Strange title for an article, I know. You may be asking yourself what in the world do Adam, the Pope, I (and you) have in common? That is what I will be presenting for you to evaluate.
Some of you may have been taken aback by the Pope’s recent statements that seem to support his acceptance of evolutionary theory not conflicting with Christianity; and most recently his encyclical on Global Warming – Laudato si. And some of you could have cared less anyway.
This is possibly the biggest issue in Christianity today. You may not think it affects you at all. Wrong! It is probably already affecting you and your family in some very significant ways. Hopefully by the time you finish this article you will be ripping mad. Good! Righteous anger is OK.
We first must establish: What does the Magisterium of the Catholic Church officially believe regarding Creation? Does it believe in a literal six day creation by God ex nihilo (from nothing) roughly six thousand years ago? Or does it hold to millions/billions of years of cosmic evolution starting with the Big Bang, and then the slow painstaking evolution of organisms culminating with man?
Surprising as it may be to most of you (myself included) the official position is that of a young earth created by God about six thousand years ago in six normal 24 hour days and that God created the heavens and the earth and all the basic animal kinds during those six days. On the sixth day he also created Adam and Eve; then rested on the seventh day.
The Bible is very clear on this. In Exodus 20:11 Moses re-iterated that “for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth… and rested the seventh day”. This was for us to follow as a template to do likewise. We are to work six and rest one. The day of rest is the Sabbath Day of the Lord and is to be honored. Remember it was given to Moses as one of the Ten Commandments – Deuteronomy 5:13-14!
Jesus Himself quotes from Genesis and speaks of Adam and Eve as real people in Mark 10:6-9. Was Jesus, the Creator who made heaven and earth, lying; or maybe He just didn’t understand evolution and the Big Bang – John 1:3 and 5:46-47?
The Bible goes through a genealogy from Adam through Seth to Noah to Abraham, through the House of David and ultimately to Jesus and Mary to verify their lineage. These “begats” are boring but important. If one does simple arithmetic and adds up the ages of the patriarchs from Adam to Jesus it comes to around 4000 years. Jesus to the present is another 2000 plus years. Voila! A six thousand year history. Now the Catholic Church has never, repeat never, denied the begats. They would be denying Christ’s very ancestry. St. Paul calls Christ the last Adam – 1 Corinthians 15:45.
Remember your Catechism? Adam screwed up by eating the forbidden fruit. Through him we all were sentenced to a life without God, to death, suffering, disease, and tragedy. Christ the second Adam redeemed us, i.e. he re-opened the Gates of Heaven for us, otherwise we would be condemned to exist in an eternity without him when we die.
The counter position is evolution. The late Carl Sagan (an ardent evolutionist/atheist) defined evolution as time and death: Time for millions of years of mutation and natural selection to occur; and the death of countless trillions of organisms, throughout the supposed millennia, in the survival of the fittest- as the genes fought their way ever onward and upward, only allowing the best of those genes to pass on a species’ hereditary traits. Keep in mind that evolution is a totally blind, undirected process every step of the way, without any intelligent input at any point; otherwise intelligence = design = a designer = God. Evolutionists/atheists can’t have that.
Jesus also speaks of Noah and the Flood as a real event in history in Matthew 24:37-39. So did the Church Fathers and Patriarchs look at Noah’s flood as a real event that occurred about 4400 years ago? A global worldwide all encompassing hydraulic, geo-tectonic, volcanic cataclysmic flood would have wiped out “all in whose nostrils was the breath of life” on the face of the earth that was not on the ark – Genesis 7:22. Therefore one would expect to find billions of dead things laid down by water all over the earth. We do. We call these fossils.
In contrast, the secular evolutionary position is that all the fossil graveyards across the globe are not a result of God judging sin, but natural processes (still by water) over millennia of untold time.
First, what is the position of the Church Fathers and Doctors on a recent creation, a literal Adam and Eve, a seven day week and Noah’s Flood? Amazingly, or maybe not so, of the 43 early Church Fathers starting with St. Justin Martyr (100-165AD) and ending with St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619AD); all believed in a young earth/universe, a recent creation, and the worldwide Deluge of Noah.
