Religion and Science

[grannymh]

Grannymh:

(As difficult as it might be to wrap yourself around, you must try, because it is Church doctrine.)

In the history of Church doctrine as proclaimed by the great Church Councils, there is no overall doctrine claiming that everything and anything St. Thomas Aquinas thought and wrote about is to be considered as Church dogma.

As you know, it is the Holy Spirit Who sorts out what pertains to Divine Revelation when Church Councils meet. Formulating Catholic dogma was and always will be an extremely difficult task. It is valuable to remember that not every word of every document presented to the Council was put verbatim into the actual, properly proclaimed doctrines. For example, historians have pointed out that the Scholastic Method was practiced by a number of philosophers and theologians who were living around the time of St. Thomas’s rise to fame. The writings of these contemporaries as well as documents from previous writers going back to the beginning were considered and reconsidered as each Council developed the full meaning of Divine Revelation.

At each Council, the Holy Spirit directed Council members and their advisors to the essential meanings which should be formally expressed in a dogma. Does this mean that all the work of the Scholastics, Apostles, Church Fathers, Doctors of the Church, Cardinals, Bishops, previous Councils, philosophers and theologians which do not appear in a specific dogma is thrown away?

My humble suggestion is to read the Apostolic Letter, Apostolic Constitution and especially the Prologue to the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. Next, become familiar with the citations in the footnotes. This will help one understand how dogma is developed and what sources are used. If one is interested in the context of a particular citation, the following book is recommended. The Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, A Compendium of Texts Referred to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church ISBN 0-89870-450-2 (HB); ISBN 0-89870-451-0 (PB)

While there are many references to human nature, body and soul, in the Catechism, I like Paragraphs 362-366 under the title “Body and Soul But Truly One”.

Blessings,
granny

Genesis 1: 1

 

[grannymh]

The above from Aquinas is philosophy, not metaphysics. It is, however, inevitably tied to the metaphysical description of ‘soul production’. By continuing to believe, “that the spiritual soul is directly created (not educed from matter) by God Who is pure spirit” leaves Creation open to major difficulties such as, if God directly produces the soul/spirit what goes wrong when there arises an imperfection? Are we then to say that God produces imperfection therefore he must not be much of a God? Are we to blame God, so to speak, for those who are born with a parasitic twin, for example? Or, anencephaly? Or, are we to rightly blame matter?

God bless,
jd

May I respectfully point out that the above kinds of difficulties are not related to the creative powers of God Who being pure spirit is not subject to the same material/physical restrictions which are part of our human nature.

My apology. But the above is a repeat of thousands of posts which go nowhere because Catholics have difficulty explaining the fully complete human nature and Original Sin as a contracted state. Furthermore, they often – perhaps subconsciously – consider that what we see is what we get. Instead of reading the* Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 355 -421* for themselves, there are some Catholics who accept every “if” situation as if it were a truism, instead of checking its reality factor.

When I landed on CAF, I am not sure which shocked me more – the rudeness of some Catholics or the difficulty some Catholics have in explaining the human condition according to Catholic teaching.

Blessings,
granny

The quest for truth is worthy of the adventures of the journey.

 

[buffalo]

Buffalo:

This is great. I am having trouble grasping that such a work can even be found on the internet!

Thank you.

God bless,
jd

Now one can see how IDvolution is consistent with the Early Church Fathers.

 

[Tonitz]

May I respectfully point out that the above kinds of difficulties are not related to the creative powers of God Who being pure spirit is not subject to the same material/physical restrictions which are part of our human nature.

My apology. But the above is a repeat of thousands of posts which go nowhere because Catholics have difficulty explaining the fully complete human nature and Original Sin as a contracted state. Furthermore, they often – perhaps subconsciously – consider that what we see is what we get. Instead of reading the* Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 355 -421* for themselves, there are some Catholics who accept every “if” situation as if it were a truism, instead of checking its reality factor.

When I landed on CAF, I am not sure which shocked me more – the rudeness of some Catholics or the difficulty some Catholics have in explaining the human condition according to Catholic teaching.

Blessings,
granny

The quest for truth is worthy of the adventures of the journey.

