Mysteries of the Church: Creation and Evolution

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, opens with 'In the beginning…' and continues to tell how God created the world, including mankind. It has long been contemplated if this a factual account or if this is simply a fable for people thousands of years ago. Today, we will examine the story of creation in Genesis, compare it modern science and discover Catholic Church's view on this divisive issue.

[@brad_is_name2161]

yo my man Hans went brazy in the comments

[@vincentbacarella2076]

As catholic i don't understand whats wrong with excepting genesis literally if God told Moses he created the universe in 6 day's then he did it 6 day's

[@agentooe33AD]

In Mark 10:6-8, Jesus quotes from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in a straightforward, historical manner. Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli . . . the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (Luke 3:23; 38). They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. (2 Peter 3:4-6). To doubt Genesis, is to doubt the entire bible. Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. How can you have faith from hearing the word, if you doubt what the word says? This is an attempt to try and combine the Word with man's science because it's convenient and self-serving. Science is flawed, and changes all of the time. God's Word stays the same. I suggest watching Bibletalk.TV's playlist "Literal Genesis." A Christian scientist through 12 videos, goes through explains various parts of Genesis including the creation and the flood.

[@icimblind]

Unfortunately it is Not being taught as a theory because it fails the scientific method. The fact is it is still a Hypothesis!

[@dimetronome]

There is overwhelming evidence of evolution. That’s why it is an accepted theory.

[@XManNeilb69]

Can't load it, u

[@krissaberhagen]

great documentary. i do enjoy the simple 3 sec commercials. brought to u by the color black and the church. 🎉

[@hglundahl]

12:47 "whether you accept Genesis literally or as a metaphor for a MUCH greater truth" ... What exact other and greater truth would that be, how is it greater and how is Genesis a metaphor for it?

[@carledwardvincent7131]

Yes, there's a point where they insist there is some sort of "scientific" truth and on the other hand some other truth. There is only one truth. Let's not fall for the Clintonian "It depends on what your meaning of 'is' is". What is true is, and what is, is true. There is no separate "scientific" truth. God is no liar, He does not inspire to write in fable (non-truth). God does not tell a tall tale of Santa Claus, and then tells you it was just to teach us about generosity. That would make God a prankster. Jesus reaffirms Genesis, and so do the Apostles. Take Hebrews chapter 4: "For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.”

[@karstentopp]

@@carledwardvincent7131 Indeed! Our world has a firmament above it, waters below and waters above the firmament ant it sits on the four pillars on the four corners of the world and there are mountains high enough to see all human nations from their tops.

[@hglundahl]

9:16 The Church teaching for the last hundred years. OK, what exact document from 1916 or 1909 (!) do you propose to document this ancientness of your view?

[@hglundahl]

9:55 "it teaches us to rely on this higher power" Sorry, this wording is not quite Catholic. Are you promoting AA, who are using that heterodox and vague description?

[@buddyschreizerden3611]

If you have to critically comment a 20 min video 70 times, maybe you should just make your own video?

[@Fernandowuu]

my man Hans gotta chill out

[@hglundahl]

What do you mean? creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2021/04/what-extension-to-old-age-do-old-agers.html

[@Fernandowuu]

@@hglundahl ayo hans you're back after 4 years lmao. Good to see you

[@hglundahl]

@@Fernandowuu ok ...

[@hglundahl]

6:46 Ruiz (not calling YOU reverend or father, see Cum Ex Apostolatus ...) would any Catholic Bible scholar by any chance have called the views of St Thomas Aquinas, St Robert Bellarmine, St Augustine, St Basil "fundamentalist"?

[@glennlanham6309]

disagreement is no excuse for dis-respect...

[@hglundahl]

@@glennlanham6309 As I mentioned "Cum ex Apostolatus" I implied that by blatant heresy he was voided of all ecclesiastical charges and honours. Not calling _him_ father is therefore not a disrespect against an _actual_ charge or honour.

[@hglundahl]

@@glennlanham6309 I suppose there came a day when Erasmus ceased to speak of "Father Martin" when it came to his former friend Dr. Luther.

[@glennlanham6309]

@@hglundahl he left the priesthood....and married an ex-nun

[@hglundahl]

@@glennlanham6309 He didn't leave the kind of office _he_ constructed NT priesthood to be, and I don't think Erasmus would have reacted different if the heretic had remained celibate. I mean - there are Lutheran and Anglican clergy who are celibate, like Newman was prior to his conversion. I don't see the then Father Wiseman in 1839 referring to him as "Father Newman" ...

