Why the Classical Catholic Dogma On Creation is the Truth

Why Evolutionary Theory, including views of Theistic Evolution, are not Catholic Truths; a presentation and defense of the Dogma of Special Creation/Divine Conservation.

Pope Pius X in “Pascendi Dominici gregis” told us that we are dealing with the most destructive Heresy of all history in Modernism, which Darwinist Evolutionary Theory and Theistic Evolution(Continuous Creation) are representatives. Today, popular Catholic Apologist circles are deeply and disturbingly mixed with Modernist notions of the Creation Dogma. Theistic Evolution is seemingly taught as the correct and orthodox teaching from the Church, which is just simply, blatantly false.

Fr. Chad Ripperger in his book “Metaphysics and Evolution” takes Traditional Catholic Philosophical principals and applies them to the Evolutionary Theory and proves that Evolution, when tested by the Church's classical, philosophically scientific method of Thomistic/Aristotelian principals of Logic, Reason, and Metaphysics, is completely false. A simple demonstration gives great evidence for this; no effect is greater than its cause. This is a fundamental principal of reason, and from beginning to end, Evolutionary Theory is a contradiction, i.e. one cell evolves and produces multi celled organisms and that evolves into all creatures over billions of years?(lesser being to higher being?) This is a prime example of the glaring failure that any form of Evolutionary Theory is.

Walter Farrel, in his section of the book “My Way of Life”, a smaller summary of St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologiae”, gives a great spiritually theological presentation of this Dogma of the Catholic Magisterium on Creation:

WALTER FARREL, O.P., S.T.M. 1952

"Faced with the fact that the story of Creation is true, that God did indeed so call everything from nothingness, we are caught up breathless, almost incapable of protest. The magnitude of the thing so far outstripping all our ordinary ways of getting things done hits us with something of the terror of a man suddenly gone blind, for when we plunge into this truth we cannot see. It is not only that Creation stands at the brink of the world; every time we dare to look at that great truth, we stand on the brink of the world of our understanding, caught between the terror of mystery's invitation to step out into the darkness and our mind's stubborn insistence on knowing the truth. There is humiliation here for a proud man; this truth is so much bigger than the widest stretches of his own mind. There is comfort here for the wise man, the comfort of knowing that there are truths too big for the mind of man, of knowing that this paltry mind of ours is not the full measure of all truth. Wise or proud, terrified or enticed as we may be, the truth stands: "In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth 🌎 ."

The Magisterium has never taught Theistic Evolution as an equal to classical Catholic Creation. Nor has it ever endorsed or taught Theistic Evolution as official Church teaching, but classical Creation has always been the Catholic teaching, officially, as it still is to this day. Genesis 1-11 has always been taught one way throughout the Magisterium, in the great Doctors, and through the teachings of the original Apostles, indeed, at all times.

The burden of proof is never on the classical doctrine of Creation that the Catholic Church has taught. There is simply a mountain of Authoritative Church Teaching that is not compatible with the Evolutionary Theory of the Rationalists and Empiracle Sciences. The Theistic Evolutionists (Constant Creationists) are teaching a Modernist error and making it very popular. This is a major problem.

Theistic Evolution isn't found in the Magisterium, Scriptures, Doctors, or Early Church Fathers. On the other hand, Classical Creation is a Dogma of the Church and it is a matter of your salvation that you believe in the Special Creation/Divine Conservation Dogma of Creation as stated in the most important and authoritative Dogmatic Statement on Creation in the history of the Catholic Church... the Firmiter decree of Lateran Council IV in 1215. According to this decree:

Deus…creator omnium visibilium et invisibilium, spiritualium et corporalium: qui sua omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam: ac deinde humanam, quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam.

God…creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporeal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body (Denz 428).

Eyewitnesses confirmed that the crusade against the Albigensian-Catharist Heresy stood at or near the top of the list of priorities in the Council. The Council Fathers were defining that God created, from nothing, every kind of Angel, every kind of corporeal creature, and humanity in body and soul. This makes Evolution, Theistic or not, implausible and incompatible with the Dogma of Creation in the Magisterium of the Church.

Special Creation/Divine Conservation is the ONLY Catholic Teaching on Creation...

