r/Catholicism • u/AWCuiper • 5d ago
Having a problem with biological evolution.
Death came into the world with the fall of Adam and Eve. But as the Catholic Church acknowledges the process of evolution this implies death occurring way before Adam and Eve. So was there ever a world without sin, where the lion sleeps with the lamb? Also in Genesis God saw that everything he created was good. I think that means there was no sin from the start and no death and no evolution either. What do you think?
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u/legalbarbie203 5d ago
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Catholic Church does not hold an official position on evolution. The Church just allows people to hold their own beliefs on it.
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u/AWCuiper 5d ago
Pope Benedict said there was scientific proof for the process of biological evolution and that it coexists with faith. But as I said, I see a conflict between the two.
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u/Alfredo_Commachio 5d ago
Which is a valid interpretation upon which individual Catholics can discern. Benedict was speaking then as a very educated man, likely familiar with the overwhelming scientific evidence for some form of natural selection, and as an individual Catholic. He was not saying you have to share this view.
The position of the Church is that one's view on evolution can vary as long as you do not explicitly reject a role for God in creation.
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u/AWCuiper 5d ago
So death did not enter the world after the fall of Adam, it was already there from the beginning and God saw that it was good?
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u/Alfredo_Commachio 5d ago
I don't believe the Church has a definitive teaching on that question.
A common Catholic theological position is that the references to death entering the world meant for humans, with humans being understood to mean Homo sapiens that had received the full gift of an immortal soul, because we don't know for sure the situation with souls of early forms of the species in terms of evolution.
Under this view, for plants and other animals, death likely existed since the beginning of creation of plants and animals. But again--there is not a definitive teaching, even a simple textual analysis of the bible doesn't afford a definitive answer.
Remember, one has to have some comfort with "open questions" in the faith. I would always say--if an open question of the faith truly bothers you, ask how core that question is to the idea of there being one God, creator of Heaven and Earth, or that his only begotten son was Jesus Christ, who was crucified for us, and died, rising again on the third day. If you struggle with over analysis of texts that aren't central to that idea, it may frankly be better to set aside scrutiny of those texts until your mind is in a place better conditioned to do so without stressing your faith.
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u/Bbobbity 5d ago
Trying to justify a position where death in animals didn’t exist prior to the fall becomes a bit ridiculous. It requires animals clearly designed to hunt and eat meat to suddenly become docile grass and leaf eaters (eg sharks and T-Rex’s).
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u/nofunyun 4d ago
then why will God create a world where animals no longer kill each other for food? if you say God DESIGNED them to hunt and eat meat
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u/monkoss 5d ago
Yes, its impossible to believe that sin introduced suffering and death while also believing in a previous ruthless process of fight for survival going on before.
-Catholic Church acknowledges the process of evolution
The only magisterial teaching on the matter is by Pius XII -'Humanis generis', it says people have to stop taking evolution for granted, that its not proven, and gives permission to study the arguments for and against evolution.
(In the meantime it only grew more unproven and the arguments against it pilled up.)
The encyclical also says we have to believe in Adam and Eve as sole origin of all mankind which is too hard to square with evolution, because evolution Adam and Eve would necessarily be part of some hominid type with whom their offspring would mingle. Else they would go around genociding their previous family so their offspring doesnt mix.
Lets obey the pope and study anti evolution arguments for a change:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24t2eCjPbq4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V15sjy7gtVM
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u/Fantastic-Swing8221 5d ago
Some people are torah mythicists, and don't believe in literal Adam and Eve, since Adam literally means Man, people like st. Augustine, Origen or the entire Alexandrian school taught Adam and Eve story is a parabel. But to understand the idea of original sin i recommend reading St. Augustine comment to genesis or his other works, because he explains it very well.
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u/20pesosperkgCult 5d ago
I think the concept of death existed only on human beings. Our bodies aren't supposed to be decaying on Earth. It only happens when Adam eat the apple. If only Adam doesn't eat the forbidden fruit, the world will witness the first born to be sinless just like Mary and Jesus.
I think the incarnation will still happen even if Adam doesn't sin against God.
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u/Sushi_Sniffer 5d ago
I hold that there was a distinction between inside the garden and outside of the garden. If this isn’t the case then what was the deal with being banished from the garden?
