Any young earth creationists out there?

[Richca]

Ah. I misunderstood. Now I understand.
Although I still don’t agree, of course.

Ok, I get it.

Hugh_Farey - in reply to a post I made in another thread:
You have yourself explained an excellent “theology of creation” which I have much appreciated.

Thank you.

Hugh_Farey:
You ask “Is there some theological or other reason why the world and the distinction of creatures should not be so divided?” and the answer is certainly no. But theology is not a description of what actually happened. That is our point.

Ok, of course, I don’t agree with this interpretation of Scripture. My interpretation of Genesis 1-2 confirmed by other texts of the Bible and essentially the entire Tradition of the Church, is a description of how the world and its various phenomena and distinction of creatures came to be, namely, by God himself creating them.

Hugh_Farey:
I think this is confused. Firstly, we scientists don’t “want” anything in particular; we go where the observations take us. But secondly, in ‘reducing Creation to a single principle’, we are merely observe an exquisite expression of the ‘kind of simplicity which belongs to God’. The piecemeal tossing together of the ingredients of a complicated salad as implied by successive creation is not a good reflection of “him alone who is absolutely simple” in my view.

I believe this ‘reducing Creation to a single principle,’ the god particle, is in the imagination of the scientists. As I had noted quoting from the first of the 24 Thomistic theses, any creature created by God is necessarily a composite of potency and act and other compositions. Pure act belongs to God alone. This is one of those logical contradictions in discussing God’s omnipotence. God cannot create himself. Accordingly, the corporeal universe or any creature cannot be reduced to a single principle if that is what the singularity of the Big Bang means. As I also mentioned, the nature of the pure spirits of the angels themselves involve a few compositions and distinction of principles and operations.

 

[Richca]

(continued)

From Hugh_Farey: I myself believe that both came about by exactly the same process - the unfolding of the laws of nature upon the primordial creation of energy and matter.

I don’t see this working according to the Aristotlelian/Thomistic philosophical/metaphysical tradition unless I’m mistaken. Energy and matter understood by modern physics are accidents in Thomism. Accidents follow upon the substance and inhere in it. Essentially, the natural sciences study the accidents of things but do not reach to the substance which in itself, in contrast to the accidents, is only known by the intellect and not sense observable or measurable. In Thomism, matter is not the same thing as it is understood in modern physics as something observable or measurable in itself, matter cannot even exist apart from a substantial form which kind of form is only known by the intellect and thus it is not an object of study by the natural sciences. Energy is an accidental form of a substance ( the substance is the composite of matter and the substantial form), an action, proceeding from some power or quality which is also an accidental form of the substance. Essentially, I think from the point of view of Aristotlelian/Thomism, the singularity of the Big Bang is nothing but a point electron like particle composed of matter and form and some accidents, and that’s it, like the electrons in the elemental atoms.

I believe the energy = matter from Einstein’s equation E = mc2, actually means something like accidental form = accidental form from the viewpoint of Aristotlelian/Thomism. Matter definitely doesn’t equal energy in Thomism. Matter in itself is pure potentiality, completely formless, without act (or form) of any kind.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Interesting. I think you are mistaken, although correlating modern concepts of matter and energy with Thomisitc idea of accidents and substance is not easy.

Pure act belongs to God alone.

Yes, I’ll go along with that, and so, I reckon, will Bradskii, except that he won’t call it “God”. The origin of the universe (if it had an origin, which I think is a postulate we’re all working from here) seems to originate in the “quantum vacuum” (or similar form of words), which contained no matter, no space and no time, but consisted of pure potentiality. Pure potentiality includes not only the possibility of matter and energy, space and time, but also the rules that govern their behaviour.

Accordingly, the corporeal universe or any creature cannot be reduced to a single principle if that is what the singularity of the Big Bang means

The ‘singularity’ of the Big Bang most certainly does not mean that. It includes the vast potentiality of the laws of nature.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Energy and matter understood by modern physics are accidents in Thomism. Accidents follow upon the substance and inhere in it.

