Hello, and welcome to Episode 4 of Foundations Restored, a Catholic perspective on origins.
I'm your host, Keith Jones.
In this episode we present authoritative magisterial teachings on origins and examine how these
teachings harmonize with the creation providence framework, the view that the cosmos, man and
the animal kinds were directly created by God during the six-day creation period.
To begin, we define the term magisterium and explain its teaching authority.
The magisterium is the living, teaching office of the Church.
It is the product of an unbroken chain of apostolic succession and is composed of the
Pope, successor to Peter, and the bishops, successors to the apostles, in union with him.
The magisterium was instituted by Jesus Christ and it will endure until the end of time,
as described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
When Christ instituted the Twelve, he constituted them in the form of a college or permanent
assembly at the head of which he placed Peter, chosen from among them.
Just as by the Lord's institution St. Peter and the rest of the apostles constitute a
single apostolic college, so in like fashion the Roman pontiff, Peter's successor, and
the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are related with and united to one another.
The magisterium serves to guard the faith against error and to faithfully transmit apostolic
teachings, whether in the form of sacred tradition or sacred scripture, to each generation.
The Catechism explains,
The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the word of God, whether in its written
form or in the form of tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of
the Church alone.
Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.
This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion
with the successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome.
Yet, this magisterium is not superior to the word of God, but is its servant.
It teaches only what has been handed on to it, at the divine command and with the help
of the Holy Spirit.
It listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication, and expounds it faithfully.
All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit
of faith.
The magisterium is guided by the Holy Spirit.
As such, in matters of faith and morals, its definitive teachings are infallible when so
declared.
The pope, as head of the universal Church, can declare infallible teachings independently.
When the bishops are in union with the pope, as through an ecumenical council, they too
exercise full authority over the universal Church.
In addition, teachings flowing from the ordinary exercise of magisterial authority, such as
papal encyclical letters, are to be adhered to with religious assent.
With the nature of the magisterium established, we turn now to examine key magisterial teachings
on human origins.
At the outset, it is important to recognize that authoritative magisterial statements,
such as those arising from an ecumenical council or within an encyclical, are often made in
reaction to specific errors that have arisen and threaten to undermine Catholic doctrine.
It follows, therefore, that magisterial statements may not reflect the entire deposit of faith
in any subject area, and that the statements must always be viewed in combination with
sacred tradition and sacred scripture, interpreted according to sound Catholic principles.
We also note that authoritative magisterial statements should never conflict with sacred
tradition or sacred scripture, for all three proceed under the teachings of Christ or through
the guidance or inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
If a magisterial statement is ever characterized, for example, by secular media as breaking
from authoritative church teaching, it is essential to study the statement directly
to determine whether the statement is authoritative or merely a private opinion not intended to
represent official church teaching.
In direct opposition to claims of human evolution, sacred tradition and sacred scripture affirm
that man was created through a direct and immediate act of God.
We would therefore expect the authoritative teachings of the magisterium to reflect this
view and in fact we will now explain that this is the case.
Later in this episode we will also discuss non-authoritative statements that appear to
support human evolution and we will examine why in 1950 the church opened a period of
discussion of human evolution.
We begin our study with an excerpt from Vos Lexionis, A Profession of Faith to the Universal
Church issued by Pope Pelagius in 557 AD.
For I confess that all men from Adam, even to the consummation of the world, having been
born and having died with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents
but were created.
The one from the earth, the other, however, from the rib of the man, will then rise again
and stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
Here Pope Pelagius professes that Adam and Eve were not born, but were created directly
and immediately by God.
A declaration consistent with the unanimous teaching of the Church Fathers and with the
straightforward meaning of Sacred Scripture.
Our second magisterial statement is from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, an ecumenical
council convened in part to reject Albigensianism.
Among other errors, this heresy asserted that God and Satan existed as equal and opposing
forces and that the created world was evil.
