Posted on 11/14/2005 5:12:54 AM PST by jodiluvshoes
In a remarkably odd statement this past week, the Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin!
In fact Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture said that "if the Bible were read correctly" that the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible."
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".
He went on to advocate that the idea of creation is a theological one, while the substance of origins is a scientific one and that Catholics should "know" how science sees such things so as to "understand better."
(Excerpt) Read more at muscleheadrevolution.com ...
>But if "evolution" is taken to mean that life forms change and adapt over time, there is no contradiction. There is nothing inhernetly contradictory about believing that God may have created life in such a way that it evolved over time. <
Actually there is.Evolution implies in common usage a beneficial change over time .The Bible does not teach that man is getting better(evolving over time)Our Flesh is actually getting further from perfection.We only get better in spirit through the grace of Jesus Christ.Our bodies will only evolve when we exchange them in glory.
>No sir, you are confusing Evangelical, with evangelical. <
You sir are splitting hairs to avoid admitting you made a baseless charge and created a stawman (that evangelicals believed in a 100% literal interpretation of scripture)to advance your ideas.
Nonsense. Where does it say that our bodies are getting further and further from perfection? Our spiritual condition is damaged, in need of redemption. The scientific theory of evolution has nothing to say about our spiritual condition.
One need not look far into the past to see how our bodies are growing stronger, faster, better. Life expectancies, average heights and weights, etc. all point toward much stronger physical bodies.
Somone who played on the line in the NFL 30 years ago would be lucky to play safety or cornerback today.
SD
>Nonsense. Where does it say that our bodies are getting further and further from perfection? Our spiritual condition is damaged, in need of redemption. The scientific theory of evolution has nothing to say about our spiritual condition. <
In Genesis.Death entered the world with sin.Prior to the flood man lived over 200 years.
> Life expectancies, average heights and weights, etc. all point toward much stronger physical bodies. <
You are crediting changes in bodies with changes in environment.We are practicing better health and have better medicines.Much of the increase in life expectancy has come from a decrease in infant mortality.Their has been no increase in the upper limit of man's life just an increase in average life expectancy.
Any changes in height over the last 40 years are to be expected within normal breeding processes and improved nutrition.No animal species including humans has ever experienced permanent evolutionary change of more than 30%.In fact animals that have been bread up to this point actually regress.You could see the average height in the US go down over the next 20 years due to growth in Hispanic and Asian population.
The question arises then, where can this one faith be found? It is my contention that the only place the faith can be found is in the Bible, or those that preach it (Rm 10:11-17). The Bible is the verbal plenary inspired Word of God. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit, to foretell the coming of the Messiah (OT), and to proclaim the prophecy of His coming fullfilled (NT). If the Bible is considered to be the Word of God, then all of it must be considered Truth. Christianity is not a cafeteria religion. If any part of Scipture can be construed to be untrue (or unreliable), than none of it is worth considering (the whole of Scripture being a house of cards). And if this would be so, then Paul pities the Christian as being the most pitiable of beings, in that their hope of the blessed resurrection is based upon a contemptible lie (I Cor 15:12-19).
Christianity doesn't stand or fall upon the Bible, it stands or falls upon whether or not Christ is who He said He is. He said that He is the Great "I Am". And Christ quote the Sciptures extensively as being the Word of God. So if Christ is a liar, then the Bible is suspect as well. And if the Bible is suspect, then so is Christ. The veracity and integrity of the Bible notwithstanding, the empty tomb needs an intellectually honest answer.
As a Christian, I accept no authority above me than the verbal plenary inspired Word of God as it is written in the Scriptures. It being the sole arbiter of all matters of doctrine, the Supreme Court of the Faith from which there is NO appeal. Scripture is adament about that issue in II Tim 3:16. Those that protest the authority of Scripture in that regard are ignorant of its veracity and integrity both historically, archeologically, and internal and external bibliographical proofs. Anybody who denies these has not looked into the matter with any amount of sincere and intellectually honest investigation; for to do so would yield no other conclusion (or are deliberately and willfully ignorant).
Finally, evolution absolutely can not be reconciled with Scripture, at least not to explain the appearance of man on this Earth. For evolution belies Scripture's insistance that God created Man, and that when He was done with creation everything was good. Scripture says that by one man, sin entered into the world, and the wages of sin are death. Evolution intimates that death was an intimate facet of this world since the beginning of life.
