.

[sixpence]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1282368742' post='2160957']
Yes. Those microbes would be our first parents . Which is why such a theory of Polygenism is [i]incapable of laying the foundation for the dignity of the person.[/i] And is thus rejected by Mother Church.
[/quote]

I don't understand how the process of evolution automatically results in the assumption that polygenesis occured (the idea that humans originated from MORE than a single set of parents..Adam and Eve). Even Darwin felt that monogenesis was a better explanation of human origins (see his book "the decent of man")

You can see things like this occur in nature... a pair occur in an isolated location and bring about a genetically isolated population which is unique and different from the ancestors of the pair.

[KnightofChrist]

[color="#C0C0C0"]note:[i]Neo-Darwinian Evolution = D.E.[/i]
[/color]
[b]The Fall[/b]

With respect to the first issue; the “fall from Grace”, magisterial teaching clearly establishes that a literal “first-set” that is, two actual parents, (only 1 male and 1 female) [u]must be accounted for in any evolutionary theory.[/u] [u]In fact, a literal first male (Adam) must precede the first woman (Eve) who is “made” in some physical yet supernatural way from Adam.[/u]

[“SO the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (Gen. 2:21-22) Emphasis mine.] All subsequent human beings must arise from these two initial parents lest the “fall from Grace” not be attributable to the entire human race.[12] This key concept is appreciable in the following:

[color="#990000"]“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.”[13]
[/color]
“All men are implicated in Adams’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: ‘By one man’s disobedience man [that is all men] were made sinners’: ‘sin came into the world through on man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned….’”[14]

“St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ….The first man, Adam, he says, became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. The first Adam was made by the last Adam, from whom he also received his soul, to give him life….The second Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. That is why he took on himself the role and the name of the first Adam, in order that he might no lose what he had made in his own image. The first Adam, the last Adam: the first had a beginning, the last knows no end. The last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: ‘I am the first and the last.’”[15]

[b]Rejection of Polygenism / [u]Animal Lineage[/u][/b]

Pope Pius XII in reaffirming constant magisterial teaching specifically repudiated polygenism (multiple sets of human parents) in his encyclical Humani generis. Catholic teaching is clear that all people share in the “original sin” of one first couple, Adam and Eve.[16] Only those exegetical methods which employ a low-view of scripture ([u]which itself is incompatible with orthodox Catholicism[/u]) and reject the constant teaching of the Catholic Church can reconcile the completely natural generation of human beings from non-human bi-pedal primates (animals) who at some point become human by the supernatural insertion of immaterial (spiritual) souls. This scenario called for by D.E. is unsatisfactory for multiple reasons including:

1.) D.E. violates the “substance view” of human personhood which the Catholic Church has taught since St. Thomas Aquinas integrated Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity. It holds that the human soul is the “organizing principle” or “form” of the human body (matter) such that the combination becomes a body/soul composite person of matter/form.[17] [u]It is philosophically untenable to posit that God at some point placed a human soul in a non-human bi-pedal primate animal which would already have had its own organizing principle (form) in Aristotelian/Thomistic terms. [/u]Under such a scenario it would be correct to state that the first human person (Adam) had “animals” for parents since in Catholic teaching the soul and the body together constitute the composite person as a matter/form composite unity of body/soul which is indivisible during life. ([u]In addition of course, the notion that Adam had animals for parents is [b]contrary[/b] to Divine Revelation[/u]). The D.E. scenario implies that God would begin the human race by rejecting the truth of the “substance view” of human personhood and then subsequently allow his actual method of human creation to be misrepresented in Scripture and Tradition thereafter as if He had specially created Adam as a body/soul composite entirely new entity.