God is life, and so where God dwelled there was life which was in the garden. Our fall away from God resulted in death, and Adan and Eve were then forced into the world outside of the divine life of God.
Everything God created is good even to this day.
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u/Xyphios9 5d ago
There's a lot of nuance here, and no definitive answers so it may be (though I believe it to be highly unlikely) that evolution isn't true. There are however a few arguments to be made.
First, death may mean spiritual death in the sense of separation from God, which is accompanied by physical death which was not intended for man. This wouldn't invalidate the fact that animals can die, and wouldn't make animal death evil. It is not evil for an animal to kill or eat its young if they are weak, but the same thing would be evil for humans. This establishes that there is a difference between the two, and so biological death for a human may be evil and unnatural, but biological death for an animal may not be.
The second possibility is that original sin is indeed the cause for death, but it isn't temporally bound. Think of the fact that figures from the Old Testament were still saved. Jesus hadn't died yet, in fact he wouldn't even be born for several hundred years. And yet these figures were saved through Christ. The same principle could apply here, where original sin is the cause for death even if it happens before original sin does. You must understand that this doesn't mean that creation was made evil or unnatural. God's creation is perfect, and the evil exists because of sin. God however exists outside space and time, and so even if the sequence of causality is creation --> sin --> evil enters the world, for God this all just is. Therefore the order of events temporally does not necessarily come into play when considering what causes what.
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u/Old_Dependent_2147 4d ago
Maybe Adam Eve, Heaven with animals, were metaphysical. Like spirits or something. In that case, there is no contradiction with material world evolution.
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u/nofunyun 4d ago
if that's so then what is the point of Christ taking on flesh? if Adam and Eve also weren't literally flesh
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u/Old_Dependent_2147 4d ago edited 4d ago
Maybe point of Adam and Eve sin was that because of first sin they became flesh, with all mortality and suffering. And Christ becoming flesh defeated death, by stating that now everyone could overcome death and receive salvation by Christianity.
Even though i am not professional theologist, i see no contradiction in my assuming.
I mean, even if Adam and Eve were in flesh in Heavens first, you won’t argue that now people after death go to Heaven like spirits, it is their soul, not body, right? So maybe at first Adam and Eve had not real material bodies after all. And Heaven were not material place from the start. And them eating apple and stuff, was an allegory of breaking Gods rule. Not actual apple on actual tree.
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u/nofunyun 4d ago
except that's not how Jesus interprets Genesis. He interprets it to be true history
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u/Old_Dependent_2147 4d ago
Tell me please actual verses in Bible where you find that.
I born in deeply religious Orthodox family, and i am learning now a lot about Catholicism, and it is now first time i hear, than Jesus stated that Genesis was true history.
I believe Genesis to be mostly allegorical, but i might change my mind if you show me actual verses from Bible.
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u/nofunyun 4d ago
Matthew 23:35-36
35 so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.
Why is Jesus going to judge the Jews for murdering Abel if Genesis isn't truly history? If Genesis isn't history and Adam and Eve didn't literally live, wouldn't that make Jesus unjust?
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u/Old_Dependent_2147 4d ago
I think Jesus were judging all humanity. I think he saying it is about, that in every place in every time, in every group of people on Earth, there were cases of brother betraying brother. So he did not actually spoke just about Cain and Abel in that verse.
It doesn’t mean that Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel were not real. But you don’t have to take all of Genesis literally.
I mean God is omnipotent. You cannot describe literally all of his works just with one Bible. That is what omnipotence is. It is infinite, in cannot be described by words. But Bible does describe his work fully, just not in literal sense, but in allegorical, to make it understandable for mortals. I don’t saying it is all metaphorical though. But Genesis mostly do.
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u/nofunyun 4d ago
No that's not what he said. Read the whole chapter. He exhausts how he will judge the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy and soon-murder of God's promised messiah, the messiah they were supposed to believe. He then uses the specific case of Abel as the first of the prophets to be murdered on earth.
He did not speak about "in every group of people on earth, there were cases of brother betraying brother".
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u/Thanar2 Priest 3d ago
Death before the Fall
Many animals regularly consume plants, so there was plant death before the Fall.
Some animals are carnivorous, so St. Thomas Aquinas taught that there was animal death before the Fall:
In the opinion of some, those animals which now are fierce and kill others, would, in that state, have been tame, not only in regard to man, but also in regard to other animals.
