Reconstructed discussion whether belief in literal Adam & Eve is warranted

[hecd2]

It is clear that you are operating both as a natural scientist and in the positivistic tradition of philosophy, which has tended to dominate most secular universities in North America. That is fine. But you do not appear familiar with the entire Thomistic tradition of philosophy which has flourished in Catholic universities and colleges since the time of Pope Leo XIII, who called for a restoration of the dominance of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

An initiative that has quite plainly failed, since neo-Thomism has had not the slightest influence on the practice of philosophy amongst leading philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Reintroducing Thomism to the academy, other than as an historical step in the development of philosophy, is like reintroducing geocentrism or the miasmatic theory of disease to modern science. The projects of Gilson and Maritain have clearly failed to gain any traction whatsoever.

I am also very suspicious of any partisan claims for knowledge. You point out that Thomism is taught in Catholic universities, but where is it taught, as a potentially valid philosophical position rather than as an historical curio, outside Catholic universities? Substantive claims for knowledge or epistemology of reasonably long standing which fail the non-partisan test are unlikely to be worthy of assent. By non-partisan, I mean seriously researched, discussed, and assented to by people from a wide range of religious, political, and national persuasions. What you claim to be epistemics is more like apologetics.

The concepts which you find outdated and totally inapplicable to modern biology are well known in Thomistic circles. Truth is not a matter of head-counting. They are simply not biological concepts. That does not make them invalid in their own order of philosophical science.

Any system that categorises tetrapods, crustaceans (except sessile barnacles) and insects in one species and the naked mole rat and the platypus in two different species is not just practically useless, it is also ontologically invalid and rather funny.

…please understand that there are many scholars who regularly use such concepts with both respect and effectiveness who publish in such refereed scholarly journals as The New Scholastism, The Review of Metaphysics, the Monist, The Modern Schoolman, Faith & Reason, and other publications that maintain the tradition of the type of philosophy preferred and recommended by the Catholic Church.

The concept in question was your idea of a “natural philosophical species concept”, which, if we are to follow your method of categorisation leads to such nonsense as the idea that dogs, lobsters and fleas represent one species of entity, and the duck-billed platypus represents a different species; that the oak tree, the mushroom and the coral form a species that includes adult sessile barnacles, but not barnacle larvae. I challenged you to lay out a categorisation of living things according to your concept, and to show a single paper from a respectable journal that is line with what you claim. You have been able to do neither of these things. Listing a strange mixture of journals (strange mixture because it includes those that are non-partisan, such as The Monist, but also purely Catholic ones such as The Modern Schoolman) is not enough - show us the paper in which the idea of a natural philosophical concept as you lay it out is seriously discussed.

Our Catholic intellectual history is not entirely without merit. And the mere fact that the philosophical and theological tradition of over two thousand years of history is out of favor in many secular circles is not a valid assay of its value and truth.

You must know that longevity is no assay for value or truth either - Buddhism predated Christianity by about 400 years. I do not suggest that Catholic intellectual history (or content I suppose you meant) is without merit, but neither do I see any reason to swallow it all, hook, line and sinker. Individual claims stand or fall on their own merits, and the fact that, in general, the Catholic theological and philosophical tradition is out of favour in the academy is because it has consistently failed tests of evidence and reason.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[anthony022071]

That’s a novel theory. You might propose a paper on that to a genetics of paleontology conference and get some feedback from the professionals. However, I suspect you would not get much of a hearing at such a gathering, as the descent of humans from earlier progenitors in the primate family tree was established long ago, and there is no longer any serious debated about it.

StAnastasia

I’ve talked about the phylogenetic tree and common descent on earlier posts.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=328240&page=2
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forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=328240&page=11

 

[anthony022071]

Does the spirit give life to the physical substance of all animals (e.g. earth worms, sea urchins, polar bears, humans)? Is there any scientific evidence that your theory is correct, or is it merely a faith statement?

Anything that lives has spirit. Life essentially is spirit,which is what makes biological functions happen in the first place. To explain biotic life in terms of mechanisms does not answer the question of what power makes these so-called mechanisms happen in the first place. Science explains life as if it were an infinite regressions of mechanisms,which does not make sense. Mechanisms,processes and systems cannot move of themselves,they are moved by power outside of nature.

