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The Pope declares evolution and the Big Bang real!

Vortigern99

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The current Pope has shown himself to be a quite rational, deep-thinking sort of person, whose views on science and the scientific process I admire. Recently he said:

“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand and able to do everything. But that is not so,” said the Pope.

...

“God is not a divine being or a magician, but the creator who brought everything to life,” Pope Francis said. “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.

...

This antithesis [of creationism vs. evolution] is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man? I believe this of the utmost importance.

One of many articles on this around the web: http://ringoffireradio.com/2014/10/...pt-evolution-and-big-bang-god-is-no-magician/

What do you think? Does this change your views on Catholicism, the Pope or the Church in general?
 
Didn't see it on the first page. Surprised it's not all the rage round here. Mods, feel free to combine, close, move, cannibalize, etc.
 
Vortigern99 said:
The Pope declares evolution and the Big Bang real!
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Evolution has been compatible with Catholicism officially since the middle of last century, and unofficially for a lot longer than that.

The Big Bang theory was proposed by Belgian catholic priest and scientist Georges Lemaître in 1927. One of the objections to the BBT was that it sounded too much like Genesis 1, and Lemaître was accused of trying to import religious concepts into physics.
 
GDon said:
One of the objections to the BBT was that it sounded too much like Genesis 1, and Lemaître was accused of trying to import religious concepts into physics.
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I've heard this before but really don't get it. In what ways does it resemble Genesis 1?
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
I've heard this before but really don't get it. In what ways does it resemble Genesis 1?
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From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Development

In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory.[42] This perception was enhanced by the fact that the originator of the Big Bang theory, Monsignor Georges Lemaître, was a Roman Catholic priest.[43]​
 
For a long time, since Origen (writting around 200 CE), Christianity had maintained that time began when the universe was created. This went against the prevailing Greek philosophy of the time (which specified an eternal earth) and against the later science view, which was of an eternal universe under the "steady state" theories. So when a Catholic priest came up with the Big Bang Theory, which posited the universe having a beginning, it was suggested that maybe this was being driven by religious concerns rather than science.
 
Three comments:

He's a man who wears a dress and let's his entorouage look at his bottom.

He obviously browses the web cos I saw the same words today from a ten year old book.

Where's the money?
 
Vortigern99 said:
The current Pope has shown himself to be a quite rational, deep-thinking sort of person.........
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........who believes in a version of creation, the super-natural, demons, angels and so on, and believes himself to be god's representative on earth. Not that rational or deep-thinking, then.
 
Frank is different only in that he is such a refreshing change from Pope Rat. But he's no radical and still hews to basic Catholic doctrine. We'll know in a few decades whether he succeeded in turn the Catholic ship of state on a different course.
 
MikeG said:
........who believes in a version of creation, the super-natural, demons, angels and so on, and believes himself to be god's representative on earth. Not that rational or deep-thinking, then.
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Sure, but lightyears ahead of his forebears.

Credit where credit's due. I think we'll see more and more liberal pronouncements from this guy, who, let's face it, millions of Catholics listen to.

Well done Frankie.
 
Once upon a time, there was a man who denied the existence of gravity.
"I reject your silly action at a distance!" he said. "I see no spacetime curvature!"
So saying, he jumped off a cliff and expired, a mangled heap, at the bottom.
His last words were, " OK gravity is real and it sucks."

You have to give him credit for accepting the facts.

Doing so at the top of the cliff might have been preferable, but you don't get everything in this life.
 
GDon said:
Evolution has been compatible with Catholicism officially since the middle of last century, and unofficially for a lot longer than that.
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Compatible, yes, but so is creationism. Francis seems to go a step further and to endorse evolution as the preferred theory. It's certainly a step ahead.

Of course, he still has that pesky problem that of all animals, only humans are infused somewhere near the start of their life with a soul. So, God (possibly with his helpers the angels) still is a sort-of magician who goes around doing this soul-infusing business and perfectly knows who's human and who not. Did neanderthalensis have a soul?
 
