The Church’s teaching on the compatibility between evolution and Creation has not changed since Pope Pius XII.
The Genesis story describes a universe that cannot and does not exist, e.g., the geocentric universe, and thus must be rationally interpreted as symbolic or allegorical.
That evolution occurs and continues to occur is proven in organisms that have short life cycles (like bacteria and viruses: evolution that we can observe in real time.
That we evolved from other common ancestors is evidenced by commonality of DNA, as well as other hints: for example, the finding of enzymatic functions and small-molecule metabolic mechanisms common to many, many species (cyclic AMP is a metabolic mediator found in mammals, plants, slime molds, etc.)
Thus, God has given us an intellect and He has left us tantalizing clues to our evolutionary origins: did he do this in order that we discover the wonders of His Creation, or did he do this to lead us down a false path?
If the latter were true, it would be a very great deception, and we all know who the Great Deceiver is.
I for one, am happy to think of God as the originator of the Big Bang, and who allowed evolution to occur, just as He imbued Man alone with an immortal soul.
Those who would have the church espouse literal biological evolution as atheistic science propounds it today, need to ask why the creation got as “lucky” (rhetorical license taken) as it did in churning out new species. The noted old earth creationist Hugh Ross (www.reasons.org) has detailed this to a T.
God puts things into our lives as tests to see if we will acknowledge the divine power or just shrug it away.
Heck. St. Augustine first wrote about Genesis not being literal.
If you look at the number of possible generations since the evolutionists timeline/timelines, there simply are not enough to support simple organisms “evolving” into mammals.
There is normal genetic variation within species.
For organisms that are relatively simple, this can include more dramatic changes in such things as diet. These dramatic changes are only possible because the organism is relatively simple.
Complex organisms on the other hand can not survive and reproduce in the face of significant genetic mutation that is purported to cause one species to change into another over the course of multiple generations.
One has to also keep in mind that in species where it takes two parents and a functioning reproductive process in both in order for reproduction to happen, it’s that much more unlikely that reproduction will happen for individuals that have significant genetic mutations.
And evolution purports that this happens generation after generation, very frequently.
This is why evolutionists must now claim that the rate of evolution changes between practically a standstill to some magical superfast rate in certain unknown situations.
If you do the math of how many generations are physically possible during the evolutionists’ timeline, it becomes obvious that the theory is a fantasy.
The evolutionists’ theories are very difficult to dislodge from the higly educated, as the more highly educated one is, the more difficult it is to let go of what college professors impressed upon the young minds being trained to be know-it-all thought leaders of society.
“I for one, am happy to think of God as the originator of the Big Bang, and who allowed evolution to occur, just as He imbued Man alone with an immortal soul”
100 percent correct but don’t try telling a good ole boy evangelical that God didn’t start it all in 7 days about 4,000 years ago. I guess they think that God was too stupid to have caused the Big Bang millions and millions of years ago, to include animals (people) with no souls, and finally wanted to perfect the world so he created Adam and Eve. They just can’t handle the fact that one person could be that smart.