Anyone want to write for a blog against secularism/atheism?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dmar198
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

dmar198

Guest
I’m planning to start a new blog to put out some apologetics content against secularism and atheism. I’m looking for 8-12 authors who would like to tackle the modern secular culture and are able to contribute once a week on a certain topic from the list below – the contribution being either a short essay on your topic, or an answer to a specific argument relative to your topic, or a summary of important points about that topic, or other blog-type stuff. You’d only have to submit something once a week. If anyone is interested, please write me at dmar198@gmail.com and include the topics you’re comfortable addressing. List of Available Topics

Evolution - 4 ways of approaching the creation account in light of Catholic principles:
  • young-earth creationism
  • framework hypothesis
  • advanced-earth creationism
  • day-age hypothesis
    (You can write in defense of any of those)
Adam and Eve - 3 ways of approaching Adam and Eve in light of Catholic principles:
  • Ordinary history (i.e. modern prehistorical theories are wrong)
  • Adam and Eve were proto-humans who were specially granted souls (thus modern theories about the origin of humanity aren’t incompatible)
  • Adam and Eve were tribal leaders and their sin was therefore imputable to them and to their tribe (thus sidestepping the issue of whether humanity descends from only one original pair or not)
    (You can write in defense of any of those)
    Natural law, which has no basis in secularism
Morality, which has no basis in secularism

Human rights, which have no basis in secularism

Pro-life (i.e. arguing natural law)

Pro-marriage (i.e. arguing natural law)

Catholic social teaching (showing its superiority to secularism)

Development of Catholic social teaching (i.e. they say that it was really evil in the Middle Ages – slavery, supporting violence, etc.)

History of the Church

Crusades

Inquisition

Religious wars

Morality of Old Testament

Old Testament wars

Old Testament laws (slavery, rape, etc.)

The Dark Ages versus the Enlightenment and Science

Religion versus Science

Existence of the soul

Free will

Existence of the afterlife

Classic proofs of God

Problem of Evil

“No evidence for God” atheism

“God would be impossible” atheism

Existence of Jesus

Proof of Resurrection

Historicity of the Gospels

Fulfilled prophecies
 
I am interested in contributing, and have replied to your PM/email. I can do some good in most of the topics above, but, pursuant to my reply to your PM, I will break them down in to three categories: those which I am passionate about, those that I am most learned in, and those that I feel I can do the most good with.

Of the below, the only ones I’m really an amateur in, or feel that other “takers” may be able to do a better job than myself with, are the various Old Testament legal questions, for which I have mostly one stock answer: “superseded by Christ”, and, possibly, defense of the historicity of the Resurrection, from which my argumentation is mainly lifted wholesale from the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, and, possibly as well, YEC, if you have any Master’s or Doctoral geologists or geneticists joining up.

I could also do translations, if you are interested, say, in to Spanish, a major living language, as I can read and write more languages than most can name: Modern Standard and Egyptian Arabic, Aramaic/Syriac, several dialects - Bohairic and Sahidic - of Coptic, Attic, Ionic, and Koine Greek (I’m not that good at modern Greek), Ecclesiastical Latin (I’m serviceable at actual Ciceronian classical Latin, but not to the level of proficiency in Ecclesiastical Latin), English, and Latin American Spanish (I am not proficient in Castilian Spanish).

Passion:
  1. Young-earth creationism from both historical/scientific (before vocation, I was trained as an electrical engineer, so… my credentials don’t exactly transfer) and hermeneutical/exegetical points of view, including critiques of other interpretations of Genesis based on the Hebrew grammar and ancient versions (LXX, Peshitta, Vetus Itala, Vulgate).
  2. Adam and Eve - Normal History, and Adam and Eve - Tribal Leaders (analogous to the “New Perspective on Paul” and “Federal Vision”, where Adam was the federal head of a tribe - I am interested in both).
  3. Defense of old Catholic practices which have been considered “evil”, such as the glorious Crusades (disregarding a few abominations committed by some), the Inquisitions, the “Galileo affair”, etc.
Learned:
  1. Church history in general, with a specific focus on the middle ages, overlapping with (3) above, including:
    2. Crusades
    3. Inquisition
    4. History of the Church
    5. The Dark Ages vs. Enlightenment/Science
  2. Aristotelian-Thomism, which includes:
    1. Natural law, which includes:
      2. Morality
      3. Human rights
      4. Right-to-life
      5. Marriage
      6. Some traditional Catholic social teaching, although not all of it.
    2. Free will and doctrines of grace
    3. Existence of the rational soul
    4. Classic proofs of the existence of God
    5. The Problem of Evil, which I tackle from both the Augustinian and modified modern Plantingan perspectives, with a dose of Irenaean theodicy.
Do the most good in:

Several subsections of Aristotelian-Thomism.

