Are Creation and Evolution Compatible? (Aquinas 101)

Are creation and evolution compatible? Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P., a physicist and Dominican friar from the Province of St. Joseph, weighs in on the creation and evolution debate.

Are Creation and Evolution Compatible? (Aquinas 101) - Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P.

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This video was made possible through the support of grant #61944 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

[JakeTheArmyGuy]

This is the kind of nuanced, balanced conversation that I wish more Christians would have in good faith. Bless y'all.

[JohnR.T.B.]

One of the reasons why many people flocked to the new atheism is because they were made to believe that since biological evolution is true, therefore all narratives in the Bible starting from Genesis are false and hence you can drop the whole thing about religion and see the world "as it is". That's one of the reasons too why I became an atheist, after listening to them and reading their books. When I learned about biological evolution and the history of the physical universe, civilizations, I aligned myself with the atheists' thoughts and felt like, "Now I'm free, I know the truths about realities the Church and religious people don't even know about."

But of course, you don't arrive at Nirvana just because you understand evolution, the formation of stars and galaxies, etc. Anything other than God can indeed be made a god, and science is hugely important but you can still make it a god and your life becomes narrow, your vision of life becomes constricted to things you know from scientific discoveries, truth is no longer transcendent and ever present, it's just what you see and what you know in the physical world. Truths degrade and become an addiction of knowing new discoveries, what makes our scientific knowledge more advanced, and the feeling that the more I know scientific knowledge and discoveries, the more I "dismantle" religion.

However, long story short, I began to learn life is not about what I can gain for myself or about my own goals that I want to achieve, it became very hellish when life revolved around the mechanics of random chances and your own self-reliance, it became very lonely and only distractions and new stimulation spurred you on. God's providence brought me back to the Church, especially after a Eucharistic adoration. The Church's way of bringing the grand existence and my little self together, and revealing the transcendent divine truths in the Bible, making me able to read Genesis, Exodus, and the whole Holy Scriptures accordingly, can never be replaced by scientific theories and discoveries. Knowing that a crater in Mars was flooded with salty water hundreds of millions of years ago, or there are frigid lakes of methane on Titan, are satisfying to the curiosity; but knowing that there is the One living Truth who created and sustains all things in divine love, including the laws of nature and logic, and my own existence and self-consciousness, why I became me and not another person, makes the whole picture complete and so satisfying.

[stevendebettencourt]

Always remember: Catholics do not deny science, for nothing in science can contradict the glory that is God. Rather, I think you’ll find a beautiful story of science and religion working together to explain both how the world works and finding our place in it.

[donnakerrigan]

Clearly, It is God’s evolution we study. Science shows us the “how”, but faith shows us The Who.

[marc]

Always in awe about the consistent quality of the videos on this channel. Thanks a lot for sharing!

[Nils-gibv]

In 1996, Pope John Paul II declared that the theory of evolution was "more than a hypothesis."
Pope Francis sees "no conflict between evolution and creation".

[livingstranger]

The reason many ran to the New Atheism is because Americans children aren’t taught Metaphysics and the theology of the Logos. Separating nature from the Logos is an ancient mistake that goes back before Darwin, it led to Darwin.

[classicalliberalarts]

What in this talk is actually "Thomistic"? We can find the same explanation from any secular academic source. All the modern assumptions are granted. Evidence is mentioned, but never shared. I just can't imagine that St. Thomas would allow all of modern science's assumptions without demonstration and an explanation of the natural world that was never held by a philosopher or doctor of the Church.

[SummoningSnakez]

I have been reading "The origin" and these videos help me learn. And this guy isn't annoying whatsoever. Thank you. 🧸🐁🐃🐄🐅🐕🐢🐬

[wfbane]

If creatures have been evolving (via natural selection) for millions of years before Humans, then death (an essential ingredient of must have been built into the fabric of creation long before the Fall -- in other words, it cannot have been a consequence of sin. I think this is the main source of the unease that Evolution causes among Christians (at least this one).

[friedawells]

Please do more videos with Friar Thomas! I think he is one of the better presenters that you have. He speaks with conviction is not monotone.

[FreitasPacos]

Please, traslate this job for other languages, like spanish, portuguese and mandarin, so that it rechaces more people.

[anthonyhulse]

CCC 284. The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin....

[vjqzbrl]

Can you make a video about the impossibility of Noah’s Ark saving all animals

[apricus]

Books on this topic please? I know of a book called "metaphysics of evolution" alone by Fr. Ripperger.

[andrewferg]

"And in process of time it came to pass" (Genesis 4)

“concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them and that they might see that they themselves are beasts" (Ecclesiastes 3)

[donnakerrigan]

It is fascinating that the talents give us as humans: to sense right and wrong, to think abstractly, to think rationally, and to think abstractly are all really meant for us to use these talents to come to know and love God.

[johnroesch]

Evolution and Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian Evolution are separate concepts that should not be conflated. There were earlier concepts of biological evolution prior to Darwin's theory of evolution. There are several scientific problems with Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian Evolution. It doesn't explain the origin of life or how information got encoded into DNA. It doesn't explain deep structural patterns in living organisms, and it doesn't explain the increase in both genetic complexity and genetic coherence given that actual random mutation is greatly biased against both increasing complexity and coherence of genetic information. It doesn't explain non-random mutations. From the stand point of Christianity, which is Catholism, Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian Evolution are inherently materialist and atheistic, which Catholics cannot accept.

[marvalice]

apple trees and dogs are actually interesting examples. while dogs are very homogenous, that is, they are all extremely similar within a breed with the average two dogs of any breed being more generically similar the siblings, apples are on the other end of the spectrum. two apple trees grown from seeds of the same apple can produce fruit completely unlike each other or their parents, because of how the plant expresses its genes.
of course they are all still apples, but this is why most apples are grown from grafted trees. even in our time scale, there is variety to how stable plants and animals are.

[sophrapsune]

Some of the Church Fathers, such as St Gregory of Nyssa, wrote of creation as a highly dynamic process, often with a sense that borders on evolution.
Whereas atheistic evolutionary narratives evoke statistical randomness as a means of variation, there is no rationale why the same case could not be made for the action of God as creator: literally, evolutionary variation as an “act of God” and inherently mysterious.