Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution

[Arandur]

This is an interesting point of view.

Let me understand it. On the distribution graph God had in mine an apex point? And that all His allowed processes tend toward this?

Not all of them–only things that we perceive as “random” distributions. It is rather difficult for me to explain this concept. Put crudely, God IS the apex, yes. Or rather, the apex is God’s plan or intention. The argument can be constructed like this:

1. If outcomes tend toward a certain result over time, and
2. If all things ultimately must work to bring about God’s plan/intention, (qualification: even if He does not directly will all of those outcomes, the parallel being human choices)
3. Then that certain result, the central limit, the apex of the normal distribution, must be what God intends.

Caveat: that “intention” cannot be judged by us for “goodness” partly because 1. God is not subject to our judgment or full understanding and 2. That result may be preliminary, part of an incomprehensibly long chain of results, the ultimate end of which is God’s intention.

There are many other beautiful ways that mathematics tells us about God. I believe Geometry combined with Relativity theory actually proves God’s existence, His status as Necessary Being, His infinite unchanging nature, His omniscient existence outside of time, His omnibenevolence, and His omnipotence.
I’ve gone into detail in a thread a few months back on this and in another forum, but in brief it goes like this:
A. All geometric dimensions contain and are composed of an infinite number of lower dimensions (infinite number of points on a line, lines in a plane, planes in a cube, cubes in space, space in time, etc)
B. All lower dimensions are apparent to the higher dimension simultaneously (a line, containing all of its points, is relative to them all at once)
C. A lower dimension cannot be wholly perceived or created except that it is within a higher dimension (if you were “in” a point, you couldn’t perceive it, nor could another point be created “within” it, but if you are “in” a line, you can perceive all the points, and create another point within the line).

If A and B and C, then something must exist that caused/created all our known dimensions; this something must exist in a higher dimension; and all aspects of the lower dimensions are simultaneously knowable by and subjective to this higher dimension. I call that higher/highest dimension “God.” That means God is the cause/creator of all lower dimensions by necessity of their own existence–making Him omnipotent and Necessary and theoretically infinite and unchanging in His status as highest dimension. It also means God perceives/knows all that happens in those lower dimensions at once, since they are all “within” and subjective to Him–making Him truly omniscient and literally “outside” of time, since time is one of these dimensions that is less than He is.

God’s omnibenevolence requires another step. Relativity theory added Time as a dimension in the above consideration, coupled with space since they interact. Relativity also presupposes subjectivity. Take that subjectivity as premise D and you can conclude not only that everything is subjective to God (being in lower dimensions) as described above, but that the ultimate constant, that which our points of reference and definitions must be anchored against, is also God (this is also hard to describe). So by definition, whatever God does, as the ultimate point of reference, is “Good.” Put another way, whatever this being does (and “Willing” is “doing”) is the standard against which everything else must be judged. We could call God’s Will and actions omnimaleficent if we wished, but the point is that whatever judgment we ascribe to God must be constant across all His wills and actions since all of our own existence and judgments are relative to His. We can know that God is all good rather than all evil because of His revelation and by natural law (a form of revelation).

The most relevant point of all this to our discussion on evolution is the demonstration of how, by existing in a higher dimension, God can have designed/created and known (and thus “controlled”) all that exists and “happens” (our term for existence in the dimension of time) within nature (which exists in lower dimensions).

 

[edwest2]

This is an important essay and it blows the cover off of the claims that we hear so often on CAF. It looks at Theistic Evolution – which some people think is the default “Catholic position” on evolutionary theory. The two biggest (most quoted and referenced) proponents of this idea are Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller. This essay shows that the attempt to reconcile Darwinism and religious faith ends up with a major and radical contradiction between those two scientists’ ideas (when they’re supposed to be in agreement). Collins says that God is actually guiding random processes, but God’s guidance is undetectable. Miller says that God is not guiding the process of evolution.

Miller is promoted up very often on CAF as an example of a “Catholic” who believes in evolution and who can perfectly reconcile evolution and Catholicism. We hear the comments very often: “What problem could you have with evolution? There is no conflict at all with evolutionary theory and the Catholic faith. I can’t understand why you’re so afraid of evolution - it’s perfectly compatible with Catholicism. Etc. etc.”

