At 01:13 AM 6/13/2006, Dick Fischer wrote:
>"...No scientific problem at all. It's strictly
>a problem of interpretation. And I didn't
>"devise" anything. All I did was read Genesis
>and read a few hundred books on the ANE.
>
>Somewhere around the first century AD, Christian
>apologetics took a wrong turn. What had been
>handed down to the children of Israel as the
>history of their people beginning with Adam and
>Noah and Abraham in southern Mesopotamia was
>misinterpreted by the early church fathers as
>the story of the creation of the first human
>beings. Here we are nearly two thousand years
>later and the church still hasn't dealt with this obvious mistake.
>
>Cuneiform inscribed clay tablets discovered in
>Mesopotamian excavations have given
>archaeologists a picture of a region almost
>totally unknown only a century ago. These
>inscriptions have provided insights into the
>history, religion, and even the racial
>characteristics of the people who lived
>there. And some of these writings appear to
>pertain to Adam himself. Adam, in all
>likelihood, was a historical personality who lived roughly 6,800 years ago.
>
>In short, traditional Christian apologetics is
>totally fowled up from the second chapter of
>Genesis through the eleventh chapter. The
>entire creation versus evolution debacle has
>been based primarily on this flawed
>interpretation. As the argument goes, if the
>entire human race descended from a pair of
>specially created individuals, how could mankind have evolved?
>
>And the answer is that Genesis is silent on the
>beginning of mankind in general, although
>adamant about the beginning of God's chosen
>race. The pair of individuals described in
>Genesis lived less than 7,000 years ago. Human
>beings have been around for many tens of
>thousands of years, and our bipedal ancestors
>commenced millions of years ago. This, of
>course, precludes Adam from being ancestral to
>all humanity as it is presently misunderstood.
>
>You would think that Christians would have found
>the flaw in that argument by now. That they
>haven't, simply highlights our persistent state
>of theological ignorance in an age of scientific
>enlightenment. ~ Dick Fischer
@ I ran across the article below while doing
some research. I'm sure you're familiar with the
RCC's basic position on this subject, but I'm
posting this for the sake of others who may not
be familiar with it - it's short and sweet.
If you have time, please let me know if there is
anything other than what I highlighted in red
that you would probably disagree with, or want to comment on.
~ Janice ... (No, I am not a RC for those wondering).
Adam, Eve, and
Evolution http://www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp
The controversy surrounding evolution touches on
our most central beliefs about ourselves and the
world. Evolutionary theories have been used to
answer questions about the origins of the
universe, life, and man. These may be referred to
as cosmological evolution, biological evolution,
and human evolution. One’s opinion concerning one
of these areas does not dictate what one believes concerning others.
People usually take three basic positions on the
origins of the cosmos, life, and man: (1) special
or instantaneous creation, (2) developmental
creation or theistic evolution, (3) and atheistic
evolution. The first holds that a given thing did
not develop, but was instantaneously and directly
created by God. The second position holds that a
given thing did develop from a previous state or
form, but that this process was under God’s
guidance. The third position claims that a thing
developed due to random forces alone.
Related to the question of how the universe,
life, and man arose is the question of when they
arose. Those who attribute the origin of all
three to special creation often hold that they
arose at about the same time, perhaps six
thousand to ten thousand years ago. Those who
attribute all three to atheistic evolution have a
much longer time scale. They generally hold the
universe to be ten billion to twenty billion
years old, life on earth to be about four billion
years old, and modern man (the subspecies homo
sapiens) to be about thirty thousand years old.
Those who believe in varieties of developmental
creation hold dates used by either or both of the other two positions.
The Catholic Position
What is the Catholic position concerning belief
or unbelief in evolution? The question may never
be finally settled, but there are definite
parameters to what is acceptable Catholic belief.
Concerning cosmological evolution, the Church has
infallibly defined that the universe was
specially created out of nothing. Vatican I
solemnly defined that everyone must "confess the
world and all things which are contained in it,
both spiritual and material, as regards their
whole substance, have been produced by God from
nothing" (Canons on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5).
The Church does not have an official position on
whether the stars, nebulae, and planets we see
today were created at that time or whether they
developed over time (for example, in the
aftermath of the Big Bang that modern
cosmologists discuss). However, the Church would
maintain that, if the stars and planets did
develop over time, this still ultimately must be
attributed to God and his plan, for Scripture
records: "By the word of the Lord the heavens
were made, and all their host [stars, nebulae,
planets] by the breath of his mouth" (Ps. 33:6).
Concerning biological evolution, the Church does
not have an official position on whether various
life forms developed over the course of time.
However, it says that, if they did develop, then
they did so under the impetus and guidance of
God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.
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.
While the Church permits belief in either special
creation or developmental creation on certain
questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.
The Time Question
Much less has been defined as to when the
universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has
infallibly determined that the universe is of
finite agethat it has not existed from all
eternitybut it has not infallibly defined
whether the world was created only a few thousand
years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.
Catholics should weigh the evidence for the
universe’s age by examining biblical and
scientific evidence. "Though faith is above
reason, there can never be any real discrepancy
between faith and reason. Since the same God who
reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed
the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot
deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict
truth" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 159).
The contribution made by the physical sciences to
examining these questions is stressed by the
Catechism, which states, "The question about the
origins of the world and of man has been the
object of many scientific studies which have
splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and
dimensions of the cosmos, the development of
life-forms and the appearance of man. These
discoveries invite us to even greater admiration
for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to
give him thanks for all his works and for the
understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers" (CCC 283).
