On Catholics Believing Evolution

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : On Catholics Believing Evolution · Creation vs. Evolution : Does Humani Generis say we must subject to a future judgement of the Church as if there was none already pertaining to the matter? · What did the Allocution Say?

Practical Catholicism: Can Catholics Believe in Evolution?
St. Benedict Monastery | 14.V.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyGOCkp-TEk

I

1:28 "belief has to do with matters of salvation, not with matters of science"

FAITH has to do with matters of salvation, but not always to exclusion of matters of science (for instance, it is a matter of science that if a boy having fallen from first or second floor through a window has broken the neck and does not breath and has no pulse, he will not usually start walking the next minute : it is a matter of faith, as in how the faith was revealed, that St Luke seems to have met St Paul over diagnosing a death by involuntary defenestration and watching St Paul raise the boy to life).

BELIEF is not the same concept as FAITH, even if German and Swedish express both concepts with same word (Glauben / Tro).

Note, in the Creed, the word "I believe in" denotes both belief as the general mode of faith and faith as the firmness mode of this particular belief.

Note also, in the Creed, one of the things we believe in with divine faith is Holy Spirit having spoken through the prophets, meaning also the hagiographers whose texts we have.

1:54 "the process God used to make everything that is something we don't know"

To make matter out of nothing or life out of no-life is not a natural process. It is a miraculous act. It involves nothing comparable to natural processes of growth or reproduction. When a boy grows to a man or when a man and a woman make a boy or a girl, there is a pre-existing capacity within what you start out with and what you end up with. And bringing this natural capacity to its fruition involves a process. Not so with things that start out with no natural capacity for what the result is to be, or no complete capacity : as with creating the first man, or as with a rational soul being given to the body as ovum and spermatozoon meet and unite : while human genetics are made so the soul can express its rationality, they cannot produce it.

So, we can know there was an absence of process - therefore we cannot pretend to be ignorant of "by what process".

And if your "Pope Francis" in 2014 denied this absence of process, so much the worse for him.

2:30 "expresses our belief about how the universe came into being"

It expresses our belief insofar as it also dictates our belief. Lex orandi, lex credendi. If we read it at Easter Vigil, we are also required to believe what is in it. Precisely as if we recite "et carnis resurrectionem" we are also not allowed to pretend eternity involves only a spiritual resurrection, that one happening soon after death of each rather than on Doomsday for all (or very few exceptions).

And you said very well about how the universe came into being : the story tells us of the process, not as natural process, but as a very well ordered series of miracles. It also involves a definite time span, since the days are said to have evening and morning after the creation acts in them.

II

"we can also see that it's not a scientific account of what happened"

OK. If we put day 2 in scientific terms, the waters above the firmament are mainly hydrogen, and on day 4 God uses the hydrogen to create Sun and most stars (all burning ones and the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn). So, because Moses does not use the term hydrogen, but uses water indiscriminately for H2O and for H2 and for plasma state H ... is that a bit of how you meant?

2:52 "for instance, in the story of Genesis, earth is treated as the centre of the Universe"

Well, so? It is, isn't it?

Or do you consider Galileo a great scientist? Or Kepler a huge improvement not only on Tycho Brahe but on Riccioli?

Riccioli famously accepted most Keplerian improvements on Tycho, but not his rejection of Geocentrism.

Or do you consider Herschel was a great scientist because he took "relative Heliocentrism" over from Kantian philosophy which took it over from heresies of Bruno?

So, your example is bad.

2:58 "and all the other planets and heavenly beings are merely lights in the sky"

The word "merely" is not in the text. Secondary to earth, granted. And they are lights in the sky, even a very small asteroid in asteroid belt is, if you use a good telescope. It is lighter than the black background. At least on the side reflecting sunlight.

3:05 "there just isn't any concept of the sheer breadth of the universe as we now know it"

As we "now know it"? Or as conclusions from Herschel on have misrepresented it?

