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goout
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Again, it is sad when our atheist brothers and sisters have a better handle on this issue than some Catholics.niceatheist said:
That is SAD.
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That is SAD.
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edwest
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Evolution is looking like “a tragic failure of the imagination”. Don’t expect the Church to change its mind. It will not reinterpret anything to anyone’s liking. That is the conflict: Catholics in the pews are being told ‘evolution is true’ but it is inadequate and incomplete. The Church cannot leave God out of the equation. The Living God. Not some vague idea about God.
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edwest
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Here is something that should never appear in Biology textbooks but it does.
We can see this in current biology textbooks:
“[E]volution works without either plan or purpose — Evolution is random and undirected.”
(Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine (1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991), pg. 658; (3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995), pg. 658; (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998), pg. 658; emphasis in original.)
“Humans represent just one tiny, largely fortuitous, and late-arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life.”
(Stephen J Gould quoted in Biology, by Peter H Raven & George B Johnson (5th ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pg 15; (6th ed., McGraw Hill, 2000), pg. 16.)
“By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”
(Evolutionary Biology, by Douglas J. Futuyma (3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc., 1998), p. 5.)
“Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.”
(Biology: Discovering Life by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st ed., D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; (2nd ed… D.C. Heath and Co., 1994), p. 161; emphases in original.)
“Adopting this view of the world means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view that the living world is constantly evolving, and that evolutionary change occurs without any goals.’ The idea that evolution is not directed towards a final goal state has been more difficult for many people to accept than the process of evolution itself.”
(Life: The Science of Biology by William K. Purves, David Sadava, Gordon H. Orians, & H. Craig Keller, (6th ed., Sinauer; W.H. Freeman and Co., 2001), pg. 3.)
“The ‘blind’ watchmaker is natural selection. Natural selection is totally blind to the future. “Humans are fundamentally not exceptional because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species. It is natural selection of selfish genes that has given us our bodies and brains “Natural selection is a bewilderingly simple idea. And yet what it explains is the whole of life, the diversity of life, the apparent design of life.”
(Richard Dawkins quoted in Biology by Neil A. Campbell, Jane B. Reese. & Lawrence G. Mitchell (5th ed., Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), pgs. 412-413.)
We can see this in current biology textbooks:
“[E]volution works without either plan or purpose — Evolution is random and undirected.”
(Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine (1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991), pg. 658; (3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995), pg. 658; (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998), pg. 658; emphasis in original.)
“Humans represent just one tiny, largely fortuitous, and late-arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life.”
(Stephen J Gould quoted in Biology, by Peter H Raven & George B Johnson (5th ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pg 15; (6th ed., McGraw Hill, 2000), pg. 16.)
“By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”
(Evolutionary Biology, by Douglas J. Futuyma (3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc., 1998), p. 5.)
“Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.”
(Biology: Discovering Life by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st ed., D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; (2nd ed… D.C. Heath and Co., 1994), p. 161; emphases in original.)
“Adopting this view of the world means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view that the living world is constantly evolving, and that evolutionary change occurs without any goals.’ The idea that evolution is not directed towards a final goal state has been more difficult for many people to accept than the process of evolution itself.”
(Life: The Science of Biology by William K. Purves, David Sadava, Gordon H. Orians, & H. Craig Keller, (6th ed., Sinauer; W.H. Freeman and Co., 2001), pg. 3.)
“The ‘blind’ watchmaker is natural selection. Natural selection is totally blind to the future. “Humans are fundamentally not exceptional because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species. It is natural selection of selfish genes that has given us our bodies and brains “Natural selection is a bewilderingly simple idea. And yet what it explains is the whole of life, the diversity of life, the apparent design of life.”
(Richard Dawkins quoted in Biology by Neil A. Campbell, Jane B. Reese. & Lawrence G. Mitchell (5th ed., Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), pgs. 412-413.)
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edwest
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“Of course, no species has 'chosen’ a strategy. Rather, its ancestors ‘little by little, generation after generation’ merely wandered into a successful way of life through the action of random evolutionary forces. Once pointed in a certain direction, a line of evolution survives only if the cosmic dice continues to roll in its favor. “[J]ust by chance, a wonderful diversity of life has developed during the billions of years in which organisms have been evolving on earth.
(Biology by Burton S. Guttman (1st ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pgs. 36-37.)
