I thought about this alot since I posted. If the scripture said, that he remembered that we are imperfect...........but it doesn't. It says..... remembering we are made from dust. So it takes it right back to the very beginning. the creation of Adam. We were already imperfect at creation.
Why can't we just accept we don't really know HOW we were created, BUT that we do need guidance without all the hoopla? How come the big fairy tale?
And all the pieces to the puzzle that religion keeps promising is going to fit some day------just won't.
Remembering that we are dust.......
by Thinking 13 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Thinking
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AuntieJane
You don't have to believe "the big fairy tale." Some churches leave it up to the individual thinker. Here is the Catholic's interpretation, based on the teachings/beliefs of the early Church Fathers, those who followed soon after Jesus left the earth.
What is the Catholic position concerning belief or unbelief in evolution? The question may never be finally settled, but there are definite parameters to what is acceptable Catholic belief.
Concerning cosmological evolution, the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing. Vatican I solemnly defined that everyone must "confess the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing" (Canons on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5).
The Church does not have an official position on whether the stars, nebulae, and planets we see today were created at that time or whether they developed over time (for example, in the aftermath of the Big Bang that modern cosmologists discuss). However, the Church would maintain that, if the stars and planets did develop over time, this still ultimately must be attributed to God and his plan, for Scripture records: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host [stars, nebulae, planets] by the breath of his mouth" (Ps. 33:6).
Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.
Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man?s body developed from previous biological forms, under God?s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter?[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.
While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution. -
Narkissos
The unbiblical thematic of perfection / imperfection, and even the otherwise biblical thematics of sin / sinlessness, or purity / uncleanness, are conspicuously absent from Genesis 2--3 and do not fit into it.
If the "dust" metaphor has to be elucidated (that is, translated into abstract terms), mortality is the best candidate imo for all the Biblical instances.
In the Yahwist primeval story man ('adam) is created mortal (from the dust). He succeeds in robbing knowledge from the gods but fails to lay hand on immortality (the tree of life). The gods cannot deprive him of his acquired knowledge but make sure that he remains mortal (from the dust you were made and to the dust you will go back). That's not exactly a "fall"; rather a partial advancement.
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Thinking
tah Narkissos