Observations by a non believer

[rvilbig]

ABU
[O]n the matter of Teilhard de Chardin; my view of him as a man and a priest is with great admiration and I find his writing filled with spiritual inspiration.

I’ve posted on this before: Teilhard’s writings are utterly incompatible with orthodox Catholic theology. The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued a warning against the writings of Teilhard de Chardin in 1961 which has not been revoked. He seems to have held several heretical positions.

1. He taught that God was mutable: “All around us, and within our own selves, God is in the process of ‘changing,’ his brilliance increases, and the glow of his coloring grows richer”. (Teilhard, The Heart of Matter, p. 53). Scripture assures us that God does not change: “I am the Lord, and I change not” (Malachi 3:6).
2. He taught that the natural world mechanistically produced souls: “When water is heated to boiling point under normal pressure, and one goes on heating it, the first thing that follows -without change of temperature- is a tumultuous expansion of freed and vaporised molecules. …] **y these remote comparisons we are able to imagine the mechanism involved in the critical threshold of reflection” (Teilhard, Phenomenon of Man, p.168). The Venerable Pius XII, in his encyclical on evolution, taught that “the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Humani Generis, p.36).
3. He twisted scripture to support pantheism: “St. Paul tells us, God shall be all in all. This is indeed a superior form of ‘pantheism’ without trace of the poison of adulteration or annihilation: the expectation of perfect of unity, steeped in which each element will reach its consummation at the same time as the universe” (Phenomenon of Man, p.294). God transcends the universe, so this is an untenable position.
4. He had no doctrine of original sin.

He also seems to have formulated some untenable scientific positions:

1. He argued that "“We have seen and admitted that evolution is an ascent towards consciousness …] therefore, it should culminate forwards in some sort of supreme consciousness.” (The Phenomenon of Man, p.258). However, consciousness is directly created by God, and biological evolution may produce diseases (like AIDS) even after the emergence of bodies capable of hosting consciousness. Nor is there any indication that bacteria are striving toward consciousness; they have already found a niche in which they may surive, for example.

A far better book on the parallel between biological evolution and spiritual evolution is Transformation in Christ, by Dietrich von Hildebrand. Really, it’s a simply as answering the question: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then also you may do good who are accustomed to do evil.” (Jer 13:23). If God change species in nature through genetics, is it not conceivable that He can also transform our souls?

While you clearly have raised a good family through your commitment to Catholicism, your success has had nothing to do with Teilhard’s writings. I would even argue that your success was in spite of your admiration for his works; because by promoting his works you instill all of the unorthodox positions listed above, PLUS, disobedience to the Magisterium of the Church, that has already spoken out against his writings. Please prayerfully consider a re-think of Teilhard’s writings.

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com**

 

[Leela]

I doubt it. Loud voices do not a vast majority make.

I’m talking about the results of polls. For example…

medicalnewstoday.com/articles/22678.php

“A large majority of Roman Catholics in the United States, Europe and developing nations largely ignore the church’s teaching banning the use of artificial birth control, the… Baltimore Sun reports. The late Pope John Paul II in 1968 restated the Catholic Church’s doctrine on the issue, saying that “every marriage must remain open to the transmission of human life” and that all forms of contraception are intrinsically evil. However, more than 75% of U.S. Catholics believe the church should allow the use of contraception, according to a recent Gallup poll (Roylance, Baltimore Sun, 4/10). Because U.S. Catholics tend to abide by the values they consider most important and “quietly ignor[e]” church teachings with which they disagree, many U.S. Catholics use birth control regularly, the New York Times reports (Murphy/Banerjee, New York Times, 4/11).”

And that is just one issue. The fact is that the vast majority of Catholics do not agree with Church teachings on at least one issue. Does that make the vast majority of Catholics not really Catholics in your view?

 

[Abu]

For Leela
You need to get to know what Christ’s Church teaches:
From the 1983 CIC, according to Canon 205, “Catholics are those in full communion with the Church through the bonds of profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance.”

No Catholic is faithful to Christ who dissents from any defined doctrine or dogma of His Church.

 

[grannymh]

I’m talking about the results of polls. For example…

medicalnewstoday.com/articles/22678.php

“A large majority of Roman Catholics in the United States, Europe and developing nations largely ignore the church’s teaching banning the use of artificial birth control, the… Baltimore Sun reports. The late Pope John Paul II in 1968 restated the Catholic Church’s doctrine on the issue, saying that “every marriage must remain open to the transmission of human life” and that all forms of contraception are intrinsically evil. However, more than 75% of U.S. Catholics believe the church should allow the use of contraception, according to a recent Gallup poll (Roylance, Baltimore Sun, 4/10). Because U.S. Catholics tend to abide by the values they consider most important and “quietly ignor[e]” church teachings with which they disagree, many U.S. Catholics use birth control regularly, the New York Times reports (Murphy/Banerjee, New York Times, 4/11).”

And that is just one issue. The fact is that the vast majority of Catholics do not agree with Church teachings on at least one issue. Does that make the vast majority of Catholics not really Catholics in your view?

Pardon me. But I did not see how many people were polled, nor the demographics nor the questions. Are you old enough to remember the four out of five dentists commercial? Probably not. In my view, the poll goes in the circular file.

