How can a literal Adam and Eve plus evolution coexist?

Oh, it's quite simple. I still believe Adam and Eve were the first Homo sapiens.

They're committed to that interpretation of Genesis?

PeaceLover02 said:

Hi everyone. I don't understand how some Catholics can believe in evolution but yet still believe in a literal Adam and Eve as is required by the Church. How is it possible?

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I believe in a literal Adam & Eve. It sure would mess with the genology if it were not the case.

PeaceLover02 said:

Ah okay. But doesn't evolution require that there were more than two Homo sapiens to begin with?

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Yes.

I leave the rest to you my dear.

I personally don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I think it is allegorical. The existence of our sin nature isn't reliant upon a man named Adam and a woman named Eve being the first people and us inheriting it from THEM. The first humans turned from God. All humans turn from God. Our nature is to sin, and that is the value of the story. Not in that it is literal history.

I do not believe that we evolved from apes. If we evolved from apes or monkeys, then neither one of these species should still be around. They should have been extinct millions of years ago. Common sense tells us that if we came from apes, then why do we see them alive today ? I believe that we were created by God, just as the Bible says, and that we were created in His image and likeness. If we evolved from apes, then I guess the evolutionists think that the apes have an immortal soul, and they also have the ability to choose between right and wrong, and their souls will ultimately end up in either heaven or hell. In my opinion, believing in evolution is just an excuse for having weak faith, or no faith at all.

Oh dear....another evolution thread.


Which means the Harry Potter thread can't be too far behind it, as they usually follow each other round.

Yes, monogenism supports the idea of a single origin. I remember on the cover of Newsweek years ago they had something about finding that we all came from a single mother by tracing our ancestry using mitochondrial DNA (mDNA). Darwin's model actually supports this idea. Pope Pius XII wrote in the Humanis Generi that it was okay for Catholics to believe in evolution as long as we accept that we are descended from Adam and Eve. The evidence seems to strongly favor a single origin for Homo sapiens.

hawko said:

In my opinion, believing in evolution is just an excuse for having weak faith, or no faith at all.

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Slow down there hawko. You do not seem to be very well informed on evolution IMHO. I've just finished the process of becoming Catholic -- and I didn't do that because I have weak faith. What you said is way off base. Theistic Evolution is certainly a valid idea that is in agreement with both science and Christianity. One might argue that somebody who rejects evolution outright only does so because they are severely underinformed and uneducated about it and are too weak in their faith to bother trying to reconcile it with science. That's not what I think -- but it's right in line with what you've said about people like myself and is a very ignorant way of thinking.

Please don't judge other people's faith -- you're in no position to do so.

Now. I believe in theistic evolution. There is way too much scientific evidence to reject evolution outright. But since we know that God is outside of the human perception of time as we know it, who's to say that this evidence is not simply the remnants of God's handiwork? I believe that God created man through the process we call evolution (and more specifically, I also believe in monogenism) and that we are not descended from apes, but that the early fossils we find are more like pictures of our development (think fetus).

One thing I find interesting is the discussion of dinosaurs. The "scientists" claim that the dinosaurs became extinct 65 billion years ago. But I have read the biblical "evidence" is that the earth was only created by God around 6000 years ago. But regardless the fact is that God created all the creatures in this world in 6 days which means man and dinosaurs roamed the earth together.

Many sites I have looked at say that dinosaurs didn't become meat eating until after Noah's flood. I read some of the stuff on this site that mentions how dinosaurs are actually in the bible.

http://www.christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/questions.html

I've never heard anyone else think my particular view is plausible, but its always worked for me...

The world which was created in 7 days was the Garden of Eden, not the plaent Earth. It should be no surprise that science tells us the planet we live on was not created in 7 days- the Bible has told us that millenia ago!! We were kicked out, we live somewhere else.

What probably occured is that God created a world for mankind, the Garden, and wouldn't allow Satan to screw it up like he had been doing on other parts of creation, because the Garden belonged to mankind. But Satan could try to convince mankind to leave the Garden, and he did so successfully. And we were cast out into a world which was not built for us, and probably in which Satan had fun preparing.

Think about how the rules work here. They seem contrary to God's laws. The tree that is bigger and crowds out the rest are rewarded by more growing materials. The vine that strangles the tree is rewarded by extra sunlight, ect... The food here does not satisfy, the ground here does not comfort, the sunlight here does not truly illluminate souls. But God's grace and mercy are still at work, and all good things which come from Him usually come through the last remnant of the Garden- mankind. The Good News is spread only through man- your dog can't teach you the Gospel of salvation! The Sacraments, love, compassion, everything which is truly good, God chooses to bring through man, not the world.

Well, works for me anyway. I'm sure there are holes here and there but frankly it does not change my life that much knowing where we came from- I still have the same tasks to complete while I live.

If we don't have a genetic point of origin, then our understanding of original sin is flawed.

The Catholic belief is that the state of original sin is passed on through generation (procreation). I've read through the Fathers, through the Councils, etc. If there were no original humans who committed such a sin, then either we've been completely wrong since the early centuries, or there's a flaw in the evolutionary theory that doesn't jive with authentic Catholic belief.

Veritas_et_Puritas said:

If we don't have a genetic point of origin, then our understanding of original sin is flawed.

The Catholic belief is that the state of original sin is passed on through generation (procreation). I've read through the Fathers, through the Councils, etc. If there were no original humans who committed such a sin, then either we've been completely wrong since the early centuries, or there's a flaw in the evolutionary theory that doesn't jive with authentic Catholic belief.

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No there isn't it -- the whole idea of evolution is based on genetic descent and lineage that leads back to our very first ancestors (whatever form they were). It's not evolution that's wrong, it's certain schools of thought within evolution. You can't discount the whole thing because of one group of people within it -- that's the kind of thinking that we Catholics have been fighting for centuries.

PolskiKrol said:

I've never heard anyone else think my particular view is plausible, but its always worked for me...

The world which was created in 7 days was the Garden of Eden, not the plaent Earth. It should be no surprise that science tells us the planet we live on was not created in 7 days- the Bible has told us that millenia ago!! We were kicked out, we live somewhere else.

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This does not work. When God was creating the world in Genesis, he created the stars, the moon, the oceans, and the land. This is a lot more than just the Garden of Eden.

One thing I find interesting is the discussion of dinosaurs. The "scientists" claim that the dinosaurs became extinct 65 billion years ago. But I have read the biblical "evidence" is that the earth was only created by God around 6000 years ago. But regardless the fact is that God created all the creatures in this world in 6 days which means man and dinosaurs roamed the earth together.

Many sites I have looked at say that dinosaurs didn't become meat eating until after Noah's flood. I read some of the stuff on this site that mentions how dinosaurs are actually in the bible.

http://www.christiananswers.net/dino...questions.html

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Ummm...no. That's wrong.

Well, it might have some things right. It is an intriguing idea.