The Catholic Church holds no official position on the theory of creation or evolution, leaving the specifics of either theistic evolution or literal creationism to the individual within certain parameters established by the Church.
1 The Roman Catholic Church has long accepted – or at least not objected to – evolutionary theory. Pope Francis is not the first pontiff to publicly affirm that evolution is compatible with church teachings.
Science brought knowledge, whereas Catholicism with its dogmas and mysteries was seen as fostering ignorance. This was the soil in which false claims about the history of the Church and science could take root and flourish, and such claims were not long in coming.
Catholic Christians believe God is an omnipotent and transcendent creator. Their beliefs are based on the teachings of St Augustine (ex nihilo) and the book of Genesis. They believe that the creation story is not meant to be taken literally.
Catholicism. The Catholic Church generally accepts evolutionary theory as the scientific explanation for the development of all life.
The church first brought evolution into the fold in 1950 with the work of Pope Pius XII, writes io9. “At the same time, Catholics take no issue with the Big Bang theory, along with cosmological, geological, and biological axioms touted by science.”
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."
Christianity teaches that God is responsible for the creation of the Earth and universe. This is described in Genesis , the first book of the Bible. Catholics believe this account shows them important elements of God's nature, such as his omnipotence .
He repeated the idea of God not being a “magician,” an entity that conjured all into being. “God is not... a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life,” Francis said. “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”
Creation proclaims the glory of God. God loves and cares for all of creation. Creation reveals the nature of God. Creation and all created things are inherently good because they are of the Lord.
The Catholic Church teaches that science and faith are not contradictory and even work well together. After lukewarm opposition to the theory of evolution in the late 19th century, the church has embraced that field of science that other faiths do not.
They persecuted scientists who formed theories the Church deemed heretical and forbade people from reading any books on those subjects by placing the books on the Index of Prohibited Books. A type of war between science and religion was in play but there would be more casualties on the side of science.
Church officials feared that as people began to believe scientific ideas, then people would start to question the Church, making people doubt key elements of the faith. Church officials feared that scientific ideas would threaten the powerful influence of the Church.
Throughout history, most Christians have believed that Adam and Eve were actual persons, of whom we are all descendants. Some Christians today, however, readily dismiss the historical consensus, arguing that those same Christians also believed the earth was the center of the universe.
Evolution is both a fact and a theory. Evolution is widely observable in laboratory and natural populations as they change over time. The fact that we need annual flu vaccines is one example of observable evolution.
Concerning the age of the Earth, the Bible's genealogical records combined with the Genesis 1 account of creation are used to estimate an age for the Earth and universe of about 6000 years, with a bit of uncertainty on the completeness of the genealogical records, allowing for a few thousand years more.
The Catholic Church holds no official position on the theory of creation or evolution, leaving the specifics of either theistic evolution or literal creationism to the individual within certain parameters established by the Church.
Muslims see few tensions between their faith and life in the modern world. Most think it is possible to be a devout Muslim and still live in a modern society, and many also dismiss the idea that there is an inherent antagonism between religion and science. Indeed, most Muslims say they believe in evolution.
Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical “Humani Generis” in 1950 affirming that there was no conflict between evolution and Catholic faith. Pope John Paul II reaffirmed that, stressing that evolution was more than a hypothesis, in 1996.
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors.
In February 2022, the Vatican released statistics showing that in 2020 the number of Catholics in the world increased by 16 million to 1.36 billion. That means that 17.7% of the world's population is Catholic.
Putting all this together, between 9,800 and 9,700 years ago is an accurate date of creation for Adam and Eve. During this time, the Upper Paleolithic/Lower Mesolithic, humans created before Adam and Eve were yet hunter-gatherers.
There are later descriptions of creatures in the Bible that could be referring to dinosaurs. One example is the behemoth of Job 40:15-19. Even in fairly modern history there are reports of creatures which seem to fit the description of dinosaurs.
Kenneth R. Miller writes, "evolution is as much a fact as anything we know in science." Ernst Mayr observed, "The basic theory of evolution has been confirmed so completely that most modern biologists consider evolution simply a fact.
The theory of evolution is based on the idea that all species? are related and gradually change over time. Evolution relies on there being genetic variation? in a population which affects the physical characteristics (phenotype) of an organism.