[@hglundahl]

25:58 "the creator of Heaven and Earth" Is an Evolutionist Creator still a GOOD creator, as surely the Creed implies? And is He also still author of the books of Moses, as per qui locutus est per prophetas? Is the beginning of the creed all that matters, or is all of the creed important? There is a religion which has a drastically shorter creed than we have. It is Islam. I would NOT follow their example in short creeds, or reduce infallibility of creed to its beginning.

[@hglundahl]

25:00 These meetings between scientists at Vatican ... were ever any Creationist or Geocentric scientific experts invited?

[@glennlanham6309]

I am getting my Masters at Franciscan University of Steubenville and we are having this very debate in class...look up Order, Chace and Design by Dr. Dan Kuebler, who teaches at my school, quite a balanced take on it, neither fundamentalist nor liberal....

[@hglundahl]

20:09 Cush, have you read Humani Generis lately? I had the impression from certain key passages Pius XII was permitting an academic defense from BOTH sides of the issue. You seem very set on exposing only one side of it. _"For these reasons 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, on the part of men experienced in both fields, 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 - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of faith."_ Cited by me here: antimodernisminmemoriam.blogspot.fr/2014/03/one-group-member-promoted-hutchison.html However, there is something eery and mousetrappish about the suggestion that a Creationist would need to submit to any pro-Evolution (man coming from simpler life forms!) decision, since such a decision could have no basis in faith and deposit of faith. On the other hand, there is an underhand notion that the question COULD after all be one of the deposit - which would (and rightly) condemn evolutionism.

[@hglundahl]

10:33 It's remarcable that hundreds of years before Christ Israelites saw God as Creator? So did Plato. When did Timaeus become part of the canon of Bible on par with Genesis?

[@hglundahl]

The point not being this but being that is a bit like saying the Bible is ONLY inerrant when speaking "to its point" and hugely fallible by misleading language any other time.

[@krecikowi]

Unfortunately. It is Theory of Evolution, not hypothesis.

[@hglundahl]

20:58 So Father James Wiseman finds "humans are related to ALL forms of life" OK (which it is, if understood as "related by a common Creator"), but "man developed from apes" offensive? But that is what evolutionists are saying, except recently they have started saying instead "man evolved from OTHER apes, from which came also chimps". If these are offensive, is truth offensive, or are these not true?

[@hglundahl]

21:53 Cush, was Wojtyla (see Cum ex Apostolatus!) saying that as a purely sociological and history of mentalities observation? Or was he - by using we - implying it was kind of normative in the Church as well? Or was that kind of distinction abolished to him by the first paragraph of Gaudium et Spes saying we share all the concerns (not stating "only well founded ones") with the world?

[@hglundahl]

12:21 "he inspires them to say the truth as THEY understand the truth" And what about "qui locutus est per prophetas"? It's not "qui prophetas fecit loqui"!

[@hglundahl]

12:32 "an allegorical Hebrew cosmology" Do you seriously know what literary genre allegory is? Psychomachia, Roman de la Rose, Pilgrim's Progress, Pilgrim's Regress (by CSL, with reference to previous work) are all allegories. Can you coherently explain as opposed to just affirming that Hebrew cosmology was of same literary genre as these works?

[@hglundahl]

17:59 "only insofar as there might be some conflict" Yes, and not only that of today's Magisterium, but also that of Bible with Church Fathers!

[@tomfarrell6566]

And they wonder why no one pays attention to them anymore

[@hglundahl]

18:47 The Church would never say one must accept the theory of the Big Bang ... good, because it is not Catholic. If and when Bergoglio lets you down on this, will you then conclude he is not Pope?

[@hglundahl]

"That is in and of itself a scientific question, and that is not an area where a theologian need enter". Wellll ... what about scientific questions that have implications on theological questions? Like "qui locutus est per prophetas". Cush had earlier in the video to say God inspired the prophets to speak according to their own understanding ... letting one suspect this might have been one inadequate as to modern science. But the words are not "qui prophetas loqui fecit." As Pope Leo XIII said, God is author of every word in the Bible (autograph of each book at least). And there is only so much wiggle room for scribal errors in that. A scribal error can affect one version of the manuscript tradition, not all of them.

[@novellanurney1294]

Hans-Georg Lundahl;re: First comment on page, -I did that already.

[@hglundahl]

Quote from "John Paul II" How has science lately been "purifying" specifically the Catholic religion "from error and superstition"? Wasn't it founded by Christ on Peter or sth?

