Is there a Catholic problem with basic evolution theory?

[Wesrock]

Would Adam look as I planned?

Occam might object to this.

First, the simulator was not unguided, it was designed.

It would still be running.

Is there room for God’s love and creation of man in His image in your scenario?

I am a firm believer in God’s plan for every aspect of creation, of natural teleology, of final causation.

But from a quantative standpoint, all that can be empirically observed about quantative processes such as mutation, selection, etc… a goal or helping hand is not visible. Quantitatively, it works according to chance and other random factors.

Creation is NOT an artifact or a machine, though. I fully believe in a God created and sustained reality, everything held towards its end by an intelligence.

But I don’t subscribe to “Intelligent Design theory” and the specific conception of reality as a designed artifact that comes with it.

 

[buffalo]

I am a firm believer in God’s plan for every aspect of creation, of natural teleology, of final causation.

But from a quantative standpoint, all that can be empirically observed about quantative processes such as mutation, selection, etc… a goal or helping hand is not visible. Quantitatively, it works according to chance and other random factors.

Creation is NOT an artifact or a machine, though. I fully believe in a God created and sustained reality, everything held towards its end by an intelligence.

But I don’t subscribe to “Intelligent Design theory” and the specific conception of reality as a designed artifact that comes with it.

What is your main objection to ID?

Is God an Intelligent Creator?

 

[Wesrock]

Just jumping in and basically echoing Buffalo’s comments …

I think you’d need to explain that better.

First - you created something. You can’t have “true randomness” where parameters are designed. Secondly, you cannot have “perfect knowledge” of “true randomness”. It’s a contradiction of terms. If you have perfect knowledge, then the randomness is predictable. There’s no need for a random generator if you already know the outcome of each of the generations. You basically just generate the one thing you want – which is the same as the act of creation.
Thirdly, if you have the power to create something that is infinite, then you transcend time. With that, you don’t wait around for a random generator to produce something. You already exist in the supposed future state where the generator came up with whatever you wanted.

An infinite being doesn’t wait around until the dice comes up with 7 snake-eyes in a row.

God is not bound by physical and temporal processes like a universe generator. God is not contingent on or in need of any kind of generator at all - the act of creating a universe generator (out of nothing) just puts this entire scenario to rest.

If you can create a generator that creates random universes - why not just create this universe ex nihilo?

If God was surprised by what randomness created (as people like biologist Kenneth R. Miller have claimed), is God bound by time and does not have knowledge of the future state of things? Is God waiting to find out when Jesus will return to earth? Can we contradict Jesus’ words that “the Father knows the time” of the end of the world and still retain orthodox Catholic belief?

You’re taking my analogy far too literally and comprehensively and speaking to me on things I know all too well. In the case of God, He doesn’t need to first simulate anything. He simply knows each case. You can certainly have randomness within established parameters, and in the case of a human, having full knowledge of a simulation after the fact doesn’t negate that in the during things were random. And certainly in the case of God, in His eternity it’s somewhat silly to speak of before and after. If God can create men with free will and fully know our actions in His eternity, He can create a reality of substances that He wills to behave according to their nature while allowing for what will quantatively present as undirected and random.

 

[Wesrock]

What is your main objection to ID?

Is God an Intelligent Creator?

God is an intelligent creator. But that’s not ID. ID, as it is presented and argued, treats all of creation as artifacts. That is, as having their meaning and information imposed on them externally, as a man crafts a chair or a boat, rather than substances having their meaning inhere in them instrinsically. It is mechanistic. To quote Professor Ed Feser:

…the way God creates a natural substance is not to be understood on the model of a shipbuilder or sculptor who takes pre-existing bits of matter and rearranges them to serve an end they have no tendency otherwise to serve. Nor is the point affected in the least if we imagine that when the pre-existing bits of matter are created this external order is imposed immediately; temporal considerations are irrelevant. For A-T, a natural substance is a composite of “prime matter” (matter having no form at all) and substantial form, rather than a piece of “second matter” (matter already having some substantial form or other) which has acquired some accidental form from outside it. And a natural substance’s causal tendencies, including biological functions in the case of living things, are inherent to it, a reflection of its essence or nature; it simply could not possibly exist as the kind of thing it is in the first place if it did not have those tendencies, and thus it would have them even if (per impossibile) it had not been created by God. The way God creates living things, then, is the same way He creates everything else, viz. by conjoining an essence to an act of existence, which in the case of material things (including plants and animals) entails conjoining a certain kind of prime matter/substantial form composite to an act of existence.

Or, in short, intelligent design isn’t just shorthand for “I believe God created and designed all things.” It is a specific theory with a mechanistic conception of nature. Even the idea of “fine tuning” makes reality sound like a machine on God’s shelf.

 

[buffalo]

God is an intelligent creator. But that’s not ID. ID, as it is presented and argued, treats all of creation as artifacts. That is, as having their meaning and information imposed on them externally, as a man crafts a chair or a boat, rather than substances having their meaning inhere in them instrinsically. It is mechanistic. To quote Professor Ed Feser:
…the way God creates a natural substance is not to be understood on the model of a shipbuilder or sculptor who takes pre-existing bits of matter and rearranges them to serve an end they have no tendency otherwise to serve. Nor is the point affected in the least if we imagine that when the pre-existing bits of matter are created this external order is imposed immediately; temporal considerations are irrelevant. For A-T, a natural substance is a composite of “prime matter” (matter having no form at all) and substantial form, rather than a piece of “second matter” (matter already having some substantial form or other) which has acquired some accidental form from outside it. And a natural substance’s causal tendencies, including biological functions in the case of living things, are inherent to it, a reflection of its essence or nature; it simply could not possibly exist as the kind of thing it is in the first place if it did not have those tendencies, and thus it would have them even if (per impossibile) it had not been created by God. The way God creates living things, then, is the same way He creates everything else, viz. by conjoining an essence to an act of existence, which in the case of material things (including plants and animals) entails conjoining a certain kind of prime matter/substantial form composite to an act of existence.Or, in short, intelligent design isn’t just shorthand for “I believe God created and designed all things.” It is a specific theory with a mechanistic conception of nature. Even the idea of “fine tuning” makes reality sound like a machine on God’s shelf.

ID, the science:

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.

---

What do you think of this?

ID, the philosophy -
** What is IDvolution? **

**IDvolution **- God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the “kinds” in the creative act.

This accounts for the diversity of life we see. The core makeup shared by all living things have the necessary complex information built in that facilitates rapid and responsive adaptation of features and variation while being able to preserve the “kind” that they began as. Life has been created with the creativity built in ready to respond to triggering events.
Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth have the same core, it is virtually certain that living organisms have been thought of AT ONCE by the One and the same Creator endowed with the super language we know as DNA that switched on the formation of the various kinds, the cattle, the swimming creatures, the flying creatures, etc… in a pristine harmonious state and superb adaptability and responsiveness to their environment for the purpose of populating the earth that became subject to the ravages of corruption by the sin of one man (deleterious mutations).
IDvolution considers the latest science and is consistent with the continuous teaching of the Church.

 

[reggieM]

You’re taking my analogy far too literally and comprehensively and speaking to me on things I know all too well.

It’s good you know them. I think your challenge is to explain them in a way that others can make sense of what you know is right in your own mind.

In the case of God, He doesn’t need to first simulate anything.

He also doesn’t need a universe generator. If he can create one of those, he can create our universe.

He simply knows each case.

Again, you’re not clear here. “He knows each case” - perhaps it would be best if you explained what you think God does not know in this instance. There can be nothing random (unpredictable with regards to future outputs) in the sight of God.

You can certainly have randomness within established parameters, and in the case of a human, having full knowledge of a simulation after the fact doesn’t negate that in the during things were random.

