Unfortunately the Vatican is behind the power curve on this one. The reality of the situation is that if evolution occurred as humanists today contend that the entire story of Genesis is a complete and utter fraud. Nonsense. It would mean Genesis uses metaphorical and allegorical language, common to ancient peoples, to express basic divine truths. There is no evidence the book was meant to be taken literally.
Besides, evolution is not the only science that makes a literal reading of Genesis untenable. To believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, you'd have to chuck out geology. To believe that night and day preceeded the creation of the sun, you'd have to chuck out astronomy. And where exactly is the canopy of water in the heavens? How come we haven't found it yet?
A theory in which millions of years of death and change led to the ascent of man is mutually exclusive with a document which states unequivocally that death did not exist prior to Cain murdering his brother.
Nowhere does the Bible say there was no animal death before Cain's murder. Romans 5 speaks only of HUMAN death. Accepting evolution only requires accepting pre-human ANIMAL death.
The weakest of all philosophical and theological viewpoints is born out of attempting a merger of the two.
The weakest of all philosophical and theological viewpoints is born out of taking literally an obviously poetic and allegorical text whose literal reading is not only contradicted by mountains of readily observable, empirical data, but in fact contradicts itself.
Nowhere does the Bible say there was no animal death before Cain's murder. Romans 5 speaks only of HUMAN death. Accepting evolution only requires accepting pre-human ANIMAL death.
Here are some scriptures that might help (Taken from another thread and slightly edited).
Death is fundamental to the Gospel's efficacy. If sin didn't bring on death, there was no need for Christ to literally conquer death through His physical resurrection. The entire Jewish sacrificial system that was a typology of Jesus Christ, required shedding of blood for the covering of sin. Read Leviticus if you aren't to sure about this doctrine.
God's first act after pronouncing the curse for Adam's sin was to sacrifice an animal (the first animal death was skins to cover Adam and Eve's sin).
Gen 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
Death was not part of the original creation. Getting back to the original creation.
Isa 11:7 And the
cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the
lion shall eat straw like the ox.
Isa 65:25 The
wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the
lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust [shall be] the serpent's meat.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.
Jesus Christ shed His sinless
blood and therefore gave up his
life unto death, because He is God, He was able to take up His life again from the
dead so that, like Him, we can have eternal life.
As Paul clearly states, Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, overcame the penalty of death brought on by Adam's sin. If evolution was true, Jesus Christ would have had no reason to resurrect Himself because He could have become a spirit being and went straight to heaven.
Sin brought death into the world, and death needed conquering by the shedding of sinless blood. Jesus Christ allowed His life's blood to pour out for us. He had the power to lay down His life for His friends.
On death, shed blood and sin:
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die.
Lev 17:11 For the
life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is]
the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul.
Mat 26:28 For this is my
blood of the new testament, which is
shed for many for the remission of sins.
Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now
justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Luk 24:39-40
39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself:
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them [his] hands and [his] feet.
41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man
sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Rom 6:23 For the
wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Adam's sin cursed the entire universe.
Rom 8:21-22
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Jhn 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (emphasis added in scripture text)
Talk about a central theme, WOW!