[@hglundahl]

24:10 I happen to have written Guy Consolmagno more than once, and also not to have recived answers on my mail. It seems the "Pontifical" Academy of Sciences (which hardly as it stands has the approval of Supreme Pontiff Michael, as per Vatican in Exile) has a very cavalier attitude about Creationists and Geocentrics. If they are too polite to SAY "creatard" that seems nevertheless to be what they think, when challenged.

[@icimblind]

I do not believe people have been on the earth since its creation. At 4.5 billion yrs old, and a severe lack of evidence that humans co-existed with All animals, how can you come to any other conclusion. However, Eileen George, whom I believe is a saint, stated that God said there were two immortal beings (male and female), that knew the full consequence of what would happen if they failed the test. They saw it all, and yet they still failed. Read Bishop Sheen's, "The Life of Christ".

[@hglundahl]

7:33 Strynkowski (see previous comments), "they want a security" doesn't kind of echo Protestant criticism of Catholicism as seeking a false security in Infallibility and Apostolic Succession? Aren't you playing the kind of psychologist whom Catholic apologists previous to V-II used to rebut? Like "such a security is nevertheless needed, unless you want complete doctrinal anarchy" or like "whether we have a motive is not reflecting against our being right" or some things?

[@hglundahl]

21:17 So Strynkowski says: * our spirit comes from God; * we developed from other species not having that spirit, who simply had bodies coming ultimately from God but via evolution; * but on ONE point (I suppose! if you are logic) man was there with such a spirit. Was Adam orphaned after parents who had no spirit, like Tarzan was supposed to FEEL LIKE? Did Cain and Seth marry beings anatomically human, not descending from Adam and who got their rational spirit on completing marriage? Wouldn't that pose some problems about consent, for one thing?

[@hglundahl]

7:49 The Church would never forbid a Catholic to hold that position. Thank you Father (?) Wiseman! I have however been treated as if my holding this position were forbidden. Both by diocese of Paris and by SSPX in Paris, at St Nicolas du Chardonnet.

[@andrewjohn2124]

Concerning the chapters of Genesis 1-11 being taken literally, Catholicism changed to admit evidence and reinterpreted in order to allow evolution to not contradict their theology. They never used to believe as they do now...it's doctrinal evolution. Basically science won over Catholicism.

[@hglundahl]

26:49 Miss/Mrs Morrissey, can you name ONE prominent creationist who thinks they ARE incompatible?

[@anthonylowder6687]

The Genesis account in chapters 1-11 are historical fact….not myth, not story but historical fact. The Bible is to be read, understood and accepted as literal as possible unless the context of the passage indicates otherwise. The Catholic Church has always told its readers to accept their beliefs and interpretations regardless of the fact that their interpretation is completely wrong on a lot of issues only a Fundamentalist approach to Biblical understanding can one truly understand the Bible.

[@krecikowi]

How its is not science? Please explain.

[@georgepenton808]

The macroevolution hypothesis contradicts the Church's original sin doctrine so we know that the macroevolution hypothesis is wrong.

[@hglundahl]

12:11 We don't ever have this literalist approach to Holy Scripture? Well, Catholics like St Augustine had, so you are counting yourself out of their (and my, which is less important but worth noting) company!

[@hglundahl]

22:19 Most scientists, like the Church, do not find a conflict between their faith and their science? If you are speaking mainly of Catholic scientists, are you aware how little they know about the Four Meanings and Patristics? Mostly from recent, pro-Evolutionist, secondary sources.

[@hglundahl]

17:38 "there are certainly parallels" - yes, but also conflicts

[@hglundahl]

24:00 Baronius is not a saint. As in canonised. I heard he had considered also Apocalyptic expectations as the foundation of Protestant Reformation. Well, no. If you can read Apocalypse so UN-literally as to consider the rule of Antichrist as perduring over centuries, instead of the literal 3 years and 6 months, that is because Luther was NOT expecting Leo X to turn out to be THE guy who gets defeated by Christ at Harmageddon. I think Galileo quoted Baronius. I also think SAINT Robert Bellarmine had something else to say about the matter. Even Baronius had not explicitly dared to say there were obiter dicta in the Bible.

[@hglundahl]

17:47 James Wiseman would not want to find Genesis anticipating modern scientific theory ... well, not the ones which are in verbal open conflict with it, at any rate ... that is for sure.

[@hglundahl]

8:17 "That is not healthy". As far as I know, no Creationists are Skoptsy. And as far as I know, the Skoptsy couldn't care less about Genesis chapter 1. I think you - forgot your name and certainly not calling YOU father - are superstitiously relying on "psychological analysis". As for "isolated and difficult to talk to" YOUR kind of attitude is making certain kinds of company, including YOURS uncomfortable to Creationists.

