Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

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Bradskii said:
The first causes are the very physical laws of nature. The ones that are ‘fine tuned’. The ones that cannot be anything other than what they are. The ones that you say must apply. The ones, by the very fine tuning argument that you wish to make, constrain an omnipotent God.

So again, are these first order laws fixed that God must follow, in which case He is not omnipotent, or are they arbitrary, in which there is no fine tuning argument?
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I was actually responding to something you said earlier, not the fine tuning. See below. The fact that we both posted to each other over different posts at the same time, you a couple minutes earlier, was why I jokingly asked coincidence or divine timing? . Which I thought was ironic given the fine tuning discussion. 🙂 oh and the laws of nature would be secondary causes that themselves need a cause. Or are you saying the laws of nature must be the way they are and it would be metaphysically impossible for them to be any different?
Bradskii said:
This is why some people (hi Glark…) cling to the idea that everything was made as-is. I think that they feel that it makes no sense for something that is omnipotent to go through the incredibly complex processes that eventually resulted in the universe we see now.

If you were omnipotent and decided to make a car for example, do you start by looking for iron ore, digging it up and smelting it to get the necessary metals? Or do you snap your fingers and make the Ferrari appear instantly?
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"fisherman_carl?:
Sounds like a false dilemma to me. The fine tuning argument is not saying that the constants of nature could not be anything else. It is asking the question why are they the way they are when they could have been something else. If you say they are that way because of coincidence then the odds are against you. If you say they are that way because of an intelligent designer then there is no longer a problem explaining the odds. The odds of our fined tuned universe for life is why the multiverse theory exists in the first place. And to say that God could have gotten any namby pamby universe to work is besides the point. Since we are only talking about trying to explain this one.
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Your first sentence hits the nail on the head. For an omnimpotent being the constants could indeed have been something else. In fact, could have been anything at all. So it then becomes nonsensical to ask why they are specifically as they are. If they could be anything, they are effectively arbitrary. Discounting the fine-tuning argument.

God’s existence and the fine tuning argument are incompatible. You can’t have both. Using the fine tuning arguments means there is no omnipotent God. Having an omnipotent God means there is no fine tuning.
 
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Bradskii said:
rgument.

God’s existence and the fine tuning argument are incompatible. You can’t have both. Using the fine tuning arguments means there is no omnipotent God. Having an omnipotent God means there is no fine tuning.
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I just don’t think that follows. Like I said earlier the way the argument is framed leads to the conclusion that an intelligent designer best explains why the universe is fine tuned for life. So you can’t say that a fine tuned universe by an intelligent God is somehow a contradiction. That would be like saying the multiverse theory is inconsistent with a finely tuned universe when the multiverse theory exists to explain it. The multiverse could apparently kick out any possible universe just like God. If we simply add unlimited intelligence to the multiverse then we can say it doesn’t have to bother creating all those other possible universes since it can just choose to create this one since it knows this is the one that will support life.
 
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Bradskii said:
The first causes are the very physical laws of nature. The ones that are ‘fine tuned’. The ones that cannot be anything other than what they are. The ones that you say must apply. The ones, by the very fine tuning argument that you wish to make, constrain an omnipotent God.
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I think you are misrepresenting the argument. No one except Niceatheist, and possibility you, have claimed the laws that are fine tuned “cannot be anything other than what they are.” One main premise of the argument is that each of the parameters could have been different and could been set along an infinite range, meaning that whoever set the parameters was not constrained in the creative act because the act itself shows an infinite variability. It does not follow that because the parameters were set where they were that the creator of them was “constrained.” This universe was constrained, but the creator of it was not. He could, in fact, have created an infinite number of other universes. We do not have access to those so we cannot say whether he did or not.
Bradskii said:
So again, are these first order laws fixed that God must follow, in which case He is not omnipotent, or are they arbitrary, in which there is no fine tuning argument?
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This is a bizarre point. Does it mean, for example, that by setting moral laws among moral beings to be “fixed,” that these are constraints on his omnipotence, or as you say, “in which case He is not omnipotent.” Sounds like your options are that for God to be omnipotent, he must either be arbitrary and capricious or … Well, there doesn’t seem to be another option for you. I can’t see how arbitrary and capricious would be the very essence of omnipotence. Is fixing moral laws such that God “must” adhere to them, a cramp in his omnipotence and proof that God can’t be. Sorry, seems just a tad absurd.
 
