Origins TheologyForum for the discussion of Creation Science (Young/Old) vs Theistic Evolution. Discussion of Atheistic Evolution should be taken to the Discussion and Debate forums.
While the stories of the creation of the world and of the fall of humankind have often given rise to conflict - some Christians twist the Bible into science and history while rationalists approach this issue by "divorcing God from creation" - Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) presented the Catholic middle ground between extremist positions in explaining the vitality of these early Old Testament writings in his book:
In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation
You can click the book to read a sample.
Question: Who has read this book, and what was your opinion?
It was interesting. It's unfortunate that it stopped at page 42 at the subject of human creation.
I did note that evolution is accepted. That is quite surprising. (Evolving from previous life forms?)
Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "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 . . . 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—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.
__________________ 1Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed
Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Right, this has actually been the "official" position for a very long time in the Catholic Church. I have heard a couple of Bishops lately taking the line of Michael Behe-type Intelligent Design as well.
__________________ In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. - St. Augustine, in his analysis of Genesis.
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