Religion and Science

  • Thread starter Thread starter cho_pilo
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Thanks for the reply. My logic is simple, and, I think you will agree that if we live on the prairie and need water for our crops, and, if performing a rain dance will fulfill our needs, then what need do we have to study meteorology?
Obviously if rain dances worked we should still study meteorology. The simple fact for this is because rain dances clearly don’t always work, but sometimes (if they were proven, currently we can say they never work). So since divine intervention doesn’t always happen - in “violation” of natural laws, that is - we should still learn about those laws and learn to work with them ourselves - sure, God can clean up the computer code, supercharge the powerlines, and heal the sick, and he does, for the last one at least. But certainly, he doesn’t always, and has the free will to choose to do so. Ergo, we should be independent.
The study of the various techniques in “rain dancing” may be, in some abstract way, equate to a form of wisdom; but, it does nothing to enhance our understanding of weather patterns. In fact, it is a distraction from the real purpose of obtaining water for our crops.
You’re wrong here too. First of all, it would destroy methodological naturalism (MN) in meteorology if it happened enough, which in that case would be a huge improvement but as both you and I agree in the current state of rain dancing absence of MN is an offence to the field (of meteorology not rain dancing). However, we then should still be independent, merely studying both the natural weather patterns and why rain dances work.

I mean, if faith healing were proven to work, what would scientists do? Stop surgery, applied medicine, biology? NO! Except maybe from the false and bigoted view of religion some atheists, which I hope don’t include yourself, have. Scientists would work with theologians to find out which God healed the people, while their colleagues kept working on a cheaper and better artificial heart! Doctors would see if instantly healed broken legs were stronger, weaker, or equal to slow-healed legs while new students at a medical school learn which fabric is strongest to make foot bindings out of!

The biggest fallacy you commit is a strawman - as an earlier poster said, you treat it as an either-or, or an all-or-nothing. Or do you just have a misunderstanding of these ideas, and aren’t trying to commit a fallacy for whatever reason?
 
cassini

Big Bang theology gives to nature the credit for creating the sun and the sun for creating the earth etc. Ask any atheist and he will tell you.

Big Bang is merely the start of the long process that led to the creation of the Sun and Earth. Big Bang cries out for an explanation, and the explanation it cries out for is a Creator. So it seems to me that all of the theory leads us to believe in the very real plausibility of a Creator, whereas before the Big Bang the atheists were absolutely convinced that the universe was eternal and therefore needed no Creator. The big Bang really is consistent with “Let there be light,” and it is hardly consistent with the atheistic notion of an eternal universe. So I think in this case theology has science on a leash, not the other way around.

But as has been demonstrated on this forum in recent days, dogmas made by the Church ARE BEING DENIED by at least one evolutionist poster. Pius XII warned that the debate cannot deny dogmas associated with the subject.

Such as? The creation of Eve from a rib of Adam? If this is denied by evolution, which I believe it is, the popes would have had to immediately declare evolution theory inherently heretical, which I don’t believe they have.
 
Jack

*Thanks for the reply. My logic is simple, and, I think you will agree that if we live on the prairie and need water for our crops, and, if performing a rain dance will fulfill our needs, then what need do we have to study meteorology? *

What need do we have to study nuclear weapons? Religion tells us we have no need whatever. Religious wisdom in that respect is superior to scientific know-how. Of course, we Americans will never really realize how superior religious wisdom can be to scientific know-how until we have detonated on our land one or more nuclear bombs. Then it will suddenly become clear how useless science can be and how wonderfully useful religious wisdom could have been.

At that point, by the way, even the study of meteorology will be useless to evade the radioactive rain that follows … thanks to the arrogance of scientific knowledge.
 
Happy New Year, Ed.

Can you give me the reference for the above?

God bless,
jd
Happy New Year jd. My source is the Catholic Answers library:

"The Time Question

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”

Peace,
Ed
 
“The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”
Confusing time with eternity is an unfortunate and elementary error to make!
 
Who originally proposed the geocentric model? It was not Scripture. It was a Greek philosopher named Plato. Hardly infallible. The Church took Plato’s model because it was the best explanation of the time. A better explanation has been found.
I agree with you but the problem is a bit more acute then is being realized. Cas is suggesting that heliocentrism has been made a heresy and that therefore Catholics have no choice but to reject it. This needs to be dealt with directly.

