ReligiousLibertyTV is conscientiouisly trying to explain the Catholic doctrine of ensoulment accurately.
The following is the statement worked out by ReligiousLibertyTV:
| "In Catholic thought, this has been interpreted to provide room for the concept that the bodies of human beings were created over millions of years through evolution, and that God ultimately provided separately-created souls to human beings. These souls reconnect to God through practicing the sacraments." |
Is this correct as stated?
Here's the background: The Catholic Church teaches that as soon as fertilization occurs, a new human body has come into existence by natural causal means (the sexual reproductive processes of his parents),--- this tiny body is suitable to receive a rational, spiritual soul --- and immediately the newly conceived human embryo is endowed with a rational, spiritual soul directly created by God without material causes.
Would his apply, too, to the ensoulment of the "newly developed Human sapiens" -- namely, that the bodies of the human race could have come into existence via the naural causal chain of evolution, but as soon as the suitable physical type was complete, God could have endowed the newly-developed species with directly-created, rational, spiritual souls?
And after the catastrophe of sin occurred, all human souls thereafter were deprived of sanctifying grace-- their contact with God ---but this contact can be restored by Christ via the grace of the sacraments?
(I hope I have not made myself totally obscure!!)
I appreciate ReligiousLibertyTV for putting forth the effort to express this intricate doctrine with precision.
In contrast, American evangelicals tend to view Adam and Eve as actual living people, who were literally created by God as clay forms into which God breathed the breath of life
These two together create an impression that the Catholics believe only in God-created evolution. This is of course not so. I am Catholic in good standing and reasonably well informed in my faith and I don't believe in any evolution. I think that God created all species as they are today, unless they went extinct. God created them in groups that resemble one another, this is why we have horses look a but like donkeys, men look a bit like the apes, etc. Evolution, as science itself teaches us is an absurd idea of one species becoming another species through a series of birth defects. That intelligent people can believe that nonsense is a testimony of human gullibility.
A Catholic may believe God-created evolution. In fact the description that man was made from mud can be interpreted as pointing to evolution. Here, indeed one can discern the Catholic way of reading the Bible taking into account the cultural environment of the historical inspired author, and the ability of the Bible to speak truths that the inspired author had no rational knowledge about. But it is wrong to suggest that Catholics as a dogma of faith believe in anything in particular about the evolution. Some, yet not all, believe in it, -- I think it is naive, but they are good Catholics nevertheless.
Another problem with this juxtaposition of paragraphs is the possibility of concluding that Catholics do not believe in the single parenthood of Adam and Eve and the historicity of Adam and Eve. While I am happy to read that the Protestant Evangelicals "view Adam and Eve as actual living [in the past, I presume] people", I am also happy to report that so do all informed Catholics.
In short, the Church being our rule of faith, not our authority on zoology, does not teach much at all about the evolution. It all can be summed up in a short statement: the account of creation is inerrant; God created all things visible and invisible; Adam and Eve are our historical protoparents. If one wants to squeeze God-directed evolution in that, he is free to do so. If one does not want to believe in evolution, he is also free to do so. If one wants to deny historicity of Adam and Eve, or believe in evolution NOT directed by God, he is no longer Catholic.