My knowledge of Church History and textual criticism would likely help with “Jesus exists”, as no mainstream academic, atheist or Christian, radical or conservative, not even Ehrman or Crossan, actually doubts that Christ existed. This falls under a category you should have added: “Combating conspiracy theories involving Christianity or the Church”, i.e. Dan Brownism.

Not to overestimate myself on the topics mentioned, but, I think, it mainly comes down to passion for me - I can do a serviceable job with the majority of them.
 
Hmmm. I might be interested…I will email you in the next day or so once I think about it more.

I am young and in college but passionate about Catholicism. This could be an advantage depending on how you look at it.
 
I’m also extremely interested in arguing/demonstrating “religion v. science”, not as such, but that religion, properly interpreted, and science, properly interpreted, can never be incompatible, only that poor interpretations can be, and presuppositions can be. (And all too often - always - it’s the religion that is made to re-interpret, and given poor interpretations, in light of the “assured results of science” based on atheistic presuppositions, and never the other way around.)

This post is nice and short, I’ll stop now before I write a book, which I easily could on that topic.

Edit: I am also young and in college (graduate school/seminary).
 
llenadegracia said:
I am young and in college but passionate about Catholicism. This could be an advantage depending on how you look at it.
Click to expand...
Khalid said:
I am also young and in college (graduate school/seminary)
Click to expand...
So am I. I’m guessing Catholic Answers is home to a good number of young Catholics interested in apologetics.

I would be happy to have you on the team, Khalid. And llenadegracia, if you can help too, that’d be great. Just let me know which topics you’re most passionate about and we’ll begin a schedule.

Khalid :: I’m happy to see that your interests and mine have enormous overlap. Re: Genesis history, I specifically wanted you because I saw that you are either a young-earth creationist or an advanced-earth creationist, and I want those perspectives represented. I will probably write in defense of the framework hypothesis, and I still would like to find someone who understands and defends the day-age hypothesis, since the Vatican has specifically identified that theory as being compatible with Catholic belief.

Essays you submit must be in installments of 2000 words or fewer. The main thing I want in an essay is understandability. Try to write for a fifth-grade reading comprehension level. I know that might be a challenge for you, given your scholarly mindset, but it will be enormously beneficial for you in the future, in case you ever get to do a homily for an average parish-type person. They can’t handle scholarship. It is clear that your writing style is more scholarly, and that is important and good, but my blog is so that average people can learn the weakest principles within secularism and the strongest principles in Catholicism, because together these points draw a colorful illustration of the superiority of our faith. If you would like, we can publish your more scholarly content in addition to the regular essays, and then you could link to it for those who want more information. But the stuff that shows up on the homepage has to be for the average person, who reads with a fifth-grade reading comprehension level.

That you want to do essays and not short-form content is fine by me. I can supply the short-form content on your topics. Re: morality and the natural law, when you write articles on that, I’d like to encourage you to sometimes to write commentary on secularist arguments, and learn their weaknesses, so that you can show what principles they are borrowing from Catholicism (when they are being reasonable about morality) and what fallacies they are committing (when they are opposed to Catholicism).

Khalid :: I will pm you to get started on a schedule.
 
Warandpeace said:
How did you come up with these specific topics?
Click to expand...
A brainstorming session. I used the talk by Fr. Robert Barron on “The Youtube Heresies” and tried to think like he did: what are the main criticisms of Catholic thinking that come from the secular culture? The ones I thought up are, a confusion about the truth of the Book of Genesis, a confusion about God and science, a confusion about morality within the Old Testament and within the Church of the Middle Ages up to the Reformation wars, and a confusion about social issues. This parallels much of what Fr. Barron talked about in The Youtube Heresies. So I tried to figure out some specific points of contention within those general categories and that list is what I came up with.
 