The dangers of rationalism, the poison of evolutionary theory, and the errors OF theistic evolution(constant Creation) are already causing disasterous effects as they are one of the MAIN catalysts of the Modernist Crisis in the Catholic Church today. The only cure is Truth. Evolutionary Theory is our enemy, not a friend of Catholicism. The popes did not allow for dialogue and discussion with Evolutionists to endorse their hypothesis, no, but to defend and make more robust defenses and presentations of the classical Dogma.

Evolutionary theory is one of the greatest enemies and manipulators of the Catholic Truth. It's not viable, and The Traditional doctrine of Creation is the only Truth the Church has always consistently and infallibly taught on this subject. If one is wrong on this, the consequences are substantial. After Descartes, Spinoza began the spiral into darkness...Hegel really spun us into the contradiction of a changing God...and away we went into the mess of Modernism that we find ourselves. It's time to get back to fundamentals. We're in the 5th phase of Modernism, as Fr. Chad Ripperger has constantly warned us, and I am suggesting that we must heed this warning!

Continuous Creation (Theistic Evolution) is found nowhere in the Magisterium of the Church, as it’s decieved promoters must admit. If the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the Doctors haven't taught it, it isn't Truth. Those three Authorities have determined infallibly that what must be taught is Classical Theistic Creation(Special Creation by God from nothing), which makes it a truly infallible Dogma of Catholic Magisterial Authority, and with great reason.

The Church will never teach Theistic Evolution, nor will She ever endorse any of the Evolutionary Theory of the Rationalists. The Apologetics community must get Descartes out of their heads and quit giving evidence more certitude than it admits, simply because Evolutionary Theory has falsely been taught as Truth instead of what it is, a very in your face popular hypothesis among many equally and, dare I say, more reasonable, rational views that are held by some of the highest of the True Intellectuals at the very top of their fields.

What happened in Genesis is Historically/Literally True. God indeed created from nothing, and Earth is about 6,000 to 10,000 years old. This is the TRUE teaching of the Magisterium, which holds much more certitude than any evidences for Evolutionary Theory(not fact, but hypothesis), and proper Catholic Catechesis teaches this with EASE through Thomistic Philosophical foundations in Metaphysics and other areas. It is well known and understood that certain Philosophical Truths are MUCH MORE certain than Rationalist and Empirical/Naturalist sciences. With proper catechesis, one can see the sheer silliness of the Darwinist Evolutionary Theory attempting to force its way into the Christian worldview without completely disfiguring it into THE APE of a Christian worldview. "It just doesn't hold water..."-Fr. Ripperger

For those who accuse me of being a Fundamentalist, this is not Fundamentalism, a Protestant error. I am merely reflecting the entire perrennial and infallible Tradition of the Church, and we must take passages of Scripture in the Literal/Historical sense when the Church of Christ through the teaching of the Magisterium under the Authority of the Supreme Pontiff definitively teaches us to throughout Her entire existence. Genesis 1-11 are to be taught and understood as true historic events, PERIOD.

Classical Catholic Creation is the only Truth about the origins of reality.

Again, to really sink this in, the most important and authoritative Dogmatic Statement on Creation in the history of the Catholic Church was the Firmiter decree of Lateran Council IV in 1215. According to this decree:

Deus…creator omnium visibilium et invisibilium, spiritualium et corporalium: qui sua omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam: ac deinde humanam, quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam.

God…creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporeal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body (Denz 428).

Evolution, Theistic or not, is implausible and incompatible with the Dogma of Creation in the Magisterium of the Church. This should suffice as a concise, but thorough response to the Evolutionists and Modernists who argue untenable positions that cannot be incorporated into the Infallible Magisterium. It most certainly should bring one to a place of clarity on a very prominent and dangerous confusion that misguides souls away from Truth, like Satan in the Garden. May God have Mercy on us all.

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Sources: Exodus 20, 11, Humani generis by Pius XII, 1950,Denzinger's Sources of Catholic Dogma, Metaphysics and Evolution by Fr. Chad Ripperger, Fr. Chad Ripperger and Hugh Owen talks on Sensus Fidelium YouTube channel, My Way of Life by Confraternity of the Precious Blood 1952, Hugh Owen interview with Kennedy Hall on Hall's YouTube channel

-by

Levi Pingleton @TruthWorthy

with

Catholic Apologetics International