Myths and fairy tales ?

[steve711]

Steve, here is the reference:

William R. Stoeger, S.J., “Entropy, emergence, and the physical roots of natural evil,” in Physics and Cosmology: Scientific Perspectives on the Problem of Natural Evil (Vatican Observatory, CTNS, 2007), 93-108.

Stoeger argues that natural evil or suffering is intrinsic to a universe with the possibility of freedom, and therefore that the only theological way to deal with suffering is to consider it eschatologically. That is to say, suffering and death are structurally built into the universe. There would be no rocky life-bearing planets unless a previous generation of stars had blown up. There would be no next generation without the death of preceding generations. Quoting Stoeger: “Transience, dissolution and death are the entropic price demanded for the exploration of new possibilities, the generation of novelty and the support of highly organized systems in our evolving universe.” (p.95)

The only possibility for not having suffering and death is to have a universe devoid of life, which would be relatively uninteresting either scientifically or theologically. This does not mean suffering is good; it means that we deal with it through a theology of hope, hope in the resurrection and the new creation spoken about by Paul
.

StAnastasia

StAnastasia,

Thank you for the information. I look forward to reading it.

I will say this though, as Catholics every time we go to church and see Jesus Christ our savior on the cross and all the suffering that he partook for our salvation, I believe that suffering is a part of life as we know it.

Go with Gods Grace!

 

[steve711]

Not for nothin this has John Paul II hand on it.

Next Paragraph 64: Mainly concerned with evolution as it “involves the question of man,” however, Pope John Paul’s message is specifically critical of materialistic theories of human origins and** insists on the relevance of philosophy and theology for an adequate understanding of the “ontological leap” to the human which cannot be explained in purely scientific terms**.

Hello,
How does a soul develop, via biological evolution?

You kind of left this out: Paragraph:

    10. Secondly, the creation accounts in Genesis make it clear that man is not created as an isolated individual: “**God created mankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them”** (Gen. 1:27)

HUMAN PERSONS CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

1. As the witness of Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterial makes clear, the truth that human beings are created in the image of God is at the heart of Christian revelation. This truth was recognized and its broad implications expounded by the Fathers of the Church and by the great scholastic theologians. Although, as we shall note below, this truth was challenged by some influential modern thinkers, today biblical scholars and theologians join with the Magisterial in reclaiming and reaffirming the doctrine of the imago Dei.

The Church’s interest in evolution thus focuses particularly on “the conception of man” who, as created in the image of God, “cannot be subordinated as a pure means or instrument either to the species or to society.” As a person created in the image of God, he is capable of forming relationships of communion with other persons and with the triune God, as well as of exercising sovereignty and stewardship in the created universe. The implication of these remarks is that theories of evolution and of the origin of the universe possess particular theological interest when they touch on the doctrines of the creation ex nihilo and the creation of man in the image of God.

The real point of accepting evolution: (Paragraph 19)
It was but a short step from these ideas to the reversal of biblical anthropology which took various forms in the thought of Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud: it is not man who is made in the image of God, but God who is nothing else than an image projected by man. In the end, atheism appeared to be required if man was to be self-constituting.

John,

Have you always been a Catholic, I sense you were at one time of the Evangelical faith, the way you quote Bible scripture as part of your answers? I am just asking and mean no harm in the question.

I have many friends and co-workers that do the same thing with me when we have theological discussions. My answer to them is always the same, I let the church Magisterial interpret the scripture for me, and I believe that with 2000+ years of history that the Catholic church is the true church started by Jesus our Savior. Again, I am a scientist/engineer and an expert in my field, but do not pretend to be an expert on the Catholic faith, only a loyal follower of our Saviors church.

Go with Gods Grace!

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia, Thank you for the information. I look forward to reading it. I will say this though, as Catholics every time we go to church and see Jesus Christ our savior on the cross and all the suffering that he partook for our salvation, I believe that suffering is a part of life as we know it. Go with Gods Grace!

Thank you Steve711. I absolutely agree with you, and so would Bill Stoeger. As both a stellar physicist and a Catholic priest with fifteen years of theological training, he unites in his own life the scientific and theological enterprises.

What he is doing – as am I and countless others – is attempting to answer the question, "What would religious belief (and particularly Catholic belief) look like if we took science seriously? What difference would it make to our faith if instead of trashing science as do the Young Earth Creationists, we listened intently to what scientists tell us about the world?

For example, anyone with any experience at all knows that there has been death among creatures as long as there have been creatures, and that there has been suffering among creatures as long as there has been a nervous system, in other words for hundreds of millions of years. Therefore, unless we are willing to throw out all known science, the passage that death came into the world through the action of one hominid must be interpreted through the categories of theological symbolism. Since and suffering and death are absolutely real, and we don’t need to throw out science in order to understand them theologically.