This may be Thomist, but I don’t think I agree. I can see that “a table” (substance) must be envisaged before any of the accidents of ‘a table’ can be observed or investigated, but I don’t think that precludes the existence of the accidents. No one could investigate ‘a bacterium’ (substance) before the idea of a bacterium had been envisaged, but there were plenty of them around for millions of years beforehand. Of course one may reply that the substance of the bacterium was ‘known by the intellect’ of God, which is fair enough, but as God knows everything, then the substance of everything is known by intellect, and therefore the matter of everything is accessible by the Natural Sciences.

In Thomism, matter is not the same thing as it is understood in modern physics as something observable or measurable in itself, matter cannot even exist apart from a substantial form which kind of form is only known by the intellect and thus it is not an object of study by the natural sciences.

I don’t follow this. As I have shown, the substance of something does not have to be recognised by man in order to exist, and as all substances are recognised by God, so all accidents are at least available for studying by modern physics. You seem to be implying that there are some ‘accidents’ that modern physics can’t investigate, but I can’t follow that.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Energy is an accidental form of a substance (the substance is the composite of matter and the substantial form), an action, proceeding from some power or quality which is also an accidental form of the substance.

Not necessarily. Energy is not simply ‘an action’ (kinetic) but also ‘a capability of producing action’ (potential). Both the action and the capability are, if you like, accidents, and both are accessible by science.

Essentially, I think from the point of view of Aristotlelian/Thomism, the singularity of the Big Bang is nothing but a point electron like particle composed of matter and form and some accidents, and that’s it, like the electrons in the elemental atoms.

I think that’s your mistake, if I understand you correctly. Although the immediate precursor of the Big Bang was simplicity itself (the famous virtual vacuum), its potentiality was vast.

I believe the energy = matter from Einstein’s equation E = mc2, actually means something like accidental form = accidental form from the viewpoint of Aristotlelian/Thomism. Matter definitely doesn’t equal energy in Thomism. Matter in itself is pure potentiality, completely formless, without act (or form) of any kind.

I think this is confused, if I may say so. Energy and matter may indeed be accidents. They are accidents of nature, which is ‘substance’ and well comprehended by God. Matter is potential energy, and energy is potential matter. Both potentialities can be activated by the laws of nature in various circumstances. I think if Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas were alive today he would understand that.

 

[Richca]

Richca:

Pure act belongs to God alone.

Yes, I’ll go along with that, and so, I reckon, will Bradskii, except that he won’t call it “God”. The origin of the universe (if it had an origin, which I think is a postulate we’re all working from here) seems to originate in the “quantum vacuum” (or similar form of words), which contained no matter, no space and no time, but consisted of pure potentiality. Pure potentiality includes not only the possibility of matter and energy, space and time, but also the rules that govern their behaviour.

Thanks for replying Hugh. I hope you don’t find this boring as I’m essentially critiquing the theories and claims of the modern natural sciences especially of physics in the light of Aristolelian/Thomistic (here afterwards A-T) philosophy and metaphysics which I believe to be true in its essentials. Some people may claim that all the sciences or at least the natural sciences can be reduced to physics which amounts to a philosophical conception of the world around us that is essentially materialistic/physical, matter/energy, space/time, and mechanical. This present modern understanding of the nature of the world can be traced historically to the rise of modern science such as from Copernicus, Descartes, Newton, Galileo, etc. However, experimental science and the study of mathematics begins long before these names among various men such as among priests or monks of the Church in medieval times and ultimately to the ancient greek philosophers including not in the least Aristotle himself.

