Magisterium concerning Creation/evolution controversy

[ribozyme]

Alec, I thank you for your thoughtful response.

Do you think inflation happened, or you do not know? Inflation solves all of the major problems with the Big Bang, and as you stated the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation supports it.

Yes, inflation is not dogma, but a scientific hypothesis. Also evolution is too. Do you believe in evolution? As you pointed out that is a bad question to ask. I, too, do not believe in evolution. A better question would be “Do you think the evolution happened based on your evaluation of the evidence?” I ask that question to you, and the same question with “cosmic inflation” replacing “evolution”. Let’s just use the words “think” and “believe” interchangably in this case.

Regarding the objection that the multiverse is speculative. My argument against this is the fact that inflation is on a firm foundation. I doubt it will be displaced it a better hypothesis, and some hypotheses that compete with inflation are not compatible with a belief in a God who created the universe (e.g. cyclic model).

Ok, it seems to me that the father of inflation has convinced most cosmologists that inflation is eternal. I do not accept your assertion that Guth’s conclusion about future-eternal inflation are not well accepted. I expect you to provide a resource from a physicist who openly questions Guth’s arguments for future-eternal inflation. All I have now is your claim here. I read on wikipedia that “hybrid inflation” does not imply eternal inflation (supported with a reference to a Linde paper), but I think it is* ad hoc* to invoke additional scalar fields in addition to the inflation field. Show us how the simplest models of inflation do not imply eternal inflation, contrary to Guth, from respectable sources, not your assertion here.

Right now my thoughts are:

If inflation then eternal inflation.

Show me how inflation does not imply eternal inflation. Yes, I know the multiverse can never be observed, and I even acknowledge it in this thread. My argument is that inflation is indirect evidence for it.

I argue that one eternal inflation destroys the tradition concept of a God that cares for us… My argument that one cannot accept God and science is contingent on eternal inflation. You acknowleged that inflation is a strong scientific hypothesis. In you own words, “extremely likely”. If show that inflation does not imply eternal inflation, then I will retract this claim: " I think you presenting a falsehood; science is compatible with the Catholic faith. "

 

[ribozyme]

Alec, I thank you for your thoughtful response.

Do you think inflation happened, or you do not know? Inflation solves all of the major problems with the Big Bang, and as you stated the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation supports it.

Yes, inflation is not dogma, but a scientific hypothesis. Also evolution is too. Do you believe in evolution? As you pointed out that is a bad question to ask. I, too, do not believe in evolution. A better question would be “Do you think the evolution happened based on your evaluation of the evidence?” I ask that question to you, and the same question with “cosmic inflation” replacing “evolution”. Let’s just use the words “think” and “believe” interchangably in this case.

Regarding the objection that the multiverse is speculative. My argument against this is the fact that inflation is on a firm foundation. I doubt it will be displaced it a better hypothesis, and some hypotheses that compete with inflation are not compatible with a belief in a God who created the universe (e.g. cyclic model).

Ok, it seems to me that the father of inflation has convinced most cosmologists that inflation is eternal. I do not accept your assertion that Guth’s conclusions about future-eternal inflation are not well accepted. I expect you to provide resources from physicists who openly questions Guth’s arguments for future-eternal inflation. All I have now is your claim here. I read on wikipedia that “hybrid inflation” does not imply eternal inflation (supported with a reference to a Linde paper), but I think it is* ad hoc* to invoke additional scalar fields in addition to the inflaton field. Show us how the simplest models of inflation do not imply future-eternal inflation, contrary to Guth and other cosmologists who made major contributions to inflationary cosmology, from respectable sources, not your assertion here.

Right now my thoughts are:

If inflation then eternal inflation.

Show me how inflation does not imply eternal inflation. Yes, I know the multiverse can never be observed, and I even acknowledged it in this thread (with the statement: “Why would God create multiverses cannot that cannot be observed and appreciated by his creation? It seems superfluous for an anthropic universe.”). My argument is that inflation is indirect evidence for the multiverse.