*Cassini - Every experiment tried to prove Heliocentrism ended up showing the opposite, that the earth does not move. Your idea of cosmology was defined and condemned as heresy, and heresy does not enhance the image of the God of Catholics.
*
 
I agree with you but the problem is a bit more acute then is being realized. Cas is suggesting that heliocentrism has been made a heresy and that therefore Catholics have no choice but to reject it. This needs to be dealt with directly.

Cassini - Every experiment tried to prove Heliocentrism ended up showing the opposite, that the earth does not move. Your idea of cosmology was defined and condemned as heresy, and heresy does not enhance the image of the God of Catholics.
Heliocentrism, as another theory regarding the position of the material/physical earth, is not an heresy which opposes a publically and properly defined, universal Catholic dogma.
 
Heliocentrism, as another theory regarding the position of the material/physical earth, is not an heresy which opposes a publically and properly defined, universal Catholic dogma.
And why should I agree with you? You have merely made an assertion which gives me nothing in the way of resolving the issue.
 
And why should I agree with you? You have merely made an assertion which gives me nothing in the way of resolving the issue.
Whether you personally agree with me or not – heliocentrisim is not a heresy. Furthermore, geocentrism is not a Catholic theological dogma. Since neither is a part of the Catholic faith, then there are no issues of rejecting or accepting.

Anyone can offer opinions or speculations about the earth’s position in the universe including you and the Pope if he so chooses. Opinions, speculations, and personal conclusions about the position of the material/physical earth in the universe are not part of the realm of the Catholic Faith. The Catholic theological dogma involved is that God is the Creator. This dogma does not include the particular mechanics of an individual planet.

For further information, one can check the posts of David Palm in regard to how the visible Catholic Church operates regarding declarations of dogma.

Blessings,
granny

Genesis 1: 1
 
Originally Posted by MindOverMatter2
And why should I agree with you? You have merely made an assertion which gives me nothing in the way of resolving the issue.

Granny:
heliocentrisim is not a heresy. Furthermore, geocentrism is not a Catholic theological dogma. Since neither is a part of the Catholic faith, then there are no issues of rejecting or accepting.

(removed for space)
Blessings,
granny
Genesis 1: 1
We discussed this before granny, but MOM seems to me like someone who can think for himself so I will put him in the picture.

**First Granny v St Robert Bellarmine **

**Granny **(CAF contributor)):
'Anyone can offer opinions or speculations about the earth’s position in the universe including you and the Pope if he so chooses. Opinions, speculations, and personal conclusions about the position of the material/physical earth in the universe are not part of the realm of the Catholic Faith.’

Bellarmine ((Born in Montepulciano Italy, the now Saint Robert Bellarmine was made cardinal in 1599 by Pope Clement VIII who said that his equal in learning was not at that time to be found in the Church.)
'Now consider whether in all prudence the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators. Nor may it be answered that this is not a matter of faith, for if it is not a matter of faith from the point of view of the subject matter (ex parte objecti), it is a matter of faith on the part of the ones who have spoken (ex parte dicentis). It would be just as heretical to deny that Abraham had two sons and Jacob twelve, as it would be to deny the virgin birth of Christ, for both are declared by the Holy Ghost through the mouths of the prophets and apostles.’

Church teaching:

Lateran Council V of 1512-17:
‘And since truth never contradicts truth, we declare every assertion contrary to the truth of illuminated faith to be altogether false; and, that it may not be permitted to dogmatise otherwise, we strictly forbid it, and we decree that all who adhere to errors of this kind are to be shunned and to be punished as detestable and abominable infidels who disseminate most damnable heresies and who weaken the Catholic faith.’ —(Denzinger - 738)

The Council of Trent April 8, 1546:
‘Furthermore, in order to curb imprudent clever persons, the synod decrees that no one who relies on his own judgement in matters of faith and morals, which pertain to the building up of Christian doctrine, and that no one who distorts the Sacred Scripture according to his own opinions, shall dare to interpret the said Sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which is held by holy Mother Church, whose duty it is to judge regarding the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures, or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, even though interpretations of this kind were never intended to be brought to light. Let those who shall oppose this be reported by their ordinaries and be punished with the penalties prescribed by law.’ — (Denzinger - 786)