Now let’s look at how Kenneth Miller “reconciles” evolution and “Catholicism”:

Roman Catholic biologist Kenneth Miller considers the position of guided but undetectable design in his book Finding Darwin’s God, but rejects it. “Evolution is a natural process, and natural processes are undirected,” he insists. Miller denies that the evolutionary process was directed in order to produce any particular result—even the development of human beings. In fact, he says he agrees with the view “that mankind’s appearance on this planet was not preordained, that **we are here **not as the products of an inevitable procession of evolutionary success, but as an afterthought, a minor detail, a happenstance in a history that might just as well have left us out.” Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God p 244

Yes, let’s discuss. Miller had to create an entirely new “god” in order to reconcile “Catholicism” with evolution. Miller believes in an “ignorant god” – an “imperfect god” who is not worthy of being worshipped.

Amazingly, we hear Kenneth Miller’s name being promoted by some people who otherwise claim to be orthodox Catholics (or so I thought). But Miller has created a “god” that is less knowing and certain than the gods of some pagan religions. Miller’s is a completely false religion ruled by a god who did not know that human beings would evolve.

As John West summarizes:

In Miller’s view, while God may have wished for some sort of rational creature to develop in the universe, he assigned the job to an undirected process that could have produced any number of different results other than human beings. Thus, it was mere “happenstance” that human beings developed. Miller’s view is a radical departure from traditional Christian (or Jewish or Muslim) teaching that human beings are created as the result of God’s specific plan.

This is quite amazing and I will look forward to seeing the responses in reply.

Thank you very much. Mr. Miller definitely does not represent the Catholic view. God wills things into existence. His word does not return to Him void but performs the task for which it was sent.

I can see why Ken Miller is the Catholic of choice for so many here. God made man. Yet, time and again, the vast majority of posts here are clearly from the Stephen Jay Gould camp, who tells us if evolution could be rewound, things would have turned out differently.

Here, then, is the core of the so-called debate. Darwin and modern science see only random forces and only natural selection. And that is all they want to focus on. The invisible God and invisible soul can be tacked on to make the important part, the science, easier for Catholics to swallow.

If we are Catholics and if we have listened to Pope Benedict at all, it is not cut and dry. He said, But it also true that evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.

The World sees this as a power struggle with the Church who they view as mythical and just another ideology. It is a clash, to them, of orthodox belief systems.

Science is their god. It has evidence. They want it to be in charge of people’s lives and don’t you dare connect it to religion, unless, of course, you can find a religious person that agrees with them.

God is our God. In the World’s concept of reality, they will concede that God got the ball rolling, the end. After that, Nature, who is referred to as a person, operates with a free will and somehow, who knows how, man just happened to show up. Billions of years plus a lot of mixing and mutations and selections = Man.

The Pope is telling us clearly, No, that’s not the way it happened. In Communion and Stewardship, we are told that a random mutation and natural selection function simply cannot exist without God. Period.

And God’s involvement cannot be attached in an illogical or mythic way, it is actual.

Problem is, any statements to that effect offend the sensibilities of many who just say, Well, science doesn’t deal with God. The Church is saying that science can only reveal a little to which must be added the whole reason for the Church’s existence - God. Specifically, the life and death of Jesus Christ.

Are we going to evangelize others and tell them: Believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and follow that up with, Oh, by the way, according to Ken Miller, you and I are just lucky accidents? That on the path of billions of years of evolution, thanks to a few lucky mutations here and a few ‘natural’ selections there, and here we are?

The current version of evolution being peddled here is not compatible with what the Church knows about God.

Peace,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

I agree with this.

That is excellent. Let’s look at what he said.

Kreeft: “…the things we observe … display an intricately beautiful order …”

In nature we can detect an “intricately beautiful order”, right?

Kreeft: “It is the norm in nature for many different beings to work together to produce the same valuable end—for example, the organs in the body work for our life and health.”

We can observe “organs in the body” producing a “valuable end” (or purpose). Would we be able to observe other examples in nature that give indication of design like this?

Kreeft: 2. Either this intelligible order is the product of chance or of intelligent design.
3. Not chance.

Why have you ruled out chance?

Kreeft: 4. Therefore the universe is the product of intelligent design.

So, we have an intelligible (observable) order which is the evidence of intelligent design, right?