It is outside the scope of this tract to look at
the scientific evidence, but a few words need to
be said about the interpretation of Genesis and
its six days of creation. While there are many
interpretations of these six days, they can be
grouped into two basic methods of reading the
accounta chronological reading and a topical reading.
Chronological Reading
According to the chronological reading, the six
days of creation should be understood to have
followed each other in strict chronological
order. This view is often coupled with the claim
that the six days were standard 24-hour days.
Some have denied that they were standard days on
the basis that the Hebrew word used in this
passage for day (yom) can sometimes mean a
longer-than-24-hour period (as it does in Genesis
2:4). However, it seems clear that Genesis 1
presents the days to us as standard days. At the
end of each one is a formula like, "And there was
evening and there was morning, one day" (Gen.
1:5). Evening and morning are, of course, the
transition points between day and night (this is
the meaning of the Hebrew terms here), but
periods of time longer than 24 hours are not
composed of a day and a night. Genesis is
presenting these days to us as 24-hour, solar
days. If we are not meant to understand them as
24-hour days, it would most likely be because
Genesis 1 is not meant to be understood as a literal chronological account.
That is a possibility. Pope Pius XII warned us,
"What is the literal sense of a passage is not
always as obvious in the speeches and writings of
the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the
works of our own time. For what they wished to
express is not to be determined by the rules of
grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the
context; the interpreter must, as it were, go
back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries
of the East and with the aid of history,
archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences,
accurately determine what modes of writing, so to
speak, the authors of that ancient period would
be likely to use, and in fact did use. For the
ancient peoples of the East, in order to express
their ideas, did not always employ those forms or
kinds of speech which we use today; but rather
those used by the men of their times and
countries. What those exactly were the
commentator cannot determine as it were in
advance, but only after a careful examination of
the ancient literature of the East" (Divino Afflante Spiritu 35–36).
The Topical Reading
This leads us to the possibility that Genesis 1
is to be given a non-chronological, topical
reading. Advocates of this view point out that,
in ancient literature, it was common to sequence
historical material by topic, rather than in strict chronological order.
The argument for a topical ordering notes that at
the time the world was created, it had two
problemsit was "formless and empty" (1:2). In
the first three days of creation, God solves the
formlessness problem by structuring different aspects of the environment.
On day one he separates day from night; on day
two he separates the waters below (oceans) from
the waters above (clouds), with the sky in
between; and on day three he separates the waters
below from each other, creating dry land. Thus the world has been given form.
But it is still empty, so on the second three
days God solves the world’s emptiness problem by
giving occupants to each of the three realms he
ordered on the previous three days. Thus, having
solved the problems of formlessness and
emptiness, the task he set for himself, God’s
work is complete and he rests on the seventh day.
Real History
The argument is that all of this is real history,
it is simply ordered topically rather than
chronologically, and the ancient audience of
Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.
Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical
fashion, it still records God’s workthings God really did.
The Catechism explains that "Scripture presents
the work of the Creator symbolically as a
succession of six days of divine ‘work,’
concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day" (CCC
337), but "nothing exists that does not owe its
existence to God the Creator. The world began
when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all
existent beings, all of nature, and all human
history is rooted in this primordial event, the
very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun" (CCC 338).
It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis
1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real
history, even if they are told in a style of
historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.
Adam and Eve: Real People
It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story
of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a
fiction. A question often raised in this context
is whether the human race descended from an
original pair of two human beings (a teaching
known as monogenism) or a pool of early human
couples (a teaching known as polygenism).
In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: "When,
however, there is question of another conjectural
opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the
Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the
faithful cannot embrace that opinion which
maintains either that after Adam there existed on
this earth true men who did not take their origin
through natural generation from him as from the
first parents of all, or that Adam represents a
certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no
way apparent how such an opinion can be
reconciled that which the sources of revealed
truth and the documents of the teaching authority
of the Church proposed with regard to original
sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed
by an individual Adam in which through generation
is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own" (Humani Generis 37).
The story of the creation and fall of man is a
true one, even if not written entirely according
to modern literary techniques. The Catechism
states, "The account of the fall in Genesis 3
uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval
event, a deed that took place at the beginning of
the history of man. Revelation gives us the
certainty of faith that the whole of human
history is marked by the original fault freely
committed by our first parents" (CCC 390).
Science and Religion
The Catholic Church has always taught that "no
real disagreement can exist between the
theologian and the scientist provided each keeps
within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless
there is a disagreement . . . it should be
remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly
‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did
not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner
structure of visible objects) which do not help
anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason,
rather than trying to provide a scientific
exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and
treat these matters either in a somewhat
figurative language or as the common manner of
speech those times required, and indeed still
requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst
most learned people" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus 18).
As the Catechism puts it, "Methodical research in
all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried
out in a truly scientific manner and does not
override moral laws, can never conflict with the
faith, because the things of the world and the
things the of the faith derive from the same God.
The humble and persevering investigator of the
secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by
the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is
God, the conserver of all things, who made them
what they are" (CCC 159). The Catholic Church has
no fear of science or scientific discovery.
NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or
moral errors. Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827permission
to publish this work is hereby granted. +Robert
H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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Received on Tue Jun 13 10:37:39 2006
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