The Church instrument that defined the heresy as formal:
In 1542, in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, Pope Paul III set up various congregations to assist the Pope in his task of safeguarding the Apostolic faith held ‘in agreement with Sacred Scripture and apostolic tradition.’ One of the most important of these was the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, otherwise known as the Congregation of the Holy Office. The function of this body was specifically to combat heresy at the highest level. Then, in 1588, Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) gave this congregation even more explicit powers in the Bull Immensa Dei (God Who cannot be Encompassed). In this directive he made the reigning pope, whoever he may be, Prefect of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition. This gave the Catholic world to understand that decisions assigned to its judgment, before publication, would invariably be examined and ratified by the Pope himself as supreme judge of the Holy See, and would go forward clothed with such papal authority.

The verdict 1616:
(1) “That the sun is in the centre of the world and altogether immovable by local movement, was unanimously declared to be “foolish, philosophically absurd, and formally heretical, inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the declarations of Holy Scripture in many passages, according to the proper meaning of the language used, and the sense in which they have been expounded and understood by the Fathers and theologians.”

Confirmation of the immutibility of the verdict of formal heresy 1633:’
'… in the same book [you Galileo] have defended an opinion already condemned, and declared to your face to be so, in that you have tried in the said book, by various devices, to persuade yourself that you leave the matter undetermined, and the opinion expressed as probable; the which, however, is a most grave error, since an opinion can in no manner be probable which has been declared, and defined to be, contrary to the divine Scripture.”

Teaching on infallibility at Vatican I:
The Roman pontiffs, too, as the circumstances of the time or the state of affairs suggested,
sometimes by summoning ecumenical councils or consulting the opinion of the churches scattered throughout the world, sometimes by special synods, sometimes by taking advantage of other useful means afforded by divine providence, defined as doctrines to be held those things which, by God’s help, they knew to be in keeping with sacred scripture and the apostolic traditions.

Abrogation of 1616 decree: NONE TO BE FOUND BY THE CHURCH so the grannys of this world abrogate the heresy by consensus.
 
Granny’s reply to post 49.

There have been scientific heresies all over the place. But a scientific heresy belongs to the material/physical world. Geocentrism is not a properly declared and universally proclaimed theological truth in the Catholic realm of faith and morals. Multi decrees and high ranking commissions do not have the ability to issue formal, properly defined Catholic theological doctrines at a local trial.

This is why there is no Catholic geocentric dogma properly presented in post 49.

Blessings,
granny

Genesis 1:1
 
Granny’s reply to post 49.

There have been scientific heresies all over the place. But a scientific heresy belongs to the material/physical world. Geocentrism is not a properly declared and universally proclaimed theological truth in the Catholic realm of faith and morals. Multi decrees and high ranking commissions do not have the ability to issue formal, properly defined Catholic theological doctrines at a local trial.

This is why there is no Catholic geocentric dogma properly presented in post 49.

Blessings,
granny

Genesis 1:1
According to your position granny, all those Churchmen had not a clue as to what they were up to. Imagine that lot in charge of Christ’s Mystical Body on Earth. Take the following, presented for a second time:

Confirmation of the immutibility of the verdict of formal heresy 1633:’
'… in the same book [you Galileo] have defended an opinion already condemned, and declared to your face to be so, in that you have tried in the said book, by various devices, to persuade yourself that you leave the matter undetermined, and the opinion expressed as probable; the which, however, is a most grave error, since an opinion can in no manner be probable which has been declared, and defined to be, contrary to the divine Scripture.”


Here the ordinary magisterium of the Church states that formal heresy ( a belief cortrary to revelation) had been defined and declared (in 1616) and that this definition was final. But they didn’t know what they were saying, And what is this new nonsense about a local trial? Can a heresy be local now, confined to one man at one time?

