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StAnastasia
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Ken Miller is as credible as you are. So are John Haught, Ilia Delio, Kathleen Duffy, Celia Deane Drummond, Fr. Melchor Sanchez de Toca, Archbishop Jozef Zycinski, Bishop John Cummins, Fr. Frank Budenholzer, SVD., etc., etc. There’s no shortage of faithful Catholic authors who accept evolution.
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edwest2
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If you are so concerned about science, why bring the Bible into the discussion? Honestly. What scientific studies have been made of the claims in Genesis? There are none. Science cannot study the supernatural.
I know where you’re coming from. Science relies on evidence and for processes, reproducibility. Let’s say I send you back through time to spend one week watching Jesus perform miracles. What data do you acquire? Did He use medicines or machines to bring people back to life or to remove their leprosy or restore their sight? What knowledge, scientific knowledge, could you share with others? Science uses instruments and devices to do its work. What intruments and devices did Jesus use to calm the waves and stop the wind? None. There is nothing you could pass on to others regarding His work, from a scientific standpoint.
Are you concerned about what others might think if you accept that Noah and his family survived a global flood? Would that prevent you or anyone you know from getting a job?
As you study the Catholic deposit of faith, you’ll come to realize, as is often mentioned here, that there are places science cannot go and things science cannot study.
I suggest you read this:
vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html
It outlines the long struggle the Church has experienced with those who love the truth and with those who don’t. Take your time.
How does one get faith? The Bible tells us faith cometh by hearing. And Jesus tells us that no one comes to Him unless the Father draws him. Then, when we accept Christ, He sends the Holy Spirit when we are baptized. Your faith comes from the Trinity. It is not dependent on your level of understanding of science.
Why are you so concerned about Genesis? What has made you anxious about it? Today, it is very difficult to get the truth about this matter. And it is important. The non-theist relies on what he believes to be the spontaneous generation of life from chemicals. This cannot be duplicated in a lab. He also relies on the idea that literally nothing made him. He’s as natural as the grass or trees and simply another animal. The output of random mutations and natural selection.
The Church views information gained by scientific inquiry and information given to us by God through divine revelation as complementary. I believe that. But there are some who post here that only believe that purely non-God “natural” forces brought human beings into existence.
I hope you found my comments helpful.
Peace,
Ed
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cassini
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Ok tjm. I read the Genesis account of the Flood just to recap on its description and it occurred to me that the detail is such that to deny it would be to dismiss the Old Testament as meaningless. Thus I for one believe it as I believe in God Himself. Now with God all things are possible. If God tells us that he ordered Noah to build an Ark and fill it with animals that would populate the earth after the flood I believe He did just that and do not need science to tell me it cannot happen etc. I have no doubt that the earthquakes and eruptions that occurred to allow the waters from the earth to gush forth formed the topography we witness today. I also believe an ice age came immediately after the Flood. Science can stick its calculated ages for everything as I believe none of them, from its 15.5 billion years since its Big Bang to its millions of years for strata that can form in days. I have long ceased to be browbeaten by science says this or science says that. If God says He did it that is good enough for me and no science will ever prove HIM wrong. What it boils down to is FAITH v SCIENCE. I trust FAITH and am willing to be called an intellectual retard as a result. Others I’m afraid are so intellectually proud that they prefer to place their trust in what it has conjured up to fit their godless science.
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sambos671
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I don’t mix Faith and Science. Science is a method of determination. However, my kids Baptist Suday School Pastor does and gives false information to my kids giving them assignement that he claims are scientific and they miss its about their faith. This is disingenuous. It is problematic for my kids and how we train them and educate them. We want them to understand the bible but not at the exclusion of science. Thus I have a double blessing in that my family is now willing to come to join me in the Catholic Church because of this type of erronious teaching. And that my children will be able to trust what we teach with regard to science and the bible.
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cassini
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Well donsnow if you think for one minute that the devil goes on holiday or allows anything to happen on earth without looking for an advantage, you are mistaken. I believe that EVERYTHING and ANYTHING that tries to damage the Church or take man’s minds off God has the DEVIL behind it. call it the GREATEST CONSPIRACY THEORY of ALL TIME if you like, but that is how I was reared to know him, yes Lucifer, Satan, the Devil.
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tjm190
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Dismissing the flood dismisses the old testament? Says who?
So you reject all knowledge garnered through science, so long as you personally have not arrived at the same conclusion in your own life?
Yes, with God all things are possible- God COULD have caused a flood and then made it appear as if no flood happened- however, since God is truth such deception seems unlikely.
And wait- The world was created 6000 years ago. The a little bit after there was a major flood. Then an ice age, which no civilization thought to record?
(Psalm 75:3 The earth and all its inhabitants are melting away; I set firm its pillars- does the Earth actually stand upon pillars that need to be held?)
