Home Forums All Things Catholic Theistic Creationist or Theistic Evolutionist

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  • #1680
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [color=darkred:2a36dogp]Are you:

    a) Theistic Creationist
    b) Theistic Evolutionist

    Whatever you are, I’d like to venture into the possible problems that both arise. Take for example if you happen to fall under . How would you explain that men before the fall did not have a fallen nature. Were they fully human? The questions are endless but I hope this sparks some more questions and we can make this thread a think tank.

    Let your brain hurt with thoughts! :mrgreen: [/color:2a36dogp]

    #8335

    Why can’t we be both? Why can’t it be that God created the initial creatures, including man, and they evolved over time?

    #8337
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:1ssemcvw]Why can’t we be both? Why can’t it be that God created the initial creatures, including man, and they evolved over time?[/quote:1ssemcvw]

    [color=darkred:1ssemcvw]How is that both? Theistic Creationist basically interprets Genesis hyper-literally. From what I understand, their interpretation doesn’t leave any room for evolution.

    Theistic Evolutionist on the other hand holds on to the essence of our faith found in Genesis, but is open to the rest. Most of them lean to science for those answers.[/color:1ssemcvw]

    #8340
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I think, then, that what you want to discuss would be better termed Young Earth Creationist vs Old Earth Creationist since the theistic evolutionist would object to not being also termed a creationist.

    #8342
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Feeling 62 Billion Years old the past few months, I take the old road, But stll have faith God did it.

    THere was an old Gary Larson cartoon that had God pulling the earth out of the oven and thinking to Himself, “I think this thing is only half baked.” :lol:

    #8348
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    God creates from nothing and God allows evolution within what He creates.
    Here are some references:

    [i:21ttmndt]In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process ‚Äì one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence ‚Äì simply cannot exist because”the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles….It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2). [/i:21ttmndt]
    Source[/url:21ttmndt]

    [i:21ttmndt]”…..Likewise related is the “design” of the plan. God not only is the Maker of all; He is also the maintainer of His creation, directing it to its goal. ………God is not only a creator who at the beginning set the work in motion, like a watchmaker who has fashioned a time-piece that will tick on forever. Rather, he preserves and guides it towards its goal. The Christian faith further teaches that the creation is not yet complete, that it is in statu viae, in transit. God as Creator of the world is also its guide. We call this “providence” (Vorsehung). We are convinced that all of this – that there is a Creator and a guide – can also be perceived and recognized by us. Christian belief decidedly and tenaciously clings to the human capacity to discern both these divine aspects, though certainly neither in toto nor in every detail. [/i:21ttmndt]
    http://www.kath.net/detail.php?id=12028

    [i:21ttmndt]Within the teaching about evolution itself, the problem emerges at the point of transition from micro to macro-evolution, on which point Szathmary and Maynard Smith, both convinced supporters of an all-embracing theory of evolution, nonetheless declare that: “There is no theoretical basis for believing that evolutionary lines become more complex with time; and there is also no empirical evidence that this happens.”
    The question that has now to be put certainly delves deeper: it is whether the theory of evolution can be presented as a universal theory concerning all reality, …….I do not think so. . In the end this concerns a choice that can no longer be made on purely scientific grounds or basically on philosophical grounds. [/i:21ttmndt]Pope Benedict XVI
    http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=75841

    #8349

    [quote:2531axua]God creates from nothing and God allows evolution within what He creates.[/quote:2531axua]
    This is what I was trying to say. Thanks for the references!

    #8350
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Thank you for your posting Carmelite. We can use good input from a son or daughter of the Illustrious Holy Mount.

    #8362
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:4zojvtsb]I think, then, that what you want to discuss would be better termed Young Earth Creationist vs Old Earth Creationist since the theistic evolutionist would object to not being also termed a creationist.[/quote:4zojvtsb]
    [color=darkred:4zojvtsb]You’re right. It would be better termed that way…thanks. <img decoding=” title=”Smile” /> [/color:4zojvtsb]

    #8363
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:1b1mja32]God creates from nothing and God allows evolution within what He creates. [/quote:1b1mja32]
    [color=darkred:1b1mja32]Excellent references!

    This is crystal clear to me. What [i:1b1mja32][b:1b1mja32]isn’t[/b:1b1mja32][/i:1b1mja32] clear to me is how human nature was before the fall. That make sense?[/color:1b1mja32]

    #8371
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:3k5bzii1]What [i:3k5bzii1][b:3k5bzii1]isn’t[/b:3k5bzii1][/i:3k5bzii1] clear to me is how human nature was before the fall.[/quote:3k5bzii1]

    I hope this is helpful:

    [color=darkred:3k5bzii1]We believe that in Adam all have sinned, which means that the original offense committed by him caused human nature, common to all men, to fall to a state in which it bears the consequences of that offense, and which is not the state in which it was at first in our first parents established as they were in holiness and justice, and in which man knew neither evil nor death. It is human nature so fallen stripped of the grace that clothed it, injured in its own natural powers and subjected to the dominion of death, that is transmitted to all men, and it is in this sense that every man is born in sin. [/color:3k5bzii1]
    Pope Paul VI
    The Credo of the People of God
    http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/p6credo.htm

    [color=darkred:3k5bzii1]Before the fall, Adam was “innocent” and spiritually alive; his body was meant to be immortal, and he enjoyed a certain “freedom of the soul.” Once he fell, however, he lost these gifts not only for himself but also for his descendants; so that “it was not only the death of the body which is punishment for sin,” but also “sin, the death of the soul, which passed from one man to all the human race.”………………..Before the fall, Adam enjoyed the gift of integrity, which meant absence of the conflict we now experience between our natural urges and the dictates of right reason. After the fall, Adam lost this gift for himself and his posterity, since even those who have been regenerated in baptism are plagued by an interior struggle with their unruly desires and fears..[/color:3k5bzii1]
    THE CATHOLIC CATECHISM
    Part One: Doctrines of the Faith – III. God, Man, and the Universe
    Original Justice and the Fall

    #8372

    [quote:35886jeu]Before the fall, Adam enjoyed the gift of integrity, which meant absence of the conflict we now experience between our natural urges and the dictates of right reason.[/quote:35886jeu]
    Doesn’t this notion conflict with the belief that God gave us all free will? Or does this mean he didn’t give Eve the gift of integrity and that’s why she was tricked by the serpent?