3:14 "the story even says that God credated a dome around the earth to keep the rain water up in the sky"

Take a close reading:

And God said: Let there be a firmament amidst the water: and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament, Heaven; and the evening and morning were the second day.

• 1) The firmament is not given as being a dome in the sense of a shell or cupola : it could very well be one thing throughought the thickness of space (especially if it is grammatically possible to see "waters above firmament" as "waters in upper part of firmament"), and sth which, by its daily rotation, helps to keep things up where they are;
• 2) The waters above the firmament are also not directly said to be rain water.

If my Hydrogen reading is correct, the "flood gates of heaven" (chapter 7, Flood account) need not be trap doors in a cupola under a rain water reservoir, it could mean the normal space separating higher layers of oxygen from lowest layers of hydrogen.

In other words, unless you start out with Evolutionist or Heliocentric bias, there is nothing positively offending scientific understanding in the Genesis account, even if some technical detail is left out.

III

"the Biblical writers"

As far as I know, Genesis 1 account has one writer : Moses, who received on Sinai a vision of the six days.

"were [!] conveying the message ..."

"They were" or rather he was conveying a lot of factual material too. Celestial bodies created on day four after plants created on day three, for one.

While God's creative power is indeed a salvific truth, Genesis 1 is not limited to saying Qui vivet in aeternum creavit omnia simul or sth like that.

Making a story, unless it is a short parable announced as such, out of a statement that is true, while some details in the story are not, that is not the work of a hagiographer, but of a novelist. While novelists have their use, we do not confess of the Holy Spirit that He has spoken through the poets.

3:57 "and they expressed it based on the ideas that they had at the time"

Suppose flatness of earth was a common idea back then, why was it not expressed?

Why does the Bible often speak of "four corners of the earth" which is literally correct if taken as "four corners of the land" / "of the continents" (more than four corners implies we do not quite know which of the continental corners are enumerated as the four Biblical ones, but not that they do not exist), and why does it never say "the Earth is a square which has four corners"?

Well, one reason could be, hagiographers were never flat earth, though they took care not to be too overtly round earth either, or, an alternative one could be, while they were personally flat earth, God protected them from expressing it, as He would have protected a Pope personally considering the Blessed Virgin was sanctified from original sin after her first instant from expressing that in more than a private manner prior to 1854.

So, why would Moses have enjoyed less protection, less even negative infallibility, than Popes?

Of hagiographers, we predicate positive inspiration and therefore total inerrancy, of Popes only negative protection and therefore just infallibility as to doctrine and morals ... and you are saying in effect that "hagiographers" (reducing Moses to a committee!) had less even infallibility than Popes?

They had at least as much, if they were personally flat earth, and more, if they were personally round earth. Indeed, they had more than negative infallibility, not less! Including Moses in his first few paragraphs, obviously.

"their ideas were not based on scientific that they did not have"

Their ideas were based on God given knowledge which the scientists of today do not have.

IV

"we can accept [evolution] like the writers [!] of Genesis accepted the ideas of their time"

No, we can't. If you "can" you are contradicting the Creed (see previous), the council of Trent, the chronology in the Christmas proclamation being one Trentine item (we are not supposed to criticise the received Roman liturgy) and the consensus of Church Fathers on a short overall history being another one (we are not supposed to have, perhaps even extrapatristic-consensus, certainly not counterpatristic-consensus exegesis of the Bible).

"It's our belief God was the one who set everything in motion"

• 1) this is not an accurate rendering of Prima Via. God in Prima Via is not concluded as earliest mover in a temporal series of movements, but as first, like the pedalling biker is first mover of the wheels, in a contemporary series of linked movements;
• 2) it is not in any text of the Bible
• 3) it sounds like a combination of Newton and Voltaire, like Deism.

Therefore, it does not accurately reflect Catholic belief.

So, you are getting wrong what we can accept, but also wrong what is "our belief".