I argue that one eternal inflation destroys the traditional concept of a God that cares for us… My argument that one cannot accept God and science is contingent on eternal inflation. You acknowleged that inflation is a strong scientific hypothesis. In you own words, “extremely likely”. If show that inflation does not imply eternal inflation, then I will retract this claim: " I think you presenting a falsehood; science is compatible with the Catholic faith. " My other argument is the incompatiblity of evolution with Catholicism, but my arguments are not fully articulated. But I will retract if you show some flaws with Linde, Guth, and Vilenkin’s reasoning, even if you did not address my (What’s to address? It is not posted here.) argument using evolution.

You choose the first option, but you did not cast serious doubt on eternal inflation.

 

[ribozyme]

Alec, I thank you for your thoughtful response.

Do you think inflation happened, or you do not know? Inflation solves all of the major problems with the Big Bang, and as you stated the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation supports it.

Yes, inflation is not dogma, but a scientific hypothesis. Also evolution is too. Do you believe in evolution? As you pointed out that is a bad question to ask. I, too, do not believe in evolution. A better question would be “Do you think the evolution happened based on your evaluation of the evidence?” I ask that question to you, and the same question with “cosmic inflation” replacing “evolution”. Let’s just use the words “think” and “believe” interchangably in this case.

Regarding the objection that the multiverse is speculative. My argument against this is the fact that inflation is on a firm foundation. I doubt it will be displaced it a better hypothesis, and some hypotheses that compete with inflation are not compatible with a belief in a God who created the universe (e.g. cyclic model).

Ok, it seems to me that the father of inflation has convinced most cosmologists that inflation is eternal. I do not accept your assertion that Guth’s conclusions about future-eternal inflation are not well accepted. I expect you to provide resources from physicists who openly questions Guth’s arguments for future-eternal inflation. All I have now is your claim here. I read on wikipedia that “hybrid inflation” does not imply eternal inflation (supported with a reference to a Linde paper), but I think it is* ad hoc* to invoke additional scalar fields in addition to the inflaton field. Show us how the simplest models of inflation do not imply future-eternal inflation, contrary to Guth and other cosmologists who made major contributions to inflationary cosmology, from respectable sources, not your assertion here.

Right now my thoughts are:

If inflation then eternal inflation.

Show me how inflation does not imply eternal inflation. Yes, I know the multiverse can never be observed, and I even acknowledged it in this thread (with the statement: “Why would God create multiverses cannot that cannot be observed and appreciated by his creation? It seems superfluous for an anthropic universe.”). My argument is that inflation is indirect evidence for the multiverse.

I argue that one eternal inflation destroys the traditional idea of a God that cares for us… My argument that one cannot accept God and science is contingent on eternal inflation. You acknowleged that inflation is a strong scientific hypothesis. In you own words, “extremely likely”. If show that inflation does not imply eternal inflation, then I will retract this claim: " I think you presenting a falsehood; science is compatible with the Catholic faith. " My other argument is the incompatiblity of evolution with Catholicism, but my arguments are not fully articulated. But I will retract if you show some flaws with Linde, Guth, and Vilenkin’s reasoning, even if you did not address my (What’s to address? It is not posted here.) argument using evolution.

You choose the first option, but you did not cast serious doubt on eternal inflation.

 

[PhilVaz]

Hecd (Alec) << That is amazingly silly. Uttely terminally silly! Sillier than a sack of monkeys. Sillier than an extremely silly thing drenched in hair mousse. You don’t actually know anyone who thinks things happened that way, do you? Do you? I don’t. >>



Ministry of Silly Walks by John Cleese AND Theory about Dinosaurs by Anne Elk

Phil P

 

[steveandersen]

… act as a warning to those precious, but wayward, souls who claim to be Roman Catholic but act as though they are infidel:…

PoG,

Your attempts to question the faith of fellow Catholics over a matter of mere scientific inquiry is most disturbing. Invoking St Peter to do so is just plain wrong.

Who are you and what gives you this right?

I may have a faulty moral compass, a conscious that leaks like a sieve, an inflated ego, and a list of sins so long the pen ran out of ink before I finished writing it…BUT calling fellow Catholics infidels over something this trivial is beyond me.