The only exceptions were two. Origen (184-253AD) and St. Augustine (354-430AD). Origen’s writings, at least in part, were chastised at the Synod of Constantinople (543). St. Jerome (347-420AD) a Doctor of the Church, calls him a heretic, and St. Basil the Great (329-379AD), Bishop of Caesarea and a Church Doctor, admonishes his writings on Genesis as “old wives tales”. Origen also had some pretty strange ideas regarding pre-existence of souls before Creation and that eventually God would reconcile with all created beings at the end of the world, including Satan!
We are who we associate with, and Origen was no different. He was tutored under the Greek influence of Philo. The Greeks believed in a form of evolution and therefore Origen took Genesis as allegory.
St. Augustine is another matter. Atheists, who don’t believe in a Supreme Being anyway, like to use Augustine as their poster boy. It’s true, St. Augustine, a Doctor of the Church, did not believe in a 6 day Creation. Ah ha, you ignorant Catholics and Christians, one of your greatest theological minds did not accept a literal 7 day week! What the atheists fail to tell you is that St. Augustine believed God created everything in only ONE day. He still believed in a young Earth/Universe, a literal Adam and Eve and the Noahic Flood.
That is what I love about many Atheists/Evolutionists. They are purveyors of half truths. And as we all know – a half-truth is really just a lie.
So far what do we have? All the Patristic Fathers and Doctors are of one mind, adhering to the Holy Bible as the inerrant, infallible word of the living God. That it states what is obvious to any ten year old – that God created in 6 literal 24-hour days and rested on the seventh. That there was a real historical Adam, and an all encompassing global flood that took place around 4400 years ago. One need only add up the “begats”.
What about the Church Councils? What say them?
Both the Council of Trent (1545 and 1563) and Vatican Council I (1868) asserted that NO ONE is permitted to interpret Sacred Scripture “contrary to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers”. The Councils re-iterated all the prior teachings of the Fathers, Doctors and Popes regarding a literal interpretation of Genesis.
The Pontifical Bible Commission (PBC) of 1909 again re-affirmed a literal interpretation of Genesis, including specifically, the special creation of man and the formation of the first woman from the first man. The PBC was saying in theo-speak that Eve did not come from some ape woman. Recall that Darwin’s first book On the Origin of Species was released in 1859 and started an uproar in both the religious and scientific communities, which has continued to this day.
Since Origins’ publication, what has been the opinion of the modern Popes? Notice I said “opinion”. This may come as a shock to some of you, but there is no list of Papal Infallibility statements. Even Papal Encyclicals are opinion pieces. There are only two times in the modern era that a Pope has spoken infallibly from the chair of Peter (ex cathedra). The first was by Pope Pius IX in 1854 on the Immaculate Conception and the second time by Pope Pius XII in 1950 regarding Mary’s bodily Assumption into Heaven.
Suffice it to say that Pope Benedict XV in his 1920 encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus, made himself very clear regarding the absolute truth and inerrancy of scripture. And Pope Leo XIII in his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus, set down that there must be standards and rules of interpretation, which have developed over time and clearly laid out in the study of Sacred Scripture. He was lambasting the liberal elements of the Church Curia and their cohorts. He wrote “truth cannot contradict truth”. And if the Bible was in error in any area then, “the young, if they lose their reverence for the Holy Scriptures on one or more points, are easily led to giving it up altogether”. The creation/evolution controversy was heating up.
Reflect for a moment on Pope Leo XIII’s last statement. What HAS happened to our youth today? One need only follow the headlines and the main stream media on your TV to see how things have degenerated. It’s very simple, either the Bible and Genesis are true as written or evolution is true. If the Bible is true, you are answerable to the Creator who set down laws which we are to abide by. If evolution is true, you are answerable to no one but yourself; and relative morality (there is no right or wrong) rules the day. One cannot blend the two; they don’t dovetail and can’t co-exist with one another. Just show me the science textbook from any Catholic school or university that discusses God as part of the overall cosmological, biological, genetic or even God’s part in history of the earth and universe. Show me that text book!!