What I mainly want to point out is the present material/physical mechanical view of the world beginning in the era of Descartes and the departure of that view from the A-T scholastic tradition. Essentially, the philosophy of Descartes did away with the substance of natural things as understood in the A-T tradition by eliminating substantial forms and equating matter with quantity or extension. Accordingly, for Descartes, he reduced the substance of natural things whether animate or inanimate to quantified matter or bodies, various qualities following matter or bodies especially motion or movement. The world of nature could be explained fundamentally by matter or bodies in motion. For A-T, this is nothing other than the accidents of substances, that which is sense observable and measurable. As I said in the prior post, the modern natural sciences study essentially the accidents of things, not their substance according to A-T. The substance of natural things for A-T, is the composite of the substantial form and matter. Descartes did away with the substantial form of things and confused matter with quantity of extension which is an accident in A-T. We have the same situation essentially today in modern physics.

 

[Richca]

(continued)

The natural sciences are based on that which is essentially observable and measurable and that is okay because that is the nature of their sciences. But, in the A-T tradition, there is a science of the structure or reality of natural things beyond physics, which Aristotle appropriately named metaphysics. Aristotle called metaphysics the science of being as being but their are other concepts involved in metaphysics as well such as potency and act, substance and accidents, form and matter, cause and effect, etc.

Sorry to digress here, you may already know all this. What I want to say is and I suppose I could have said it simply without this digression, there are going to be irreconcilable differences I believe between a person who accepts the A-T structure of reality and a person who accepts solely the materialistic/physical conception of reality of modern physics. Depending on which philosophical view of reality one accepts, this may impact an evolutionary view of reality as well. Possibly, physics theory and whatnot may in theory be compatible with evolution though not necessarily with experimental science. On the other hand, A-T may not be compatible with evolutionary theory in that such a compatibility may or would entail I believe various logical and irreconcilable contradictions.

Will continue later, need to get going for now.

 

[Nelka]

I once dated a guy who was a young earth creationist baptist. I was struck by how willing he was to believe young earth creationism while not accepting the eucharist.

I can’t understand any Christian not accepting the Eucharist.

 

[Richca]

Richca:

Pure act belongs to God alone.

Yes, I’ll go along with that, and so, I reckon, will Bradskii, except that he won’t call it “God”. The origin of the universe (if it had an origin, which I think is a postulate we’re all working from here) seems to originate in the “quantum vacuum” (or similar form of words), which contained no matter, no space and no time, but consisted of pure potentiality. Pure potentiality includes not only the possibility of matter and energy, space and time, but also the rules that govern their behaviour.

From A-T, pure potentiality is what the essence of matter is, completely formless, in potentiality to in theory an infinite number of forms. In itself, matter does not exist because it is pure potentiality. It can only exist with form, form is the act of matter because forms are acts. Matter is a substantial component or part of the substance of material substances, the other part is the substantial form (an immaterial principle) which gives a thing its nature or essence, places it in a class of things such as a horse or oak tree. Matter is not an accident.

The correlative of potency is act. What is merely in potency does not have actual existence nor can it bring itself to act. Something in act must reduce that which is in potency to act such as a fire heating cold water. If the ‘quantum vacuum’ is a pure potentiality analogous to matter in A-T, it doesn’t exist nor can existence emerge from it. This is the same as something coming from nothing, effect without a cause, potency raising itself to act.

 

[ASC]

Why don’t you take most of Genesis literally? We’re supposed to take to Scripture literally at all times, except when reason demands otherwise.

This is not true. Genesis is not to be taken literally. I would advise you to do research on answering atheism on catholic.com to clarify this fir yourself.

 

[Glark]

Genesis is not to be taken literally

This is incorrect. The Church has always taught that Genesis can indeed be taken literally. It can also be taken figurativley.

 

[ASC]

The Importance of Reading Genesis Like a Scientist

Evolution vs. Genesis is the most controversial faith-and-science topic of our time. To navigate this question, Catholics must distinguish between dogma and opi...

www.catholic.com

I am sorry. You are correct. Still, Genesis and evolution do not contradict each other.