 

[Abu]

yypop
I have no idea how you arrived at the idea that I am antagonistic to the church….merely cite other people, all of whom seem to be personally opposed to Teilhard with some degree of virulence…McCarthy’s addendum, which has nothing to do with the book being reviewed, but rather seems to be a vehement reaction to Schonberg’s laudable comment about Teilhard in which McCarthy refers solely to Wolfgang Smith’s personal attacks. This is truly intellectual dishonesty.

Despite the laudable self and family accomplishments cited by yypop, he is still unable to appreciate that Teilhard de Chardin’s writings are still under a Monitum from the Magisterium which explains why most faithful Catholics have every reason for not reading them, and cite eminent scholars who critique them for very valid reasons which they make very clear.

To describe these stated reasons as “personal attacks” and involving “truly intellectual dishonesty” is beyond comprehension – a feature of indifferentism and rationalism in thought.

Is it any wonder that anyone who is so indifferent to the Holy Office Monitum against the works of Teilhard should be considered antagonistic to the Church for lauding what the Church denounces?
Rvilbig (post #256) supplies ample further justification for the condemnation.

These are the words from the Holy Office:
"Prescinding from a judgement about those points that concern the positive sciences, it is sufficiently clear that the above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine.

"For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.”
"Given at Rome, from the palace of the Holy Office, on the thirtieth day of June, 1962.

 

[yppop]

Abu, Vilbig, et.al.
Congratulations, you’ve convinced me to do one of the things I’ve been meaning to do for some time now, that is to have my registrationelf removed from this forum just as soon as I learn how. It is sad that I have spent most of my time in this forum arguing (not discussing) with other Catholics; that to me is a no win situation.

So I will depart with one last comment about the scurrilous attacks on Teilhard’s philosphy by saying the the following Jonathon Swift quote describes him with great insight:

"“When true genius appears in the world you will know him by this sign, that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.”

It also happens to be the source of the title of one of my favorite books, “The Confederacy of Dunces”, a book I am certain that you would not appreciate because of a failure to discern meaning.

Have a good life, or get one if you don’t.

Yppop

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Abu, Vilbig, et.al.
Congratulations, you’ve convinced me to do one of the things I’ve been meaning to do for some time now, that is to have my registrationelf removed from this forum just as soon as I learn how. It is sad that I have spent most of my time in this forum arguing (not discussing) with other Catholics; that to me is a no win situation.

So I will depart with one last comment about the scurrilous attacks on Teilhard’s philosphy by saying the the following Jonathon Swift quote describes him with great insight:

"“When true genius appears in the world you will know him by this sign, that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.”

It also happens to be the source of the title of one of my favorite books, “The Confederacy of Dunces”, a book I am certain that you would not appreciate because of a failure to discern meaning.

Have a good life, or get one if you don’t.

Yppop

Whats going on?

 

[Carlan]

It would depend upon the circumstances. You are making the assertion that a set of religious beliefs taken as a whole constitute “blind faith,” but you’ve not given any compelling argument for that assertion.

Blind faith is generally thought to be faith apart from anything else, be it experience or reason. It would be as though you were on the 50th story of a building and someone said, “Just walk off the edge… you won’t fall.” There is nothing in our experiences and no way to reason to the conclusion that you would be suspended in mid air. Thus if you did step off, you’d be acting totally on blind faith. In this case it would probably be unreasonable. What about if you were trapped in a canyon and suddenly a rope appears over the edge. A voice says, “Tie yourself on, I’ll pull you up.” You don’t even know who’s up there nor do you “know” their intent, but in this case, considering the alternatives, placing “blind faith” in them might be a good bet.

Belief in the Catholic concepts of religion are not like that. We have several pieces of information with which to go on, experiences, and we can make reasonable approaches to what the faith contains. We have Jesus human existence; first-hand, eye-witness accounts of his life and interactions with others, including miraculous healings and restoration of the dead to life on more than one occasion; we have some 58 predictions of the events of His human life written down centuries before they happened, all with stunning accuracy (side note: what are the odds of 58 of 58 predictions coming true for anything?); we have the actions of people alive in the years immediately following Jesus’ life, most of them ending up dying gruesome deaths rather than give up their faith. That suggests there was something more to it than whimsical or faddish following. There are many more, but those will serve to illustrate the point.

Then it is not a matter of faith, but is instead a matter of history.

Does this mean you refused to believe in solar eclipses until you actually saw one? Or that you don’t believe in such things as planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy? I know you haven’t experienced one of those because no one yet has outside of a handful of astronomers in Chile, the rest are all believers because of reason, not experience. Nothing else rationally explains a fixed-period, continual wobble of a distant star aside from a large mass (i.e. - a planet) orbiting it. So though we cannot see (or “experience”) it, we can pose a logical basis for a faith that they exist.

The same is true for the existence of God, and for Catholicism. Each of these has rational arguments that, while not “proving” them, certainly make having faith in them something rational rather than simply a matter of blind faith. St. Peter, in fact, strongly implies that we should NOT have blind faith, saying in his first epistle that we should be “ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you…”

Good post!
Faith is a gift of God. Reason has to be used and it is necessary for coming to faith.

With knowledge of God, as DOShea pointed out, we can prepare our intellect so as to respond in the right way when we are moved by the grace of God toward faith.

We use reason to get rid of all that keep us from responding to the actual grace God offers us.
Reason doesn’t produce faith,but faith being an act of the will, is prompted by God’s actual grace, which is always there always waiting for all of us to respond and accept the gift, faith.
Reason can remove the obstructions, say that of the evil one.
Peace , Carlan