StAnastasia

 

[Moscati]

John, what exactly are you trying to say the Holy Father’s statement means? Are you saying he’s contradicting himself? That he’s wrong in the first part and somehow what he says in the second part means biological evolution can’t/doesn’t happen? Why would he contradict himself?

 

[John_oxios]

John,
Have you always been a Catholic, I sense you were at one time of the Evangelical faith

  Hi Steve, 
                   Born Cradle Catholic, From Spanish and Irish Catholics,  Went to 8 yrs of Catholic Parochial School. Served as altar boy when the Mass was in Latin. Pre 1965 @ Good Shepherd Parish Inwood, Manhattan (NYC).
  I do not pretend to be an expert, in the Bible, in fact, I don't believe any one person can possibly be an expert in the whole Bible, That is the Holy Spirits domain.

I developed a rift with God early teens, still went to Mass Easter, Christmas… and didn’t forget to show up for Ash Wednesday. Still prayed often as a Child, as an adult I became a trench hole prayer, I knew he was always there… but out o guilt I only turned to Him in dire need.
It is said, "That the first image of God you experience is your Father, I grew up with a punishing Dad, so my image of God the Father was twisted to say the least… When i got caught doing a wrong, I have always admitted it, however if I did not get caught, and knew I was guilty of a wrong, I would try to put of the punishment as long as possible… everybody doesn’t mind getting way wtih a wrong, once they get caught in a wrong Then they become sorry.
So I became a lapsed Catholic, showed up for Weddings and funerals, sometimes Christmas, or Easter. Spent twenty yrs from the confessional.
Let’s say my cup filled up, I was too full of myself, and God showed me he was God, I had nothing left to do but to drop to my knees and ask, (about 1999) “How did ‘I’ get here.” I realized yrs later, I was so prideful that even when I dropped to nmy knees it was about me ‘the great i am.’
With my Catholic background, I did not want to return to the Church, I thought I knew what it was all about. So about 1990, I started my way back to discover God. Tried this thorough a twelve step program, but couldn’t buy the God of my own imagination. Met a gal who introduced me to the Lutheran Church, they did Bible studies, and I struggled for a several years, I met a few guys who took the time to walk me through scriptures daily, one a pentecostal, the other a pastor at an Calvary Church. Then studied with Baptists, Jehovah Witnesses were a regular @ my door, Wesleyan Protestants, small congregational Church’s in the local area.
But the greatest discussions were @ Borders, I would sit and study with a table full of books, and people would look and comment and we were off.
In 2000 while reading the Book “Lion of God” by Taylor Caldwell, which literally fell in my lap, something transformed me, I couldn’t stop reading Scripture, and i hungered for more.
Through all those years of struggling it was the Protestant Church, that taught me believe it or not that the Catholic Church is the Church Jesus Christ started.
But it wasn’t until a Catholic Deacon confronted me as I left a Baptist Bible study, and invited me back to Mass, and his tuesday night Catholic Bible study in 2001 that I began my road back. He then introduced me to a Deacon Levison, who introduced me to Scott Hahn, Tim Staples, Envoy Magazine and Parick Madrid.
I converted back to Catholicism, (even though I really never denied it) After reading ‘A Father who Keeps His Promises’ By Scott Hahmn which Deacon John Levison made sure I’d read. Well, Scott Hahn, a Protestant convert spoke ‘protestantese’ and put his experience in plain terms. He went to Mass to discover what all the hoopla was about for his own study, and as he sits through the Mass, with his Bible in hand in the back of the Church, refusing to participate, he realizes he is living Scripture, specifically the Book of Revelations, so whenhe hears Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the World, and the Priest raises the Eucharist, he drops to his knees and says my Lord and my God, and starts his journey to convert and follow the Road to Rome.
Well I had forgotten what the Eucharist meant, because I had gotten into the habit of just showing up to Mass, and The Holy Spirit worked through several people and Scott Hahn to remind me what the Catholic Church, and the Eucharist means.
After that with my knowledge of Scripture and applying that to Catholic teachings, I can honestly state, the Catholic Church IS the Church established by Jesus Christ, and that everything the Catholic Church does IS Scriptural.
Today, I keep my Bible and Catechism with me wherever I go… I’m no expert, in fact coming out of all the negative things said of Mary, she was hardest to accept, but I learned to trust in the Catholic Church and its teachings, and that even if I don’t understand something, not to fight its teachings, that with patience and perseverance it will be revealed to me.