In response, the Council Fathers issued a Confession of Faith stating that God is
Creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal, who
by his own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from
nothing spiritual and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally, the human, constituted
as it were, alike of the spirit and the body.
The straightforward meaning of this statement is that each creature came about through a
supernatural act of creation, that the act of special creation included the creation
of man, and that the human creature consists of body and soul.
In essence, according to Church doctor St. Lawrence of Brindisi, the most prominent commentator
on Genesis, in the centuries following the Council, the Holy Roman Church determined
in the Fourth Lateran Council that the angels along with the creatures of the world were
at once created ex nihilo, from the beginning of time.
In considering the statements of St. Lawrence and the Fourth Lateran Council, it is helpful
to understand that as explained in the Catholic Commentary on Scripture, the word beginning
can be understood to include all the six days in which God made the world and all that is
in it.
What's more, creation can refer to creation from nothing, or it can involve the molding
of formless matter and bringing it to life.
In his work Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Dr. Ludwig Ott explains that from creation
in the proper and strict sense, creation prima, is to be distinguished the so-called creation
secunda, by which is understood the modeling of formless material and the bestowal of life
upon it.
It is common to see either type of creation referred to as creation from nothing.
The Fourth Lateran Council statement appears to preclude any type of evolutionary process
through use of the terms at once, from the beginning of time, created, and from nothing.
Yet some have argued that the term at once means that the creation events happened simultaneously
in a single instant, with the implication that the days and creation events in Genesis
cannot be understood in a straightforward historical sense.
But a better understanding of the Council's use of the phrase at once is that when God
created each creature during the six-day creation period, he did so directly and immediately
from nothing or from elementary matter, not by changing the bodies of thus evolved life
forms, meaning that no evolutionary processes were involved.
This is a better understanding for three reasons.
First, it is clear that the Council understood creation as involving sequential events occurring
over time, as they named Adam as the final creature created.
Second, St. Thomas Aquinas, who wrote in the same era as the Council, uses the term immediately
to describe the direct creation of each creature by God.
In Summa Theologica, he writes,
It is said, in the beginning God created heaven and earth, by which are understood corporeal
creatures.
These therefore were produced immediately by God.
Third, the understanding that the Genesis text teaches direct and immediate creation
during the six-day period best aligns with sacred tradition, the straightforward meaning
of sacred scripture, and the realization that Darwinism provides no reason or necessity
to depart from this consistent understanding.
Another argument involving the term at once centers on whether this term is appropriate
translation of the original Latin word simul.
If the intent was not to suggest the direct and immediate creation of each creature by
God, then perhaps one could argue that there is room for evolutionary processes in the
Council's statement.
Those making this argument claim that simul can mean equally.
Thus they contend, the Council merely stated that God is the author of all things, but
did not specify how all creatures came about.
In the Doctrines of Genesis 1-11, Fr.
Victor Werkelwies concludes that the word simul can mean at the same instant, or over
the same short period of time.
Thus, the most straightforward understanding of the Council's statement is that all creatures
were created immediately by God during the six days of creation.
This understanding is most consistent with the meaning of the term creation, as Fr.
John A. Hardin comments in his book, The Catholic Catechism.
Nowadays, we are so accustomed to use the word creation in a variety of senses that
its strict doctrinal meaning may be obscured.
Creation means the production of material and spiritual things in their whole substance,
done by God out of nothing.
The next magisterial statement impacting the teaching on human origins is from Session
11 of the Council of Florence in 1442.
The decree states that the Holy Roman Church
Most firmly it believes, professes, and preaches that the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit is the Creator of all things that are, visible and invisible, who, when He willed
it, made from His own goodness all creatures, both spiritual and corporeal, good indeed
because they are made by the supreme good, but mutable because they are made from nothing.
And it asserts that there is no nature of evil, because every nature, insofar as it
is a nature, is good.
The divine creation of all creatures includes mankind, and the teaching that all creatures
are made from nothing eliminates evolutionary processes.