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Bradskii said:
Your first sentence hits the nail on the head. For an omnimpotent being the constants could indeed have been something else. In fact, could have been anything at all. So it then becomes nonsensical to ask why they are specifically as they are. If they could be anything, they are effectively arbitrary.
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Oh, I don’t know, your point might be true if God were merely omnipotent and nothing else, i.e., would have no method by which to arbitrate his actions or constrain his omnipotence. The problem for you is that the classic theist insists that God is also omniscient and omnibenevolent. Meaning that the controls (knowledge and goodness) of his omnipotence are within God’s very nature.

I don’t think we would claim, for example, that a human being is “potent” or powerful to the extent that s/he act without any restraint whatsoever. Or that acting WITH moral constraints is a limitation on the power of the individual merely because that power is governed. The power is still there and the person is still as powerful as they would have been without the overseeing morality or wisdom. Your claim seems… Oh, I don’t know …just oddly simplistic.
 
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Bradskii said:
Your first sentence hits the nail on the head. For an omnimpotent being the constants could indeed have been something else. In fact, could have been anything at all. So it then becomes nonsensical to ask why they are specifically as they are. If they could be anything, they are effectively arbitrary. Discounting the fine-tuning argument.

God’s existence and the fine tuning argument are incompatible. You can’t have both. Using the fine tuning arguments means there is no omnipotent God. Having an omnipotent God means there is no fine tuning.
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You are right that God could have setup the initial parameters differently. But I don’t see it follows from that to your conclusion that an omnipotent God means the fine tuning argument does not work. Because the fine tuning argument starts off not assuming there is a God but looking at the probability of the constants being the way they are and concludes it is likely they are that way because of a intelligent designer. So it still leads to an intelligent designer. So the argument works. If you want to say after the fact that an omnipotent intelligent designer could have setup the parameters differently and it would still work, that may be true, but it would be in a different universe where life would look a lot different and the universe would behave differently, and we would have to look at if the constants there are also seem finely tuned. But it still may be valid to say that if the constants were different in that universe it could not support life. Thus we have to look at the conditions in the universe we are in and realize that these conditions once put in place are in a way set in stone. And once chosen this means the constants must be chosen that will work with them.

Or to put another way once God has chosen his board with all the dials the right settings must be chosen to allow for life. He could have created a different board with a different set of dials but even there he would have a limited number of settings that would be consistent for that universe to support life, if he wanted a universe that has secondary causes governed by consistent natural laws. So the argument for fine tuning is still consistent but the particular board chosen can only be used for a particular set of design criteria. And once set it sets up the possibility of the design argument. If we observed this universe to have too much gravity so that life is not supported we might conclude the universe is not finely tuned for life. Which we could then say there is no one at the controls creating a universe with life. But we could not say that about this universe.
 
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Since there are two creation stories in Gen. which should believe? And how does one decide between the two as God creating? and Christian belief? and science
 
Aloysium said:
The fact is that creation cannot create; it is irrational to suppose that what does not exist can bring itself into existence. And, whatever chaos there is requires an external hand to bring it to order.
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According to atheist folklore, a process with no intelligence, direction, imagination, creativity, foresight, memory, love, kindness, compassion or morality produced creatures with intelligence, direction, imagination, creativity, foresight, memory, love, kindness and compassion and morality. Whatever it takes to believe such a thing, I thankfully don’t have it.
 
niceatheist said:
It certainly doesn’t intimate, as you were trying to assert, that horses didn’t evolve. The out of context quote is an attempt to make a researchers look like they’re rejecting evolution.

