Design

[Charlemagne_III]

Read that back to yourself and you’ll see that it reads like you are an adherent to a cult of two goddesses.

Does any Catholic theologian capitalize the two abstractions to reify them into goddesses, or use invented words like idvolution? Serious question, can you show me the Church paper that uses capitalized Chance and capitalized Design? Or are these terms the invention of a couple of posters on CAF? How do you expect scientists to even know what you mean, let alone to have any duty towards you?

Stop being angry and silly in the same breath.

“Nature is nothing but the plan of some art, namely a divine one, put into things themselves, by which those things move toward a concrete end: as if the man who builds up a ship could give to the pieces of wood that they could move by themselves to produce the form of the ship.” Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Book II, Chapter 8

 

[inocente]

Stop being angry and silly in the same breath.

There’s no call for that. Perhaps it’s been a long week for you. Relax, it’s weekend.

“Nature is nothing but the plan of some art, namely a divine one, put into things themselves, by which those things move toward a concrete end: as if the man who builds up a ship could give to the pieces of wood that they could move by themselves to produce the form of the ship.” Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Book II, Chapter 8

You asked to be shown “a scientific paper with a double blind test that shows that Chance, rather than Design, governs the universe”.

I asked can you show me any Church paper that uses capitalized Chance and capitalized Design? Where are the definitions of capitalized Chance and capitalized Design, are they on vatican.va? If not, where are they? I mean if they are not publicly defined, how do you expect scientists or the rest of us to even know what you mean, let alone to have any duty towards you?

Noting that if by Chance you just mean chance, science is about finding regularities, patterns, laws of nature, not about chance.

Can’t see how those question are silly or angry, so please will you answer my questions?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I asked can you show me any Church paper that uses capitalized Chance and capitalized Design? Where are the definitions of capitalized Chance and capitalized Design, are they on vatican.va? If not, where are they? I mean if they are not publicly defined, how do you expect scientists or the rest of us to even know what you mean, let alone to have any duty towards you?

There you go again.

When you are befuddled by the arguments presented to you, it’s always your tactic to show that the Catholics in the forum are not following their own official Catholic theology.

You have been told umpteen times this is a failed and useless argument on your part.

When you are reduced to carping about capital letters, you truly have sunk to a new low.

Have a restful weekend.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Some have said that to admit the God hypothesis is to usher in the end of science because the God hypothesis can never be falsified. But did the God hypothesis stop great scientists in the past from doing great work?

Nicolaus Copernicus Heliocentric Theory of the Solar System
“The universe has been wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator.”

Johannes Kepler Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motions
“[May] God who is most admirable in his works … deign to grant us the grace to bring to light and illuminate the profundity of his wisdom in the visible (and accordingly intelligible) creation of this world.”

Galileo Galilei Laws of Dynamics
“The Holy Bible and the phenomenon of nature proceed alike from the divine Word.”

Isaac Newton Laws of Thermodynamics, Optics, etc.
“This most beautiful system [the solar system] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”

Benjamin Franklin Electricity, Bifocals, etc.
”Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped.

James Clerk Maxwell Electromagnetism, Maxwell’s Equations
“I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.”

Lord William Kelvin Laws of Thermodynamics, absolute temperature scale
“I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.”

Charles Darwin Theory of Evolution
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Origin of the Species, 1872 (last edition before Darwin’s death).

Louis Pasteur Germ Theory
“The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.”

Max Planck Father of Quantum Physics
“There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other.”

J.J. Thompson Discoverer of the Electron
“In the distance tower still higher peaks which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects and deepen the feeling whose truth is emphasized by every advance in science, that great are the works of the Lord.”

Werner Heisenberg Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
“In the course of my life I have been repeatedly compelled to ponder the relationship of these two regions of thought (science and religion), for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point.”

Arthur Compton Compton Effect, Quantum Physicist
“For myself, faith begins with the realization that a supreme intelligence brought the universe into being and created man.”

Max Born Quantum Physicist
“Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist must be rather silly.”

Paul A.M. Dirac Quantum Physicist, Matter-Anti-Matter
“God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”

George LeMaitre Father of the Big Bang Theory,
“There is no conflict between religion and science.” Reported by Duncan Aikman, New York Times, 1933

Albert Einstein Special and General Theories of Relativity
“… everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a Spirit vastly superior to that of man.”

 

[inocente]

There you go again.

When you are befuddled by the arguments presented to you, it’s always your tactic to show that the Catholics in the forum are not following their own official Catholic theology.

You have been told umpteen times this is a failed and useless argument on your part.

When you are reduced to carping about capital letters, you truly have sunk to a new low.

Have a restful weekend.

Hey, what’s with all the insults? You’ve not answered my questions and you’ve not made any arguments. If I was befuddled it would only be by your reluctance to answer.

You asked to be shown “a scientific paper with a double blind test that shows that Chance, rather than Design, governs the universe”. I asked what you mean by capitalized Chance and capitalized Design? I take your reluctance to answer to indicate you have no good reason to capitalize the words.

I’m fully aware that you are one of only two people in the entire world who play the capitalized Chance versus capitalized Design game. You two are not exactly a force to be reckoned with if you can’t even say what you mean by capitalizing them. Have a go at least.

And I repeat, science is about finding order, not about chance.

 

[buffalo]

Hey, what’s with all the insults? You’ve not answered my questions and you’ve not made any arguments. If I was befuddled it would only be by your reluctance to answer.

You asked to be shown “a scientific paper with a double blind test that shows that Chance, rather than Design, governs the universe”. I asked what you mean by capitalized Chance and capitalized Design? I take your reluctance to answer to indicate you have no good reason to capitalize the words.

I’m fully aware that you are one of only two people in the entire world who play the capitalized Chance versus capitalized Design game. You two are not exactly a force to be reckoned with if you can’t even say what you mean by capitalizing them. Have a go at least.