The next statement on human origins comes from the Catechism of the Council of Trent,
which says of God's work
Lastly, He formed man from the slime of the earth, so framed and constituted in body as
to be immortal and impassable, not, however, by the strength of nature herself, but by
the gift of God.
From the sacred history of Genesis, parish priests will easily make themselves acquainted
with these things, for the instruction of the faithful.
Here, the Catechism directs priests to acquaint themselves with the Genesis account, which
is identified as sacred history and not as allegory or myth.
In so doing, it affirms that by interpreting the special creation of Adam and Eve in a
straightforward manner, the faithful would be correctly instructed.
We next cite statements of the First Vatican Council, an ecumenical council convened in
1869, ten years after Darwin's Origin of Species was published.
During Vatican I, the fourth Lateran statement re-emerged nearly verbatim, with council fathers
declaring that God immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing,
spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane, and then the human creation, common
as it were, composed of both spirit and body.
Here we see the term immediately used to convey the notion that God created each creature
directly.
Other relevant statements promulgated by the Vatican I Council include the following.
Against pantheists and materialists, if anyone does not confess that 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, let him be anathema.
It is also illuminating to note that the Vatican I fathers had gone through two drafts of a
statement addressing the creation of mankind before the council was suspended due to the
effects of the Franco-Prussian War.
The second draft reads,
This, our Holy Mother the Church believes and teaches.
When God was about to make man according to His image and likeness, in order that He
might rule over the whole earth, He breathed into the body formed from the slime of the
earth, the breath of life, that is, a soul produced from nothing.
And blessing the first man and Eve, His wife, who was formed by divine power from His side,
God said, Increase and multiply and fill the earth.
With regard to the introductory phrase, Holy Mother Church believes and teaches,
Father Brian W. Harrison observes,
According to standard magisterial and theological phraseology, this solemn formula never was
and never has been used to present Catholic teaching about which there remains some shadow
of legitimate doubt or uncertainty, that is, teaching which is merely authentic or authoritative
but not infallible.
On the contrary, the verb believes, in this context, means precisely that the doctrine
being enunciated is to be held as a truth of faith.
De fide.
Vatican I's interruption precluded promulgation of the draft statement, and as a result the
statement does not demand the assent of faith.
Even so, it illuminates the Council Fathers' understanding of previous Church teachings.
They clearly understood the deposit of faith to include belief in the direct, immediate
creation of Adam by God and the supernatural creation of Eve.
At the close of the 1870s, Darwin's book, The Descent of Man, had been in circulation
for nearly a decade and The Origin of Species more than two decades.
These works helped to usher in the naturalistic view of science that was needed to complete
the Cartesian-Darwinian narrative, and with this profound change came attacks on marriage
and other institutions linked to the historical Church teaching on origins.
Surveying these impacts, Pope Leo XIII recognized that at the heart of these attacks and false
philosophies lay claims for human evolution.
In 1880, therefore, he issued an encyclical of enormous importance, Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae,
in which he unapologetically addressed the issue.
The true origin of marriage, venerable brothers, is well known to all.
Though revilers of the Christian faith refuse to acknowledge the never-interrupted doctrine
of the Church on this subject and have long striven to destroy the testimony of all nations
and of all times, they have nevertheless failed not only to quench the powerful light of truth,
but even to lessen it.
We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth
day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into
his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom he miraculously took from the side of
Adam when he was locked in sleep.
God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should
be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be propagated and preserved
by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity of time.
This statement instructs the faithful to hold as a matter of permanent Catholic doctrine
that first, Adam's body and soul were created through a supernatural act of God, second,
Adam was created by God from the earth on the sixth day, third, Eve's body was directly
created from the side of Adam through a divine miracle, fourth, Adam and Eve are the parents
of the human race and are therefore historical figures, and fifth, the institution of marriage
is necessarily linked to this account of true history.
The combined impact of these statements by Pope Leo XIII are dramatic and present a challenge
to any Catholic claiming that there are no difficulties in reconciling human evolution
with Church teaching.