Now show me any CHURCH abrogation of this position. You cannot, so you presume to have an authority and knowledge greater that the Church of 1616 and 1633. It is no wonder Pope urban VIII warned that if the heresy prevailed it would ‘put the Catholic faith in danger.’ When I see the Copernicans portray the popes, cardinals and theologians of 1616 and 1633 I see the roots of modernism. Dismiss the traditional interpretations and teaching of the Church as outdated and make the Catholic religion comply with the new Copernican mode of thinking.
.
 
Thanks for the reply. My logic is simple, and, I think you will agree that if we live on the prairie and need water for our crops, and, if performing a rain dance will fulfill our needs, then what need do we have to study meteorology?

The study of the various techniques in “rain dancing” may be, in some abstract way, equate to a form of wisdom; but, it does nothing to enhance our understanding of weather patterns. In fact, it is a distraction from the real purpose of obtaining water for our crops.
I believe you have things backwards here. Science doesn’t exclude God; if anything, science requires God. Think about it. How is it that we have laws of nature that only the supernatural can break? Laws didn’t just pop into existence by themselves. Even if we grant the possibility of matter/energy being the eternal first cause, how could matter or energy bring immaterial things like laws into existence? Laws of nature aren’t made. They are discovered. So just why is it that gravity and the laws of mathematics are? Moreover, if we are products of evolution and are not created in the likeness of God, why is it that we can think logically in the first place?

Perhaps I’m looking at it all wrong, but with those thoughts in mind materialism seems ridiculous.
 
Now show me any CHURCH abrogation of this position. You cannot, so you presume to have an authority and knowledge greater that the Church of 1616 and 1633. .
If you say so. 😉

I am happy to acknowledge that I have not seen any abrogation of the local trial documents etc.

In addition, I have not seen the date, place, and name of the specific Church Council which properly defined and universally declared a theological dogma specifically stating the exact position of only one material/physical planet in the entire universe.

Blessings for the New Year.
granny
 
If you say so. 😉

I am happy to acknowledge that I have not seen any abrogation of the local trial documents etc.

In addition, I have not seen the date, place, and name of the specific Church Council which properly defined and universally declared a theological dogma specifically stating the exact position of only one material/physical planet in the entire universe.

Blessings for the New Year.
granny
Granny, I have always considered you an intelligent contributer to CAF. I have read your defence of the faith elsewhere and believe you to be an informed Catholic. Why is it then when it comes to debating the cosmology of God and that historic clash of faith and science - one that 99.999% of Catholics believe the Church LOST, a series of judgements made by decrees, definitions, declarations and an infamous trial that were wrong, in error; one that caused an embarrassment to millions of Catholics throughout the last two centuries, one that the modernists of Vatican II were so ASHAMED OF that they condemned in their Council documents popes, cardinals and theologians of the time as TROUBLE MAKERS they NEVER WANTED TO SEE AGAIN MAKING a series of INTELLECTUAL AND SCRIPTURAL ERRORS, one that Pope John Paul II personally condemned as unreasonable, unfair and** ILLEGAL **- you and so many resort to **PATHETIC **arguments.

Your post above demonstrates this to all. It is not even Catholic. You lose your Catholicity when it comes to defending your beliefs of the faith and science clash. Are you seriously suggesting above that only if a Council defines a revelation or a dogma is it binding? Why do you insist that the matter was one of science and not of the truth of Scripture? Why do you depict popes and theologians of the Church as being so ignorant that they did not know what they were about for over a 100 years. Is that the Church you now believe in, one that has a history of incompetence, error and mis management? How can you defend anything the Church had to say OUTSIDE YOUR ILLUSION OF ONLY COUNCIL DEFINITIONS? What are you granny? What kind of Catholicism is your belief system indulging in.

Would you really like to show me how you think with a real proper debate on FACTUAL STATEMENTS IN SCRIPTURE? Do you teach that factual statements in Scripture have no authority, no purpose, or only some of them? Do you believe the opinion of the Fathers is of any worth regarding factual statements of Scripture? Are there any factual statements in scripture that can be revised at the behest of science, such as the literal words of geocentrism being twisted to read like heliocentric ones?

There is here above a series of questions that have never been debated in the modernist church. Enough of the rhetoric, why not set out definitive lines here and see where it goes?
 