[@georgepenton808]

The macroevolution hypothesis is diametrically opposed to the original sin doctrine. Macroevolution happens, we are told, by natural selection, a process that requires much suffering and death, but the original sin doctrine says that suffering and death did not enter the world until Adam and Eve's sin. I don't see how anyone could be an orthodox Catholic and a believer in the evolution hypothesis. Six day literal creation? Why not? Isn't God powerful enough to effect this? If God created the earth and the various species over eons, why did He say He did it in six days? Why doesn't Genesis simply say, "God created the universe over eons"? If God created all in a big bang, in an instant why didn't He just say He created it in a big bang? Why lie and say it took Him six days? Why can't we trust our Father God over the scientists?

[@hglundahl]

15:00 But we do not find "in the beginning God created light" nor its denial. We find Heaven and Earth created, we also find Earth was dark - not that Heaven was. However, we find light reaching Earth before there WAS any sun or moon or stars.

[@georgepenton808]

The macroevolution hypothesis is diametrically opposed to the Catholic doctrine of original sin. According to this latter there was no suffering or death on earth until Adam and Eve sinned, but according to the evolution hypothesis eons of species suffering, competing, and dying at great length produced the human race.

[@hglundahl]

11:17 "all that is is moving toward full redemption by that same loving God"? Hmmm ... I think Apocalypse as well as Fifth Council of the Church have sth to say about that, which is not quite what you are saying, Wiseman?

[@hglundahl]

"There is in other words a point to life" - and if some souls and angelic beings are to remain lost forever, there wouldn't be?

[@hglundahl]

8:48 "the Bible was never meant to be a science textbook" Homo foeni. 8:55 "It was in fact meant to be that collection of authoritative TESTIMONY" Before we get a collection, we get testimony. And that in Genesis reaches back to the first man and the first woman. 8:57 "to God's revelation" Yes, and if first man and first woman were misled by God or by circumstances God either couldn't or didn't want to help, how is that testimony authoritative? For instance, check how we know Fall of Eve and Adam into Sin, and its conjoint Proto-Gospel. If you are not taking Adam and Eve literally, why do you take literally "ponam inimicitias"?

[@novellanurney1294]

FIAT, that's how.

[@hglundahl]

Back to Father Wiseman. 8:28 "In my opinion, that makes God a kind of trickster" Father Wiseman, we agree that God is not a trickster. I suppose your argument goes sth like "such and such a piece of evidence, which the scientists are certain cannot be reconciled with a young earth, is nevertheless created by God - would God be fooling them?" Well, an astrologer could argue that such and such a position of planets and stars in relation to Earth (like Sun in Virgo, Pisces in Ascendant, as I happen to know is my case) was created by God. And he would also be certain that this means something about those born under that circumstance, like about me. Are you saying astrology works? Or are you saying God is fooling the astrologer? Or could there be some third alternative? Hint, I think I can guess what you would say about the honest astrologer who pretends to know my character from facts like being born 18:15 in early September (Sun in Virgo, Ascendant in Pisces being guaranteed that date and time of day). And I think I would make a VERY parallel case about the scientist pretending to know the age of Earth as it is NOT written out in the Bible.

[@hglundahl]

23:34 Our Catholic view "radically different" from a Fundamentalist's view of Scripture? No, it is not. We believe in the four senses. The first of these is the literal sense. In any historic book, the story directly at hand as told there. This the Fundamentalist believes too. The Allegoric sense, however, they have varying views. When we see Church as Ark of Noah (allegorice or typologically), some of them prefer to see Jesus alone as it. Since Church is His mystic body and bride, the sense is not completely wrong, only incomplete in order to accomodate a Protestant view of the Church. So, no, this "radically different" understanding is simply not there. The literal sense is not THAT mystic.

[@GavinRemme]

Her voice sounds like it's coming through a ham radio.

[@hglundahl]

8:00 One is able to explore such questions as the age of the universe using human reason. Oh sure, to a point. To a point. One of the criteria reason having to chose between these days being "what is the more credible evidence about the matter, between Martyrology of Christmas day* based by St Jerome on Biblical genealogies on the one hand and on the other hand dating methods where even half life cannot be checked, and where parallax measures of distance depend on accepting counterintuitive Heliocentrism, and on top of that seeing the Bible as it has never been seen before and changing the Christmas proclamation in 1994 to 'unknown ages' for the Anno Mundi date of Christ's birth?" My reason has made its choice and I have not been considered as a Catholic while defending it by reasons. * Christmas vigil is when it is said, technically on Matins of Christmas day, though usually this happens somewhat earlier in Midnight Mass. "In the year five thousand one hundred and ninety nine after the beginning when God created Heaven and Earth ..."