 

[StAnastasia]

Anything that lives has spirit. Life essentially is spirit,which is what makes biological functions happen in the first place. To explain biotic life in terms of mechanisms does not answer the question of what power makes these so-called mechanisms happen in the first place. Science explains life as if it were an infinite regressions of mechanisms,which does not make sense. Mechanisms,processes and systems cannot move of themselves,they are moved by power outside of nature.

What about twins, then – did they start with one soul, and have another one added, or did they start with two souls in one body and then have a body added?

 

[StAnastasia]

Anything that lives has spirit. Life essentially is spirit,which is what makes biological functions happen in the first place. To explain biotic life in terms of mechanisms does not answer the question of what power makes these so-called mechanisms happen in the first place. Science explains life as if it were an infinite regressions of mechanisms,which does not make sense. Mechanisms,processes and systems cannot move of themselves,they are moved by power outside of nature.

Does the spirit give life to the physical substance of all animals (e.g. earth worms, sea urchins, polar bears, humans)? Is there any scientific evidence that your theory is correct, or is it merely a faith statement?

Your theory raises some very interesting implications, which perhaps we could discuss:

First: There is no definable moment of conception, because (a) it takes time for the sperm to penetrate the egg, and (b) there is a time delay between fertilization and implantation. I wonder when along this continuum the soul is infused, or whether it gradually works its way into the fertilized egg over a period of hours.

Second, Is a soul infused at each conception? Fifty percent of human conceptions end in spontaneous abortion simply because the blastocyst is genetically incompatible with life. Do these conceptions not have a soul infused in them to begin with, or is half of humanity received into eternity without ever laving lived outside the womb, and without ever having had a moral life?

Third, in the case of identical twins, are two souls infused into the one fertilized egg at the beginning in anticipation of the twinning, or does God create and infuse a second soul when the egg divides into twins? If the latter, which twin keeps the original soul, and which one gets the replacement soul?

These are fascinating questions.

StAnastasia

 

[anthony022071]

What about twins, then – did they start with one soul, and have another one added, or did they start with two souls in one body and then have a body added?

Two persons,two souls.

Does the spirit give life to the physical substance of all animals (e.g. earth worms, sea urchins, polar bears, humans)?

Yes.

Is there any scientific evidence that your theory is correct, or is it merely a faith statement?

Science doesn’t consider the supernatural. It’s a faith statement,but it is justifiable by reason.

Your theory raises some very interesting implications, which perhaps we could discuss:

First: There is no definable moment of conception, because (a) it takes time for the sperm to penetrate the egg, and (b) there is a time delay between fertilization and implantation. I wonder when along this continuum the soul is infused, or whether it gradually works its way into the fertilized egg over a period of hours.

Second, Is a soul infused at each conception?

Yes. A soul is an individual spirit that animates the physical substance of a person,and it is created by the Spirit of God.

Fifty percent of human conceptions end in spontaneous abortion simply because the blastocyst is genetically incompatible with life. Do these conceptions not have a soul infused in them to begin with, or is half of humanity received into eternity without ever laving lived outside the womb, and without ever having had a moral life?

They have souls.

Third, in the case of identical twins, are two souls infused into the one fertilized egg at the beginning in anticipation of the twinning, or does God create and infuse a second soul when the egg divides into twins? If the latter, which twin keeps the original soul, and which one gets the replacement soul?

Twins are two bodies,so they are two souls.

 

[anthony022071]

Is there any scientific evidence that your theory is correct, or is it merely a faith statement?

No. Science doesn’t consider the supernatural. It is a faith statement,but it is justifiable by reason. Nature does not have life as its own possession. Not everything in nature is alive,and everything that is alive is mortal. When a human body dies,all the physical elements necessary for life may still be found in the body. What is missing is that “unknown quantity” known as spirit,which animated the body,making it function,when it was alive.

Your theory raises some very interesting implications, which perhaps we could discuss:

First: There is no definable moment of conception, because (a) it takes time for the sperm to penetrate the egg, and (b) there is a time delay between fertilization and implantation. I wonder when along this continuum the soul is infused, or whether it gradually works its way into the fertilized egg over a period of hours.

My guess is that conception happens when the sperm penetrates the egg.

 

[StAnastasia]

My guess is that conception happens when the sperm penetrates the egg.