Yes, in the case of humans because we are bound by time and we suffer from quite a lot of ignorance. But we are talking about God here.

If God can create men with free will and fully know our actions in His eternity, He can create a reality of substances that He wills to behave according to their nature while allowing for what will quantatively present as undirected and random.

I would not call that a clear sentence.

If you’re saying that God can create things that seem to us to be undirected and random, then yes - of course.

But then again, from a human perspective, we observe what we consider random and undirected, and consistently observe certain outputs from such processes.

What we don’t find emerging from random and undirected things are conscious beings with infinite capacity for knowledge and love of God exhibiting the highest levels of that which we consider to be Designed.

So, starting from that - we observe those beings that exhibit the highest levels of that we consider to be Designed and rightly conclude that they could not have been the result of that which is random and undirected.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Well, let’s be careful here. God is not a clockmaker. It’s not only a choice between (a) God creating the perfect clock from the beginning and then stepping back and (b) God creating a clock, stepping back, then tweaking it, stepping back, then tweaking it again, then stepping back.

Both reek of deism to me. Creation is not an artifiact in that way. God is the creator eternally: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He never steps back. But neither does it mean He’s constantly tweaking with things behaving according to the nature He provides them.

I think we probably agree. Again, it’s a matter of definition. In this case, ‘step back.’ Certainly in one sense–probably what you mean, and in a sense I can agree with–God is always present, and in some way (which we don’t understand) keeps the universe going. So if you wanted to call that ‘continuous creation’ that’s fine.

However, occasionalism in its extreme form (as seen in Islam, for example) eliminates causality because God is constantly re-creating the universe. In the classical example, if I shoot an arrow and it hits my target, it has nothing to do with my aim or what I did or did not do. God simply re-created the universe in such a way my arrow hit the target. You can see this in interviews with suicide bombers whose bomb malfunctioned or who got cold feet. When interviewed they say “I have nothing to do with the bomb killing people. God kills those whom he wants. I just push the button…” Crazy talk in my opinion.

 

[Wesrock]

He also doesn’t need a universe generator. If he can create one of those, he can create our universe.

Of course He doesn’t need a universe generator. It’s an analogy.

Again, you’re not clear here. “He knows each case” - perhaps it would be best if you explained what you think God does not know in this instance. There can be nothing random (unpredictable with regards to future outputs) in the sight of God.

It’s a Molinist example. God knows how each person would out of free will respond in any given situation, and then God sets the situation. Ergo free will and predetermination in one. Only the idea of God quickly rearranging pieces as He goes is rather silly. God knows all at once. He acts all at once. God knows every possible world, but creates one with full knowledge of all of it, not just parts. Of course a Thomist’s take on the matter may be different, but my point wasn’t to advocate for Molinism, only to ask whether buffalo would consider such a situation to be “guided.”

The definition of random is: “proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern:”

Such things may be unpredictable for us, but I would not consider it inherently unpredictable for God. And again, I find the analogy of a man looking back over a series of random events to be apt, his knowledge not changing the fact that it was random. Now, God neither looks ahead nor back in that way, true, but that God conceive two universes in which a process He designs to proceed without definite aim (within the designed established parameters) produces result A in one and result B in the other, and in His knowledge creates A instead of B. That does not change the fact that the process as designed proceeded without definite aim within the established parameters. (I could set the parameters of a random number generator to give me whole integers between 1 and 10. That certain numbers are not within the parameters does not change the fact that integers between 1 and 10 proceed to be generated without definite aim.)

Yes, in the case of humans because we are bound by time and we suffer from quite a lot of ignorance. But we are talking about God here.

Exactly my point.

 

[reggieM]

a process He designs to proceed without definite aim.

This is a contradiction in terms. The act of design requires a definite aim. It’s what we mean by saying “it was done by design”. The term design means purpose. To intend to do something and at the same time to do something without intent is a contradiction that God cannot resolve since it would go against His nature in Truth.