Khalid said:
Adam and Eve - Tribal Leaders (analogous to the “New Perspective on Paul” and “Federal Vision”, where Adam was the federal head of a tribe - I am interested in both).
Click to expand...
I hadn’t run across this idea till now: are there any Catholic theologians who have written on this construct? I’m having a hard time seeing how it doesn’t run afoul of Humani Generis…

Thanks!

G.
 
Gorgias said:
I hadn’t run across this idea till now: are there any Catholic theologians who have written on this construct? I’m having a hard time seeing how it doesn’t run afoul of Humani Generis…
Click to expand...
The tribal theory of Adam and Eve is an explicit attempt to work within the constraints of Humani Generis to still allow for more people to have existed than Adam and Eve at the time of the original sin. The theory takes its basis on a particular paragraph in Humani Generis where the Pope writes, “the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains…that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with [the doctrine of] original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.”

It does not say “It is impossible to reconcile these things” (i.e. evolution and original sin), it just says it is not apparent how they can be reconciled. The tribal theory holds that this opens a door for theologians to look for ways to reconcile the theory of evolution with the doctrine of Adam and Eve as our original parents, as long as they continue to maintain that original sin is the act of an individual man and is propagated to the rest of us by generation. So they speculate that Adam was an individual member of an originally-created tribe, which got together and decided to make him their representative in dealings with God. (Notice how Gen. 2:15 mentions that God picked Adam up from where he was and put him in the Garden, as if he had been somewhere else before.) Thus, when he refused to obey God, he did it on their behalf, and with their implied consent, and thus the original sin was committed by an individual Adam, and was also imputed to his tribe, and from there it was propagated to the rest of us by generation.

The tribal theory is also a way of side-stepping the difficult issue of whether humanity descends from only one original pair or not. Its proponents say that, due to the way the tribal theory presents the commission of the act, the doctrine of original sin as Humani Generis teaches it can still be maintained and that a way has been found to reconcile it with modern prehistorical theories about the origin of man, thus satisfying the statement in Humani Generis that polygenism must be denied only because a way of reconciling it had not been found.

As for particular theologians who teach it, I do not remember any particular theologian’s name.

It should also be noted that many writers do not think Humani Generis was trying to open a door for theologians to try to reconcile polygenism with original sin, but the phrase in question has (some say) been misinterpreted. But Jimmy Akin, referring to this in one of his blog posts, says the following: Hypothetically (and I am not advocating this), an interpreter might conclude that Adam and Eve represent the early human community as a whole. Pius XII strongly discouraged this interpretation in his enecyclical Humani Generis, but did not altogether preclude the possibility that the Magisterium might be open to it in the future, and some members of the Magisterium (such as the German bishops’ conference) have been explicitly open to it in recent years.
Source: jimmyakin.com/2005/08/tough_bible_que.html
 
It is also useful to note that there is now a Magisterial document which can be used as support for this theory. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a document called Communion and Stewardship which summarizes the common theory of descent from a proto-human community (rather than a single Adam and Eve) in paragraph 63 but still mentions an individual Adam and Eve in paragraph 22. Then in paragraph 43 it makes this significant remark: “In its original unity – of which Adam is the symbol – the human race is made in the image of the divine Trinity.” (My emphasis.) Thus it is possible to take Adam as a symbol or representative of a whole human community, who with Eve committed a personal sin, while we all evolved from that original human community, with sin coming from Adam and Eve. That is very compatible with the tribal theory.
 
dmar198 said:
The tribal theory of Adam and Eve is an explicit attempt to work within the constraints of Humani Generis to still allow for more people to have existed than Adam and Eve at the time of the original sin. The theory takes its basis on a particular paragraph in Humani Generis where the Pope writes, “the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains…that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with [the doctrine of] original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.”

It does not say “It is impossible to reconcile these things” (i.e. evolution and original sin), it just says it is not apparent how they can be reconciled. The tribal theory holds that this opens a door for theologians to look for ways to reconcile the theory of evolution with the doctrine of Adam and Eve as our original parents, as long as they continue to maintain that original sin is the act of an individual man and is propagated to the rest of us by generation. So they speculate that Adam was an individual member of an originally-created tribe, which got together and decided to make him their representative in dealings with God. (Notice how Gen. 2:15 mentions that God picked Adam up from where he was and put him in the Garden, as if he had been somewhere else before.) Thus, when he refused to obey God, he did it on their behalf, and with their implied consent, and thus the original sin was committed by an individual Adam, and was also imputed to his tribe, and from there it was propagated to the rest of us by generation.