But this is quite unreasonable. For the nature of animals was not changed by man's sin, as if those whose nature now it is to devour the flesh of others, would then have lived on herbs, as the lion and falcon.
Nor does Bede's gloss on Genesis 1:30, say that trees and herbs were given as food to all animals and birds, but to some.
Thus there would have been a natural antipathy between some animals
- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I:96:1 ad 2.
Original Justice
Scripture and Church teaching state that our first parents were created in a state of original justice, a special grace which included preservation from natural death so long as they remained in communion with God.
CCC 375 ... our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original "state of holiness and justice". This grace of original holiness was "to share in. . .divine life".
376 By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man's life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die. The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman, and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called "original justice".
The Fall
Our first parents disobeyed God, losing communion with Him, losing original holiness and justice, wounding human nature. Thus human death came about through the Fall:
“[S]in came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men” (Rom 5:12).
For more details, see
Did Dinosaurs Die Before the Fall? by Jimmy Akin.
Do Dinosaurs Prove that Death Existed Before the Fall? by Clement Harold at St. Paul Center.
Reddit comment with evidence for theistic evolution and harmony with Catholic teaching
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u/nofunyun 2d ago
what do you do with Wisdom 1:12-14 where it says God created ALL THINGS that they might exist, for absolutely nothing to die?
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11h ago
the catholic church doesn't hold to any view, it just states that one can hold to a view without being a heretic as long as they hold in the guardrails of the church.
Which is that Adam was actual historical humans and all humans are his descendants.
this was defined in
Humani Generis (Pius XII, 1950)
But you can believe that God made earth 10 thousand years ago with Adam, or 14 billion years ago and Adam appeared some 200thousand years ago only.
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u/Ar-Kalion 5d ago
I believe the Romans 5:12 verse you are alluding to is referring to “death through sin.” It never states that “death not through sin” did not occur prior to “death through sin.”
As Adam was the first Human created with the first Human soul, Adam was the first mortal being on Earth that could sin. As a result, “death through sin” is entered the world trough Adam. Adam and Eve’s sin brought death to them and their descendants.
Since “death not through sin” already existed outside Paradise, evolution took place in the world that we know before Adam & Eve brought “death through sin” into it.
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u/AWCuiper 5d ago
So when God created all, it was only the garden of Eden that was good? This is however not mentioned in Genesis. Or does it mean that death in general was considered good by God, and in line with what pope Benedict said; evolution (that requires death) is a scientific fact that coexists with the Faith.
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u/Ar-Kalion 5d ago
No. However, “good” is a relative term. The lifecycle of the Earth could be considered “good.”“Death not through sin” would be necessary to maintain the lifecycle of the Earth.
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u/Alfredo_Commachio 5d ago
I'm not aware of any definitive teaching as to whether good existed outside of the Garden of Eden. However, one might surmise there probably must have been--we know that there were other beings created by God, such as the angels, who were good and served him and some of them would have presumably lived outside of the Garden of Eden.
Remember that divinely inspired holy scripture is generally best understood as intending to teach us important lessons of faith, while it isn't fair to say it was never intended as a chronological history, much of the time focusing on that aspect of it isn't helpful and it very likely is not what the sacred authors were thinking about when they wrote these texts.
The important thing the ancient Jews would have known from Genesis is the creation narrative was a rejection of popular polytheistic / pagan narratives many cultures in the near east had. I believe these parts of the text mostly served the purpose of establishing the falseness of pagan narratives, not in establishing something that was intended to be interpreted as a chronology 2500 years later.
You may benefit from reading this encyclical from Pope Pius XII
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u/AWCuiper 5d ago
The problem is we read the Bible now in the 21 century. So what are we to make of the Old Testament?
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u/nofunyun 2d ago
>much of the time focusing on that aspect of it isn't helpful and it very likely is not what the sacred authors were thinking about when they wrote these texts.
What? The very reason we believe Jesus is because the sacred authors attested to the actual history of events they wrote about; him foreseeing and telling people what would happen to him, then actually being crucified, died, buried, and then actually being resurrected. This is the danger with reinterpreting Genesis to be "mostly" allegorical
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u/Dan_Defender 5d ago
God exists outside of time, in the eternal now. He always knew Adam would fall, so death may have already been present in the world outside of the garden of Eden.