I think we’ve all tried to be civil & charitable here but you just crossed the line.

 

[hecd2]

I argue that one eternal inflation destroys the tradition concept of a God that cares for us… My argument that one cannot accept God and science is contingent on eternal inflation. You acknowleged that inflation is a strong scientific hypothesis. In you own words, “extremely likely”. If show that inflation does not imply eternal inflation, then I will retract this claim: " I think you presenting a falsehood; science is compatible with the Catholic faith. " … But I will retract if you show some flaws with Linde, Guth, and Vilenkin’s reasoning…

I really have very little to add to my post #298 where I point out the folly of using a scientific hypothesis to prove the non-existence of God. Now, I am as strong a reductionist as the next man, and I think that many things (human cognition, morality, appreciation of beauty, apparent design in biology etc) that are presented as putative proof of a spiritual realm and an eternal human soul and so on are perfectly well explained by good natural science. But I also think that we are not warranted in taking the corollary and declaiming, in absolute terms, that therefore everything that is, must be explicable by natural science.

Frankly, I don’t care whether you think that I am presenting a falsehood or not by holding that science and religion are compatible - you can leave or retract your accusation - it’s all one to me.

As for eternal inflation representing that elusive proof against God’s existence, I think you give it a burden far heavier than it can bear. I say this for several reasons:

1. 
   *]Although, on balance, I think the evidence for inflation having occurred within the observable universe is strong, and, as you say, it solves some problems of standard Big Bang cosmology, it is nowhere near being an undisputed fact, and it leaves as many knotty problems as it solves, including the astonishingly low entropy in the Big Bang. Who says so? Well, amongst others, Roger Penrose does in his monumental ‘The Road to Reality’.
   *]If we can’t get our physics untangled enough to explain the 120 orders of magnitude discrepancy in the current vacuum energy, how can we rely on a theory that posits an unobservable change of state in a scalar field unrelated to any other physical field that we know in the universe?
   *]You say that any inflation infers eternal inflation - well, Andrei Linde says that, but again there are respectable voices of dissent. Stephen Hawking for example points out that eternal inflation is not gauge invariant (ie the high energy regionds do not necessarily predominate over time); it is not consistent (as the basic equation describes an intgral of motion that cannot fluctuate because of energy conservation) and it is not covariant because it dimensionally splits as 3+1 and eternal inflation would occur in a deSitter space which cannot be supported beyond the Planck scale (astro-ph/0305562)
   *]Eternal inflation is future-eternal. It probably does not on its own support a past-eternal universe. Who says this - well Guth himself does (astro-ph/0101507). So we are still left with the problem of an original cause.
   But from a philosophical point of view we haven’t touched the question of why anything is. Eternal inflation does not give us an unassailable necessary reason for anything to exist, so, it gets us no closer to disproving God’s existence. I think that a personal God is unlikely for many reasons (as do you), but this is no proof of that. With or without a Judaeo-Christian God, our personal existence is fantastically improbable.
   
   I’ll leave you with Thomas Traherne’s beautiful allegory of an infant on the day of her birth, wondering at her existence :
   ‘These little Limbs,
   These Eys and Hands which here I find,
   This panting Heart wherewith my Life begins;
   Where have ye been? Behind
   What curtain were ye from me hid so long!
   Where was, in what Abyss, my new-made Tongue?
   …
   A Stranger here
   Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see,
   Strange Treasures lodg’d in this fair World appear,
   Strange all and New to me:
   But that they mine should be who Nothing was,
   That Strangest is all; yet brought to pass.’
   
   We should endeavour not to lose our wonder, don’t you think?
   
   Alec
   evolutionpages.com

 

[ribozyme]

Frankly, I don’t care whether you think that I am presenting a falsehood or not by holding that science and religion are compatible - you can leave or retract your accusation - it’s all one to me.

Fine, I’ll retract… I still think you are, but I thought you are doing that intentionally, which you are not. For that I will apologize.