The tribal theory is also a way of side-stepping the difficult issue of whether humanity descends from only one original pair or not. Its proponents say that, due to the way the tribal theory presents the commission of the act, the doctrine of original sin as Humani Generis teaches it can still be maintained and that a way has been found to reconcile it with modern prehistorical theories about the origin of man, thus satisfying the statement in Humani Generis that polygenism must be denied only because a way of reconciling it had not been found.

As for particular theologians who teach it, I do not remember any particular theologian’s name.

It should also be noted that many writers do not think Humani Generis was trying to open a door for theologians to try to reconcile polygenism with original sin, but the phrase in question has (some say) been misinterpreted. But Jimmy Akin, referring to this in one of his blog posts, says the following:
Hypothetically (and I am not advocating this), an interpreter might conclude that Adam and Eve represent the early human community as a whole. Pius XII strongly discouraged this interpretation in his enecyclical Humani Generis, but did not altogether preclude the possibility that the Magisterium might be open to it in the future, and some members of the Magisterium (such as the German bishops’ conference) have been explicitly open to it in recent years.
Source: jimmyakin.com/2005/08/tough_bible_que.html
Click to expand...
Obviously, many people have overlooked the sections preceding Humani Generis #37 :tsktsk:
 
dmar198 said:
It is also useful to note that there is now a Magisterial document which can be used as support for this theory. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a document called Communion and Stewardship which summarizes the common theory of descent from a proto-human community (rather than a single Adam and Eve) in paragraph 63 but still mentions an individual Adam and Eve in paragraph 22. Then in paragraph 43 it makes this significant remark: “In its original unity – of which Adam is the symbol – the human race is made in the image of the divine Trinity.” (My emphasis.) Thus it is possible to take Adam as a symbol or representative of a whole human community, who with Eve committed a personal sin, while we all evolved from that original human community, with sin coming from Adam and Eve. That is very compatible with the tribal theory.
Click to expand...
When one scrolls down to the bottom of this document, it is obvious that it includes a “special report” of current “scientific” theories and as such is near the bottom of the totem pole in comparison with St. Paul and Pius XII.😉
 
grannymh said:
Obviously, many people have overlooked the sections preceding Humani Generis #37 :tsktsk:
Click to expand...
Maybe so, but no one is required to defend the tribal theory if they think it’s false. The point is to cover the theories that are compatible with Catholic doctrine, including the one that says modern prehistorical theories are wrong and the Adam and Eve story is as the young-earth Creationists say. If you’d like to be a part of the blog team, I am looking for someone who can defend that position, or the one which says Adam and Eve were proto-humans who were specially granted souls, according to the teaching of Pope Benedict in his book “In the Beginning.” Would you be interested in contributing to that or any of the other topics listed above? 🙂
 
grannymh said:
When one scrolls down to the bottom of this document, it is obvious that it includes a “special report” of current “scientific” theories and as such is near the bottom of the totem pole in comparison with St. Paul and Pius XII.😉
Click to expand...
You mean the part that says “The present text was approved in forma specifica, by the written ballots of the International Theological Commission. It was then submitted to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the President of the Commission, who has give his permission for its publication,” right?
 
grannymh said:
When one scrolls down to the bottom of this document, it is obvious that it includes a “special report” of current “scientific” theories and as such is near the bottom of the totem pole in comparison with St. Paul and Pius XII.😉
Click to expand...
dmar198 said:
You mean the part that says “The present text was approved in forma specifica, by the written ballots of the International Theological Commission. It was then submitted to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the President of the Commission, who has give his permission for its publication,” right?
Click to expand...
Update: Actually I shouldn’t challenge your point about its limited authority. The International Theological Commission, which prepared this document, does not express the Church’s teaching authority in its documents but is only an advisory board to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. So, point taken. It is not quite correct to say that this is a Magisterial document. But it is pretty high up the totem pole nonetheless.
 
Gorgias said:
I hadn’t run across this idea till now: are there any Catholic theologians who have written on this construct? I’m having a hard time seeing how it doesn’t run afoul of Humani Generis…

Thanks!