It also means that God would have dignified a non-human animal by raising it up to the “Image of God” (Imago Dei) through replacement of its animal soul with the spiritual soul of the first man. This is extremely difficult to justify given the multiple biblical texts and copious magisterial commentary which refer to Adam’s Special Creation, body and soul. [b]Moreover, if Adam’s body descended directly that is, was generated physically from animals, then Adam’s parents were “animals” since one is a parent of the entire person not only of the body. This is clear when one considers that the Virgin Mary is truly the mother of God by conceiving and giving birth to Jesus Christ the second person of the Holy Trinity (since Christ is a Divine Person with two natures, one human and one Divine) i.e. she is not only the mother of Christ’s human nature.[18] The scenario which D.E. seems to demand would directly contradict numerous Scriptural references and much magisterial teaching indicating that Adam had no antecedent other than God.[/b] It is fraught with contradictions, as well as irresolvable and unnecessary problems. On the other hand, if D.E. is capable of harmonizing the special creation of Adam, (body and soul) then this objection could be dropped. It remains theoretically an open question from this writer’s perspective albeit extremely problematic.[19] The author knows of no such assertion by D.E. proponents and is aware of no way to harmonize D.E. with the special creation of Adam body and soul. Obviously, I.D. of the human body utilizing a common design with variation on a theme could explain it since it would represent special creation of one first couple. This was clearly the issue which concerned Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis. Subsequent research in biology has not lessened the concern. It has only become more so.

2.) D.E.’s prediction of non-human animal ancestry for Humans (Adam and Eve) is contrary to DNA mutation rate studies, mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome data as well as morphological studies demonstrating that humans have no direct genetic, biochemical or morphological link to bi-pedal primates.[20] The basic scientific research data amassed over the past 15 years is growing; there is no pre-human (lower animal) bi-pedal primate to human ancestral connection. The supposed “missing link” remains undiscovered. This is suggestive of special Creation of Adam and Eve rather than D.E. which calls for common descent with modification from non-human animals. Accordingly, anthropologists should base their conclusions on the data at hand not that which is non-existent and called for by an a-priori commitment to D.E. alone as a total explanation for terrestrial life.[21]

3.) [b]Constant magisterial teaching which holds that humans were directly (Specially) created by God from the “dust of the earth” that is non-living pre-existent matter not pre-existent living animals.[/b]

“Then The LORD God formed (bara and asa are both used in the biblical Hebrew with reference to the creation of humans, connoting something entirely new {presumably soul} and something already existent {presumably non-living matter referred to as “dust”}) man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being;’ Man whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.” (CCC # 362 and Gen. 2:7, Emphasis mine).

[url="http://www.tcrnews2.com/Darwinsworld.html"]SOURCE[/url] the original source appears to be a dead link.

Neo-Darwinian = D.E.

[KnightofChrist]

[url="http://www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/creation/daylight/article1.html"][b]Where is Evolution in Catholic Teaching?[/b][/url]
by Anthony Nevard

On 25th October 1996, it was widely reported that Pope John Paul II had at long last acknowledged that Darwin’s evolutionary view of the world’s history was true. We were informed that this was the implication of part of his letter to the advisory body, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which referred to evolution as being “more than a hypothesis”.

Was this a denial of the account of Creation in Genesis, or even a novel infallible teaching? Far from it! Even the Pope cannot change the meaning of the essential doctrines of the Faith, as they are truths revealed by God Himself. Incredibly, at a time when even atheist and agnostic scientists have rejected Darwinism as unsupportable, we were told that the Pope now accepts it! This article is intended to assure Catholics that Evolution has never been reconcilable with Papal teachings.

The mysteries of our origins can never be fully accessible to unaided reason or scientific research, but are part of God’s Revelation to Man. To accept them, we need the gift of Faith: but these truths are above our powers of reason, not in contradiction to them. Though we know that Sacred Scriptures are true, as God is their Author, we need the authority of the Church to interpret them infallibly, avoiding the excesses of both literalism and liberalism. The following key doctrinal teachings will clarify the Catholic position.

1870 VATICAN COUNCIL

* Faith and Reason (e.g. the findings of true science) cannot be in real opposition: Truth is One.
* God created a good world.
* God, through His Providence. protects and guides all He has Created.
* The first Man, body and soul, was created by God.