As for eternal inflation representing that elusive proof against God’s existence, I think you give it a burden far heavier than it can bear. I say this for several reasons:

1. 
   *]Although, on balance, I think the evidence for inflation having occurred within the observable universe is strong, and, as you say, it solves some problems of standard Big Bang cosmology, it is nowhere near being an undisputed fact, and it leaves as many knotty problems as it solves, including the astonishingly low entropy in the Big Bang. Who says so? Well, amongst others, Roger Penrose does in his monumental ‘The Road to Reality’.
   *]If we can’t get our physics untangled enough to explain the 120 orders of magnitude discrepancy in the current vacuum energy, how can we rely on a theory that posits an unobservable change of state in a scalar field unrelated to any other physical field that we know in the universe?
   *]You say that any inflation infers eternal inflation - well, Andrei Linde says that, but again there are respectable voices of dissent. Stephen Hawking for example points out that eternal inflation is not gauge invariant (ie the high energy regionds do not necessarily predominate over time); it is not consistent (as the basic equation describes an intgral of motion that cannot fluctuate because of energy conservation) and it is not covariant because it dimensionally splits as 3+1 and eternal inflation would occur in a deSitter space which cannot be supported beyond the Planck scale (astro-ph/0305562)
   *]Eternal inflation is future-eternal. It probably does not on its own support a past-eternal universe. Who says this - well Guth himself does (astro-ph/0101507). So we are still left with the problem of an original cause.
   But from a philosophical point of view we haven’t touched the question of why anything is. Eternal inflation does not give us an unassailable necessary reason for anything to exist, so, it gets us no closer to disproving God’s existence. I think that a personal God is unlikely for many reasons (as do you), but this is no proof of that. With or without a Judaeo-Christian God, our personal existence is fantastically improbable.

1. 
   I would agree that our own existence is fantastically improbable, I have no doubt about that.
   
   Regarding your remark about Guth and future-eternal inflation, I already pointed that out. In my view eternal inflation makes everything a necessity; what can happen will happen an infinite number of times. It can be invoked to explain the origin of life, but I will hesitate until chemists have failed unequivocally in this area.
   
   The entropy argument was not originally from Penrose, but from Don Page. Also, Guth and Linde do not mention this at all in their work (I have not seen it at least). Cyclic model is also compatible with the WMAP results, but that’s not amiable to Catholicism either.
   
   I wondered why the profound ideas of mainstream cosmologists have not been addressed by religious apologists, particularly those who favor the fine-tuning argument, and more importantly, other cosmologists. I had some skepticism of eternal inflation myself, but I wanted to hear other views, but no one provided me any resources though.
   
   Do you have any resources on cosmology for one is interested in biochemistry? I still do not understand what “deSitter space” is? Something that reads like a textbook. I do not know exactly why physics is hard to master compared to molecular biology and biochemistry, which are relatively easy, but takes lot of time and reading to do. Also one needs to keep up with the current literature. Is The Road to Reality a good start? It is about the size of a textbook.

 

[hecd2]

The entropy argument was not originally from Penrose, but from Don Page. Also, Guth and Linde do not mention this at all in their work (I have not seen it at least).

No, but it is a problem that, along with all the other physics conundrums, cries out for an explanation that is not forthcoming. The extraordinary and hugely unlikely low entropy at Big Bang is possibly the most powerful fine tuning argument of all.

Cyclic model is also compatible with the WMAP results, but that’s not amiable to Catholicism either

The cyclic model works up to a point but has a couple of rather fundamental problems - first of all, the bounce requires completely unknown physics and, second, we have to get magically from a high entropy to a low entropy state and get information back out of singularities. In any case, it seems now that the cosmological constant in the form of dark energy disallows the cyclic model.

Do you have any resources on cosmology for one is interested in biochemistry? I still do not understand what “deSitter space” is? Something that reads like a textbook. I do not know exactly why physics is hard to master compared to molecular biology and biochemistry, which are relatively easy, but takes lot of time and reading to do. Also one needs to keep up with the current literature. Is The Road to Reality a good start? It is about the size of a textbook.

