Posted on 01/07/2007 1:28:33 PM PST by Coleus
On July 7, after years of media-generated confusion, Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, a theologian who helped author the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, wrote in the New York Times clarifying the Church’s understanding of human origins. Since 1996, the world’s secular media have claimed that Pope John Paul II endorsed Darwinian evolution as being “more than a hypothesis.” The remark, taken out of context, established in some minds that the Catholic Church was ready to abandon its adherence to the notion of a personal God who created life, the universe and everything. In his article, Schonborn said, that the “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.”
“This,” the Cardinal says bluntly, “is not true.”
Schonborn unequivocally establishes that the Catholic Church does not endorse Darwinism. “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.” Cardinal Schonborn, a close associate of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, continued, saying, “Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.”
The New York Times, never missing an opportunity to bash prominent Catholic prelates, has suggested that Schonborn has changed his tune regarding the legitimacy of Darwinian evolution. But Darwinism, the idea that life sprang and developed into its myriad forms by means of “an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” has never been supported by Catholic teaching.
As early as 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote that it is Catholics teaching that all human beings in some way are biologically descended from a first man, Adam. “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,” Pius wrote in his encyclical Humani Generis. Two days after the Cardinal’s article appeared, the New York Times followed up with an interview with Schonborn in which he reiterated that he had been encouraged by Pope Benedict XVI to continue to refine Catholic teaching on evolution.
Read Cardinal Schonborn’s essay:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/opinion/07schonborn.html
Read New York Times coverage of scientific reaction (free registration may be required):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/science/09cardinal.html?pa...
Like this have ever stopped the Church before...
Haven't some been dug up and been put on trial anyway??
Most Christians 'believe' Evolution because they do NOT know what their Bible says. If, as they say, they 'believe' the words of Jesus and the New Testament writers, they have to decide what the following verses mean:
Acts 17:26-27
26. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
Romans 5:12-21
12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--
13. for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
14. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
16. Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
19. For just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
20. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
21. so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If there were no
one man, that means SIN did NOT enter the World thru him.If
Adam was NOT the one man, that means SPIRITUAL DEATH did not come thru him.If SIN did NOT enter the World thru the
one man, that means Jesus does not save from SIN.Are we to believe that the
one man is symbolic? Does that mean Jesus is symbolic as well?The Theory of Evolution states that there WAS no one man, but a wide population that managed to inherit that last mutated gene that makes MEN different from APES.
Acts 17:24-26 24. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. Was LUKE wrong about this? 1 Corinthians 11:8-9 1 Timothy 2:13
If so, is GOD so puny that He allows this 'inaccuracy' in His Word?? |
NIV Genesis 2:18
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
The Trinity is just that, a concept.
In the interest of maintaining a good manner I won't give you a history lesson on how that silly notion became dogma.
I'll bet it STARTED with at least TWO....
NIV Genesis 1:26
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
NIV Genesis 3:22
And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
HA Ha ha...
I seems to me that you have to prove this assertion.
2 Corinthians 1:13-14
13. For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that,
14. as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
No thank you, I prefer you keep your good manners and your limited understanding of "silly notions" to yourself.
I gave up describing Plato's cave long ago when I realized that some people just don't want to learn and will get very angry when you try to help them.
Neither Paul V or Urban VIII ever so committed himself to the doctrine of geocentricism as to impose it upon the Church as an article of faith, and they certinaly never condemned the doctrine ex cathedra.
The intelligent and cultivated minds of Italy, and many of the most eminent of the ecclesiastics among them, have been the foremost in promoting and welcoming the progress of science, and there were found among the Italian ecclesiastics of Galileo's time many of the earliest and most enlightened adherents of the Copernican system.
An excellent book that demonstrates the treachery of the enemies of the Church who would so willingly repeat the Galileo canard without looking into the actual facts of the whole affair!
Does this translate into "The Bible alone?"
When examining Scripture passages which supposedly support the doctrine of "the Bible alone," two questions should be asked: Does the passage itself support the doctrine of "the Bible alone," and even more fundamentally, Who determined that this passage constituted Sacred Scripture, and by what authority did they determine this?
An ancient document purporting to be a "gospel" does not in itself constitute proof of its validity as Sacred Scripture.
Yeah, and 1+1 is even simpler than that and I posted it too elsewhere in the thread.
You didn't post it because you thought it was simple, you posted it because you thought it was profound.
No, I didn't. I posted it because it was the briefest, simplest way to demonstrate the false dilemma that I replied to. Even briefer than posting: "That is a false dilemma."