 

[Glark]

My interpretation of Genesis 1-2 confirmed by other texts of the Bible and essentially the entire Tradition of the Church, is a description of how the world and its various phenomena and distinction of creatures came to be, namely, by God himself creating them.

You might be interested in a little detail I discovered about Genesis 2:7 … “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

The Hebrew word for “formed” here contains two “yods” (“yyitser”), whereas when the same Hebrew word is used to describe when God “formed” animals, it contains only one “yod” (“yitser”). Apparently the extra “yod” means humans get two formations, whereas animals get only one - whatever that means.

(In Hebrew, a “yod” is a small mark that looks like a bit like an apostrophe in English.)

 

[Glark]

Still, Genesis and evolution do not contradict each other.

I don’t understand how Genesis 2:7 can be interpreted as Adam being the offspring of a living creature. What I need to do is write to the Vatican for an explanation.

The geneaologies in Genesis and other parts of the Bible are also problematic for evolution, I think.

 

[Richca]

From Richca: In Thomism, matter is not the same thing as it is understood in modern physics as something observable or measurable in itself, matter cannot even exist apart from a substantial form which kind of form is only known by the intellect and thus it is not an object of study by the natural sciences.

From Hugh_Farey: I don’t follow this. As I have shown, the substance of something does not have to be recognised by man in order to exist, and as all substances are recognised by God, so all accidents are at least available for studying by modern physics. You seem to be implying that there are some ‘accidents’ that modern physics can’t investigate, but I can’t follow that.

Not all accidents per se are an object of study by the natural sciences or physics such as the powers of the souls of humans, animals, or plants. These powers are considered accidents of the soul which is the substantial form. A lot of accidents follow the matter or material part of a substance such as quantity, some qualities, action, maybe passion. All the accidents of the simple elements seem to pertain to the matter in one way or another. Essentially, whatever can be observed or measurable is an accident. In A-T, matter is not an accident, its part of the substance of the thing. Matter can never be observed by itself because in itself it does not exist and there would be nothing to observe since it is entirely formless without any characteristics of its own. Matter by itself is not something that one could form some picture of in their imagination. We only know matter from form.

The substance is only indirectly known through the accidents of the thing which are sense perceptible. For example, a human being is a composite of spirit or soul and body or matter. Our bodies that we see are made out of matter and this is called sensible matter, sensible due to accidental forms such as quantity or extension and qualities like color. Quantity extends the substance particularly the matter or material part of the substance into a 3 dimensional body and into parts. So, our bodies are made out of matter and we see our bodies, but the matter itself cannot be observed even by the most powerful microscopes. It’s formed matter due to the substantial and accidental forms, the accidental forms being the ones that are sensible, the first of which is quantity which extends the material aspect of the substance into a 3 dimensional body and parts. Without this accident, the substance is invisible. And we can’t pry the matter as it were from the forms that form it and if that was possible what you would see is an accidental form but not matter because, again, without form matter is essentially nothing or potentiality and does not even exist.

 

[Richca]

(continued)

An illustration of what I"m talking about is the catholic faith in the doctrine of transubstantiation explained by Thomas Aquinas. The whole substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the body of Christ and the whole substance of the wine is changed into the substance of the blood of Christ, the appearances or accidents of the bread and wine remaining by divine power. This is a wholly miraculous and divine substantial conversion of one substance into another substance contrary to natural substantial changes we observe in nature. Normally in natural substantial changes the accidents change too but not here.

Using Aristotlelian metaphysics and the substance/accident distinction, St Thomas Aquinas explains the substances of the bread and wine as the composites of substantial form and prime matter which is converted into the form and matter or substances of Christ’s body and blood. The bread and wine after the consecration look just like they did before the consecration and these are the accidents but without the substances of the bread and wine which includes their matter but which has been converted to the substances of the body and blood of Christ. The accidents remaining of the bread and wine after the consecration are there without matter by divine power although one would never know it even if one looked at them under an electron microscope although I wouldn’t advise that.