It’s the maths. I don’t think you want to start with the Road to Reality. Penrose seems unable to pitch his arguments at either a consistently high or elementary level. On the same page you get one passage that you might find in the science and technology section of your local newpaper, and another passage, replete with maths, that you can only understand with a grounding in tensor analysis and GR. To be fair to him, he does lay the groundwork in early chapters, but you need to have some skill in maths to follow him - you need at least an understanding of vector analysis - if you can’t understand Maxwell’s equations, forget it.

I suggest you start with something like Brian Greene’s ‘The Fabric of the Cosmos’, or even Brian May’s ‘Bang’ (May is the famous Queen guitarist, but he is also a physics graduate who almost got a PhD from Imperial College in astrophysics and has been fascinated by the subject ever since), but perhaps May’s book is too elementary for you - it is, at least, beautifully illustrated.

De Sitter space is the maximum symmetry solution to the Einstein field equations in n dimensions with positive cosmological constant and no ordinary matter. Where n=4, De Sitter space is a model of our early inflationary universe dominated by a cosmological constant, and is a subset of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric which describes the universe with matter excluding primodial anistropies.

But I’m just repeating what you can find in a text book. If you’re interested in this stuff, you’ll have to do the hard work of picking it up from the ground up and you’ll have to learn the maths.

Enjoy.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[ribozyme]

Well, it does not seem I could easily acquire comprehension of inflationary cosmology.

All I could say is that inflation states the universe expanded in size when it was 10e-35 seconds old and this solves many problems in big bang cosmology. The energy field was a scalar field, and scalar fields are what is alleged to cause electroweak symmetry breaking. The scalar field rolls down the potential and that causes inflation. It then reheats the universe yielding hot matter. According to Guth, Linde, and Vilenkin, the field can go back up in potential and create baby universes, making inflation future-eternal. According to Guth, Borde, and Vilenkin, inflation cannot be past-eternal.

Yes, a superficial understanding of inflation… are you impressed? No!

I think cyclic model proponents can respond by saying “quintessence” to the issue regarding the cosmological constant.

Regarding entropy, yes it is precisely what give the universe an arrow of time.

 

[hecd2]

Regarding entropy, yes it is precisely what give the universe an arrow of time.

Hmm - are you aware of the University of Hawaii physicist and philosopher Vic Stenger? Although many physicists pay lip service to time symmetric physics (no distinction between future and past), Stenger does his physics in formally symmetric time in the quantum domain and in doing so unravels many quantum mechanics weirdnesses. See his ‘View from Nowhen’. He is a very rare beast, a professional scientist and a professional philosopher. He is also an atheist, like you, who thinks that science is evidence against theism. In his case he holds that the universe is just as it would be if no deity existed: his book is to be published in 2007: ‘God; The Failed Hypothesis’

Saying ’ Regarding entropy, yes it is precisely what give the universe an arrow of time’ is to utter words that give little or no insight into the reality of the cosmos for those who have no idea what entropy actually is. Very few people do. It’s a glib answer to a question that has no answer - why physics in the equations appears time symmetric just as it is space symmetric, but the reality is clearly not time symmetric - broken eggs do not reform spontaneously

Alec
evolutionpages.com.

 

[ribozyme]

Hmm - are you aware of the University of Hawaii physicist and philosopher Vic Stenger? Although many physicists pay lip service to time symmetric physics (no distinction between future and past), Stenger does his physics in formally symmetric time in the quantum domain and in doing so unravels many quantum mechanics weirdnesses. See his ‘View from Nowhen’. He is a very rare beast, a professional scientist and a professional philosopher. He is also an atheist, like you, who thinks that science is evidence against theism. In his case he holds that the universe is just as it would be if no deity existed: his book is to be published in 2007: ‘God; The Failed Hypothesis’

Saying ’ Regarding entropy, yes it is precisely what give the universe an arrow of time’ is to utter words that give little or no insight into the reality of the cosmos for those who have no idea what entropy actually is. Very few people do. It’s a glib answer to a question that has no answer - why physics in the equations appears time symmetric just as it is space symmetric, but the reality is clearly not time symmetric - broken eggs do not reform spontaneously

Alec
evolutionpages.com.