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tjm190
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Well, the world looks as if there was no flood. If there was a flood, God certainly cleaned up the evidence- that would have been nice to know, unless you believe in a God who sets up the natural world to trick us.
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reggieM
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In your view, Ken Miller is credible as a Catholic. In my view, he is not.
Some people think that Nancy Pelosi or Kathleen Sebelius are credible witnesses to the moral teaching on the Church. Others, like their own bishops and those who believe in the sanctity of life, do not.
That’s what makes the discussion here with you an impossible task. We do not share enough common ground to build an understanding. If you can look at Ken Miller’s theological views and consider them to be credible expressions of Catholicism than we’re not using the same language and we’ll continue to talk past each other.
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ricmat
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For a Catholic theologian (allegedly) you seem to have a hard time being respectful to the Word of God, or accepting magesterial teaching.
BTW - After saying “In the name of the Creator, and the Redeemer, and Sanctifier”, do you pray the “Our Mother, who art in heaven…?”
That’s quite a story you made up there. Or is this what happened to you?
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ricmat
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Amen! Amen! Amen!
There are a few here, including some “theologians” who will attempt to correct this flaw when they get the chance. But I’m betting that the answer will be “no.”
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buffalo
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Again, if one is walking on the beach and sees a left footprint as far as he can see should he conclude a deceiver was at work?
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cassini
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tjm. For the last 20 years I have read thousands of book, articles and you name it on the subject of evolution. I am now satisfied that the scientific case for evolution is no more than an ideological interpretation of phenomena. I am now satisfied that the Creationists - mainly Protestants - have produced a credible alternative scientific interpretation of the phenomena used to determine these things.
I have now come to a stage in my life when I know there is no point in arguing at the scientific level because it can tell us nothing of ages with certainty. With no evolution going on now evolutionary science is nothing more than ideological assumptions, and assumptions are not science. The fossil record shows 100% fixed complete creatures. Science thinks it can convince the world by putting together a few hundred bones that they say are evolving creatures. Pathetic. So I have dumped all my scientific literature and moved over to defending creation on the basis of the Catholic faith.
I do not know what you mean by
‘Yes, with God all things are possible- God COULD have caused a flood and then made it appear as if no flood happened- however, since God is truth such deception seems unlikely’
The Earth is covered with sedimentary rock except where ignious rock upthrusted, thus globally covered with water. There are fossil graves world wide with MILLIONS of dionasurs, fish, mammals, birds, insects etc in them, proving there was flooding on a massive scale. What other evidence of a world wide flood do you need.
The ice age, which is a fact, logically (according to faith) had to occur immediately after the flood because there is evidence of its retreat to the poles. If it was before the flood the sediments would have eliminated this direct evidence. The populations of the earth originated in the mid east and spread outwards. They probably followed the ice retreat over the centuries. How would they know there was anything special going on to record it.
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ricmat
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So how about choosing between a story written 1900 years ago, and contemporary scientific knowledge. Which would you choose?
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ricmat
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But there IS a dichotomy between them when life is attributed to random processes rather than the purpose and power of God.
The Western science that you worship actually came about because the Judeo-Christian God was believed to be predictable and knowable - and therefore his creation would be predictable and knowable. “Random” is not predictable and knowable. God is not random.
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edwest2
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I hope you will notice all of the posts here that do mix Faith and Science on an almost daily basis. Their purpose, in some cases, is to convince Catholics that certain things in the Bible never actually happened. Decide for yourself what their motivations are.
Peace,
Ed
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StAnastasia
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That may be too little information on which to base a judgment. If it is a very deep set of imprints, perhaps it’s a one-legged man jumping along.
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ricmat
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Hey look what I just ran across - our old “buddy” from CAF - drpmjhess. Here’s the link to the article, and an excerpt below. At one point, I thought that drhess had transmorgrophied into StA… Here’s some excerpts I extracted - see link above for the full article.
Misconstruing ID as Disallowing Any Evolution
The most fundamental problem with Dr. Hess’s argument was his mischaracterization of ID as never permitting the action of evolutionary processes. Hess thus stated: “Intelligent design cannot allow that evolution is a process chosen by God.” That’s absolutely false: ID doesn’t claim that evolutionary processes can never be at work in the world around us…snip…ID in no way rules out the possibility that neo-Darwinian processes have been part of the story of life. What ID claims is that such material mechanisms aren’t the entire story, and that in many important instances intelligent design is far superior an explanation to Darwinism.
Dr. Hess has it exactly backwards. He says (wrongly) that “intelligent design cannot allow that evolution is a process chosen by God,” but it would be far more accurate to say that theistic evolutionists like Dr. Hess and the NCSE “cannot allow that intelligent design is a process chosen by God.”