Father Brian Harrison summarizes the situation as follows in the Roman Theological Forum.
Leo XIII's Arcanum confirms the meaning of all previous magisterial statements preceding
it that both Adam and Eve, in body as well as in soul, owed their existence to direct
supernatural interventions of the Creator.
Arcanum also demonstrates that by 1880 at the latest, the traditional teaching of the
Church's ordinary magisterium, that God formed the bodies of both our first parents by direct
supernatural interventions, was already set in stone.
In fact, all the requirements later established in Vatican II's Lumen Gentium, paragraph 25,
for a doctrine to be infallibly proposed by the ordinary magisterium, had been completed
no later than 1880 with regards to a. any exclusively natural evolutionary explanation
for the formation of Adam's body and b. any evolutionary explanation whatsoever for the
formation of Eve's body.
On October 30, 1902, Pope Leo XIII created the Pontifical Biblical Commission to protect
Holy Scripture from any breath of error, but also from all rash opinions.
Until 1971, the commission was part of the ordinary magisterium, meaning that its early
decrees continue to command religious assent.
Pope St. Pius X, in fact, declared that "...all are bound by the duty of conscience to submit
to the decisions of the Biblical-Pontifical Commission, and that all who impugn such decisions
cannot avoid the charge of disobedience, or on this account be free of grave sin."
In 1909, the commission issues several decrees in question-and-answer form under the title
The Historical Character of the Early Chapters of Genesis, Decrees 2 and 3 directly impacted
church doctrine related to human origins.
Question 2.
Whether it can be taught that the three aforesaid chapters of Genesis do not contain the stories
of events which really happened, that is, which correspond with objective reality and
historical truth, but are either accounts celebrated in fable, drawn from the mythologies
and cosmogonies of ancient peoples and adapted by a holy writer to monotheistic doctrine,
or allegories and symbols, devoid of a basis of objective reality, set forth under the
guise of history?
Reply, in the negative, to both parts.
Question 3.
Whether in particular the literal and historical sense can be called into question, for example,
among others, the creation of all things wrought by God in the beginning of time, the
special creation of man, the formation of the first woman from the first man, the oneness
of the human race?
Reply, in the negative.
Finally, in 1950, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Humani Generis.
As explained in episode 1, Humani Generis establishes that
1.
The first eleven chapters of Genesis do pertain to true history.
The chapters are inspired, and the view of limited inerrancy has been repeatedly condemned.
2.
It is fictitious to think that all difficulties vanish if the literal sense of Scripture is
replaced by the symbolic or spiritual sense.
3.
We must believe that Adam was a real person and the father of all humans.
4.
We must believe that the soul of Adam was created immediately by God.
5.
It warns of those who try to withdraw from the Church's teaching authority out of desire
for novelty or the fear of being considered ignorant of the recent scientific findings.
6.
It opens a period of discussion to see if any sort of evolutionary process can be reconciled
with Church doctrine on origins, but mandates that
a. evidence both for and against the evolution hypothesis must be studied
b. evolution is not to be treated as certain and proven
and c. all are to submit to the final decision of the Church
7.
It instructs bishops and religious orders not to advance opinions contrary to the encyclical
in schools or to the clergy and the faithful.
and 8.
It states that teachers in Catholic institutions cannot with tranquil conscience exercise the
office of teaching unless they religiously accept and exactly observe the norms ordained.
These magisterial teachings clearly establish that purely naturalistic processes did not
give rise to the bodies of our first parents Adam and Eve.
Still, you may be wondering, if all possibilities of human evolution have been eliminated, why
did the Church open a period of discussion of the matter in 1950?
To begin, recall that any evolutionary process involving the human soul is eliminated by
Humanae Generis, paragraph 36.
Second, purely naturalistic theories involving the evolution of man's body to the point where
the body was fully human and only required the addition of the soul by God, conflicts
with many of the magisterial statements just presented, as well as with sacred tradition
and sacred scripture that clearly convey a supernatural action with regards to the formation
of Adam's body.