    #8373
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:2itcuedt][quote:2itcuedt]Before the fall, Adam enjoyed the gift of integrity, which meant absence of the conflict we now experience between our natural urges and the dictates of right reason.[/quote:2itcuedt]
    Doesn’t this notion conflict with the belief that God gave us all free will? Or does this mean he didn’t give Eve the gift of integrity and that’s why she was tricked by the serpent?[/quote:2itcuedt]

    I see no conflict, as while they where given all these gifts, they had the ability to use them as God intended or reject His law and forefit them by not utlizing the gifts. We know what they did.

    #8375
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:k7sn0xly][quote:k7sn0xly]Before the fall, Adam enjoyed the gift of integrity, which meant absence of the conflict we now experience between our natural urges and the dictates of right reason.[/quote:k7sn0xly]
    Doesn’t this notion conflict with the belief that God gave us all free will? Or does this mean he didn’t give Eve the gift of integrity and that’s why she was tricked by the serpent?[/quote:k7sn0xly]

    God gave us free will before and after the fall. If Adam and Even did not have free will they would not have sinned. The fact that they sinned is proof that they had free will.

    So free will after the fall is weakened due to Original Sin. Our will does not always follow what is reasonable but it can follow what is not reasonable due to concupiscence and inordinate attachments/passions.

    #8376
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:v2rb2s60]I hope this is helpful:[/quote:v2rb2s60]
    [color=darkblue:v2rb2s60]Not really. I’m already aware of the [b:v2rb2s60]state[/b:v2rb2s60] [i:v2rb2s60]after[/i:v2rb2s60] the fall. What you have provided speaks of descendants and after the fall……not before the fall. I’m asking of the nature of those “humans” who were not evolved yet. Say for example this fella: [/color:v2rb2s60]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afarensis
    [color=darkblue:v2rb2s60]
    Was he/she fallen? Or was he not “human” yet? What’s the Church’s position if any.[/color:v2rb2s60]

    #8379
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:17m8t3ga]Doesn’t this notion conflict with the belief that God gave us all free will? Or does this mean he didn’t give Eve the gift of integrity and that’s why she was tricked by the serpent?[/quote:17m8t3ga]Integrity is like the antithesis of concupiscence.

    Frank Sheed explains integrity thusly in Theology for Beginners:

    “[Integrity] is perhaps the one we look back to with the greatest longing, for it means that man’s nature was wholly at peace; the body was subject to the soul, the lower powers of the soul to the higher, the natural habits wholly harmonious with the supernatural, the whole man united with God. … The gift of integrity, guaranteeing the harmony of man’s natural powers, has gone. Each of our powers seeks its own outlet, each of our needs its own immediate gratification; we have not the subordination of all our powers to reason and of reason to God which would unify all our striving; each one of us is a civil war.”

    He goes on to explain that the loss of integrity is most easily and often seen in the passions (as gluttony, greed, lust, etc) and our imagination (as sexual thoughts, etc.).

    #8489
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    [quote:14b5frr1][quote:14b5frr1]I hope this is helpful:[/quote:14b5frr1]
    [color=darkblue:14b5frr1]Not really. I’m already aware of the [b:14b5frr1]state[/b:14b5frr1] [i:14b5frr1]after[/i:14b5frr1] the fall. What you have provided speaks of descendants and after the fall……not before the fall. I’m asking of the nature of those “humans” who were not evolved yet. Say for example this fella: [/color:14b5frr1]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afarensis
    [color=darkblue:14b5frr1]
    Was he/she fallen? Or was he not “human” yet? What’s the Church’s position if any.[/color:14b5frr1][/quote:14b5frr1]

    All humans (endowed with a soul) are desendants of Adam and Eve.
    These are doctrines of the Faith:
    [i:14b5frr1]”The first man was created by God.”
    “The whole human race stems from one single human pair.”[/i:14b5frr1]
    Fundamentals of Catholic Doctrine by L. Ott

    This is what the Bible says:

    “And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth;and[u:14b5frr1][b:14b5frr1] there was not a man [/b:14b5frr1][/u:14b5frr1]to till the earth.But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the surface of the earth. And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and [b:14b5frr1]man became a living soul[/b:14b5frr1].”Gen 2:5-7

    “And Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was [b:14b5frr1]the mother of[u:14b5frr1] all[/u:14b5frr1] the living[/b:14b5frr1]”.Gen 3:20

    “And hath [b:14b5frr1]made of [u:14b5frr1]one[/u:14b5frr1], all mankind[/b:14b5frr1], to dwell upon the whole face of the earth,”Act 17:26

    “She preserved him, that was first formed by God, [b:14b5frr1]the father of the world[/b:14b5frr1], when he was created [u:14b5frr1][b:14b5frr1]alone[/b:14b5frr1][/u:14b5frr1]” Wis 10:1

    According to the above Bible verses the father and the mother of all the living/mankind are Adam and Eve.
    Therefore every human being that ever lived traces his or her ancestry to Adam and Eve.

    [i:14b5frr1]37. 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 no 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.[12][/i:14b5frr1]
    Humani Generis
    http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_ … is_en.html

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