The idea that a spiritual soul was created in an animal body is alien to the words of the Scriptures, Christian Tradition, and all the Church Fathers and theologians.

1907 Pope St. Pius X Encyclical Pascendi

* Condemned Modernism, which is based on Evolution.
* Condemned the idea that the Faith must be subject to current views of Science and History.

1909 Biblical Commission Decree

Reinforced traditional Catholic doctrines on Creation.

* Creation by God at the beginning of time
* Special creation of Man; the formation of the first woman from the first man.
* The unity of the human race
* Their initial state of justice, integrity and immortality
* The testing of Adam and Eve by a positive precept
* Their temptation and sin under the influence of the Devil
* Their expulsion from Paradise
* The promise of a Redeemer.

Principles of interpretation of Genesis 1-3

* These chapters relate to real events, not myths, legends or mere allegories or symbols.
* Not all words and sentences need be understood in the literal sense; those which have been variously interpreted by the Church Fathers and theologians may be understood according to one's own judgement, subject to the Faith.
* We need not expect scientific exactitude in expressing the inner nature of visible things or to read the complete order of creation.
* The word day may be taken as a natural day or a certain space of time, and this question may be freely discussed.

1950 Pope Pius XII's Encyclical Humani Generis

* Expresses sorrow at current discord and error on moral and religious matters that threatens the principles of Christian culture. [para. 1, 2]
* Warns us not to hold evolution as proved, or to use it to explain the origin of all things; this leads to pantheism, materialism and other false philosophies. [para. 5, 6]
* Warns of dangers of ignoring Papal teaching, so leading to relativism. [para. 15, 16]
* Danger of limiting Scriptural inerrancy to religious matters only. [para. 22, 23]
* Permits research and discussion into the doctrine of evolution regarding the question of the origin of the human body from pre-existing living matter. [para. 36]
* Research must consider theories favourable and unfavourable to evolution fairly. [para. 36]
* Each human soul is specially created by God. [para. 36]
* Polygenism [theory of several human evolutionary origins] is unacceptable, as it is not reconcilable with the doctrine of Original Sin. [para. 37]

1962-65 Vatican Council II

No reference was made to creation, evolution, science or the interpretation of Genesis.

1994 Pope John Paul II. Catechism of the Catholic Church

Creation

31 pages of text; 36 subheadings in the Index; 59 page references. The traditional teachings are all clearly reiterated with references; for example:

"Catechesis on creation is of major importance. It concerns the very foundations of human and Christian life: for it makes explicit the response of the Christian faith to the basic question that men of all times have asked themselves: “Where do we come from?”, “Where are we going?” , “What is our origin?” , “What is our end?” , “Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?” The two questions, the first about the origin and the second about the end, are inseparable. They are decisive for the meaning and orientation of our life and actions." [para. 282]

"Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place... they express the truths of creation its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation." [para. 289]

Evolution

No mention of evolution anywhere in the text or in the Index.

We must conclude that the Catholic Church continues to teach officially that the human race is descended from Adam and Eve. Any theory of origins that conflicts with these authoritative teachings must be false and hence opposed to Christianity.

[KnightofChrist]

[i]Christians should realize that evolution is not
part of genuine natural science,
but is an excuse invented by men to reject God.[/i]

[url="http://www.catholic.net/Catholic Church/Periodicals/Homiletic/11-96/3/3.html"]Theistic evolution: A tragic misunderstanding and grave error[/url]

By Clement A. Butel

[mod]Please don't copy/paste articles, just link to them instead. - dUSt[/mod]

Edited August 23, 2010 by dUSt

[KnightofChrist]

tl;dr? Too bad.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1282414803' post='2161096']
tl;dr? Too bad.
[/quote]
Also proof text.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1282414803' post='2161096']
tl;dr? Too bad.
[/quote]
I'm interested in reading it in the near future. Just g2g atm.

Peace.

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1282415904' post='2161109']
I'm interested in reading it in the near future. Just g2g atm.

Peace.
[/quote]

I will too. thanks for posting. I have no problems with text dumping. Nor should anyone that's open to learning.