V

Dialogue

starting with Jorge Ramos and myself.

Jorge Ramos

St Augustine and others said that we cannot take literal the whole Bible, specially the book of Genesis chapters 1 to 11. If you take it literally, there are contradictions with logic of the real world and God cannot contradict itself. In addition, there are 2 creation narratives and 2 Noah’s Ark accounts. If we take everything literal we are in a contradiction because in the first creation narrative man and woman were created last after everything else, while the second narrative God creates man first and woman last. However, we are allowed to believe either narrative or evolution ir any other rational explanation as long as it does not contradict Catholic teaching. But we should form our consciences and be rational in matters of science and faith.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"St Augustine and others said we cannot take literal the whole Bible, specially the book of Genesis chapters 1 to 11"

In what work and what book and chapter, please?

NOT De Genesi ad Literam Libri XII, I specifically checked.

"If you take it literally, there are contradictions with logic of the real world"

• 1) which ones do YOU note?
• 2) do you say St Augustine noted any, and which ones if so did HE note? Work, what book, what chapter?

"and God cannot contradict itself"

Himself, you mean? That is the one thing you have said so far I agree on, even if your English is not excellent.

"If we take everything literal we are in a contradiction because in the first creation narrative man and woman were creaed last after everthing else, while the second narrative God creates man first and woman last"

• 1) Two narratives, but they do not contradict, since they do not have the same scope.
• 2) Woman after man does not contradict first account, since it is a close-up.
• 3) Animals after man is not clearly in the text of second account, which says "God having created beasts brought them fourth to Adam" - it could mean the beasts He had created earlier on day six but brought fourth to Adam after He had created Adam, and it could also mean He created extra examples of each before Adam's eyes, so Adam was to know He was the creator.

"However, we are allowed to believe either narrative"

No, required to believe both.

"or evolution"

According to what decision by the Catholic Church? What level of magisterium? What exact wording?

If Humani Generis (only an encyclical) contradicts a canon by Council of Trent (infallible), Humani Generis cannot be Church teaching. If on the other hand Humani Generis does not really necessarily contradict that canon, perhaps Humani Generis is NOT allowing us to believe (actually believe) evolution : just preliminarily allowing learned men to argue for it. And requiring them to combine good exegesis with good science, when doing so.

"But we should form our consciences and be rational in matters of science and faith"

Here is one rational thing for you : God cannot contradict what He actually did. Now read Mark 10:6.

Updates

on this dialogue, if forthcoming, are below here.

Other Dialogue

resuming some earlier:

I

2:52

"for instance, in the story of Genesis, earth is treated as the centre of the Universe"

Well, so? It is, isn't it?

Or do you consider Galileo a great scientist? Or Kepler a huge improvement not only on Tycho Brahe but on Riccioli?

Riccioli famously accepted most Keplerian improvements on Tycho, but not his rejection of Geocentrism.

Or do you consider Herschel was a great scientist because he took "relative Heliocentrism" over from Kantian philosophy which took it over from heresies of Bruno?

So, your example is bad.

K Boudreaux

Hans-Georg Lundahl geocentricism, i.e., planets and stars revolve around the earth...either my understanding of geocentricism is wrong or geocentrism is obviously false

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If by "revolve around the earth" you mean "revolve in perfect circles centred on earth" it contradicts observations.

I don't mean that, there is also room for epicycles.

Other than that, I don't know what you mean by "obviously false".

K Boudreaux

Hans-Georg Lundahl I'm saying the planets and stars do not revolve around the earth in repeated patterns, be it circles or elliptical patterns. I'm also saying that the earth is not the center of the universe since the earth is not fixated at one point, the earth moves, the galaxy moves, the universe expands...Im also saying that if the Bible says these things then it is wrong and therefore cannot be taken to be interpreted as literal descriptions of natural phenomenon

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You were saying not only that, but that the denial of this was "obviously" false, i e your position is "obviously" right.