As far as quoting Scripture, I am backing up what I believe, with references to our faith and why I believe it. I don't expect anyone to believe or accept why I do what I do, I just do it.. the Holy Spirit does the rest.  But if I can back up what I believe with scripture and the Catechism all the better... you see there are those who are outside the Catholic Church who will tell you what the Catholic Church isn't, if you wan to show them there incorrect, you have to show them what it is..and in my experience they don't want to know... they simply look away even with the plain truth right in front of them.  I heard a Baptist minister say something about the church that wasn't true, I asked are you sure? I don't remember it like that? Looked it up presented the facts to him as what the Catholic Church did teach, and he looked away, and then made an example of me during his service.. I never attended that service again, however I did attend his bis study often.

May the peace of the Lord be with you!
God bless,
John

 

[twinc]

StAnastasia,

Thank you for the information. I look forward to reading it.

I will say this though, as Catholics every time we go to church and see Jesus Christ our savior on the cross and all the suffering that he partook for our salvation, I believe that suffering is a part of life as we know it.

Go with Gods Grace!

just hang about and explain how there will be no tears,or mourning,or hurt or ham or killing or death in the new heavens and new earth if it was not possible in the past[see Isa.11:9 & 65:25 and Apoc.21:4] - twinc

 

[John_oxios]

John, what exactly are you trying to say the Holy Father’s statement means? Are you saying he’s contradicting himself? That he’s wrong in the first part and somehow what he says in the second part means biological evolution can’t/doesn’t happen? Why would he contradict himself?

No, but the entire statement read in context says, basically hey we don’t throw out evolution as a whole, but when it comes to Human Beings the Creation Man, That man is created by Intelligent design, and that God specifically created man in his own image, and formed him thorugh his breath. That Adam did exist as did the Garden in which God provided for him. No contradiction… anything could have happened prior to Man’s creation because it is not worth arguing for six literal days (St. Augustine) that’s what God choose to explain the Earth’s beginnings…

If there was no ADam, No Eve, then there is no Second Adam, nor second Eve… next throw out the Church with the bathwater!! Because that would prove scripture wrong.
I have no problem believing in plants becoming other plants… but there is no factual evidence for the mixing of the kinds, like it was said earlier, how does a heart develop from a single chamber to four? Even Darwin knew the Eye, how it focuses and adjusts could be explained by Evolution.

God bless,
John

 

[John_oxios]

just hang about and explain how there will be no tears,or mourning,or hurt or ham or killing or death in the new heavens and new earth if it was not possible in the past[see Isa.11:9 & 65:25 and Apoc.21:4] - twinc

Exactly,what I was thinking about, they kind of left out eternal Life

God bless,
John

 

[edwest2]

I think this Homily by Father Bloom will help clarify things:

stmaryvalleybloom.org/homilyfor7sunday-b.html

Peace,
Ed

 

[StAnastasia]

just hang about and explain how there will be no tears,or mourning,or hurt or ham or killing or death in the new heavens and new earth if it was not possible in the past[see Isa.11:9 & 65:25 and Apoc.21:4] - twinc

What do you mean?

 

[twinc]

Thank you Steve711. I absolutely agree with you, and so would Bill Stoeger. As both a stellar physicist and a Catholic priest with fifteen years of theological training, he unites in his own life the scientific and theological enterprises.

What he is doing – as am I and countless others – is attempting to answer the question, "What would religious belief (and particularly Catholic belief) look like if we took science seriously? What difference would it make to our faith if instead of trashing science as do the Young Earth Creationists, we listened intently to what scientists tell us about the world?

For example, anyone with any experience at all knows that there has been death among creatures as long as there have been creatures, and that there has been suffering among creatures as long as there has been a nervous system, in other words for hundreds of millions of years. Therefore, unless we are willing to throw out all known science, the passage that death came into the world through the action of one hominid must be interpreted through the categories of theological symbolism. Since and suffering and death are absolutely real, and we don’t need to throw out science in order to understand them theologically.

StAnastasia

the problem is you are accepting science as your God - the Catholic God says there will be no death,suffering,tears in the new heaven and new earth - for as it was in the beginning,itis not now but shall be[Isa.11:9 & 65;25 & Apoc.21:4] - twinc

 

[StAnastasia]

Exactly,what I was thinking about, they kind of left out eternal Life God bless, John

No, they didn’t leave it out.

 

[StAnastasia]

the problem is you are accepting science as your God - the Catholic God says there will be no death,suffering,tears in the new heaven and new earth - for as it was in the beginning,itis not now but shall be[Isa.11:9 & 65;25 & Apoc.21:4] - twinc

You either don’t understand science, or don’t understand theology. Science is not a “god.”