Because God is reality, His nature is equivalent with Truth and fullness of Being.

With that, it is impossible for God to do anything without a purpose.

 

[Wesrock]

This is a contradiction in terms. The act of design requires a definite aim. It’s what we mean by saying “it was done by design”. The term design means purpose. To intend to do something and at the same time to do something without intent is a contradiction that God cannot resolve since it would go against His nature in Truth.

Because God is reality, His nature is equivalent with Truth and fullness of Being.

With that, it is impossible for God to do anything without a purpose.

I never said God acted without purpose. That a process is designed to proceed without definite aim does not mean the designer made the process as a whole without definite aim. A man might make a die roll generator. That the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 proceed without definite aim does not mean the system is without purpose.

 

[Wesrock]

I never said God acted without purpose. That a process is designed to proceed without definite aim does not mean the designer made the process as a whole without definite aim. A man might make a die roll generator. That the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 proceed without definite aim does not mean the system is without purpose.

To continue the analogy. God knows that in possible world A the numbers 2, 6, 3 is generated, and in possible world B that 1, 5, 2 is generated. That God elects to actualize world B does not change the nature of the process.

Or to be more Molinist, God knows that if A, you’ll do X, and if B, you’ll do Y. He knows this even though you have free will (though not the same as proceeding without order, but in either case the being is operating according to its nature), and God in His providence chooses B.

We get off topic, though. My point is that evolution may have a teleological purpose, though its natural purpose might not be to “create man” and by nature the process may proceed according to random/probabilistic principles within specific parameters, though it certainly was God’s intent that man should arise from it. My ends as a human being (according to my nature) might not be to type this specific post, yet we know it is God’s will that I have done so (not to claim divine inspiration, only that God has known from all eternity that I would do so and created such a universe). Or it might not be essential to man’s nature to have done Y, but certainly God intended that Y be brought about by man.

 

[reggieM]

That the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 proceed without definite aim does not mean the system is without purpose.

When we say that the numbers do not have a definite aim, we are talking about our knowledge.

God cannot create a die-roll machine and at the same time, not know the exact, definite output and sequence of every number before he created the machine. The aim of the die-roll machine will be exactly what God created it to be – it necessarily must act with a definite aim. Sure, it looks to us like it is random - because we are ignorant. But God knows how every molecule in the universe is acting and has acted and will act. God knows the exact movement of everything - every physical force. Nothing is a surprise to him. In Justice and Love, He actually sustains every molecule and balances and directs them all.

To act in any way that lacks purpose is to act in ignorance. God cannot do that.

Why do you think it is “silly” to believe that God is active in the universe and in the lives of all of his people in the present moment? That He responds to us with love?

 

[buffalo]

My point is that evolution may have a teleological purpose, .

Then it cannot be blind, unguided or chance by definition.

 

[reggieM]

Jumping back up the thread a bit, Wesrock, just for clarification …

I am a firm believer in God’s plan for every aspect of creation, of natural teleology, of final causation.

… But I don’t subscribe to “Intelligent Design theory” and the specific conception of reality as a designed artifact that comes with it.

Skipping the part that “reality is a designed artifact” which I don’t believe ID theory states, there does seem to be a contradiction in your views here.

Regarding Natural Teleology:

From Wikipedia - The teleological or physico-theological argument, also known as the argument from design, or intelligent design argument is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, for an intelligent creator “based on perceived evidence of deliberate design in the natural or physical world”.

We observe evidence of design and conclude there is a Designer. That’s the classic telelogical argument that (in spite of what modern-day Thomists claim) that St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine and every doctor and father of the Church believed as well.

That’s basically all that ID theory is - as applied to various aspects of the universe (Fine Tuning of the cosmos, irreducible complexity in the cell, the human mind, etc).

 

[grannymh]

I ran into you on another thread about climate change, but let me respond here to you about evolution.

I’ve given my opinion many times in many different threads, but here goes again:

It’s a matter of definition. “Chance,” “random,” “unguided,” etc.

