Posted on 12/09/2008 12:32:05 AM PST by marthemaria
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush said in an interview Monday that the Bible is "probably not" literally true and that a belief that God created the world is compatible with the theory of evolution.
"I think you can have both," Bush, who leaves office January 20, told ABC television, adding "You're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president." But "evolution is an interesting subject. I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life," said the president, an outspoken Christian who often invokes God in his speeches.
"I think that God created the Earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution," he told ABC television. Asked whether the Bible was literally true, Bush replied:
"Probably not. No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it." "The important lesson is 'God sent a son,'" he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Ever since 1996, when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did not define) was "more than just a hypothesis," defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have often invoked the supposed acceptance — or at least acquiescence — of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow compatible with Christian faith. But this is not true. The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things.Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection — is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.
Consider the real teaching of our beloved John Paul. While his rather vague and unimportant 1996 letter about evolution is always and everywhere cited, we see no one discussing these comments from a 1985 general audience that represents his robust teaching on nature:
"All the observations concerning the development of life lead to a similar conclusion. The evolution of living beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and to discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible or in charge, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator."
He went on: "To all these indications of the existence of God the Creator, some oppose the power of chance or of the proper mechanisms of matter. To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. It would be to abdicate human intelligence, which would thus refuse to think and to seek a solution for its problems."
Note that in this quotation the word "finality" is a philosophical term synonymous with final cause, purpose or design. In comments at another general audience a year later, John Paul concludes, "It is clear that the truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity."
Naturally, the authoritative Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees: "Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason." It adds: "We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance."
In an unfortunate new twist on this old controversy, neo-Darwinists recently have sought to portray our new pope, Benedict XVI, as a satisfied evolutionist. They have quoted a sentence about common ancestry from a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, pointed out that Benedict was at the time head of the commission, and concluded that the Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of "evolution" as used by mainstream biologists — that is, synonymous with neo-Darwinism.
The commission's document, however, reaffirms the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of design in nature. Commenting on the widespread abuse of John Paul's 1996 letter on evolution, the commission cautions that "the letter cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe."
A Christian who denies desgin, purpose, planning and intention on the part of God in dealing with his creatures, may as well deny everything else in the Bible and in the Christian faith, including free-will (which is of God, not apes), the soul (which is of God, not of monkeys ), Original sin (a choice of free-will), the Incarnation, Redemption, etc.
“made in God’s image”
is the essential core element of a culture of life instead of a culture of death.
All of which merely backs up what I posted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2145395/posts?page=103#103
Yes, the Pope has no problem with evolution as science; but anybody of faith has a problem with the philosophical blather that atheists try to make out of evolution; or that creationists make out evolution to be.
Just as there is nothing in the notion that stars form by gravitational attraction and nuclear fusion that precludes the involvement of God in the process or the process being part of God’s plan, there is nothing in natural selection of genetic variation that in any way precludes the involvement of God in the process or in the process being part of God’s plan.
Evolution teaches that man's moral and intellectual faculties evolved by natural selection from monkeys. That contradicts Catholic dogma. That must be subtracted from the "theory of evolution" before the Catholic Church would begin to consider it. You would also have to subtract all the denials of Design.
but anybody of faith has a problem with the philosophical blather that atheists try to make out of evolution
That's probably why you encounter so much opposition on FR.
This was the evidence from multiple independent lines that Pope John Paul was talking about, the evidence of common descent and descent with modification in both DNA and the fossil record. Next you will tell me it is “against Catholic dogma” to believe the universe and Earth are older than six thousand years?
I, like the Pope and President Bush, and a Christian. And try quoting me in context. Creationists try to make evolution out to be the same atheistic philosophical blather that atheists do; yet it has nothing to do with the actual science of evolution.
Do you suppose that the theories of gravity and nuclear fusion similarly is an ‘atheistic’ theory that removes God from the mechanism of stellar creation?
I have faith that the truth is “In the beginning, God . . .” When I see the same results over and over from observations done by different people under different conditions, I know the explanation (rationally) fits within that basic knowledge.
We believers should never have allowed this argument to become one of a false dichotomy: one must believe in a Creator or the process of the evolution of species.
Copernicus and Galileo should never have had to deny the truth that they measured over and over, in order to avoid charges and penalties of heresy. The world didn’t fall out of the sky when we believers accepted that the earth is not flat and it’s not the center of the Galaxy, much less the Universe.