And I repeat, science is about finding order, not about chance.

Science could not exist in a chaotic universe. It is exactly that the universe has rules and order that it is intelligible. It is intelligible because it has an intelligent agent behind it all.

 

[rossum]

The perfect environment is called heaven.

Irrelevant. We are talking about an omniscient God who can foresee all environments, not just perfect ones. Or are you telling me that I am incorrect to say that the Christian God is omniscient?

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

No scientific explanation has ever been presented of the origin of synthesis. That fact alone is enough to destroy the hypothesis that random permutations of particles have produced persons who think they have been produced by random permutations of particles. It violates the principle that no contingent being can explain itself. Therefore there must be a conscious Necessary Being who creates everything for a specific purpose. It is no accident that even the most primitive forms of life unconsciously seek to survive - another fact NeoDarwinists cannot explain.No wonder Darwin himself believed “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one…”

 

[tonyrey]

Irrelevant. We are talking about an omniscient God who can foresee all environments, not just perfect ones. Or are you telling me that I am incorrect to say that the Christian God is omniscient?

Physical environments are necessarily imperfect due to their spatial and temporal limitations.

 

[Bradski]

The perfect environment is called heaven. We don’t live there. God allows our free will choices and His perfect justice prevails. We choose.

ID proponents will tell you that the eye cannot have been produced naturally. Eyes were in existence before the fall. Would you like to explain that?

 

[buffalo]

Irrelevant. We are talking about an omniscient God who can foresee all environments, not just perfect ones. Or are you telling me that I am incorrect to say that the Christian God is omniscient?

rossum

God is omniscient.

 

[buffalo]

ID proponents will tell you that the eye cannot have been produced naturally. Eyes were in existence before the fall. Would you like to explain that?

Is this going to be a bad eye design argument?

Animals and birds had eyes before man was created and the fall.

The creation account also tells us God created a good world.

299 Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered: "You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight."151 The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the “image of the invisible God”, is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the “image of God” and called to a personal relationship with God.152 Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work.153 Because creation comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares in that goodness - "And God saw that it was good. . . very good"154- for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world.155

Providence and secondary causes
306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.
307 To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of “subduing” the earth and having dominion over it.168 God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors. Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings.169 They then fully become “God’s fellow workers” and co-workers for his kingdom.170
308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."171 Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God’s power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for "without a Creator the creature vanishes."172 Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God’s grace.173

 

[Bradski]

God is omniscient.

So He knew eyes were going to need some extra work. He couldn’t set things up so that they would turn out just fine and dandy as required.

So I guess He can’t be omnipotent.

 

[buffalo]

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175 311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:
For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177
312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: “It was not you”, said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God’s only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that “abounded all the more”,179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.

 

[buffalo]

So He knew eyes were going to need some extra work. He couldn’t set things up so that they would turn out just fine and dandy as required.

So I guess He can’t be omnipotent.

We understand God to be almighty. Know the difference.

Extra work? Explain.

 

[buffalo]

** V. GOD CARRIES OUT HIS PLAN: DIVINE PROVIDENCE **
302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:
By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, “reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well”. For “all are open and laid bare to his eyes”, even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.161

 

[inocente]

Science could not exist in a chaotic universe. It is exactly that the universe has rules and order that it is intelligible. It is intelligible because it has an intelligent agent behind it all.

Yes, not a designer.

I suspect that what is being called Chance is what is usually called nature - the orderly processes that are intelligible.

(And that what is being called Design is what is usually called magic - the spontaneous appearance of entire species out of thin air.)

 

[tonyrey]

** V. GOD CARRIES OUT HIS PLAN: DIVINE PROVIDENCE **
302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:
By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, “reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well”. For “all are open and laid bare to his eyes”, even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.161

:clapping: The key phrase is “God guides his creation”. It is absurd to believe the Creator never intervenes because the laws of nature are sufficient to ensure progressive development. If we are in our right mind we never leave an important decision to natural processes - as if they’re infallible. That is fatalism totally incompatible with Christian belief in Providence and answers to prayer. It reduces God to an impotent observer who believes in “splendid isolation”, flicks a switch, says goodbye and then does nothing but watch all hell let loose on earth…

 

[tonyrey]

We understand God to be almighty. Know the difference.

Extra work? Explain.

No explanation is ever forthcoming of how an accident-free universe could be created. Anyone who believes earthly perfection is feasible needs to justify that hypothesis by producing a feasible blueprint yet - even though its proponents have had more than two thousand years in which to do so - no one has ever succeeded in presenting even a brief sketch of the ideal world and it remains an infantile fantasy. By their fruits you shall know them…

 

[tonyrey]

Science could not exist in a chaotic universe. It is exactly that the universe has rules and order that it is intelligible. It is intelligible because it has an intelligent agent behind it all.

There is no obvious reason why chaos should cease to be chaos any more than something should emerge from nothing. We take it for granted an orderly universe exists but that was not the initial state of reality. Science is based on the principle of causality, i.e. a macroscopic change does not occur spontaneously but is produced by a physical event. Metascience goes even further. We know from personal experience we can use our intelligence and will power to change ourselves and our environment. It follows that an intelligible universe is produced by an infinitely greater intelligence and source of power than ours. No other explanation is more intelligible, coherent, economical, probable, fertile and consistent with our experience. In fact to deny the universe is rational and purposeful is self-contradictory because** how** could that conclusion possibly be derived from purposeless particles which lack insight and autonomy? “emergent evolution” is an inadequate reply unless it specifies the precise events which led to a unique revolution in the biosphere. The enormous gulf between mind and matter remains as real as ever in spite of attempts by materialists to destroy the very source of their own insight and intelligence…