Kreeft: *5. Design comes only from a mind, a designer. *

You’ve already stated this so it just follows. The effects of beauty and order we see in nature and the universe are detectable and they cannot be the result of an unintelligent process alone – an Intelligent Designer is necessary. Therefore, I think you believe that God is the intelligent designer, and that His design can be observed in nature.

 

[buffalo]

Not all of them–only things that we perceive as “random” distributions. It is rather difficult for me to explain this concept. Put crudely, God IS the apex, yes. Or rather, the apex is God’s plan or intention. The argument can be constructed like this:

1. If outcomes tend toward a certain result over time, and
2. If all things ultimately must work to bring about God’s plan/intention, (qualification: even if He does not directly will all of those outcomes, the parallel being human choices)
3. Then that certain result, the central limit, the apex of the normal distribution, must be what God intends.

Caveat: that “intention” cannot be judged by us for “goodness” partly because 1. God is not subject to our judgment or full understanding and 2. That result may be preliminary, part of an incomprehensibly long chain of results, the ultimate end of which is God’s intention.

There are many other beautiful ways that mathematics tells us about God. I believe Geometry combined with Relativity theory actually proves God’s existence, His status as Necessary Being, His infinite unchanging nature, His omniscient existence outside of time, His omnibenevolence, and His omnipotence.
I’ve gone into detail in a thread a few months back on this and in another forum, but in brief it goes like this:
A. All geometric dimensions contain and are composed of an infinite number of lower dimensions (infinite number of points on a line, lines in a plane, planes in a cube, cubes in space, space in time, etc)
B. All lower dimensions are apparent to the higher dimension simultaneously (a line, containing all of its points, is relative to them all at once)
C. A lower dimension cannot be wholly perceived or created except that it is within a higher dimension (if you were “in” a point, you couldn’t perceive it, nor could another point be created “within” it, but if you are “in” a line, you can perceive all the points, and create another point within the line).

If A and B and C, then something must exist that caused/created all our known dimensions; this something must exist in a higher dimension; and all aspects of the lower dimensions are simultaneously knowable by and subjective to this higher dimension. I call that higher/highest dimension “God.” That means God is the cause/creator of all lower dimensions by necessity of their own existence–making Him omnipotent and Necessary and theoretically infinite and unchanging in His status as highest dimension. It also means God perceives/knows all that happens in those lower dimensions at once, since they are all “within” and subjective to Him–making Him truly omniscient and literally “outside” of time, since time is one of these dimensions that is less than He is.

God’s omnibenevolence requires another step. Relativity theory added Time as a dimension in the above consideration, coupled with space since they interact. Relativity also presupposes subjectivity. Take that subjectivity as premise D and you can conclude not only that everything is subjective to God (being in lower dimensions) as described above, but that the ultimate constant, that which our points of reference and definitions must be anchored against, is also God (this is also hard to describe). So by definition, whatever God does, as the ultimate point of reference, is “Good.” Put another way, whatever this being does (and “Willing” is “doing”) is the standard against which everything else must be judged. We could call God’s Will and actions omnimaleficent if we wished, but the point is that whatever judgment we ascribe to God must be constant across all His wills and actions since all of our own existence and judgments are relative to His. We can know that God is all good rather than all evil because of His revelation and by natural law (a form of revelation).

The most relevant point of all this to our discussion on evolution is the demonstration of how, by existing in a higher dimension, God can have designed/created and known (and thus “controlled”) all that exists and “happens” (our term for existence in the dimension of time) within nature (which exists in lower dimensions).

Correct me if I am wrong - God’s WORD is the directing action towards this apex. His WORD harnesses all that is necessary to bring this about. I think that in a broad way this is God’s intention and will.

I question that why should He have decided to take so much time to do this? Why not cut right to the chase and get’er done?

 

[reggieM]

Thank you very much. Mr. Miller definitely does not represent the Catholic view. God wills things into existence. His word does not return to Him void but performs the task for which it was sent.

Exactly right. Mr. Miller has publicly denied a central tenet of the Catholic Faith, and it is not only in that one book that he did so. Is that where evolutionary theories lead us? It certainly looks that way – erosion of faith and a slippery slope to atheism.

Here, then, is the core of the so-called debate. Darwin and modern science see only random forces and only natural selection. And that is all they want to focus on. The invisible God and invisible soul can be tacked on to make the important part, the science, easier for Catholics to swallow.