As Father John Hardin explains,
The second creation text about Adam, in Genesis 2, although very anthropomorphic, is too detailed
and contrasts too strongly with the origin of other creatures, not to imply that God
acted in a special way when He brought the body of the first man into being.
Before modern evolutionary theories were in vogue, the ancient fathers and later doctors
of the Church, along with theologians, held that some special action of God was operative
in the formation of the first man's body.
Yet based on the false belief that there is good evidence for human evolution, evidence
that somehow justifies departing from the combined testimony of sacred scripture, sacred
tradition, and authoritative magisterial teachings, a great deal of Catholic thought has been
invested in trying to figure out how human evolution could possibly be reconciled with
Church doctrine.
Some scholars have claimed that a concept called special transformism reconciles human
evolution and Church teaching, and it is largely because of this concept that the Church opened
a period of discussion in 1950.
Let's examine this concept further.
Special transformism is the idea that God directly created the soul of the first human,
and at the same time supernaturally modified the body of the first human, such that Adam's
body was not the result of purely naturalistic processes.
This concept allows for evolutionary processes to modify, over long periods of time, the
physical makeup of pre-human ancestors, but would still require supernatural intervention
when the body of Adam came into being, such that Adam's body was not the product of
strictly natural evolutionary processes.
Even if one were to assume that special transformism was not contrary to God's revelation, it suffers
from the reality that there is a lack of any evidence from the domains of natural science
and theology suggesting that the concept is true.
Instead, special transformism is something of a desperate attempt to reconcile two opposite
views of human origins.
It is desperate because no scientist, including self-professed Catholics like Kenneth Miller,
would ever accept divine intervention in the formation of the first humans, and yet theistic
evolution has little meaning if God is fenced out.
The gratuitous nature of special transformism was also noted by Cardinal Ruffini, who writes,
The Transformists say that at the moment of the infusion of the soul, the Creator modified
and adapted the body of an anthropoid.
But then, what is gained by introducing evolution to explain the origin of the human body, if
in the end a body already existing had to be improved and corrected, no one knows in
how many ways, by the Almighty?
The direct action of God is excluded in the formation of the body only to find that it
is necessary in adapting a body to serve the high activities of the soul.
Those who believe that special transformism achieves some sort of logical balance between
faith and science should realize the awkward scenario that emerges.
Transformists would have to hold that the pathway leading to modern man, taking hundreds
of millions of years as pre-cellular life eventually produced Artie, who gave way to
Lucy, who gave way to the Tongue Child, or whatever sequence is the flavor of the day,
progressed through untold generations locked in the battle for survival of the fittest
until the physical stature of these ancient ancestors was on the cusp of becoming human,
only to need a little supernatural boost at the end, such that man's body can be said
to have been produced directly by God, even though Adam still would have been born from
and nurtured by a hominid, a brute beast whom he would have lovingly treated as his
mother.
To think that this sort of evolution, which appears to be the only option open to faithful
Catholics, could ever be accepted in academia as achieving a logical balance between faith
and science is nonsense, and for confirmation we only need to recall Kenneth Miller's insistence
Evolution is a natural process and natural processes are undirected.
Even if God can intervene in nature, why should He when nature can do a perfectly fine job
of achieving His aims all by itself?
It is fair and important to ask what went wrong with the approach of so many theologians
and biblical scholars, when the only human evolutionary concept that appears open to
faithful Catholics is so absurd that no one openly espouses it.
Having studied the Catholic departure from the true doctrine of creation for more than
20 years, I can say with some certainty that among Catholic scholars who should know better,
the errant approach involves one or more of the following steps that are completely incompatible
with sound scholarship.
1.
Start with the conviction that origins are a matter for natural science, not theology.
2.
Uncritically accept claims of evolutionary biologists and paleontologists about the evidence
for Darwinism and human evolution.
3.
Reject the straightforward meaning of sacred scripture and sacred tradition on the premise
that these writings are from pre-modern times.