It is the matter of definition which applies both to this thread and to the article.
catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-you-absolutely-need-to-understand-about-evolution

One thing about natural science is that definitions are very important. The Homo lineage from the homo/pan divergence is now defined as “hominin.” australianmuseum.net.au/hominid-and-hominin-whats-the-difference

Personally, I love to look at the various steps to the modern human anatomy and thus our own human species. Research papers assume that each step is a large sturdy population which has evolved from a previous large sturdy indiscriminate random breeding humanizing population. The newly evolved large population is also a sturdy indiscriminate random breeding humanizing population because that is the way evolution works. The large population is so integral to evolution, it is usually assumed.

In the Stacy Trasancos article, she writes:
“I think of evolution as fundamentally nothing more than atoms and molecules, organized into physical systems, doing their thing.”
We could get technical and consider physical systems as a large population. However, the human species is a lot more than atoms and molecules according to the Catholic Church. Basically, the article does not recognize the population of two taught by the Catholic Church.

I will take a brake here because there may be comments and questions.

 

[reggieM]

As argued elsewhere on CAF …

It’s either Chance (blind, unguided) or Design (purposeful).

There’s no third option.

Some may say “non-random physical laws” but those are another form of “Non-Design” and are also blind and unguided with regards to purpose (they are non-teleological).

 

[Wesrock]

When we say that the numbers do not have a definite aim, we are talking about our knowledge.

God cannot create a die-roll machine and at the same time, not know the exact, definite output and sequence of every number before he created the machine. The aim of the die-roll machine will be exactly what God created it to be – it necessarily must act with a definite aim. Sure, it looks to us like it is random - because we are ignorant. But God knows how every molecule in the universe is acting and has acted and will act. God knows the exact movement of everything - every physical force. Nothing is a surprise to him. In Justice and Love, He actually sustains every molecule and balances and directs them all.

To act in any way that lacks purpose is to act in ignorance. God cannot do that.

I am not talking about God being surprised or blind-sided, but the information and meaning of a substance is intrinsic to a substance, not externally imposed upon it. It might be in the nature of a substance itself to “act” in a probabilistic, random way (radioactive decay). That does not exclude God having knowledge of the results, and of certain results being intended oberall even though it is not in the nature of a thing to produce those results specifically.

Why do you think it is “silly” to believe that God is active in the universe and in the lives of all of his people in the present moment? That He responds to us with love?

I don’t think it’s silly that God is active in reality or in our lives. I’m calling it silly to consider Him as existing temporally. God is the continuous creator of all things. But He doesn’t proceed from one moment to the next like we do. He doesn’t create a machine, walk away, then come back and tinker with it. He’s always there sustaining the natural order.

 

[Wesrock]

It is not instrinsic to the nature of DNA reproduction/selection to create man or any other specific creature, but that is an extrinsic purpose that God used it for. Science is an inbestivation into the intrinsic nature of a thing.

 

[goout]

Then it cannot be blind, unguided or chance by definition.

I wonder in this scheme of things, where is the room for mystery? If you don’t leave room for mystery in regard to God, you have built yourself an idol. (paraphrasing Augustine, I think).

What might seem to be random might be part of a plan you cannot discern. To remove mystery from man’s perception of the universe is to veer off into idolatry. Oddly enough, it’s the same mindset as scientism.

 

[goout]

I don’t think it’s silly that God is active in reality or in our lives. I’m calling it silly to consider Him as existing temporally. God is the continuous creator of all things. But He doesn’t proceed from one moment to the next like we do. He doesn’t create a machine, walk away, then come back and tinker with it. He’s always there sustaining the natural order.

This is just so crucial.
The purpose of science is not to constrain God to our understanding, it is for human beings to progress in understanding of God’s creation.

For God, creation is not an “if…then” statement, it is one eternal act of love.
(eternal is not an unending progression of time, it means outside of time)