[@hglundahl]

19:25 But what if Darwin went from Heretic (which Anglicans are) to Apostate? // On another occasion he wrote, ‘I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age’.16 He turned 40 in 1849. Commenting on this, Darwin’s biographer, James Moore, says, ‘… just as his clerical career had died a slow "natural death," so his faith had withered gradually’.17 // CMI ... creation.com/charles-darwins-slippery-slide-into-unbelief Gives the references: 16) Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, Michael Joseph, London, 1991, p. 658. 17) James Moore, The Darwin Legend, Baker Books, Michigan, 1994, p. 46. I don't think they would just lie about that. Especially since people can check (even if I can't) these references.

[@xcheifx1]

Why Catholics seem to amaze me..you do take the bible literal, the thing is if the bible explained how God created the earth in every aspect, noone would be a le to read the bible. But the bible is 100 percent truth and accuracy..

[@icimblind]

Come on, scientific method!

[@samd3676]

Wow, never heard such double speak from Catholic priests. ("Genesis is only a story but its true") They are true graduates of the modernist seminaries, totally have not been taught scripture and defiantly have no clue about modern science. They may be enlightened if they were to read the Fathers of the Church...... or on the other hand I maybe not. I guess the church was wrong for almost two millennia.

[@carledwardvincent7131]

"What is remarkable is that the ancient Hebrews asserted their belief in God (but He didn't do the things they said He did!)". Do you even listen to yourselves? Do you even understand human language at all anymore? Does the bedrock of logic, the Law of the Excluded Third, mean anything to you? If you don't believe God himself, where is your witness of supernatural faith? Believe God, and stop spreading the Modernist heresy.

[@hglundahl]

10:21 "what we have in Genesis is an expression of faith" Of faith in God and in certain kinds of traditions, in a certain obvious sense "of men" (I think Christ used the word "traditions of men" in a very different and pregnant sense, like when he said "thy thoughts are human thoughts"). Science is also an expression of faith. In observation and thus also in traditions of men recounting observations. And in logic. In the case of Old Earth, it is a faith in the arguments for an Old Earth, they certainly don't claim millions of years have been accurately observed and transmitted by our ancestors. Dito for a univers billions of light years across. Dito for other arguments for other points in this ideology called science, but differring hugely from electro-mechanics or zoology.

[@hglundahl]

14:49 similarity between Lemaître and Genesis could be fine as long as only looking at 1:1 ... or not even that. Heaven and earth created in the same beginning is a pretty clear indication they were created same instant. Not 9 billion years (by a measure of time related to the later earth's rotation against a pre-existing sun, according to a theory in conflict with account of day 4).

[@hglundahl]

9:41 True, but not scientifically true. If you mean scientific precision, like exact number of years between Promise to Abraham and Giving of Law (430 or 425?), you may have a point. If you mean scientific relevance (like in same thing 430 solar years or 430 lunar months), you don't have a point at all.

[@hglundahl]

20:40 Strynkowski and Ruiz are VERY sure an evolution from previous species and from simpler life forms happened. Obviously Neanderthals are not "a simpler life form" (like the supposed latest invertebrate ancestor of all vertebrates), but are they a previous species? Are Heidelbergenses (from which some evolutionists say both we and Neanderthals developed separately) a previous species? Or do they descend from Adam and Eve, like we do? Or have you ditched a literal Adam and Eve too? To St Thomas Aquinas, the Virgin birth of Christ is one of THREE exceptions to having both father and mother biologically. Adam had neither. Eve was not exactly a daughter of Adam, or daughter at all, since not born, but she was of a man only, not of any woman. THEN came Christ, of a woman but not of a man (a muliere, non a viro - He is of course filius Hominis by his Blessed Mother). If you ditch the textual literal sense of Genesis 2, you make the Virgin Birth a TOTAL exception, kind of a contradiction against nature. The process of evolution is supposed to reflect on God's marvellous wisdom ... what about His goodness? How many Heidelbergenses had to suffer and die, on your view, so man could be an even better receptacle for a rational soul? On my view, Heidelberg man and Neanderthal man are rather recent descendants of Adam. Not VERY recent, not fakes, but magnitudes more recent than the conventional dating.