That is what raises the interesting question: if the soul is infused at the moment of conception, and if God knows the egg will divide into twins, does God infuse two souls at that moment, so that for a while one “body” has two souls? Or alternatively, does God create and infuse a second soul when the egg divides?

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

They have souls.

For over half the human species, therefore, eternal life bears no relation to the temporal moral life of the person, because those persons had no temporal life. Am I correct?

 

[hecd2]

I think we have beaten non-contradiction into the ground, but in any case, here goes:

…is this not quite like what the people in the Vienna Circle wound up doing when some noted that the Verification Principle could not pass its own test (that a statement is meaningful only if its terms are somehow sense verifiable, but the VP itself has terms, such as “meaningful” which are not sense verifiable). They then simply proceeded to use the VP anyway, since they could see no other way to make sense of the world save in terms of natural science. This is a faith act – or at best a philosophical assumption, not something itself demonstrable by natural science.

Perhaps you are right about the VP and its use by the Vienna Circle, but the two cases are not analogous. The logical positivists (of which I am NOT one) were undermined by their ambition to provide a self-consistent proof for the VP, which I agree is not possible. But I have said more times than I care to remember in this thread, that my position is that statements about the world are not amenable to formal proof. Reliable and repeatable sense experience has to be accommodated and cannot be ignored (otherwise one undermines the project of intelligibility at even deeper root than the classical metaphysical principle - I think you will agree that?). If I plainly see that contradictions occur under some conditions or that some phenomena are uncaused, then the transcendental validity of the metaphysical principles have to be questioned. The alternative is to claim that the sense experiment yields unreliable results (which is to undermine the root of intelligibility). I am not willing to give up intelligibility any more than you are, so that is not an option for me. The point is that, unlike the case of the logical positivists, we are forced into a dilemma which derives from observation of the world. Something has to give, and I give up the transcendence of the principle of non-contradiction as being least damaging to intelligibility of the world. Unlike you, I am prepared to avoid the naturalistic fallacy, even if that means a rather uncomfortable relationship between observation and classical metaphysics.

You write, “The problem that you are having is based on your notion that transcendental non-contradiction is a necessary condition for intelligibility; but as we have seen, that isn’t so - the domain of the physical macro-world does appear to be non-contradictory and is intelligible.”

Here we engage our central differences. It seems to me that you view non-contradiction as an empirical observation at the macro level, one that appears
confirmed by nearly unlimited experience at the macro level, but a principle based more on a sort of induction by piling up countless instances in which it appears valid – not one demonstrated by any formal proof or having genuinely guaranteed universality. I see your point, and would not expect you to say otherwise given your sensist epistemology which embraces nominalism. My approach, and that of Thomists in general, would be to insist that this is not merely a sensist observation, but the intellect (a distinct spiritual faculty) understanding in its very first reflective encounter with reality that being is by its very nature universal, that being is and non-being is not – begetting the first metaphysical principles. I am not trying to argue them at this moment, but rather am trying to show the difference in approach. The exact nature of how the mind engages reality so as to give rise to this universal understanding, and the defense of the principles involved (and of their transcendental validity), is best articulated by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., in his God: His Existence and His Nature (B. Herder Book Co., 1934) vol. 1, pp. 111-241. These are a lot of pages to defend “self-evident” principles, but show the incredible rigor of their defense.

The import of these first principles for Thomistic metaphysics lies in the fact that they represent, not a random, isolated collection of principles, but an unfolding of intelligible content found in the first encounter with reality, such that, they reveal themselves as progressively implicit in that first contact with being. Thus, identity and non-contradiction implicitly entail sufficient reason, and then, causality – eventually leading to finality. Moreover, it is these principles which are key to understanding the metaphysical force of the Five Ways of St. Thomas.

I think that this is an extremely well set out exposition of some of the key differences between us. I can see why you are keen to rescue classical metaphysics (quite apart from the support that it gives to youir religious beliefs), as it gives a very comfortable and comforting framework for developing a worldview. Unfortunately, in its pure form, it is conflict with what we observe (for example, apart from the question of contradiction that we have chewed over, the principle of causality and other principles are clearly not universally tenable).

