Many people of faith have no issues with evolution, the RCC doesn't as do most ( I dear say) protestant religons.
I think the issues may be fundamentalist evangelicals that take the WHOLE of the bible literally AND concretly.
Science TV Show - AGuest and bohm please jump in
by EntirelyPossible 78 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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leavingwt
Many people of faith have no issues with evolution, the RCC doesn't
They DO view man as a special creation, right? If so, this would be a key difference.
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leavingwt
The author of these words may overstate his case, because Catholics probably believe whatever they want to believe.
The Catholic Church indeed of all the Christian churches faces a particular quandary. The Council of Trent is quite explicit on the topic. Catholics are required to believe not only that Adam is the single father of the human race, but that Original Sin is passed on by physical generation from him to the entire human race. It’s not something symbolic or allegorical (although it is regarded as ultimately mysterious). The First Vatican Council reiterated the doctrine, as did Pope Pius XII in his 1950 encyclical Humani Generis.
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.
Catholic apologists who point to Pope John Paul II’s 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences as evidence of the Church’s acceptance of evolution often fail to notice that the late Pope completely passed over the question of monogenism, and indeed never did discuss the problem that genetics poses to the doctrine.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2011/08/11/can-theology-evolve/
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PSacramento
The position of the RCC and most theist evoltionists is that evolution is one of God's many tools that he used in Creation.
We call it evolution because that is the name we give to when a living organisim changes to adapt to its environment.
Evolution doesn't say that certain species are NOT better equipped to deal with change, in fact it states that SOME are better off then others, correct?
Adam being the first human or original sin have NOTHING to do with evolution and as such are not incompatiable.
Original sin is a philosophical issue and there had to have been a FIRST fully evolved human, yes?
Again, we are trying to use a science, in this case evolution, to make a comment on something that has nothing to do with it.
Heck, even 1700 years ago this was an issue and let us read the writings of one of the great theologians of that time- Augustine:
St. Augustine of Hippo, from his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis, written in about AD 415.
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [quoting 1 Tim 1:7].
(emphasis added; quoted from Noll, pp. 202-203, from the John Hammond Taylor translation of 1982)
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botchtowersociety
The author of these words may overstate his case, because Catholics probably believe whatever they want to believe.
LeavingWT, I predict the Catholic doctrine will be reconciled with evolutionary polygenism in the future. There are a number of scenarios. In the Humani Generis quote you provide Pius XII simply stated that he did not know how it could be reconciled, not that it could not be reconciled. And besides, these papal encyclicals are considered authoritative, but not infallible.
JPII in 1996:
"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....Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies -- which was neither planned nor sought -- constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory."
St. Augustine of Hippo
In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.
http://college.holycross.edu/faculty/alaffey/other_files/Augustine-Genesis1.pdf
Who anticipated Darwin by 1500 years?
From Darwin, a Life in Science on evolution,
Saint Augustine (353-430) painted an even clearer picture. He taught that the original germs of living things came in two forms, one placed by the Creator in animals and plants, and a second variety scattered throughout the environment, destined to become active only under the right conditions. He said that the Biblical account of the Creation should not be read as literally occupying six days, but six units of time, while the passage `In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth' should be interpreted:
As if this were the seed of the heaven and the earth, although as yet all the matter of heaven and of earth was in confusion; but because it was certain that from this the heaven and the earth would be, therefore the material itself is called by that name.
Augustine likens the Creation to the growth of a tree from its seed, which has the potential to become a tree, but does so only through a long, slow process, in accordance with the environment in which it finds itself. God created the potential for the heavens and earth, and for life, but the details worked themselves out in accordance with the laws laid down by God, on this picture. It wasn't necessary for God to create each individual species (let alone each individual living thing) in the process called Special Creation. Instead, the Creator provided the seeds of the Universe and of life, and let them develop in their own time.
In all but name, except for introducing the hand of God to start off the Universe, Augustine's theory was a theory of evolution, and one which stands up well alongside modern theories of the evolution of the Universe and the evolution of life on Earth.' His views were influential throughout the Middle Ages, and followed by such important thinkers as William of Occam (in the fourteenth century) and, most importantly, by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Aquinas simply quoted Augustine's teaching on the subject of the Creation and the interpretation of Genesis; but as he was one of the highest authorities in the Christian Church at the time, and has been one of the most influential since, this amounted to an official seal of approval for the idea that God had set the Universe in motion and then rested.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/id2/evolution.htm
A good article on the subject.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/22.39.html
Of course, for fundies, Catholics aren't Christian anyway. You read the great Christian thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas, and wonder how so much of American Christianity can roll in a foul pit of ignorance.
Also, Augustinian Original Sin is a uniquely Western tradition. The Orthodox have done just fine without it for 2000 years. Their understanding has much to recommend it.
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PSacramento
The more I read about Augustine the more it blows my mind about the thoughts he had and his understanding of things.
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botchtowersociety
The more I read about Augustine the more it blows my mind about the thoughts he had and his understanding of things.
He is my baptismal saint for that reason, among others. His heart was on fire with a love for truth. May all of us live this way as we journey in life, it is the only life worthy of a human being. Anything less is hell.
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leavingwt
The RCC deserves credit for their position on this.
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PSacramento
The RCC is a mess, no one can deny that, BUT they are at least open to re-interpretation of human doctrines they have.
They are just too BIG and too much power and infuence and as much as they NEED to change and they KNOW It, it will be a very slow process and will get worse before it gets better.
I feel sorry for many of the outstanding RC priests that are out there helping so many when the only ones that get the press ate the pedophiles.
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