 

[Richca]

Ok thanks Glark, I didn’t know that. Interesting.

 

[ASC]

The geneaologies in Genesis and other parts of the Bible are also problematic for evolution, I think.

The genealogies in the Gospels skip a few generations. Might these be the same?
I have heard a few different opinions on evolution. A priest I know believes that the story of Adam and Eve is literal, and after the fall evolution bagan. Another opinion, a more common one and the one I side with, is this: the Bible is not a science book. The creation story in Genesis is a figurative account that was put out to contradict the mythical creation stories that many people ay the time believed. It is to show the fall of man. God is outside time, so he could take as long as he wanted to get to that point.

 

[Aloysium]

The ‘singularity’ of the Big Bang most certainly does not mean that. It includes the vast potentiality of the laws of nature.

The concept of an initial singularity arises mentally going backwards in time and assuming that everything had to come from something, which would have then transformed into what it all is, through the expression, determined or chaotic, of what was inherent in that first thing.

We tend to visualize things in order to understand them, and the idea of a first particle has been mentioned. It couldn’t actually be so since a particle requires an outside to define it and the first “thing”, while it became everything, would be amorphous, without form. Perhaps we might think of it as simple being that is outside of or other to Existence itself, He who creates that basic undifferentiated reality, the foundation of all creation.

The primary basis of creation, might be said to contain the potentiality of all the “laws of nature”, but only in the sense that it is the reality from which all forms of being are brought into existence, the basic stuff that is brought together and made into a new whole. Creation is not an expression of some basic elements, but rather of God’s will. It manifests His infinite potentiality and creativity.

The laws of nature are an aspect of our relationship with the universe - an intellectual distillation of our collective experiences as determined and organized through the scientific method. They convey our understanding of the structures that underlie what we call physical events.

So, it’s not so much that the laws of nature were contained, as a potential within what we might term a singularity (or whatever), but that events began with one primal event. From that beginning, the “templates” of what followed - individual events of different kinds, existing in themselves while also participating in a greater whole, began with the first creation of their kind. This is the case, be they atoms which then went on to develop into the various elements and come together in a myriad of molecular configurations, or whether the being is in the form of living organisms, whose relationships go beyond those inherent in their constituent material parts, but extend to growth, self-replication, and the complex psychological expressions of their interactions with their environment.

The structure of the universe which contains us did not exist at the beginning as a potentiality. The potential for our existence was made possible as a result of the initial creation of being that is outside of God’s existence in Himself as the Triune Godhead. The cosmos came to be as a sequence of creative events, determined by God’s will.

His will is ultimately that creation come to Him in Jesus Christ. The laws of nature describe the structure and relationships that allow for the existence of all physical being.

 

[Aloysium]

The accidents remaining of the bread and wine after the consecration are there without matter by divine power although one would never know it even if one looked at them under an electron microscope although I wouldn’t advise that.

From my perspective, which I understand to be existential, everything is what God says it is, He being the One who brings all time and space into existence, each individual form of being in its moment, as part of something greater. The Eucharist, while made up of molecules, in turn the subatomic, subsumed their individual existence into a whole being that is the body and blood of Jesus Christ. When one observes the Host under an electron microscope, one is basically breaking off the physical components from the whole. At that point they come into existence separated from what is the Eucharist, the reality of which can be understood by the heart and the intellect, revealed through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

This sort of goes along with the fact that photons can exist individually as themselves in the form of particles, or be subsumed as waves in a beam of electromagnetic energy. This happens within the experimental apparatus regardless of whether the measurement is taken at the time or after the photon passes through slits because it is the reality of the apparatus as a whole, which makes for the difference, time being a component rather than a cause. The Cause of all this lies in the reality of human free will, which puts this together. The ultimate Cause is God, who gives us wxistence, possssing this capacity among others.