Well, I too have no idea what entropy is. I only read about it in a high-school-college level general chemistry textbook, and it did an excellent job covering thermodynamics, free energy, etc. Of course, thermodynamics is a complex topic that needs to be covered in more than one chapter in a chem textbook.

Well, I do not think it takes a lot of comprehension in thermodynamics to understand the arrow of time. It is simply a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. I meant to say that the low entropy conditions of the universe makes it possible to distinguish from past and future

You might want to read Sean Carroll’s proposal for the arrow of time for your knowledge. It also uses eternal inflation.

 

[ribozyme]

I forgot to add, I do not consider myself an atheist anymore. I think if Andrei Linde is correct, it will be a huge boon for atheism, and the final nail in the coffin for Christianity. I could also say the same about Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok’s ideas. I am an agnostic about the involvement of God in the origin of our universe, but I am an atheist regarding the involvement of God in our universe.

 

[buffalo]

I forgot to add, I do not consider myself an atheist anymore. I think if Andrei Linde is correct, it will be a huge boon for atheism, and the final nail in the coffin for Christianity. I could also say the same about Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok’s ideas. I am an agnostic about the involvement of God in the origin of our universe, but I am an atheist regarding the involvement of God in our universe.

You are now a hybrid?

 

[wildleafblower]

Ribozyme msg. 283: Alec, from reading this thread, I think you presenting a falsehood; science is compatible with the Catholic faith.

Wildleafblower: If you notice after Alec’s signature he usually presents his website www.evolutionpages.com. I don’t think you’ve read Alec’s article supporting the viewpoint that science isn’t compatible with Catholic faith.
evolutionpages.com/Schoenborn_critique.htm

Ribozyme msg. 286: [In response to DustinsDad’s quote mine which was directed to Wildleafblower msg. 282, “But in all seriousness - criticism is not unChristian…just depends on how you do it. I don’t think mine is harsh at all, especially when compared to the venom spewing forth from your side (see above). It amazes me that you don’t see the hypocricy of your “holier than thou” statement, “] Well, it doesn’t matter, as I think Alec admitted in this thread that he is not a Catholic.

Wildleafblower: Ribozyme, can you see the error of your comment? DustinsDad, was telling me not Alec, “ It amazes me that you don’t see the hypocricy of your “holier than thou” statement…” Futhermore, your comment is not suitable for my taste. It implies that non-practicing Catholics or non-believers of God aren’t charitable which isn’t true! Ribozyme, DustinsDad’s message in 285 is a good example of quote mining and cherry picking (typical of Intelligent Design advocates) my msg. 282 in response to his msg. 281.

*Dustins Dad msg. 281: Seems this author [Alec MacAndrew] doesn’t deal well with folks who disagree with him. Kind of cracks me up to see the Kolbe Center causing so many of the Enlightened Ones to blow a gasket. Typical though. Scientists tend to go batty when religous folk dare to tread on the scientists “sacred ground” - but scientists have absolutely no problem pontificating on religious issues, Biblical interpretations, theology, etc. But what’s good for the goose…Peace in Christ,
DustinsDad

Wildleafblower msg. 282: Never heard of or been around the Jesuits of science, eh? They are a Christian religious order of the Catholic Church in direct service to the Pope. (1) Alec MacAndrew was taught by them. By the way, they have been teaching the theory of evolution for decades. In my opinion, Alec didn’t deserve your harsh, unchristian remarks.

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuits*

Ribozyme look again at DustinsDad’s msg 285! He mocks the Jesuits and Alec by referring to Alec as one of the Enlightened Ones then quotes an excerpt from Alec’s website that I totally support which is against Geocentrism evolutionpages.com/pink_unicorn.htm. He goes onto state to me, “Kind of leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling for your fellow man, doesn’t it? I guess that’s why you keep promoting the wonderful words from this Enlightened One.” Ribozyme, PhilVaz is a long term Catholic on Catholic.com with Alec’s article on his website bringyou.to/apologetics/p92.htm too. In my opinion, this implies he is also being unkind to Phil as well. I’m a Christian and a Catholic.