Yeah, but what about those statements from Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis that are supportive of evolution? Again, we are talking about personal statements. The Popes did not even give evolution the respectability of a written encyclical. In addition the anti-God media, and some liberal quarters of the Catholic Church handpick portions of those Pope’s statements that appear favorable toward evolution. On the contrary, in his famous speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996, Pope St. John Paul II also stated in that same speech – “A theory’s validity depends on whether or not it can be verified. it is constantly tested against the facts; wherever it can no longer explain the latter, it shows its limitations and unsuitability. It must then be re-thought”. Ouch!!
And speaking of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS), it was formed in 1936 to advise the Popes and Cardinals on scientific matters. Again, this was needed due to the onslaught of objections from both scientists and some religious who had bought into Darwinism and millions of years. The Catholic Church was being besieged on all sides to defend itself against the supposed “evidence” against the Bible, as a book of fairytales.
Unfortunately, the PAS has become a bastion for atheistic and evolutionary scientists. The scientific community was more than happy to advise the Papacy regarding matters of science. They of course made the recommendations of sponsorship to the Academy of other like-minded scientists who were evolutionists themselves. The famous astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, who is an outspoken avowed atheist, is a member of the PAS and frequent patron at the London strip clubs. Google it! No papers, no journal articles are permitted for review by the PAS that are not in line with the contemporary evolution/millions-of-years mentality.
Incredulous, I know. That’s like the Republican Party asking the Democrat National Committee to send representatives to advise the Republicans on Constitutional matters for the writing of prospective laws.
Hans Schellnhuber is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Potsdam and a member of the PAS. Most recently his name has been bandied about as the prime architect in advising Pope Francis with his current encyclical on Global Warming – Laudato si.
Professor Schellnhuber is an atheist and advocate of population control. He favors a reduction of the vast majority of mankind to below one billion. Currently the earth holds greater than seven billion. Will Hans be first?
The Catholic Church works slowly at times. In 1992, Pope St. John Paul II did a mea culpa in a speech before the PAS, admitting that Church theologians were wrong 359 years earlier to condemn Galileo for his assertion that the earth revolves around the sun. The joy and glee that must have been on the faces of those atheists and evolutionists of the PAS; and other anti-Catholics around the world.
Galileo, after a lengthy trial, was finally condemned by the Holy Office in 1633 as “vehemently suspected of heresy”. He was to renounce the Copernican heliocentric theory that the earth revolves around the sun, and keep silent on it for the rest of his life. The problem was that the Catholic Church had adhered to the science of the day by aligning itself with 1900 years of Aristotelian and Ptolemaic theories of geocentrism – that stated that the sun and planets revolve around the earth. Aristotle and Ptolemy were pagans and fallible men.
There is nowhere in the Bible which states that the earth is at the center of the solar system or universe. Many theologians of the day had been taught Greek philosophy. Remember the early church father Origen and his teacher Philo? It just sounded good that the Son of Man would come to save us on the planet created by God which must be the center of His created cosmos. However, there is absolutely nothing in the Bible to support such an arrogant theory.
Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) is clear on this topic that the words in Genesis are not a “primitive mode of speech” (par. 304). And lastly the CCC states that “God created the world according to His wisdom (Wis. 9.9) It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance”. (par. 295).
Many church leaders today, with the blessing of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, are making the same mistake – adhering to the current science of the day: evolution/millions of years. Again, words by fallible men and most of them pagans to boot. Many of our religious leaders, including nuns, bishops, priests and cardinals have kowtowed to this philosophy of evolution, even after being burned in the Galileo affair. Remember the OFFICAL position of the Roman Catholic Church is still a literal young earth creation by God in 6 essentially 24-hour days some 6000+ years ago.
The thrust of this article was to show where the Church stands on evolution/millions of years. But I will leave you with some scientific and theological thoughts to ponder:
Brainwashing #1. The secular community has brainwashed you to believe that bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics, such as MRSA – Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus. The Staph Aureus bacteria have become resistant to the antibiotic methicillin. What has the Staphylococcal bacteria evolved to? Nothing. Its genus is still Staphylococcus and its species is still Aureus. Variation and adaptability – yes. Evolution – no. It hasn’t even changed into a different type of bacteria, let alone some other organism.