I don't think that man's need for salvation is dependent upon the conclusion that God did not use evolution as his tool for the creation of man. Nor do I think that any of those passages are inconsistent with the conclusion that God used evolution as a tool for the creation of man. I'll grant you that the passage which states that God used one of Adam's ribs to create Eve does not fit well with the notion that Eve was the product of evolution, but that has nothing to do with how Adam was created. In fact, it's entirely possible that the correct Biblical interpretation is that neither Adam nor Eve were the product of evolution, but that there were other "men and women" living in the land who were, and that it was from these women that Cain and Able selected their wives.
I don't think you can fairly take discrete Biblical verses and draw firm conclusions from them pertaining to evolution. The verbage used in the Bible was intended to convey a timeless message, that could be understood by men of any era. God did not need to explain every detail of the creation in order to convey that message, and if he had done so, and that explanation had involved evolution, you can be certain that it would not have been understood until the modern times.
This is not to say that the Bible is not literally true. It merely concedes that every word may not mean precisely what you think it means. And there are many instances where this has clearly been the case in other contexts.
For example, the religious men of Christ's time rejected Him because their interpretation of the scriptures did not allow for the possibility of a Christ who came from Nasareth. He may have been born in Bethlehem, but they did not know that, or perhaps they did not deem that sufficient. In addition, He was simply not the kind of King that they were expecting, based upon their reading of the scriptures. They were reading the same scriptures that you and I read, but they had a different understanding which they did not think could be wrong. Needless to say, their mistake was catastrophic.
I am struck by the fact that the Biblical story of the creation seems largely to be consistent with the scientific explanation. To me, it seems impossible that someone writing a work of mere fiction, more than 2000 years ago, could by accident come up with a version of the creation that dovetails so nicely with what modern science tells us happened.
Thanks for the ping. I'm Catholic, btw. :)
I agree fully with this statement.
MY problem is that if some parts of the Scripture can be shown to be 'inaccurate', then why, in GOD's name, should any of the REST of it be believed?
We then fall back on the 'authority' of some folks to TELL us what the Scriptures 'really' mean.
Let's see if there are verses that might shed light on how fast GOD works.....
Isa 48:3 ... I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of My mouth, and I shewed them; I did [them] SUDDENLY, and they came to pass.
Indeed!!
Genesis 1
This is a GOD who creates by speaking; but; how LONG did it take?
Now Jesus was a man who had God-like powers. Was HE God? The Book says so.......
NIV Colossians 1:13-17
13. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
14. in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
17. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
NIV Revelation 4:11
"You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."
NIV Revelation 10:6
And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay!
Notice that when this man speaks, things happen RIGHT NOW! Not after some times passes and Nature takes it's course.
NIV Matthew 8:2-3
2. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."
3. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he
NIV Matthew 21:19
Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he
NIV Mark 1:41-42
41. Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he
NIV Mark 5:41-42
41. He took her by the hand and
NIV Mark 10:51-52
51. "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him. The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."
52. "Go,"
NIV Luke 5:13
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he
NIV Luke 5:24-25
24. But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . ." He
NIV Luke 8:44
She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and Immediately her bleeding stopped.
NIV Luke 13:12-13
12. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and
NIV Luke 18:42-43
42. Jesus
NIV Acts 9:33-35
33. There he found a man named Aeneas, a paralytic who had been bedridden for eight years.
34. "Aeneas," Peter
NIV Matthew 8:13
Then Jesus
NIV Matthew 15:28
Then Jesus
Now if this same personage, who does things in an instant; how LONG would it take Him to CREATE all that we find around us???
I suspect there are many questions that have never occurred to you.
"MY problem is that if some parts of the Scripture can be shown to be 'inaccurate', then why, in GOD's name, should any of the REST of it be believed?"
Who said it was inaccurate, though? Certainly not me. My point is that a lot of the Biblical language can be understood in more than one way, and yet still comport with the literal language in each interpretation.
Of course, there is only one "truth," but what you consider to be the one and only authoritative interpretation may in fact be wrong. It's undeniably happened before. One example I gave was the priests' interpretation of the Messianic prophecies. They turned out to be completely wrong. When the "authoritative" interpretation has dealt with scientific issues, the record is particularly deplorable. Thus, because it conflicted with the traditional interpretation of scriptures, the Church continued to deny the theory of a sun-centered solar system until centuries after it became evident that the theory was true. Today, no one thinks that the sun-centered solar system is inconsistent with the Bible, despite the fact that medieval Church leaders were willing to kill, so certain were they that those who believed it were blasphemers.
So don't characterize my argument as an argument that the Bible is "inaccurate." That's not what I'm saying.
Of course, I do agree that the fundamental requirements of salvation cannot be subject to various meanings. If that were the case, then we'd be totally lost. But we're not talking about that. We are talking about details in the story that are not crucial to salvation. If you want, you can start with the notion that "I don't know how this can possibly be true, but I have faith that it is--that it must somehow be true." What I don't accept, though, is the notion that there is only one possible interpretation of Genesis, and anyone who does not acknowledge it cannot be a Christian.
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