Beyond social indoctrination, what is obvious about your position being right?

• Claim : "earth moves around itself" - test?
• Claim : "earth moves around Sun" - test?
• Claim : "Sun and Solar system move around the centre of the galaxy" - test?
• Claim : "the galaxy moves in the universe, like moving away from other galaxies" - test?

How many of these tests are on top of that obvious?

The one which is obvious is "the scientists say so now". The reply is fairly obvious "the scientists said the opposite earlier".

"if the Bible says these things then it is wrong"

So, you put your faith in scientists above your faith in God?

"and therefore cannot be taken to be interpreted as literal descriptions of natural phenomenon"

If the Bible is wrong on the literal plane, why would it be right on any other one?

It doesn't function like Lord of the Rings, or like Narnia, it is presented as history.

K Boudreaux

you are correct, from the viewpoint of an observer on earth, it appears that the earth is fixed and everything else in the sky moves, hence geocentricism. so geocentricism might be true relative to an observer on earth, though this is something all together different than saying it is objectively true independent of a particular frame of reference. I will grant you that the insights of modern physics and astronomy are not obvious.you are also correct that science changes its theories in light of new evidence. if understandings which were thought of as true are proven false, then they must be discarded. as technology becomes more sophisticated, new observations must be accounted for. You are well read, I'm sure you are aware of the observations which discredit geocentricism. Also, I never claimed the earth moves around itself, never said the sun and solar system move around the center of the galaxy, and as far as galaxies moving away from other galaxies, this is observed. Also, I'm curious, do you accept the theories and observations of modern physics an astronomy or do you believe the earth remains fixed and everything else moves around it?

So, you put your faith in scientists above your faith in God? I believe that the scientific method provides accurate (although limited) knowledge of the natural world, I believe this because science makes predictions that work. This belief is not mutually exclusive to having faith in God. do you not trust modern medicine? do you believe that motors operate by magic? the technology that we utilize everyday is based on understandings about reality that came about through the scientific method. that these technologies work confirm the likelihood of its assertions and theories, and both of us assume the likelihood of these predictions to be practically certain, we do this on a daily basis. you cannot use a computer, drive a car, go to the hospital, take medicine without having 'faith' in science...I disagree that the bible is presented as history in the modern sense of the word to mean linear descriptions of factual events. The bible is written as salvation history which is altogether something different than modern scientific history. it is kerygma...

well, one thing is clear, both of us are trying to reckon with the obvious contradictions between the biblical description of the cosmos vs the modern scientific description of the cosmos. You either have to make twists and turns to the biblical texts to fit the modern scientific schema OR you have twist and turn the scientific schema to fit the biblical schema, or perhaps you have to do a little bit of both on each side. Either way you chose is a distortion nonetheless and undesirable in my opinion. maybe the answer is to leave the bible to matters of faith and morals and leave science to descriptions and explanations of natural phenomena. the metaphysical, theological, and moral truths in the bible don't lose credibility if you assert that its historical and scientific truths are inaccurate...its just not a big deal to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Let's break your answer down a bit ...

"I believe that the scientific method"

More like good science, there is no one such thing as THE scientific method, despite a hype around Popper.

"provides accurate (although limited) knowledge of the natural world,"

I agree, except for the subject "scientific method" which refers to Popper.

"I believe this because science makes predictions that work."

• 1) This sounds a bit like Popper;
• 2) How do you test a "prediction" like "galaxies move apart"?

"This belief is not mutually exclusive to having faith in God."

As far as you have stated it so far in the last comment, no. But the point is, you were just applying sth from what I'd consider bad and ultimately atheistic science paradigms over the revealed word of God.

"do you not trust modern medicine? do you believe that motors operate by magic? the technology that we utilize everyday is based on understandings about reality that came about through the scientific method."