Look at my message #267! DustinsDad declares that Alec MacAndrew is blind and deceived. Ribozyne, I honestly don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling about JustinsDad twice slam dunking Alec who does use the word “God” and was baptized a Catholic though he is currently a non-believer of God. I do have hope that may change in the future but DustinsDad isn’t helping the matter any as far as I’m concerned.

Oopsy daisy, I wondered where this unwilful-missing went to. . . I finally found it. I meant to earlier correct my typo which is now highlighted in red. in my above message. The integration of science with religion is a mighty big taboo as far as the scientific community is concerned.

Alec MacAndrew (hecd2), you should consider updating your Schonborn article. I’ve previously given evidence in another topic which you participated in that Pope Benedict XVI didn’t write, but rather ‘endorsed’ what you wrote within your article, “But it is important…” Alec, if you don’t change it then you might be giving people the impression that you wish to keep the myth alive. This may then imply that Dawkin’s meme is a no more than a mere full-blown, tattle tale lie. (As far as I’m concerned, Richard Dawkin’s needs a good old fashioned patty whack to the nogin! Dawkin’s will never win a Nobel prize. His attack against Mother Teresa of Calcutta was that of a reckless madman whose creditablity was tainted for the lack of honesty. I was left with many a blister on my heart and mind after having read his book, The God Delusion. His sentimentality gave me insight into the core of his sick amusements.)

 

[Riley259]

PoG << The Biblical Commission of June 30, 1909, laid down very strict guidelines for Catholics to read and understand the first three chapters of Genesis… >>

I now have the essential teachings of that Pontifical Biblical Commission on my site, these are:

“…the creation of all things which was accomplished by God at the beginning of time; the special creation of man; the formation of the first woman from man; the unity of the human race; the original happiness of our first parents in a state of justice, integrity, and immortality; the divine command laid upon man to prove his obedience; the transgression of that divine command at the instigation of the devil under the form of a serpent; the fall of our first parents from their primitive state of innocence; and the promise of a future Redeemer.” (from Acta apostolis sedis, 1 [1909 Pontifical Biblical Commission], cited from Origin of the Human Species by Dennis Bonnette, page 145)

Most of these do not touch on science (miracles are not testable) and must be held by faith. What the Biblical Commission says is that the literal and historical cannot be totally dispensed with in reading the early chapters of Genesis. See the questions at the bottom of this page here. The Kolbe Center on evolution is trumped by Ludwig Ott who says:

“The doctrine of evolution based on the theistic conception of the world, which traces matter and life to God’s causality and assumes that organic being, developed from originally created seed-powers (St. Augustine) or from stem-forms (doctrine of descent), according to God’s plan, is compatible with the doctrine of Revelation. However, as regards man, a special creation by God is demanded, which must extend at least to the spiritual soul [creatio hominis peculiaris Denz 2123]. Individual Fathers, especially St. Augustine, accepted a certain development of living creatures…The question of the descent of the human body from the animal kingdom first appeared under the influence of the modern theory of evolution. The Biblical text does not exclude this theory. Just as in the account of the creation of the world, one can, in the account of the creation of man, distinguish between the per se inspired religious truth that man, both body and soul, was created by God, and the per accidens inspired, stark anthropomorphistic representation of the mode and manner of the Creation. While the fact of the creation of man by God in the literal sense must be closely adhered to, in the question as to the mode and manner of the formation of the human body, an interpretation which diverges from the strict literal sense, is, on weighty grounds, permissible.” (Ott, pages 93-94, 95, emphasis added)

Also, Catechism 159, 283-284 endorses the findings of modern science, and the statement of the International Theological Commission (already cited) endorsed by Ratzinger trumps the Kolbe Center. Neither Cardinal Schonborn nor Benedict XVI are young earth geocentrists. Sorry to inform you:

“We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the “project” of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary – rather than mutually exclusive – realities.”

"In the Beginning…": A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall by Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict

Let me know what the Kolbe Center response is to the above.

