A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
I'm trying to hunt where he says something like, "The verse is more about what we are and will be, than what we came from". Basically, that the creation narrative is not to be interpreted in a slavishly literal way
Re: A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
If you wish to prove that the Church does not require a literal interpretation of Genesis you can find much better sources than a 21st-century Pope. Many Fathers of the Church interpreted the creation accounts allegorically including Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Augustine, among the more prominent and influential.
If you ever feel like Captain Picard yelling about how many lights there are, it is probably time to leave the thread.
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Re: A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
It doesn't ring a bell. Sorry.
Re: A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
Perhaps this is what you are remembering from then Joseph Ratzingers 1990 book In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall
"What response shall we make to this view [evolution]? It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow, and how new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith. … More reflective spirits have long been aware that there is no either-or here. We cannot say: 'creation or evolution', inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the 'project' of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary - rather than mutually exclusive - realities."
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Re: A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
There's a wonderful passage in St. Augustine where he talks about the six days symbolizing the perfection of creation because six is the smallest perfect number. And then he goes on to explain to his readers what a perfect number is.Doom wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 10:00 pm If you wish to prove that the Church does not require a literal interpretation of Genesis you can find much better sources than a 21st-century Pope. Many Fathers of the Church interpreted the creation accounts allegorically including Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Augustine, among the more prominent and influential.
Re: A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
Yes, thank youStella wrote: ↑Fri Aug 04, 2023 11:56 pmPerhaps this is what you are remembering from then Joseph Ratzingers 1990 book In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall
"What response shall we make to this view [evolution]? It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow, and how new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith. … More reflective spirits have long been aware that there is no either-or here. We cannot say: 'creation or evolution', inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the 'project' of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary - rather than mutually exclusive - realities."
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Re: A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
peregrinator wrote: ↑Sat Aug 12, 2023 8:45 pm There's a wonderful passage in St. Augustine where he talks about the six days symbolizing the perfection of creation because six is the smallest perfect number. And then he goes on to explain to his readers what a perfect number is.
St. Augustine in 'The City of God' XI, 30 wrote:These works are recorded to have been completed in six days (the same day being six times repeated), because six is a perfect number — not because God required a protracted time, as if He could not at once create all things, which then should mark the course of time by the movements proper to them, but because the perfection of the works was signified by the number six. For the number six is the first which is made up of its own parts, i.e., of its sixth, third, and half, which are respectively one, two, and three, and which make a total of six. In this way of looking at a number, those are said to be its parts which exactly divide it, as a half, a third, a fourth, or a fraction with any denominator, e.g., four is a part of nine, but not therefore an aliquot part; but one is, for it is the ninth part; and three is, for it is the third. Yet these two parts, the ninth and the third, or one and three, are far from making its whole sum of nine. So again, in the number ten, four is a part, yet does not divide it; but one is an aliquot part, for it is a tenth; so it has a fifth, which is two; and a half, which is five. But these three parts, a tenth, a fifth, and a half, or one, two, and five, added together, do not make ten, but eight. Of the number twelve, again, the parts added together exceed the whole; for it has a twelfth, that is, one; a sixth, or two; a fourth, which is three; a third, which is four; and a half, which is six. But one, two, three, four, and six make up, not twelve, but more, viz., sixteen. So much I have thought fit to state for the sake of illustrating the perfection of the number six, which is, as I said, the first which is exactly made up of its own parts added together; and in this number of days God finished His work. And, therefore, we must not despise the science of numbers, which, in many passages of holy Scripture, is found to be of eminent service to the careful interpreter. Neither has it been without reason numbered among God's praises, "You have ordered all things in number, and measure, and weight."
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Re: A B16 quote on 'earth' re: evolution
St. Augustine loved math!