Ian Fleming discovering penicilline and that shepherd in South France who discovered Roquefort Cheese (which contains natural penicilline) surely did not wait for Popper to tell them how to do discoveries.

Your drift seems to be the positive inverse of "guilt by association", it's more like "heroism by association" ... and it is not a very either logical or scientific type of thought process.

"that these technologies work confirm the likelihood of its assertions and theories,"

When it comes to theories like electromagnetism ... well, actually, magnets and at least static electricity were known and worked before Maxwell came around.

The point is, electricity as technology and electromagnetism as Maxwell's theory about it are about things that can be studied here and know, at close hand. OK, electrons as particles actually can't.

BUT things like "alpha Centauri is 4 light years away" and "Andromeda Galaxy is 2 500 000 light years away" or "this meteorite is 4 500 000 000 years old" are NOT things which in themselves can be studied here and now.

What you have here and now are certain things, which according to certain theories, like Heliocentrism being true or like all Lead in the meteorite coming from Uranium, indicate certain things, however, these theories are less easy to test than electromagnetism.

Saying they are validated by fridge and combustion engine is like saying the fridge validates the theory behind the combustion engine or the combustion engine all theories about the fridge. No.

And what about technologies - there are LOTS of them still used - discovered by people who actually were Geocentrics (and sometimes Flat Earthers) and relatively speaking (both Hebrews and Egyptian Pagans) Young Earth Creationists?

"and both of us assume the likelihood of these predictions to be practically certain, we do this on a daily basis. you cannot use a computer, drive a car, go to the hospital, take medicine without having 'faith' in science..."

False, I use all of these by taking faith in the relevant scientific discipline - not in "science" as an abstract collection or hypostasis of all of them. Or, actually, I don't drive a car, so I don't use all of them. But I certainly do have faith in the scientific theories of the combustion engine.

These have not been discovered by the self same method as all other scientific theories, there is no such thing as THE scientific method. There are scientific methodS, and they are more or less likely to be true, more or less scientific.

"I disagree that the bible is presented as history in the modern sense of the word to mean linear descriptions of factual events."

I am sorry, but you are citing a VERY unscientific discipline, namely "history of sciences", if even as much.

"Linear" (at least roughly so) "description of factual events" was always a thing, it is NOT a modern discovery.

"The bible is written as salvation history which is altogether something different than modern scientific history. it is kerygma..."

I am sorry, but salvation history is still history and it is factual, and it is also linear : creation came before fall, fall before curse, curse before flood, flood before old covenant, old covenant before incarnation and so on.

Putting salvation history or kerygma in a different category from history "as we understand it today" is NOT believing it.

I missed two other ones.

"you are correct, from the viewpoint of an observer on earth, it appears that the earth is fixed and everything else in the sky moves, hence geocentricism."

And this is prima facie evidence, though perhaps not definitive one, as far as we can know at first. It should be upheld as long as opposite cannot be proven.

"so geocentricism might be true relative to an observer on earth, though this is something all together different than saying it is objectively true independent of a particular frame of reference."

The wager that what's true to an observer on earth is also so to an observer above the fix stars is not a stretch.

"I will grant you that the insights of modern physics and astronomy are not obvious."

Thank you. I'd add, they are not all of them even proven insights.

"you are also correct that science changes its theories in light of new evidence."

Or in the light of new bad arguments, too.

"if understandings which were thought of as true are proven false, then they must be discarded."

Key word : proven.

"as technology becomes more sophisticated, new observations must be accounted for."

I believe all new observations can be accounted for within geocentrism.

"You are well read, I'm sure you are aware of the observations which discredit geocentricism."

I am aware of the observations which are often supposed to discredit it.

I am also aware of some gaps in the logic about this discrediting.

"Also, I never claimed the earth moves around itself, never said the sun and solar system move around the center of the galaxy, and as far as galaxies moving away from other galaxies, this is observed."

This is not observed, this is claimed.