Yes, death entered the world. I don't see an argument for a progression of fleshy decay.
It is spiritual things about which the Bible is concerned. I am not saying any evolutionary process is going to lead to perfection. I am saying that beneficial changes can occur.
You are crediting changes in bodies with changes in environment.We are practicing better health and have better medicines.Much of the increase in life expectancy has come from a decrease in infant mortality.Their has been no increase in the upper limit of man's life just an increase in average life expectancy.
Again, I am not saying we are approaching perfection. There has definitely been an increase in man's upper age limit. It's not just because of infant mortality.
Yes, I had my tongue in cheek a bit, but our better diets and medicine are all a part of a species adapting to better live in the world.
SD
Please see post #2, they are correct. This is nothing new.
I am not splitting hairs, you are trying to invent being offended. No strawman was created.
The Catholic church has never, ever stated that every word of the Bible is literal truth, and those that claim they have are blindingly ignorant of Catholicism.
It has always been the evangelicals that have advanced the idea that the Bible is a literal word for word. You can continue to be offended, as I am sure is your intent from the beginning, but that is your right.
I think you missed, perhaps intentionally, the point of my post. Anyway, if you read the questions again, and then actually try to answer them, you might get what I was driving at.
Or perhaps you just prefer to preach. Your choice.
Does apparent randomness always imply meaninglessless?
A naked couple living in a garden with a talking snake. Yep, sure is believable ...
I'm thinking the snake might have been telepathic. LOL
Does apparent randomness always imply meaninglessless?
Maybe that's the point he was trying to make with his apparently random responses? :-)
SD
Someone went through an awful lot of trouble to make it look otherwise.
Again, we must understand the speaker and the audience, as well as the intention of the message.
Jesus did not come here to teach us about the origins of life in the universe. Had he spent his time trying to explain the big bang and how we are all products of this initial act of the creation of matter and how life grew on this one tiny planet where the conditions were just right, etc. etc., He would have lost and confused His audience. And He would have failed to make His point, which was not to teach the Hebrews science.
All Scripture shows Jesus and Peter and Paul doing is using allusions to the shared cultural history that their audiences would have been familiar with.
SD
To which you said:
To my knowledge, yes.
While MANY Orthodox Jews accept a six-day creation, it is pertinent to point out that Orthodox Judaism is not unanimous on the subject. The famous British Orthodox Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz (1872-1946) wrote:
God the Creator and Lord of the Universe, which is the work of his goodness and wisdom; and Man, made in His image, who is to hallow his week-day labors by the blessedness of Sabbath-rest -- such are the teachings of the Creation chapter. It's purpose is to reveal these teachings to the children of man -- and not to serve as a text book of astronomy, geology, or antropology. Its object is not to teach scientific facts; but to proclaim highest religious truths respecting God, Man, and the Universe. The "conflict" between the fundamental realities of Religion and the established facts of Science, is seen to be unreal as the soon as Religion and Science each recognizes the true border of its domain.
So you are saying Jesus,Peter and Paul knew Adam,Noah and Abraham were just characters that they were alluding to?
Twice is it recorded in Scripture that God viewed His creation as good. The last time when it was finished, He seen that it was very good. Now if evolution is correct, then death must be good. And yet, the serpent told Eve that she would most certainly not die if she eats of the fruit. If death was not part of creation, then it is logically inconsistent to suppose that it was the mechanism through which God created man (or even the rest of the animal kingdom).
Evolution could be a product of the corruption of creation, but if it is, then this a result of the fall.
II Thes 2:11 tells of a strong delusion being sent by God, for the purposes that they believe a lie:
that they might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness (cf. Rm 1:24,25; I Kg 22:19-23; Mt 24:5, 11).And what better lie than to contest Scripture at the absolute very beginning (so as all manner of doubts concerning what follows can be instilled). In legal matters, precedence means everything. Once the credibility of a witness is impeached about the smallest matters, then certainly anything testified about greater matters is besmirched.
The thing that I find most curious, is why the seemingly fanatical absolute insistence upon the teachings of evolutionary theory as being the unimpeachable truth as if to question it is a most egregious heresy.
No. I'm saying that the Scriptural accounts of these figures are not to be taken as historical records necessarily. Yes, they existed. Yes, they play important roles in our salvation history.
It is not unexpected to hear Jesus or Paul talk about these characters. This does not mean that they were endorsing the idea that creation took exactly 6 days or that the literal entire world was flooded with water.
SD
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