I agree with what you say here, Grannymh, but go a bit farther. As Catholics we not only seem incompetent relative to reality through Church teachings, but even more so in seeing reality through the eyes of others. And for my part, if you can’t repeat back someone’s ideas in your own words from their standpoint, you have no leg to stand on in making comments. And being able to do that doesn’t mean you agree, support, or abet. It just means that you know what you are talking about. And that carries no stain with it, but conversely, it means that you have a wider base for understanding where you yourself are.

And commensurately, here is my favorite quote in the regard: “The search for Reality is the most dangerous undertaking. It will destroy your world.” Why? Because most of us live in a world of make believe, limited to kindergarten ideas in a world which requires nuclear physics. Does that make everybody wrong? NO! It just means we need to exercise the humility of taking advantage of the fact that the biggest room in the Universe is the one for improvement. And God being Infinite, that has bot to be WAY beyond our current state of imagination, Revelation or no. Sorry guys, given the state of things, imo we are still taking baby steps. ID? please… That is an unimaginative insult to God.

 

[grannymh]

I agree with what you say here, Grannymh, but go a bit farther. As Catholics we not only seem incompetent relative to reality through Church teachings, but even more so in seeing reality through the eyes of others. And for my part, if you can’t repeat back someone’s ideas in your own words from their standpoint, you have no leg to stand on in making comments. And being able to do that doesn’t mean you agree, support, or abet. It just means that you know what you are talking about. And that carries no stain with it, but conversely, it means that you have a wider base for understanding where you yourself are.

And commensurately, here is my favorite quote in the regard: “The search for Reality is the most dangerous undertaking. It will destroy your world.” Why? Because most of us live in a world of make believe, limited to kindergarten ideas in a world which requires nuclear physics. Does that make everybody wrong? NO! It just means we need to exercise the humility of taking advantage of the fact that the biggest room in the Universe is the one for improvement. And God being Infinite, that has bot to be WAY beyond our current state of imagination, Revelation or no. Sorry guys, given the state of things, imo we are still taking baby steps. ID? please… That is an unimaginative insult to God.

The quote “The search for Reality is the most dangerous undertaking. It will destroy your world.” is too pessimistic for me. Watch a baby take baby steps. There is hesitancy and some fear but all that is followed by a big smile of accomplishment.

Is that baby focusing on winning a marathon or the Iron Man? Maybe that baby is more realistic about realty than we are.

 

[Tonitz]

@Grannymh

That’s funny! But I see what you mean and have to say that the remark is neither aimed at babies nor is it pessimistic.

From about 6mo. to 6yo the human brain is in a theta state. It only starts to work in the “normal” waking state that the Church might refer to in it’s religious context as “the age of reason” around 7yo. So, if you know your mind sets, we are in a state of hypnotic suggestibility until we are in our seventh year and in that time build up the storehouse of impressions that constitute our funda-mental mind set thenceforward. We are not even “conscious” beings thenafter in many regards because we learn things by rote, some of them correct, and thenceforward are pretty much on autopilot even “thinking” that we think. For most of us, while that mind set is parochially useful for survival, it may not be sufficient to adequately face the context of global considerations, say.

So along the way many mental structures such as the tooth fairy, Santa Clause, and some far more significant structures may be challenged and even destroyed. Others, the ones that might cause a friend to say “You’re just like your Mom” stay and continue functioning if left unchallenged. That may be fine for most things and most people.

But someone who is deeply and sincerely interested in the structure of Reality itself goes to extreme measures to know themselves and thus the structure of how and why they behave and believe as they do. Some few of these actually can root our and universalize their perceptions and modes of behavior into higher and more nearly Divinely accurate modes. We call them Saints, even if they might not be directly of our own tradition. We are, after all, each and every one created in God’s Image and Likeness. In that Grace anything is possible.

But in the terms of that sort of radical re-evaluation of self the parochial mental structures the people ordinarily live their lives by is irrevocable altered, “destroyed” if you will. A major and exceptionally profound insight may in fact put the entirety of one’s body of perceptions about reality in a different and unimagined context. The world they believed they lived in as perceived by the paradigms of childhood are disestablished as the foundation of their reality. See St. Paul. There are many Bible passages relevant to this idea. They even transcend a strictly religious context and are worth study.