If they must be discussed, selectively quote sacred scripture and sacred tradition, ignoring
passages that are challenging to evolutionary claims.
4.
Reject the instruction of Pope Benedict XV to study sacred scripture to determine what
the sacred author wished to communicate and not what the Catholic scholar wishes the text
to say.
5.
Remove magisterial teachings from sacred scripture and sacred tradition, then challenge
each magisterial statement in isolation.
6.
For each isolated magisterial statement, rather than accept the straightforward literal meaning,
argue that the wording does not explicitly eliminate the possibility of evolutionary
process.
7.
State non-authoritative magisterial teachings above authoritative teachings.
8.
Redefine words such as creation such that the new definition accommodates evolutionary
concepts.
9.
Never discuss special transformism as the only evolutionary option open, because it
is absurd.
Just state that there is no conflict between faith and reason, that the church has given
its approval to theistic evolution and move on.
When these unsound steps are taken, there's little wonder that there is widespread confusion
among Catholic laity and Catholic teachers.
I am truly saddened that this sort of approach passes for Catholic scholarship today.
These errors have catastrophic consequences for our youth.
The resulting confusion over human origins is perhaps equaled only by the confusion involved
with the origin of the universe, which we will now discuss.
Before discussing magisterial statements, we will provide some background information
from sacred scripture and sacred tradition.
Concerning the origin of the heavens and the earth, the following scriptures address God's
creative act.
Genesis 1.1.
In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.
Genesis 1.16.
And God made two great lights, a greater light to rule the day, and a lesser light to rule
the night and the stars.
Genesis 2.1.2.
So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them.
And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made.
Exodus 20.11.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them,
and rested on the seventh day.
Psalm 32.6.9.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the spirit of
His mouth.
For He spoke, and they were made.
He commanded, and they were created.
Isaiah 45.12.18.
I made the earth, and I created man upon it.
My hand stretched forth the heavens, and I have commanded all their hosts.
For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God Himself that formed the earth,
and made it, the very Maker thereof.
He did not create it in vain.
He formed it to be inhabited.
2 Maccabees 7.28.
I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth and all that is in them, and consider
that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also.
Wisdom 9.1.2.
God of my fathers and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things with thy word, and by thy
wisdom hast appointed man, that he should have dominion over the creature that was made
by thee.
1 Timothy 4.4.
For every creature of God is good.
Wisdom 11.26.
And how could any thing endure if thou wouldst not, or be preserved if not called by thee?
The straightforward meaning of these and other scriptures is, number one,
the heavens and the earth were supernaturally created by God from nothing and were completed
by the end of a six-day creation period.
Number two, creation of the heavens and earth occurred through the word of God, not through
natural processes.
Number three, the universe was created with order.
The earth was created for habitation.
Number four, the creation finished after the sixth day and was very good.
And number five, God continues to sustain the universe.
This straightforward meaning does not suggest, number one, that it took millions or billions
of years for the heavens and earth to form.
Number two, that created matter self-organized through natural processes so that order came
from non-order to form the earth or heavenly bodies.
From sacred tradition, the church fathers unanimously viewed the creation of the heavens
and the earth according to the creation providence framework.
In other words, they taught that the heavens and the earth resulted from the direct and
immediate creation by God during the six-day creation period.
This view is expressed, for example, in the following from St. Ambrose.
Moses did not look forward to a late and leisurely creation of the world out of a concourse of atoms.
Moses added, he created, lest it thought there was a delay in creation.
Furthermore, men would see how incomparable the Creator was,
who completed such a great work in the briefest moment of His creative act.
Likewise, St. Athanasius writes,
As to the separate stars or the great lights, in one day and by the same command,
they were all called into being.
And such was the original formation of the quadrupeds,
and of birds and fishes and cattle and plants.
From these and other writings, it is clear that the fathers viewed the events of Creation Week
as a matter of historical theology, not natural science.
