The Pope and Evolution (Cont'd)

I don't know that this leads to Deism since the Church believes in revelation over reason. A minimalist understanding of their position is that there is no inherent and irreconcilable disconnect between reason and revelation. The church sees itself as a continuing source of divine revelation.

The church embodies the Holy Spirit and as such can continue to reveal to humans what is God's will and meaning. The church sees itself as containing a revelatory power on par with holy scripture. What they see is that the Bible is a collection of stories, meant to edify humans and present the revelation of God, a revelation that the church is uniquely positioned to interpret and operationalize, given the concept of apostolic succession.

Does evolution rule out that election? How? I don't think so. Nor does it somehow negate the divinity of Jesus--that is, if one incorrectly sees Jesus as a "son of adam." Jesus is the new Adam--He precedes Adam, at least from the perspective of divine governance.

Does the theory of evolution or the Church's acceptance of it somehow negate its fight against the many heresies thruout history? There were/are many heresies. I do not see how the theory of evolution and the church's acceptance of it somehow affirms these heresies. Again, though, many of these heresies were pretty diverse--so being specific about which heresy one is talking about is important.

I'm not about to support the Catholic Church's position on this issue--one way or the other. While I think they're right, I see it in a completely different light--evolution just is, it's happened and the way scientists understand will change and be refined over time. I just don't see the basic framework as being wrong.

The disconnect comes in thinking that the Bible must or should somehow accord with the findings of science. Christianity, at least to my mind, teaches that God is spirit and as Spirit He rules over the spiritual/material human, should they see it that way. If not, then fine.

In a non ID way, I think the Catholic Church's position does say that humans were created by God. But remember, ID gets into the facts of evolution and tries to prove its points from there by disputing those facts. The Catholic position does not do that, as far as I can tell.

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