Making God the ‘Great Evolver’ Does Nothing to Solve the “Problem of Evil”
As noted, Dr. Hess’s reasons for excluding ID from the explanatory toolkit were all theological. His main objection is that ID, by “insisting on God as the cosmic designer who periodically intervenes periodically to propel evolution in propitious directions, inevitably lays the responsibility of concomitant suffering squarely at the feet of the designer.” He thus claims that ID “flounders on the shoals of natural evil.”
**Keep in mind that Hess is a theist and said at the symposium that he is a Roman Catholic theologian. **Hess thinks that if God used neo-Darwinian evolution to create life rather than some process involving ID, then that somehow solves the problem of evil.
Hess’s “solution” does nothing to solve the problem of evil. It just pushes the question back one small level. Making God the ‘great evolver’ does nothing to absolve God of any alleged “responsibility” for suffering in the world. It changes absolutely nothing.
NCSE Theologian Goes All-Out Ad Hominem Against ID
And this brings us to the theologian’s charge that gives this post its title. His exact statement was as follows: “A third problem with intelligent design is that its practitioners are either ignorant of science or seriously deluded or fundamentally dishonest.”
End of excerpts.
Gee- this all sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Misconstruing ID as Disallowing Any Evolution
The most fundamental problem with Dr. Hess’s argument was his mischaracterization of ID as never permitting the action of evolutionary processes. Hess thus stated: “Intelligent design cannot allow that evolution is a process chosen by God.” That’s absolutely false: ID doesn’t claim that evolutionary processes can never be at work in the world around us…snip…ID in no way rules out the possibility that neo-Darwinian processes have been part of the story of life. What ID claims is that such material mechanisms aren’t the entire story, and that in many important instances intelligent design is far superior an explanation to Darwinism.
Dr. Hess has it exactly backwards. He says (wrongly) that “intelligent design cannot allow that evolution is a process chosen by God,” but it would be far more accurate to say that theistic evolutionists like Dr. Hess and the NCSE “cannot allow that intelligent design is a process chosen by God.”
Making God the ‘Great Evolver’ Does Nothing to Solve the “Problem of Evil”
As noted, Dr. Hess’s reasons for excluding ID from the explanatory toolkit were all theological. His main objection is that ID, by “insisting on God as the cosmic designer who periodically intervenes periodically to propel evolution in propitious directions, inevitably lays the responsibility of concomitant suffering squarely at the feet of the designer.” He thus claims that ID “flounders on the shoals of natural evil.”
**Keep in mind that Hess is a theist and said at the symposium that he is a Roman Catholic theologian. **Hess thinks that if God used neo-Darwinian evolution to create life rather than some process involving ID, then that somehow solves the problem of evil.
Hess’s “solution” does nothing to solve the problem of evil. It just pushes the question back one small level. Making God the ‘great evolver’ does nothing to absolve God of any alleged “responsibility” for suffering in the world. It changes absolutely nothing.
NCSE Theologian Goes All-Out Ad Hominem Against ID
And this brings us to the theologian’s charge that gives this post its title. His exact statement was as follows: “A third problem with intelligent design is that its practitioners are either ignorant of science or seriously deluded or fundamentally dishonest.”
End of excerpts.
Gee- this all sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
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rossum
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Is your God so powerless that He cannot work His purpose through random processes? Saint Thomas Aquinas would disagree.
If I use a screwdriver to assemble a bookcase then the purpose is mine - it would be incorrect to look for my purpose in the screwdriver. I could have used the same screwdriver to assemble a chair or to disassemble a bookcase. Evolution is only looking at the material tools that God used - we would not expect to find purpose in the tools used. The purpose is God’s purpose, and evolution does not study God.
I think that you will find that the science of the Ancient Greeks had very little to do with the Judaeo-Christian God. Archimedes and Eratosthenes were both good scientists
God may not be random, but He can use randomness as a tool:“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”
- Aquinas Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1
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ricmat
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Well, when you run into St. Thomas, ask him to sign up at CAF and we’ll discuss it
The reason that God cannot make a square circle is that the term is a logical impossibility. It has nothing to do with God’s power. Certainly you know that. It’s the same with “random purposes”.
Read “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization”. It has a good section on this subject. Much of Catholicism is based on the work of the ancient Greeks, as is much of science. The ancient e.g. Chinese scientists did some good work too, but you have to admit that scientifically, things really took off in the West.
God cannot make a square circle. Sorry. Again, not because of power, but because the terms themselves are contradictory.
I’m not a YEC, but many (you? I don’t remember) use the argument that God would not make the Earth appear to be billions of years old when it was really only 6000 years old. You are trying to use a similar argument - that God is trying to make purpose appear as random, or to hide evidence of his involvement - just to fool us I suppose.
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