In the same way, men and women - all too often our college men and women - who observe micro-evolution in action and who look at the comparative anatomy/physiology/cellular biology/genetics of plants and animals in existence while also studying the fossil record, should not be required to deny the logical conclusion that that’s how God did it.
Some of the people who write and talk about evolution make a point of going outside the facts to *claim* there is no design, and to extrapolate (way outside the facts) to say that evolution of the species or an earth older than 6000 years proves that there is no God. That last part is their motive and agenda.
However, listen to any of them talk and you will hear about design and purpose, when they talk about the results of evolution. They nearly turn Nature or “Evolution” into a being. (Sometimes they talk as though every creature before modern times could manipulate its genes.) They can’t help it: increased complexity is the result of evolution, and it appears to us, from our practical experience in life, as though there’s a purpose, a design. A Reason.
If you engage one of these people in a discussion, they will start asking about the beginning, “Where did God come from?” However, the best answer non-believers can come up with when asked, “where did the energy and matter in the Big Bang come from?” is another universe, begun by a big bang, expansion and eventual collapse of the universe, then another before that, another etc. Some posit infinite Universes existing simultaneously, some with our laws of physics and some not. In effect, they believe that something comes from nothing, falsifying the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. And yet, all they care about is where God came from?
“The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experiences in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.”
Pope Pius XII
No conflict with Catholic dogma circa 1996.
“Today, almost half a century after publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.” Pope John Paul II
No conflict with Catholic dogma circa 2007.
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”
Pope Benedict XVI
The President told the reporter his most sacred belief: “The important lesson is ‘God sent a son,’
God bless him. God bless us all.
You failed logic.
The President said, “”The important lesson is ‘God sent a son,’”
Why? Why if Man didn't Fall from being created perfect and in harmony with God?
Thanks for that quote.
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XII CONCERNING SOME FALSE OPINIONS THREATENING TO UNDERMINE THE FOUNDATIONS OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE AUGUST 12, 19505. If anyone examines the state of affairs outside the Christian fold, he will easily discover the principal trends that not a few learned men are following. Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences, explains the origin of all this, and audaciously support the monistic and pantheistic opinion that the world is in continual evolution. Communists gladly subscribed to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.
35. It remains for Us now to speak about those questions which, although they pertain to the positive sciences, are nevertheless more or less connected with the truths of the Christian faith. In fact, not a few insistently demand that the Catholic religion takes these sciences into account as much as possible. This certainly would be praiseworthy in the case of clearly proved facts; but caution must be used when there is rather question of hypotheses, having some sort of scientific foundation, in which the doctrine contained in Sacred Scripture or in Tradition is involved. If such conjectural opinions are directly or indirectly opposed to the doctrine revealed by God, then the demand that they be recognized can in no way be admitted.
36. For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter -- for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. However this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of faithful[11] Some however rashly transgress this liberty of discussion, when they act as if the origin of the human body from preexisting and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question.
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 either that 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.[12]
In relation to this, Pius XII wrote:
For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that 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.But I'm sure evolutionists will come up with a story explaining how evolution does not contradict this dogma of the Church. It is, after all, in their best interests, to use the Catholic Church (and any church) as a marketing ploy for the propagation of their ideas. A long list of atheist believers would tend to frighten off a potential convert to evolutionism. Lengthy lists of Christian believers add some comforting credibility to the theory, that atheists alone seem unable to provide.
You are arguing against a position that I have not made and that the President did not make.
The President said, “”The important lesson is ‘God sent a son.’” John 3:16 says that whoever believes shall have everlasting life.
And I noted that believers have accepted earth-shaking changes in the “literal” interpretation of the Bible, such as the fact that the sun does not revolve around the earth: that when the Bible says that the shadow of the sun moved back on Hezekiah’s sundial and the sun stood still and the moon stopped over Gilgal, the Bible does not say that the earth is the center of the universe.
Have you heard of the “mitochondrial DNA” dating/study that traced Eve as the single source of all human DNA, and that she lived 6-10 thousand years ago?
Here’s an AIG article on it, but there are others. Use it as a launch point if you’re interested in looking around:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i1/eve.asp
The President did not say that God lies. Tell me, how literal is the book of Revelation? Or much of Isaiah and Daniel?
Galations 5. Romans 13 and 14.
The fact which one needs to note is that "evolution" is, by all the descriptions of it given by evolutionists, a causal-mechanical theory that denies design. Evolutionists have said so, from Darwin until today. You can imagine that "evolution" embraces design in the same way you can imagine a square circle.
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