"Also, I'm curious, do you accept the theories and observations of modern physics an astronomy or do you believe the earth remains fixed and everything else moves around it?"

Either directly or indirectly, below the Empyrean Heaven (where we hope to go to Glory, where Christ and Mary are seated not just souls but live bodies), which unlike lower ones is not moving.

"well, one thing is clear, both of us are trying to reckon with the obvious contradictions between the biblical description of the cosmos vs the modern scientific description of the cosmos."

Obviously.

"You either have to make twists and turns to the biblical texts to fit the modern scientific schema OR you have twist and turn the scientific schema to fit the biblical schema,"

Or even discard wholesale certain parts of what is supposed to be these days the "scientific" schema.

"or perhaps you have to do a little bit of both on each side. Either way you chose is a distortion nonetheless and undesirable in my opinion."

Discarding bad science is not a distortion.

"maybe the answer is to leave the bible to matters of faith and morals"

First matter of faith "Deum Patrem Omnipotentem, Creatorem Coeli et Terrae" and one more "Spiritum Sanctum ... qui loquutus est per prophetas".

In other words, faith is not just about values, it is about facts.

"and leave science to descriptions and explanations of natural phenomena."

Science informed by revelation, please.

"the metaphysical, theological, and moral truths in the bible don't lose credibility if you assert that its historical and scientific truths are inaccurate..."

You are missing the point that metaphysics as accounting for also includes physics, and theology as being about the God who created not just our souls but also our bodies and where they are placed should have physical implications too.

You are missing the point that the moral truths come through by a story which is a true one - which is the definition of history.

"its just not a big deal to me, but maybe I'm missing something."

Indeed, I'd say you are missing quite a lot. You reason like a Kantian, not like a Thomist.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"the Biblical writers"

As far as I know, Genesis 1 account has one writer : Moses, who received on Sinai a vision of the six days.

"were [!] conveying the message ..."

"They were" or rather he was conveying a lot of factual material too. Celestial bodies created on day four after plants created on day three, for one.

While God's creative power is indeed a salvific truth, Genesis 1 is not limited to saying Qui vivet in aeternum creavit omnia simul or sth like that.

Making a story, unless it is a short parable announced as such, out of a statement that is true, while some details in the story are not, that is not the work of a hagiographer, but of a novelist. While novelists have their use, we do not confess of the Holy Spirit that He has spoken through the poets.

K Boudreaux

Hans-Georg Lundahl when the Bible talks about the 'water above the heavens' where are the heavens and where is the water?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I take "above" as also meaning "in the upper part of".

Water = H2 and H2O molecules which are plentyful in space.

K Boudreaux

Hans-Georg Lundahl yet 'above' and 'in the upper part of' indicate different spatiotemporal locations in relation to 'the heavens'. So if 'above' means 'in the upper part of' then why does scripture say 'above' instead of 'in the upper part of'. but, you say 'I take to also mean' so if it is true that there is water above the heavens, where is 'above the heavens' and where is the 'water above it'.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Hans-Georg Lundahl yet 'above' and 'in the upper part of' indicate different spatiotemporal locations in relation to 'the heavens'."

In the English translation.

I am NOT at all sure this is quite true either for Hebrew or for St Jerome's near vernacular Latin of the Vulgate.

Also, the H2 and H2O in space are clearly above some of the Heavens, like the atmosphere.

A Catholic starts with the presumption that the text has a literally accurate meaning, even if it be not quite obvious, not that the literal meaning should be demonstrated as inaccurate.

K Boudreaux

if you admit that you don't know what the actual word in Hebrew means, then how can you possibly attempt to interpret 'above' to also mean 'in the upper part of' you expand the meaning of the word above to 'in the upper part of' while at the same time admitting that you don't actually know what the word means in the original language

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I don't know Hebrew, but I very much do know that prepositions and local adverbs have diverse ranges of meaning across languages.