G.
Click to expand...
I’m unsure, but “tribal leaders” is not necessarily given a polygenetic interpretation - the tribes would be descendants of Adam and Eve, which, as I am aware, does not sit easy with the Catholic Tradition (in regards to procreation before the Fall), but, as I am aware, does not run afoul of any anathemata. The same could be said, also, with the caveat “insofar as I am aware”, of Pre-Adamism, with all “pre-Adamite” hominids having died out, and only the line of the “ensoulled” Adam and Eve continuing. The “tribal leaders” runs afoul of dogmata in its normal interpretation, which is based in evolutionism, and overlaps with pre-Adamism, but, insofar as I am aware, there is no hard-and-fast rule that states Adam and Eve did not have children before the Fall (although, it is an unnecessary addition to Scripture to say so, and doesn’t quite sit well with my Augustinian self after reading Ps 51, unless the method of reproduction was different before the Fall, which is adding even more unnecessary assumptions to the text, and a host of theological problems besides).

I myself hew to the “Genesis as literal history” view (as can be told from my adherence to YEC), but I still find the “tribal leaders” view interesting, mainly on analogy to the NPP/Federal Vision theology of the Pauline Epistles and salvation held amongst some Reformed thinkers. I will only defend the Genesis-as-literal-history view (contra the modern secular scientific consensus and many theologians, and even most Popes since Pius XII), even if I may find other views intriguing: I agree with Pius XII most emphatically, and, indeed, “over-agree” with him, in that I have read virtually every book published in English attempting to reconcile Creation-Fall-Redemption (i.e. the gospel) with theories of human origins that aren’t lifted wholesale from Genesis, and find them all wanting. Most other views are either 1) incompatible with the text, or 2) end up with a Creation-Humanity Keeps Improving and Evolving Itself in to the New Jerusalem-Postmillennialism theology, instead of Fall-Redemption.

The closest any comes - the best attempt I’ve seen - is John Walton’s Cosmic Temple view (propounded in The Lost World of Genesis One), but, upon inspection, one is left with a god who is merely a Demiurge, and not a Creator (otherwise, the theory would be sound, if it did not logically demand matter being co-eternal with God, or an abandonment of the Cosmic Temple view itself in favor of something more apparent).

The Framework view as propounded by Meredith Kline doesn’t hold up to even a cursory examination of the text. The gap view is scientifically unfalsifiable, but also does not accord with the grammar of the text nor the statement “and it was very good”; etc. etc.
 
dmar198 said:
You mean the part that says “The present text was approved in forma specifica, by the written ballots of the International Theological Commission. It was then submitted to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the President of the Commission, who has give his permission for its publication,” right?
Click to expand...
Yes. And there are a few other interesting sections.

My point is not to downgrade the document as such. My point is that readers have to be realistic when it comes to individual speculations about natural science. The same caution should be applied to Humani Generis.
 
Khalid said:
I’m unsure, but “tribal leaders” is not necessarily given a polygenetic interpretation - the tribes would be descendants of Adam and Eve, which, as I am aware, does not sit easy with the Catholic Tradition (in regards to procreation before the Fall), but, as I am aware, does not run afoul of any anathemata. The same could be said, also, with the caveat “insofar as I am aware”, of Pre-Adamism, with all “pre-Adamite” hominids having died out, and only the line of the “ensoulled” Adam and Eve continuing. The “tribal leaders” runs afoul of dogmata in its normal interpretation, which is based in evolutionism, and overlaps with pre-Adamism, but, insofar as I am aware, there is no hard-and-fast rule that states Adam and Eve did not have children before the Fall (although, it is an unnecessary addition to Scripture to say so, and doesn’t quite sit well with my Augustinian self after reading Ps 51, unless the method of reproduction was different before the Fall, which is adding even more unnecessary assumptions to the text, and a host of theological problems besides).

I myself hew to the “Genesis as literal history” view (as can be told from my adherence to YEC), but I still find the “tribal leaders” view interesting, mainly on analogy to the NPP/Federal Vision theology of the Pauline Epistles and salvation held amongst some Reformed thinkers.
Click to expand...
It is not my intention to get into a debate with you. However, one would run into a problem with the transmission of the contracted state of Orignal Sin and its effect of a wounded human nature if there were descendants before the Fall.
 
No debate, but, how so? If there were descendants before the Fall, they would not have inherited sin-nature; and, when Adam sinned, the sin would have been imputed to all of the tribes under his Federal headship; and, from that point forward, procreation by the means we are aware of would transmit the sin nature.

(Note, that I don’t actually believe this view; if you can put a nail in the coffin or point out an oversight of logic on my part, please do.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top