In other words, the acts of creation were supernatural and did not result from natural
processes as the laws of nature were themselves being created in preparation for the period of
providence. As St. Basil instructs, recall that the voice of God makes nature, and the command
given at that time to creation provided the future course of action for creatures.
Turning to magisterial statements about the creation of the cosmos, many statements confirm
the straightforward understanding of sacred scripture and the view from sacred tradition.
The Nicene Creed of the 4th century proclaimed,
A more detailed expression of this doctrine is found in the Catechism of Trent.
By the words, heaven and earth is to be understood whatever heaven and earth contain.
For, besides the heavens, He also added the splendor of the sun and the beauty of the moon
and of the other heavenly bodies. He so ordered the celestial orbs in a certain and constant course.
Unless His continual providence were present to created things,
they would instantly return to their original nothing.
The final authoritative magisterial statement presented here is Question 8 of the 1909 Decrees
by the Pontifical Biblical Commission. In this decree, the Commission stated that the days of
Genesis can be assumed either in its proper sense as a natural day or in the improper sense of a
certain space of time, and there can be free disagreement among exegetes on this question.
Fr. Victor Workelwitz explains this decree in the context of the testimony of sacred scripture,
sacred tradition, and other magisterial statements.
The Pontifical Biblical Commission allowed free discussion by interpreters on the question of
whether the word yom, when used to distinguish the six days in Genesis 1, means strictly the
natural day or, less strictly, a certain space of time. But this freedom must be exercised in
accordance with the hermeneutical principle of Leo XIII that scripture must be understood in
its literal and obvious sense unless reason or necessity forces us to do otherwise.
Therefore, one cannot argue arbitrarily that yom means a certain space of time,
other than a natural day, but must establish that it is necessary to interpret it that way.
Considering then, one, that yom is never used in sacred scripture for a period of time of
definite length other than a natural day, and that if Moses wished to convey periods of time
measured in millennia, he could have used the Hebrew word olam, which means a long indefinite time.
Two, the hermeneutical principle of Leo XIII.
Three, the nearly universal understanding of the fathers and their successors.
Four, that the creation day is the prototype of the natural day.
And five, the fact that the natural sciences are unable to confirm or refute it.
It is not reasonable to take the word yom in Genesis 1 to mean other than a literal natural day.
4.
Today, most Catholic theologians and philosophers dismiss sacred tradition
and the straightforward meaning of sacred scripture,
holding instead that the universe is billions of years old.
Many hold that it is foolish to view the days of Genesis as 24-hour days
because it would imply that the world is less than 12,000 years old.
The reason for this dismissal is largely due to the false belief
that modern science has proven the universe to be billions of years old
and that naturalistic theories of cosmic evolution explain the formation of the stars,
the earth, and the rest of the cosmos.
This topic will be discussed further in episode 8.
The final topic discussed in this episode concerns non-authoritative statements
appearing to imply that the church accepts cosmic or biological evolution.
Two well-known examples are provided.
The first is the 1951 address by Pope Pius XII to the Pope of Portugal.
The Pope's address is a reference to the Pope's address to the Pope of Portugal.
The first is the 1951 address by Pope Pius XII to the Pontifical Academy of Science,
in which he stated,
It would seem that present-day science,
with one sweeping step back across millions of centuries,
has succeeded in bearing witness to that primordial fiat lux,
uttered at the moment when, along with matter,
there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation,
while the particles of chemical elements split and formed into millions of galaxies.
The second example is the 1996 statement of Pope Saint John Paul II
to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in which he noted,
Today, new findings lead toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis.
In fact, it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence
on the spirit of researchers,
following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines.
The convergence in the results of these independent studies,
which was neither planned nor sought,
constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.
How should such statements be understood?
First, it is essential to look at the level of authority of papal statements.
A speech by a pope to a group of scientists
carries far less authority than teachings from the ordinary and extraordinary magisterium.
And it is a mistake to think that an address of low authority
can trump authoritative teaching simply by virtue of being more recent.