That is a good point. Their god is an unnecessary appendage with no discernable function. This is the modern tendency to deny and strip away the power of the supernatural and the *observed and documented *miracles which are at the heart of the Catholic Faith.

If we are Catholics and if we have listened to Pope Benedict at all, it is not cut and dry. He said, But it also true that evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.

Also, in direct contradiction to Ken Miller and Fr. Coyne, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

 

[buffalo]

Exactly right. Mr. Miller has publicly denied a central tenet of the Catholic Faith, and it is not only in that one book that he did so. Is that where evolutionary theories lead us? It certainly looks that way – erosion of faith and a slippery slope to atheism.

That is a good point. Their god is an unnecessary appendage with no discernable function. This is the modern tendency to deny and strip away the power of the supernatural and the *observed and documented *miracles which are at the heart of the Catholic Faith.

If we are Catholics and if we have listened to Pope Benedict at all, it is not cut and dry. He said, But it also true that evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.

Also, in direct contradiction to Ken Miller and Fr. Coyne, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

Ken Miller’s “Only a Theory” reviewed in Nature

…The conflict has wider consequences than the teaching of one discipline in US public schools - the creationists aim to revise what science means, discarding rationalism, naturalism, materialism and other Enlightenment values to incorporate the supernatural and loosen the rigour of all sciences."

 

[Arandur]

That is excellent. Let’s look at what he said.

Kreeft: “…the things we observe … display an intricately beautiful order …”

In nature we can detect an “intricately beautiful order”, right?

Kreeft: “It is the norm in nature for many different beings to work together to produce the same valuable end—for example, the organs in the body work for our life and health.”

We can observe “organs in the body” producing a “valuable end” (or purpose). Would we be able to observe other examples in nature that give indication of design like this?

Kreeft: 2. Either this intelligible order is the product of chance or of intelligent design.
3. Not chance.

Why have you ruled out chance?

Kreeft: 4. Therefore the universe is the product of intelligent design.

So, we have an intelligible (observable) order which is the evidence of intelligent design, right?

Kreeft: *5. Design comes only from a mind, a designer. *

You’ve already stated this so it just follows. The effects of beauty and order we see in nature and the universe are detectable and they cannot be the result of an unintelligent process alone – an Intelligent Designer is necessary. Therefore, I think you believe that God is the intelligent designer, and that His design can be observed in nature.

Yes, I believe that. I thought that’s what I’ve been saying in almost every post for several pages now.
I’ve been explaining in various ways how I think that can be, and how it makes evolution possible. God designed it.

Where do you think I’m wrong? Or where do you think we don’t agree?

 

[Arandur]

Correct me if I am wrong - God’s WORD is the directing action towards this apex. His WORD harnesses all that is necessary to bring this about. I think that in a broad way this is God’s intention and will.

I question that why should He have decided to take so much time to do this? Why not cut right to the chase and get’er done?

You can ask God why He didn’t decide to do it that way, a way you may have preferred. But we DO observe so many things in nature that seem, across all the scientific disciplines, to indicate strongly and exclusively that God DID choose to take a lot of time to do these things.

It puzzles me that you’d ask the question, though, considering that the mere existence of random distributions that we were talking about indicates that God DOES allow variation on the path to His plan. For why have all those many points on the graph and just have a single point or line where everything lines up perfectly?

That might be the “easier,” more direct route. But really you’re asking the very same question as those who ask why God made free will. Why allow the other outcomes, possibilities? Why not make everything conform to your Good? Why allow choice at all? The answer to the existence of free choice also answers why God chose to allow variation in nature, to take time to achieve His will.

Beyond that, I have posited several times that taking such time and allowing such variation glorifies God far, far more than an Easy-Bake, Finger-Snap universe. It shows how wonderful and complex God is, how far beyond our limited perspectives He is, how nearly infinitely wondrous the world He gave us is. We not only have things to study in our own time, but we have a virtually limitless amount of things to study in the past time of our world, because it is so old.

I think God takes delight in His own creation, and it just makes sense that such a vast being as God would take delight in a vast creation, both in terms of space and time. And certainly He wants us to delight and wonder in His creation, to explore it, to learn about Him through all the wondrous fingerprints He left in it, to challenge our minds with the complexity of it.