Vortigern99 said:
What do you think? Does this change your views on Catholicism, the Pope or the Church in general?
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No, since the RCC never had a problem with evolution in the first place. Old news. Don't tell the Fundies though, they'll pop a cork.
 
bigred said:
No, since the RCC never had a problem with evolution in the first place. Old news. Don't tell the Fundies though, they'll pop a cork.
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I think they'd be more likely to say "What does he know? He's a Catholic. They're not even Christian."

As I look up "catholics aren't christians," the top result was Jack Chick. I think the Fundies won't have any problem.
 
Vortigern99 said:
“God is not a divine being or a magician,
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He turns wine into blood, bread into flesh, impregnates virgins, and incarnates as human. Sounds like a magician to me.

Vortigern99 said:
What do you think? Does this change your views on Catholicism, the Pope or the Church in general?
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No. It's not a new position for the church, he just stated it a little more explicitly.
 
Vortigern99 said:
What do you think? Does this change your views on Catholicism, the Pope or the Church in general?
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He also said that Satan and witchcraft were real!

I am skeptical about religious leaders who claim to be rational. Historically, witch hunts were often started by men who were superficially 'progressive'. Cotton Mather, King James I of England, and some 14th century Pope's come to mind.

Maybe he is cynically trying to gain the favor of powerful interests. Maybe the present Pope accepts these scientific findings because he doesn't understand them. Maybe he has some learning disability where he can't recognize a logical contradiction. Maybe he is has some ethnic agenda which he feels takes precedence over Biblical canon.

Maybe he sincerely thinks there is no contradiction between Catholic canon and scientific theory. After all, nobody has ever fully understood the Roman Catholic doctrine. It's a Mystery, remember? Ask Galileo!
 
ddt said:
Compatible, yes, but so is creationism. Francis seems to go a step further and to endorse evolution as the preferred theory. It's certainly a step ahead.

Of course, he still has that pesky problem that of all animals, only humans are infused somewhere near the start of their life with a soul. So, God (possibly with his helpers the angels) still is a sort-of magician who goes around doing this soul-infusing business and perfectly knows who's human and who not. Did neanderthalensis have a soul?
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My understanding of the Catholic view is that at some point children with souls were born. Perhaps Adam and Eve were the first.

The difficulty is that this would mean that at some point in time there was a human society in which some individuals (the latest children?) had souls and some (parents, older children?) did not.

I would like to know what the difference is supposed to be.

Was everyone to some degree intelligent, but only some had souls? What is an intelligent being without a soul like?

Or was no one intelligent (in the human sense), but some had souls? What is a being with a soul but without intelligence like?
 
This could become fun trying to define and describe the abstract concepts of both intelligence and of a soul.
 
Dani said:
“God is not a divine being or a magician, but the creator who brought everything to life".
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Lost in translation?

Or lost in theologization?
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Elsewhere, it's been translated as "God is not a demiurge or a magician...".

This doesn't really make any more sense, as a demiurge seems to be either a being responsible for the creation of the universe, or a subordinate deity :boggled:
 
Humots said:
My understanding of the Catholic view is that at some point children with souls were born. Perhaps Adam and Eve were the first.
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I don't think so. God creates each soul, if I'm reading the Catechism correctly:
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.
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And again in the summary of that section:
382 "Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity" (GS 14 § 1). The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God.
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So, somewhere along the line, a new body is infused with a soul.

I snipped your other questions, but, parallel to your thoughts: who count as humans here? When in the process of (human) evolution did God decide that this particular organism is worthy of a human soul? Was erectus human according to Catholic theology? Or ergaster? Or heidelbergensis? Or what about the offspring of a dalliance between a neanderthalensis and a Cro Magnon?
 
ddt said:
I don't think so. God creates each soul, if I'm reading the Catechism correctly:

And again in the summary of that section:

So, somewhere along the line, a new body is infused with a soul.