If there is confusion as to whether a statement made by a pope
is meant to communicate church doctrine
or merely contains a private opinion that may be influenced by a flawed hypothesis,
a simple test applies.
Recall that the magisterium is not superior to the Word of God,
but is its servant.
It teaches only what has been handed on to it.
Since the 1951 and 1996 talks were not handing on what was received,
they cannot be viewed as expressing doctrine handed down as part of the deposit of faith.
The popes were merely presenting a personal opinion,
or the opinion of their speechwriters, about a scientific hypothesis.
They were not presenting authoritative church doctrine
because the Catholic Church has never interpreted it.
It has never endorsed any type of evolutionism.
Rather, it has fought evolutionary concepts since the patristic era.
Since most Catholics are unaware of the need to evaluate papal statements
according to their level of authority,
the 1951 and 1996 addresses are examples of the enormous confusion that result
wrestle in public to reconcile suspect science
rooted in false philosophy with church teachings.
To avoid such confusion,
the mandates of humani generis that were repeated by Pope St. John Paul II
desperately need to be followed,
so that speculation about cosmic and biological evolution
cease being taught as though they had a basis in sound science.
Unfortunately, it is not realistic to expect a critical evaluation of evolutionary theories
to emerge from the Pontifical Academy of Science,
which is supposed to inform the magisterium on scientific matters.
The Academy is a self-electing body that includes many atheists,
the most notable of which was Stephen Hawking.
No one should be under the illusion that scientific claims coming out of the Academy
are independent of materialistic philosophy.
This danger is easily demonstrated in Hawking's book,
A Brief History of Time,
in which he not only proposes, in contradiction to church dogma,
that there was no beginning to the universe,
he also mocks the limits established by the magisterium.
Hawking states that the quantum theory of gravity has opened up a new possibility.
That there would be no edge of space-time at which one would have to appeal to God
or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time.
Consequently, in opposition to an infallible church teaching,
the universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself.
It would neither be created nor destroyed.
It would just be.
When the proper domain of magisterial authority is established,
when the proper domain of magisterial authority is ignored,
without consequence, by scientists within the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,
is it any wonder that there is confusion about origins in Catholic circles?
Or that so few clergy contest rash statements by scientists
who go beyond the proper boundary of science and violate Catholic doctrine?
If we would clearly consider the conclusions of atheistic scientists such as Stephen Hawking,
it would become obvious that those who try to use natural science to deny the Creator
should not be advising the Catholic Church
because they have lost their ability or desire to reason clearly.
Sound use of our natural reason leads us to the realization that there is a Creator,
not that the universe is self-existing.
This is the infallible dogma of the Catholic Church which teaches.
If anyone shall have said that the one true God, our Creator and our Lord,
cannot be known with certitude by those things which have been made
by the natural light of human reason, let him be anathema.
Vatican 1, Canon on Revelation, paragraph 1.
Not only does natural reason lead us to the truth that there is a Creator,
but future episodes will explain that there is no scientific or theological reason
to depart from the creation providence framework
in favor of cosmic and biological evolutionary theories.
We now close this episode by viewing the created cosmos
and reflecting upon the following words from the Catechism.
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 studies 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.
With Solomon, they can say,
it is He who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists
to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements.
For wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.
As we reflect upon the beauty of the cosmos and the greatness of the Creator,
let us also acknowledge that no Catholic who has actually
read the works of Darwin, Hawking, Sagan, and Dawkins
can seriously count their writings among the scientific studies
that generate great admiration for the Creator.
Such a position would be an insult to these individuals
because their clear and expressed aim has been to deny the Creator.
As Carl Sagan said, the cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.
By the end of this series, truth seekers will see that a critical examination of theories
involving cosmic and biological evolution discredits Sagan's conclusions
and confirms the unerring wisdom of the inspired psalmist who wrote,
The heavens show forth the glory of God,
and the firmament declareth the work of his hands.
Psalm 18, 2
Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created.
Hail, all ye souls
of the world.
Amen.
you
so
you