Creationist Condemns Catholic Cardinal's Compromise on Evolution
by Jim Brown
July 14, 2005
(AgapePress) - Washington, DC's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick says Roman Catholics do not have to believe in the biblical account of creation. He recently told reporters at the National Press Club that, instead of the Bible's account of God creating Adam and Eve, Catholics can believe in evolution -- as long as they agree that God was involved.McCarrick says a contemporary Catholic "need not say that creationism is the only answer -- that in six days or seven days, God made the world." That, he contends, is only "the beautiful story of Genesis." But Ken Ham of the creation apologetics group Answers in Genesis says Catholics need to think through the consequences of such a statement as the one the DC Cardinal suggests.
"If you're going to believe in evolution," Ham asserts, "and say that God took an ape man and made a soul to make Adam, and God took an ape woman and made a soul to make Eve, then the woman came from an ape woman. She didn't come from Adam. And if the woman didn't come from Adam's side, then you've got a major problem."
By accepting this idea that evolution accounts for the origin of man, the creation scientist says, "You've just destroyed the whole basis of marriage, the whole basis of oneness in marriage and even Christ's relationship to the Church, which is based upon the doctrine of marriage -- the church being the bride of Christ."
McCarrick claims this concept of "theistic evolution" -- accepting Darwin's evolutionary theory as truth but understanding the process as having been guided by God -- was the view of the late Pope John Paul. That view of origins was echoed last week by a leading European cardinal as well.
But Ham believes the Roman Catholic Church's embrace of theistic evolution is a direct assault against scripture. Unfortunately, he says, the Catholic Church is telling the next generation that it is okay to use man's ideas to reinterpret the Word of God.
"The issue about believing in millions of years and evolution undermines biblical authority," the AIG spokesman says. "That's the real issue -- using man's fallible ideas to say the Bible is not the absolute authority. And that's the problem with much of the Church, and the problem you find in the Catholic Church, where the Bible is really not the ultimate authority. It's really the Church [that is considered] the ultimate authority."
Ham insists that any person of faith who does not believe in literal, biblical creation as described in Genesis will have a serious problem, because he says the truth found there is foundation to every single biblical doctrine of theology.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