Brainwashing #2. All life has evolved, by blind random processes, from a single parent in some primordial soup millions of years ago. You know the drill. A unicellular organism evolves to a multicellular organism which through time and death advances to the invertebrate level; then to the vertebrate fishes. These organisms progress onto the land as amphibians; then to the reptiles, birds, mammals and finally man. The Bible categorically rejects evolution. “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another of fishes, and another of birds”. 1 Corinthians 15:39
Man supposedly evolved from some primitive hominid ape-like creature from Africa, the “cradle of civilization”. What color do they always depict these first hominid creatures? Black, great! What color was the next to evolve upward? Brown? yellow?, white?, the Aryan race?
Older biology textbooks illustrate this racist progression very clearly. Even the full title of Darwin’s book is inherently racist – On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Hitler put into practice the artificial acceleration of this process. So unless you have blond hair and blue eyes you are not at the top of the totem pole. Your only other choice is Adam and Eve who were both mid-brown. And if you remember your Punnet Square from high school genetics, and you cross a mid-brown male with a mid-brown female; all their children were black to white and all shades of brown in between. St. Paul confirms that we all came from Adam’s loins in Acts 17:26 “And He hath made of one blood all nations of men…”
Brainwashing #3. If I take a cow and dump it into a ditch and cover it with dirt, what will be left at the end of a year or ten or say one hundred years? What if I told you that I could still find cow remains at the end of 65 million years or more? You would say I’m daffy. However, if I change the name of cow to dinosaur, magically we accept that the proteinaceous tissue, cartilage and blood cells that have been found in fossilized dinosaur bones over the last 20 years, somehow (they don’t know how) supports millions of years? “Somehow” – that’s a scientific explanation?? What balderdash! Your common sense dictates otherwise. Noah’s flood of 4400 years ago which formed the fossil layers, is plausible, for remnant protein viability in osseous structures. Check out Job 40:16-18, written after the flood, which describes a very large sauropod dinosaur. P.S. Your Bible’s commentary (which is not inspired) may say hippo or elephant. Really?? Tail like a cedar? Job knew what dinosaurs were. God was only talking to him about animals Job had seen, and not imaginary ones. These were dinosaurs which reproduced after exiting the ark post flood. Obviously, Noah had taken two small juveniles of each of the dinosaur kind on the ark. The ones not on the ark died in the flood and many fossilized.
Finally and most important to all Catholics/Christians – you can’t have death before Adam sinned. Huh? Read that again slowly. Death only came about when Adam bit into the forbidden fruit and then all death, suffering, and diseases entered the world. Genesis 3:17 From one bite, some of life’s DNA devolved to cancers, poisonous plants, poisonous insects, poisonous snakes, parasites, etc. from the original “good” creation at the end of the 6th day. Genesis 1:31
If one believes in millions of years of evolution, before man (Adam) came on the scene, pray tell, what was happening to those creatures to be able to advance upward and onward. DEATH!! Carl Sagan’s statement regarding time and death should be ringing in your head. So to accept evolution you must accept the death of countless trillions of organisms in their struggle for survival of the fittest. What then has one a need for a Savior? To save you from what; if death has always existed on this planet since the first ameba fought with another ameba for its food supply!?
This statement by G. Richard Bozarth, in his article “The Meaning of Evolution”, in American Atheist, February 1978, pp. 19 and 30 sums it all up –
“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing!”
So when you are out there among the pagans evangelizing, please don’t say you believe in Christianity and evolution, because the non-believers will look upon you as a fool, since they know you neither understand basic theology nor basic evolution – and they do!
Gene Conti, MD –
Is a Roman Catholic who has been practicing Emergency Medicine for over 30 years. He has taught science in High School and studied Marine Science at the Master’s level. He and his wife Barbara currently live in Roanoke, VA. He can be reached at: gconti250@gmail.com