“It is difficult to avoid the speculation that Darwin, as has been the case with others, found the implications of his theory difficult to confront. “The real difficulty in accepting Darwins theory has always been that it seems to diminish our significance. Earlier, astronomy had made it clear that the earth is not the center of the solar universe, or even of our own solar system. Now the new biology asked us to accept the proposition that, like all other organisms, we too are the products of a random process that, as far as science can show, we are not created for any special purpose or as part of any universal design.”
(Invitation to Biology, by Helena Curtis & N. Sue Barnes(3rd ed., Worth, 1981), pgs. 474-475.)
[/quote]
(Biology by Burton S. Guttman (1st ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pgs. 36-37.)
“It is difficult to avoid the speculation that Darwin, as has been the case with others, found the implications of his theory difficult to confront. “The real difficulty in accepting Darwins theory has always been that it seems to diminish our significance. Earlier, astronomy had made it clear that the earth is not the center of the solar universe, or even of our own solar system. Now the new biology asked us to accept the proposition that, like all other organisms, we too are the products of a random process that, as far as science can show, we are not created for any special purpose or as part of any universal design.”
(Invitation to Biology, by Helena Curtis & N. Sue Barnes(3rd ed., Worth, 1981), pgs. 474-475.)
[/quote]
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niceatheist
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The Church invokes no conflict whatsoever. It has made that clear. The science has nothing to say on God’s involvement, so if there’s an apparent conflict, it’s not between the Church and science, but between your own personal beliefs and science.
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angel12
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And science never will say anything on God’s involvement, because that’s completely outside their realm. Those who keep complaining about that will never be satisified.niceatheist said:The science has nothing to say on God’s involvement, so if there’s an apparent conflict, it’s not between the Church and science, but between your own personal beliefs and science.
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Genesis315
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That clearly was not the intended meaning–the bishops at the Council saw new humans and animals born everyday. In any event, human and animal bodies come from existing matter–they are not created from nothing.
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edwest
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Not True. That is the point of conflict. I invite everyone to read the following carefully:
"Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” ( Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” ( Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).
"Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” ( Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” ( Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).
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goout
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Ed I don’t think you understand what @niceatheist said.edwest said:Not True. That is the point of conflict. I invite everyone to read the following carefully:
"Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” ( Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” ( Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).
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on_the_hill
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It would only preclude the study of evolution. It would have nothing to do with the other sciences. For example, it would have no effect on the study of the weather.Fatima-Crusader said:This wouldnt allow for modern day science, how can this be true then?
If you’re referring to “one beginning of all,” I interpret that to mean God, not a moment in time. In other words, God is the one beginning of all, rather than a particular moment was the moment at which all began. In fact, if we were to interpret Genesis literally, we would say that all creation was not created at ‘one beginning’ because God created over a period of six days.
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vsedriver
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only if it was created out of nothingFatima-Crusader said:wouldnt a new animal being born or evolved contradict this?
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edwest
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The core issue is how did man appear? Who made him? A bunch of chemical reactions? By chance?
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niceatheist
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That really is a gross oversimplification of evolution. In other words, it’s really just a strawman. No one thinks humans, or any organism, just came about due to “chemical reactions”. The entire point of Darwin’s Origin of the Species was to produce a theory that would explain how descent with modification works. If you have an issue with abiogenesis, that’s a separate but related topic, and one that is a matter of hot debate and research, but evolution primarily concerns itself with how natural forces lead to the life we see today. Since science only deals with natural phenomena, it, like every single scientific field, does not delve in to how God may have been involved. But you might as well throw out all science at that point.The core issue is how did man appear? Who made him? A bunch of chemical reactions? By chance?
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Richca
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I think what the council is stating here is that the angelic world and the corporeal world at least in its beginning were created simultaneously together by God; not that the corporeal world was created in its completeness at once for the council fathers were well aware of the seven day creation narrative of Genesis 1-2:3 in which God created various creatures such as plants and animals not from the beginning (verses 1-2) or on day one (verses 3-5) but over a span of ‘days’. At the same time, it can be said in a sense that all corporeal creatures were created in the beginning as to their material substance in some measure formless. For example, the plants and animals were formed out of the earth and waters which were created in the beginning but in some measure formless (verses 1-2). Also, some of the fathers of the Church thought that the angels were created before the corporeal world and some together with the corporeal world and so this council according to this profession of faith from it appears to have put an end to that debate."Fatima-Crusader said:The word “simul” in the Latin text of Lateran IV translates as “simultaneously” or “together at the same time” or “at once”:
Lateran IV says: Firmly we believe and we confess simply that the true God is one alone, eternal, immense, and unchangeable, incomprehensible, omnipotent and ineffable, Father and Son and Holy Spirit: ;… one beginning of all, creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual, and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body.