I do not offer these points as a mere assertion of authority for them, but to highlight the vast difference in our philosophical worldviews – and to render, perhaps, more understandable why you can more easily countenance the claim of subatomic contradictions than would a Thomistic metaphysician. The initial force of the primary insights into being is far more compelling to those who have studied the complexity and depth of these principles than it would be to someone taking them as mere conventional observations of sensory experience. Again, I am not trying to prove who is right here, but merely hoping to make the basis for our profound disagreement more intelligible.

Which you have done admirably, although I would point out that neither the complexity nor the depth of propositions is proof of their truth.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[anthony022071]

That is what raises the interesting question: if the soul is infused at the moment of conception, and if God knows the egg will divide into twins, does God infuse two souls at that moment, so that for a while one “body” has two souls? Or alternatively, does God create and infuse a second soul when the egg divides?

StAnastasia

I don’t know if “infused” is the right word. Souls are created,and the soul,being an individual spirit,is what gives life to the physical matter,making an individual body.
Perhaps when the egg divides into twins,two individuated souls are created from one.

 

[anthony022071]

For over half the human species, therefore, eternal life bears no relation to the temporal moral life of the person, because those persons had no temporal life. Am I correct?

Unborn persons do have a temporal life,because they exist in the temporal world. Having a moral life is another matter. We are created for eternal life with God anyway.

 

[Dr.Bonnette]

To hecd2 re posts 239, 240, and 249:

Alec,

I indicated earlier that I did not plan to chase you down the rabbit hole of proofs for God’s existence in this thread, and for good cause.

But first, to offer some reply to your constant claim that we must build the First Way of St. Thomas on all the definitions of motion found in Aristotle’s works, I would point out that modern Thomists extract the metaphysical elements of that argument from what is in fact, not even a philosophical context, but rather a brief introductory element in a theological tract, the Summa theologiae. If St. Thomas intended these “ways” to be complete philosophical arguments in themselves, surely he would have devoted more time and space to them, especially since God’s existence would serve as the foundation of the entire theological work that would follow. Instead, he offers five brief paragraphs, one each devoted to a diverse “way.” His students already knew the arguments, since they had previously studied philosophy extensively. He was simply offering the outline of his versions of these well-known, largely Aristotelian, arguments. But the essence of the First Way, as you point out, is metaphysical. Modern Thomists quickly focus on the existential center of the argument, without intrinsic dependency upon all the antecedent references to Aristotle’s Physics regarding motion, although they know them well. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange begins, "The existence of motion or change is the starting-point of the argument, without stating precisely whether the change is substantial or accidental, whether the motion is spiritual or sensible, local, qualitative or by way of augmentation." God: His Existence and His Nature (B. Herder Book Co., 1934), vol. 1, p. 262.] I am not unaware of the historical context of the prima via, since my own book, Aquinas’ Proofs for God’s Existence (Martinus-Nijhoff, 1972), is primarily a close textual analysis of the work of St. Thomas. On p. 81, I cite Etienne Gilson who notes that the argument in St. Thomas’ earlier work, the Summa Contra Gentiles, is not a single text of Aristotle, but a synthesis of elements of Books VII and VIII of the Physics and Book XI of the Metaphysics. Still, my point now is that the real essence of the argument, brought out by modern Thomists, such as Lagrange, Maritain, and Gilson, is in existential metaphysics, focusing on the progressive actualization of being or existence which takes place in motion or change of any type.

Still, to undescore the reason I shan’t pursue the details of these arguments, consider what you say in post 239: *“But it is more relevant to the topic than our interesting but peripheral discussion of the transcendence of non-contradiction, since a) it is an argument about whether discussions from classical metaphyics can ever warrant beliefs which are in conflict with direct physical evidence (I say that they cannot), and b) whether Revelation as taught by the Magisterium can be warrant for a belief in a literal Adam and Eve if belief in God Himself is not logically warranted.” *

The Catholic Church affirms that God’s existence can be known by the light of unaided natural reason, and beginning with the things that God has made. In other words, it is by argument from causality – along the lines of St. Thomas Aquinas. The arguments for God’s existence are all based on beginning with some order of effects, and arguing back from them to a First Cause in that order – using the metaphysical first principles as the instruments of reason to accomplish that conclusion. Now, on post 249, you make clear that you also deny the transcendental validity of causality, making it even more evident that no proof for God’s existence can leave your starting gate. Absent a thorough understanding of these first principles and their universal, transcendental acceptance, no proof for God’s existence can work. Since you explicitly reject the most basic of all metaphysical principles, the principle of non-contradiction, any intelligent discussion of their content would be a non-starter. And recall, that for modern Thomists, the other metaphysical first principles, including the all-important one of causality, arise from reflective analysis of “being” as understood in terms of identity and non-contradiction.