 

[twinc]

You either don’t understand science, or don’t understand theology. Science is not a “god.”

it is to some it seems to me unless they think they themselves are God or the other queer fellow saying here on this forum “did God really say” and intend "ye shall not die " and that He created death[Wis.1:13-14 & 2:22-23] - twinc

 

[StAnastasia]

it is to some it seems to me unless they think they themselves are God or the other queer fellow saying here on this forum “did God really say” and intend "ye shall not die " and that He created death[Wis.1:13-14 & 2:22-23] - twinc

Twinc, your meaning escapes me. Can you please employ some punctuation in your posts?

 

[twinc]

Twinc, your meaning escapes me. Can you please employ some punctuation in your posts?

Science is God,to some,it seems but some others,it seems,want to regard themselves as God and even over rule Him.Did God really say this or that but I say unto you etc - twinc

 

[John_oxios]

Not so long ago? Do you mean in the fourth century?
Twinc, Pius X and Pius XII – Why do you willingly accept the latest in dental techniques, but stubbornly refuse to accept the latest in biology? StAnastasia

Hello,
Let me start out by saying I still hate the dentist! Evidence is what I am waiting for. 100 yrs. ago dentist would hang out a plaque, 'Painless" the believing public left that office scratching their heads, saying if that was painless, then ?
Proof is in the evidence.Let’s base things on fact, not fiction.

Bottom line is what if your wrong? 100 yrs from now you could say oops, it isn’t what we thought it is.

Evolution is putting things in relationship, which is the universal form of thought, its all abstract. Its an adoption of a doctrine of type to an adoption of adaptions.

If Science is back on fact, theory is a guess, until proven, it tries to fill in the blanks or answers a question til it is proven, or something better comes along. That’s evolution… this is what we got, weese gonna run with it til something better comes along… in fact its written into the philosphical idea of Evolution, the keyword below is concept:

1. a general notion or idea; conception.

Which you get to fill in the blanks, any which way you can.
Herbert Spencer (paraphrased)
He stated that space, time, matter, motion and force, are incomprehsible, and the more we come to know of these, what we know can be rewritten.

Basically fill in the blanks as you go along.

Space and time are abstract, Matter is incomprehensible as space and time!

Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era.

Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. …
He is best known for coining the phrase “survival of the fittest,” which he did in Principles of Biology (1864), after reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.[3] This term strongly suggests natural selection, yet as Spencer extended evolution into realms of sociology and ethics, he made use of Lamarckism rather than natural selection.

Herbert Spencer:

It is a truism to say that the nature of this undecomposable element of our knowledge is inscrutable. If, to use an algebraic illustration, we represent Matter, Motion, and Force, by the symbols x, y, and z; then, we may ascertain the values of x and y in terms of z; but the value of z can never be found: z is the unknown quantity which must for ever remain unknown; for the obvious reason that there is nothing in which its value can be expressed. It is within the possible reach of our intelligence** to go on simplifying the equations** of all phenomena, until the complex symbols which formulate them are reduced to certain functions of this ultimate symbol; but when we have done this, we have reached that limit which eternally divides science from nescience

Not enough space here but try this:

all.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1390&chapter=99206&layout=html&Itemid=27

 

[John_oxios]

No, they didn’t leave it out.

Post #228,
William R. Stoeger, S.J., “Entropy, emergence, and the physical roots of natural evil,” in Physics and Cosmology: Scientific Perspectives on the Problem of Natural Evil (Vatican Observatory, CTNS, 2007), 93-108.
Last paragraph:
The only possibility for not having suffering and death is to have** a universe devoid of life**, which would be relatively uninteresting either scientifically or theologically. This does not mean suffering is good; it means that we deal with it through a theology of hope, hope in the resurrection and the new creation spoken about by Paul.

 

[StAnastasia]

Science is God,to some,it seems but some others,it seems,want to regard themselves as God and even over rule Him.Did God really say this or that but I say unto you etc - twinc

I don’t know anyone for whom science is God. It is a method for seeking into natural causes,

 

[StAnastasia]

Hello, Let me start out by saying I still hate the dentist! Evidence is what I am waiting for. 100 yrs. ago dentist would hang out a plaque, 'Painless" the believing public left that office scratching their heads, saying if that was painless, then ? Proof is in the evidence.Let’s base things on fact, not fiction.

Science doesn’t seek proof; it seeks to falsify hypotheses. If you look for “proof” of evolution you will never find it, because that is not what scientists look for. Scientists look for evidence that can falsify their hypotheses. The less evidence they find to falsify a hypothesis or theory, the stronger it becomes. Evolution is far stronger in 2010 than it was when Darwin first proposed it in 1859. That is why biologists use the theory. If it were weak they would jettison it and turn to something else.