Again, I don’t believe the council is saying that the corporeal world including man was created in its completeness at once together with the angelic world but that the corporeal world at least in its beginning was created simultaneously with the angelic world. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), i.e., the angelic world and the corporeal world together.This wouldnt allow for modern day science, how can this be true then?
Modern day science appears to confirm the successive seven day creation narrative of Genesis 1-2:3 and the appearance of the various creatures of the corporeal world over time such as the plants and animals on earth as well as what is said of the estimated age of the earth itself which in the Genesis narrative was created in some measure formless in the beginning until its formation or substantial completeness on day three.
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Richca
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(continued)
As far as evolution is concerned whether cosmic or the darwinian biological evolution of species, this is a naturalistic theory and story of the modern day physical sciences and not necessarily true. The physical sciences don’t deal with the supernatural and theology of which the creation of the world and its formation by God is about such as in the Genesis creation narratives and many other biblical texts, and so their story of the development or ‘evolution’ of the corporeal universe is solely based on ‘naturalism’. Personally, I neither believe in the naturalistic stories of cosmic evolution such as the big bang theory nor the darwinian theory of the evolution of living species on earth. I believe that God created the universe out of nothing, both the angelic and corporeal world, and formed all the various corporeal creatures, inanimate and animate, of the corporeal world himself over some indefinite span of time symbolically represented as six days in the Genesis seven day creation narrative and then rested on the seventh day after the creation of man and ‘from all the work he had done in creation’.
As far as evolution is concerned whether cosmic or the darwinian biological evolution of species, this is a naturalistic theory and story of the modern day physical sciences and not necessarily true. The physical sciences don’t deal with the supernatural and theology of which the creation of the world and its formation by God is about such as in the Genesis creation narratives and many other biblical texts, and so their story of the development or ‘evolution’ of the corporeal universe is solely based on ‘naturalism’. Personally, I neither believe in the naturalistic stories of cosmic evolution such as the big bang theory nor the darwinian theory of the evolution of living species on earth. I believe that God created the universe out of nothing, both the angelic and corporeal world, and formed all the various corporeal creatures, inanimate and animate, of the corporeal world himself over some indefinite span of time symbolically represented as six days in the Genesis seven day creation narrative and then rested on the seventh day after the creation of man and ‘from all the work he had done in creation’.
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niceatheist
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Science doesn’t deal in truth, save only in the provisional sense. Still, the evidence for evolution and Big Bang cosmology is pretty overwhelming. I just don’t see the fundamental incompatibility, and I think it does a great disservice to Christianity and science to act as if there is some fundamental conflict. I, of course, don’t accept the Biblical accounts, literal or figurative, but to my mind, it’s not a hill anyone should want to die on. Whether it’s an atheist misusing science in an attempt to bolster their world view, or a religious person rejecting science to bolster their worldview, both individuals are, to my view, abusing both science and faith. I have as little interest in Dawkins’ anti-theistic writings as I have in Answers in Genesis long streams of dishonesty. Both are misrepresentative for the purposes of creating dilemmas and controversy where none exists. In other words, both are just exercises in empty, vicious rhetoric.
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Usagi
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The pronouncement you quote cannot mean that God created everything that would ever exist simultaneously. If nothing else, you and I did not exist at the moment of Creation, so there has to be some room for natural processes established by God to make new examples of life. (And new rock formations and even new elements).
A completely simultaneous creation precludes even reading Genesis literally.
A completely simultaneous creation precludes even reading Genesis literally.
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buffalo
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to create? Please explain…We are allowed to believe that God used the process of evolution to create.
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Usagi
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Not for the creation ex nihilo, obviously, but for the part where He’s telling all the animals and plants to reproduce after their kind. Even by the Genesis account, not all of Creation is just God snapping His metaphorical fingers.
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JulianN
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See the post above yours.
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