I snipped your other questions, but, parallel to your thoughts: who count as humans here? When in the process of (human) evolution did God decide that this particular organism is worthy of a human soul? Was erectus human according to Catholic theology? Or ergaster? Or heidelbergensis? Or what about the offspring of a dalliance between a neanderthalensis and a Cro Magnon?
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There is no answer to that, and that is the reason why the Church has been reasonably silent on the topic of the evolution of the human intellect. No coherent proposition can be extracted from the Church's doctrines. The Church doesn't really care about what processes produced the present form of wombats' ears or bandicoots' tails ... but the origin of the human mind! That's a different matter. As you suggest, the two aspects of evolution are, or at least have been, treated very differently by the RCC. Here's Pius XII, 1950.
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.
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That's from Humani Generis which unfortunately goes on to insist on the literal existence of Adam
... the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.
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It's not really that new (the church has had a policy of a sort of God semi-guided evolution for, well, since at least since I was a kid) but such an explicit statement is a step forward.
 
ddt said:
I don't think so. God creates each soul, if I'm reading the Catechism correctly:

So, somewhere along the line, a new body is infused with a soul.
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Do you mean that at some point God infused every human with a soul, including those adults or children already alive?

My understanding of the Catholic view is that the soul is there from the instant of conception, not infused "somewhere along the line". Thus the objection to abortion and some forms of birth control.

Was there a society of intelligent beings without souls? What were they like?

What happens when an already-living being without a soul acquires one?
 
Humots said:
My understanding of the Catholic view is that the soul is there from the instant of conception, not infused "somewhere along the line". Thus the objection to abortion and some forms of birth control.
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It may be the other way round. The church has always opposed abortion, but for most of its history has believed that "ensoulment" or "animation" occurred at some time following conception, for example when the foetus assumed human shape. But the doctrine that ensoulment occurs at conception was finally decreed only in 1869. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment

Some anticlerical rationalists have argued that this was a response to the then recent introduction of anaesthetics, that made abortion a less formidable procedure. On this understanding the Church reinforced its opposition to it by this doctrinal definition; so that it resembles the comparable pronouncements that have greeted other advances in the technology of artificial contraception.

Personally I am open minded and even quite uncertain about this thesis, regarding the motivation of Pius IX.
 
Humots said:
Do you mean that at some point God infused every human with a soul, including those adults or children already alive?
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No, he started right away with Adam and Eve when they each were just a fertilized egg. God knew exactly which were the first humans who were human-soul-worthy. And from that point on, God has been infusing every fertilized human egg with a soul. Or maybe not the ones that He knows will miscarriage or be aborted. Yes, God is a busy guy. Anyway, that's my understanding of Catholic doctrine on the matter.

Humots said:
My understanding of the Catholic view is that the soul is there from the instant of conception, not infused "somewhere along the line". Thus the objection to abortion and some forms of birth control.
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Craig already addressed this.

Humots said:
Was there a society of intelligent beings without souls? What were they like?
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Define "intelligent". Apes, whales, dolphins, elephants are considered intelligent animals. Crows too, they use tools on occasion. Homo habilis used and made tools. Hence my question who are considered human in Catholic doctrine.

BTW, animals have souls too, but the human soul is something special.

Humots said:
What happens when an already-living being without a soul acquires one?
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How?
 
Well, Evolve is a real video game and The Big Bang Theory is a real television show so he really had no choice but to recognize that they exist now did he?
 
godless dave said:
He turns wine into blood, bread into flesh, impregnates virgins, and incarnates as human. Sounds like a magician to me.
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Mary wasn't a virgin. In the aremaic scriptures its written as a young woman. The Greeks translated that to virgin
 
mstricky said:
Mary wasn't a virgin. In the aremaic scriptures its written as a young woman. The Greeks translated that to virgin
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In the original Hebrew of Isaiah it's young woman too. This has long been known. Here is Thomas Paine, Age of Reason III/1
It may not be improper here to observe, that the word translated a virgin in Isaiah, does not signify a virgin in Hebrew, but merely a young woman. The tense also is falsified in the translation. Levi gives the Hebrew text of the 14th ver. of the 7th chap. of Isaiah, and the translation in English with it — "Behold a young woman is with child and beareth a son."
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