There is here above a series of questions that have never been debated in the modernist church. Enough of the rhetoric, why not set out definitive lines here and see where it goes?
There are quite a variety of questions in your posts. Of course, I am interested in seeing your “definitive lines”.

However, there are a number of questions/topics which I do not discuss beyond a reference to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, regardless of epithets, innuendoes, and ad hominems**.** When dealing with quotations, citations, or inflammatory speech, I often require context above, below, and behind.

The reason I like your “definitive lines” suggestion is that so far I’ve spotted three separate topics, only superficially related to each other. Naturally, there are sub-topics.

Unfortunately, there are going to be times when I don’t have access to a computer. Don’t be concerned. I will respond eventually.

Blessings,
granny

Isaiah 55: 6-9
 
Abrogation of 1616 decree: NONE TO BE FOUND BY THE CHURCH so the grannys of this world abrogate the heresy by consensus.
The Congregation of the Index, which issued the public 1616 decree, had as its competence which works should and should not be included on the Index of Forbidden Books. At that time it was ruled that works that presented the Pythagorean theory as a thesis rather than a hypothesis should not be read by Catholics and therefore a number of works that did so were put on the Index. It was therefore a disciplinary decree and not irreformable. In fact, as Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S. has rightly said:

In the case of Rome’s 17th-century insistence on geocentrism, we have a teaching which: (a) was promulgated only in disciplinary documents, not in formally doctrinal ones; (b) was never promulgated directly and personally by any Pope, only indirectly, through the instrumentality of the Vatican Congregations of the Index and the Holy Office; (c) was endorsed by the papacy for only 141 years (1616-1757); (d) was never greeted with the emphatic and morally unanimous endorsement of the world’s Bishops, only a respectful acquiescence; and (e) never in any case affected the concrete lives and destinies of any more than a handful of professional scientists such as Galileo. (Roma Locuta Est - Causa Finita Est)

I have asked elsewhere in this forum for proof that every decree from a Roman congregation approved only in forma communi must be formally abrogated. I have yet to see any evidence offered. But, that aside, in fact the Index of Forbidden Books was duly and authoritatively updated several times, including to drop all of the works concerning Copernicanism from the Index. This, then, covers not only the 1616 decree but also Pope Alexander VII’s republication of the Index, prefaced by the papal bull Speculatores Domus Israel.

The 1636 decree of the Holy Office, which was also approved in forma communi, concerned the person of Galileo and his breech of the 1616 decree by continuing to publish books and teach the Copernican hypothesis as a thesis. This too was a disciplinary action against him.

I propose that this action was officially reversed by the Church as follows:
Code:
16 August 1820 The Congregation of the Holy Office, with the pope's approval, decrees that Catholic astronomer Joseph Settele can be allowed to treat the earth's motion as an established fact. . . .

11 September 1822 The Congregation of the Holy Office decides to allow in general the publication of books treating of the earth's motion in accordance with modern astronomy. . . .

25 September 1822 Pope Pius VII ratifies this decision. . . . (from Finocchiaro, *Retrying Galileo*, p. 307)
Thus the Holy Office (the same Roman congregation which was involved in 1636) reexamined the issue and gave permission throughout the Church to present non-Pythagorean views of the solar system as theses rather than just as hypotheses, a reversal of the discipline expressed in the 1636 decree.

Pope Leo XIII stated in Providentissimus Deus 18-19 that the Holy Spirit did not put any such information about the physical nature of the universe in sacred Scripture. This was reiterated by his successor Pius XII in Divino Afflante Spiritu 3. This is not a matter of faith and morals.

It is true, of course, that the disciplinary documents of 1616 and 1636 had a doctrinal aspect. But in this the Roman Pontiff has stated that there was an error:

Pope John Paul II has stated publicly that “The error of the theologians of the time [1616/1633], when they maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture” and that “the sentence of 1633 was not irreformable . . . the debate which had not ceased to evolve thereafter, was closed in 1820 with the imprimatur given to the work of Canon Settele” (here).

It appears to me that it is the Church’s view that this matter has been officially dealt with, Cassini’s personal view to the contrary notwithstanding, and that Catholics have freedom to embrace the view of cosmology which they believe best fits the scientific evidence.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top