Phil P

Thanks for the link to the Pope’s comments on this subject.

 

[wildleafblower]

Most of these do not touch on science (miracles are not testable) and must be held by faith. What the Biblical Commission says is that the literal and historical cannot be totally dispensed with in reading the early chapters of Genesis. See the questions at the bottom of this page here. The Kolbe Center on evolution is trumped by Ludwig Ott who says:

“The doctrine of evolution based on the theistic conception of the world, which traces matter and life to God’s causality and assumes that organic being, developed from originally created seed-powers (St. Augustine) or from stem-forms (doctrine of descent), according to God’s plan, is compatible with the doctrine of Revelation. However, as regards man, a special creation by God is demanded, which must extend at least to the spiritual soul [creatio hominis peculiaris Denz 2123]. Individual Fathers, especially St. Augustine, accepted a certain development of living creatures…The question of the descent of the human body from the animal kingdom first appeared under the influence of the modern theory of evolution. The Biblical text does not exclude this theory. Just as in the account of the creation of the world, one can, in the account of the creation of man, distinguish between the per se inspired religious truth that man, both body and soul, was created by God, and the per accidens inspired, stark anthropomorphistic representation of the mode and manner of the Creation. While the fact of the creation of man by God in the literal sense must be closely adhered to, in the question as to the mode and manner of the formation of the human body, an interpretation which diverges from the strict literal sense, is, on weighty grounds, permissible.” (Ott, pages 93-94, 95, emphasis added)
Phil P

Thanks Riley259 for bringing to my attention PhilVaz’s msg. #5 of Nov. 8, 2006. I arrived late into this topic and didn’t read what PhilVaz had earlier posted.

I haven’t throughly reviewed all that Phil presented in his message but what caught my eye was the quote from Ludwig Ott presented above.

I did locate the following about Ott:
A CRITIQUE by Fr. Camillus Hay, O.F.M., OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF FUNDAMENTALS OF CATHOLIC DOGMA[1]
by Dr Ludwig Ott
Recently, on a Q & A Forum, Fr. Joe Horn, O.Praem.[2] requested of an enquirer the source of a particular statement; the reply was from Fundamentals Of Catholic Dogma, by Dr. Ludwig Ott. As the particular matter appeared to be questionable, Fr. Horn’s response was: “Good book. But it’s not an official document of the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, on the other hand, is an official document. It is my duty in this forum (and as a priest) to clarify the official doctrines of the Church, not the opinions of Father X, Theologian Y, or Book Z.”
*
*The wisdom of such a statement may be supported by the following article, which was written in 1960:

A RECENT THEOLOGICAL TRANSLATION[3]*
When it first appeared in 1952, Dr. Ludwig Ott’s Grundriss der Katholischen Dogmatik was widely acclaimed and was translated into many European languages. In May, 1955, it was translated by Dr. Patrick Lynch and edited by James Canon Bastible, D.D., under the title Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Three years later, a second edition appeared and the editor, in a foreword, noted that “Dr. Ott’s work has appealed not only to priests and religious but to a very wide circle of layfolk.” In this article, we shall attempt to assess the value of this English translation.

Two problems, however, confront us. Firstly, we have not been able to procure a copy of the German original and consequently we have been forced to make a comparison between the French translation, Précis de Théologie Dogmatique published by Salvator-Casterman in 1955 (subsequently referred to as F) and the English translation of Bastible-Lynch (subsequently referred to as E). The reader will be left to draw his own conclusions concerning the value of the English translation on the basis of this comparison.

Secondly, the number of discrepancies between the translations is so great that we have been obliged to limit our detailed comparison to a mere ninety pages (E.352-415) which cover the Sacraments in general, and the special treatment of Baptism, Confirmation and the Blessed Eucharist. Even within this narrow scope, we can select only a few of the very many discrepancies.

We may divide our analysis into two main sections. The first concerns patent errors which are found in E; the second details passages which are extremely obscure and ambiguous in E and which are presented clearly and logically in F.

please continue on reading…

jloughnan.tripod.com/critott.htm
http://jloughnan.tripod.com/critott.htm*