Continued…

 

[Dr.Bonnette]

To hecd2:

Continued…

More importantly, you have now shifted your attack on Adam and Eve to a focus on denying the existence of God Himself. Clearly, you can get rid of Adam if you can get rid of the God who made him! But then, why pretend the topic of this thread is about Adam and Eve at all? Rather, it would appear that you would have it be a project in the promotion of atheism and materialism. Quite the contrary, it would seem that a reasonable discussion about Adam and Eve’s credibility would first grant the major points of Judeo-Christian belief about God and the spiritual uniqueness of man, since that is the proper context in which belief about Adam and Eve arises. Then, and only then, ought we ask whether we can make sense of Adam and Eve. A broad-ranging attack on everything held sacred is hardly a proper approach to an intelligent and respectful discussion of the specific topic of this thread.

Documenting further the extent to which you are challenging the basic premises of reasonable discussion, you write about the philosophy preferred and recommended by the Catholic Church in post 240 as, "An initiative that has quite plainly failed, since neo-Thomism has had not the slightest influence on the practice of philosophy amongst leading philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Reintroducing Thomism to the academy, other than as an historical step in the development of philosophy, is like reintroducing geocentrism or the miasmatic theory of disease to modern science. The projects of Gilson and Maritain have clearly failed to gain any traction whatsoever." This reminds me of the fact that when I got my B.A. in philosophy, the Graduate Record Exam was sufficiently respectful of the differences between secular colleges and Catholic ones that graduates were free to take either of two exams: Scholastic or Non-Scholastic. (This is no longer the case.) Attacking the legitimacy of one type of philosophy by observing that advocates of a diverging type do not respect it is hardly the stuff of helpful discussion. Secular universities are, well, “secular.” It is no shock that they are not harbors of faculty that support religion in general or support journals that are sympathetic to the same. What you are really suggesting is that Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, has no legitimate corollary philosophy to support its claims – another not too thinly-disguised broad-ranging attack on Christianity – rather than focusing on a reasonable discussion of Adam and Eve’s possible existence.

 

[ghrt]

trade9shoes.com

 

[StAnastasia]

Unborn persons do have a temporal life,because they exist in the temporal world. Having a moral life is another matter. We are created for eternal life with God anyway.

Right. What I’m pointing out is that for more than half of all humans, they will enter into eternity without ever having made a moral decision, and without having had the possibility of sinning or not sinning. The last judgment should be a snap for them, if they go through it at all. For the minority of humans who actually lived longer than a few weeks (fewer than 50%), a moral life is relevant.

StAnastasia

 

[hecd2]

To hecd2 re posts 224 and 225:
.

I am busy for the next few days, but will reply to this post and others (including those suggesting that I have broadened the scope of my criticism unreasonably) as soon as I can.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[buffalo]

Right. What I’m pointing out is that for more than half of all humans, they will enter into eternity without ever having made a moral decision, and without having had the possibility of sinning or not sinning. The last judgment should be a snap for them, if they go through it at all. For the minority of humans who actually lived longer than a few weeks (fewer than 50%), a moral life is relevant.

StAnastasia

You forget the point about the capacity to experience God. We will be all be filled to our souls capacity to experience God. Heaven has degrees. Our life on earth can increase, decrease or destroy this capacity.

 

[StAnastasia]

You forget the point about the capacity to experience God. We will be all be filled to our souls capacity to experience God. Heaven has degrees. Our life on earth can increase, decrease or destroy this capacity.

No, I haven’t forgotten that. I merely pointed out that more than half of humanity never experiences temporal life.

 

[dcastlen50]

I don’t disagree that this is a way to look at nature. But I do think that the laws of nature are stronger and more reliable than “what ususally happens”, otherwise no-one would ever get in an aeroplane.

What is the difference between “what usually happens” and the laws of nature.