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I suppose my third quote could be a tad misleading. I can drop that one.
No lineage is known with perfect certainty, but the fossil record of equines still demonstrates how that that lineage evolved over time
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I know what you mean. Even though there are many similarities between a cat skeleton and a dog skeleton; and even though the cat skeleton I dug up was found in a deeper (ie, older) strata that the dog skeleton, I am still having trouble convincing evo-infidels that the dog evolved from the cat. Weak minds reject strong science - fact.
 
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Rau said:
There was no sun? So the planet was exceedingly cold? Far, far too cold for liquid water.
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Let’s see … no Sun means no light and frozen seas. In such conditions, maybe only bacteria could exist. However, there is no mention of ice in Genesis (only “water”) and light existed before,the Sun was created … and God isn’t confined by the laws of nature. Very mysterious, nonetheless.
Are you ok with the earth having existed (ie, having some kind of form) from circa 4.6bill years ago?
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The earth must be billions of years old, or course, coz the theory of evolution demands it.
 
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niceatheist said:
Except even in the account in Genesis 1 Adam and Eve were pretty much the last parts of Creation that were made, which suggests that the passage you quote is metaphorical or poetic.
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Or it suggests the writer didn’t expect his words to be read super-literally. Next you’ll be telling me Jesus actually commanded us to cut our hands off and pluck our eyes out.

What is your “metaphorical or poetic” interpretation of said verse?

Theistic Evolution 101: “Every Scripture that contradicts billion of years of evolution must be metaphorical or poetic”
This is why literal readings of certain parts of the Bible ends you up in conundrums. If read literally, the passage in Mark literally conflicts with the order of creation set out in the first chapter of Genesis.
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That’s why you shouldn’t read it too literally. Before Darwinism, anyone who read this verse would know that the writer didn’t literally mean the very beginning of creation.
 
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Aloysium said:
There is no materialist plot. If someone believes that the foundations of existence are of a material nature, that is what they will be looking for and all that they will see and understand.
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Aka Scientism.
That image of a transformation of an ape into a man should be exposed for what it is - a myth that leads most people astray from the truth.
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How dare you! So the entire scientific establishment and millions of your fellow Catholics are wrong?
 
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“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” - Pope Francis.

Pope Francis seems to be implying that since God was not “a magician”, he couldn’t create all life on earth in a few days, but has to no choice but to rely on a secondary cause such as billions of years of evolution. I wonder how the Pope imagines his non-magician God instantly created Eve from Adam rib?

The Pope believes that God can turn inanimate bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in an instant, yet he seems to doubt that God can create life on earth in a few days. Fascinating logic.
 
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Glark said:
The earth must be billions of years old, or course, coz the theory of evolution demands it.
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No. The earth billions of years old because physics and geology show that it is billions of years old. The age is determined independently of evolution.

Just because you are fixated on evolution does not mean that either physicists of geologists are.

Of course, you can deny physics and geology if you want to, but that means you will have to learn a great deal more about those two subjects if you want to make a convincing case.

rossum
 
Glark said:
The earth must be billions of years old, or course, coz the theory of evolution demands it.
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Actually, scientific enquiry unconnected with evolution seems fairly confident in the age estimates of the earth and the sun. Perhaps God has taken steps to deceive us in this area too?
 
rossum said:
No. The earth billions of years old because physics and geology show that it is billions of years old. The age is determined independently of evolution.

Just because you are fixated on evolution does not mean that either physicists of geologists are.

Of course, you can deny physics and geology if you want to, but that means you will have to learn a great deal more about those two subjects if you want to make a convincing case.
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My theology can accommodate an ancient earth, but it wouldn’t suprise me one little bit if the “scientifically” determined age of the earth has been “stretched” for the sake of ToE.
 
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