What is more fitting for our God than effectively infinite time and space and complexity? This God of ours is infinitely beyond the pagan gods who are simplistic and childish by comparison in the ways in which their myths say they created the world. Why should God be limited by such a simplistic form of creation that leaves Him on the same level as the pagan Gods? I think the age and size of our universe, as well as the complexity of its processes such as evolution, are exactly what makes our God so far beyond those simple pagan gods, and one of the major reasons that I think it does a grave disservice to God, indeed shows that we want to limit Him in a simplistic box, when we try to dismiss what science observes of His creation in favor of simplistic notions of creation.

 

[Arandur]

Is that where evolutionary theories lead us? It certainly looks that way – erosion of faith and a slippery slope to atheism.

One could say the same thing of any number of religious doctrines. You can’t judge a core truth entirely by how people abuse it (I say “abuse” because the limits of science and evolutionary theory do not permit any definitive extrapolation beyond observed natural phenomena). Otherwise the Church would be condemned for the sins of its members.

What you’re talking about ultimately is materialism. Now matter how complex it gets, it will still be condemned by its inability to explain how matter came to be in the first place. It denies God as the First Cause, and so the rest of all materialist philosophies fail. Just because it hides behind a scientific discovery does not make that discovery false. Materialists in the past have hidden behind heliocentrism as a means to deny God’s truth; they have also hidden behind the existence of genes/DNA, the operation of the brain, and similar things verified by science. Are those things known to science to be judged wrong because materialists have hid behind them? Then why would you make the logical error of saying that evolution must be wrong because materialists use it as their latest hiding place?

Further, if the comparison of the beliefs of scientists to those in 1916 that I posted earlier is accurate, then there isn’t even much of a trend of evolution inspiring much more atheism over time. So why do you want so badly to have a scapegoat to blame? Blame what should be blamed: errant philosophies and the poor reasoning, selfishness, and lack of faith that leads to them.

 

[buffalo]

You can ask God why He didn’t decide to do it that way, a way you may have preferred. But we DO observe so many things in nature that seem, across all the scientific disciplines, to indicate strongly and exclusively that God DID choose to take a lot of time to do these things.

It puzzles me that you’d ask the question, though, considering that the mere existence of random distributions that we were talking about indicates that God DOES allow variation on the path to His plan. For why have all those many points on the graph and just have a single point or line where everything lines up perfectly?

That might be the “easier,” more direct route. But really you’re asking the very same question as those who ask why God made free will. Why allow the other outcomes, possibilities? Why not make everything conform to your Good? Why allow choice at all? The answer to the existence of free choice also answers why God chose to allow variation in nature, to take time to achieve His will.

Beyond that, I have posited several times that taking such time and allowing such variation glorifies God far, far more than an Easy-Bake, Finger-Snap universe. It shows how wonderful and complex God is, how far beyond our limited perspectives He is, how nearly infinitely wondrous the world He gave us is. We not only have things to study in our own time, but we have a virtually limitless amount of things to study in the past time of our world, because it is so old.

I think God takes delight in His own creation, and it just makes sense that such a vast being as God would take delight in a vast creation, both in terms of space and time. And certainly He wants us to delight and wonder in His creation, to explore it, to learn about Him through all the wondrous fingerprints He left in it, to challenge our minds with the complexity of it.

What is more fitting for our God than effectively infinite time and space and complexity? This God of ours is infinitely beyond the pagan gods who are simplistic and childish by comparison in the ways in which their myths say they created the world. Why should God be limited by such a simplistic form of creation that leaves Him on the same level as the pagan Gods? I think the age and size of our universe, as well as the complexity of its processes such as evolution, are exactly what makes our God so far beyond those simple pagan gods, and one of the major reasons that I think it does a grave disservice to God, indeed shows that we want to limit Him in a simplistic box, when we try to dismiss what science observes of His creation in favor of simplistic notions of creation.

Perhaps the six days of creation are God’s time as Genesis 1 is written from God’s perspective. I would see Him even more powerful if He sort of Terra formed creation in an instant. But because of the point of getting to the apex certain things had to happen. For example if we build a house we have to build sequentially. Some amount of time goes on. A slower builder takes more time, but in the end we can have identical houses.

God sequencing is logical. I guess He didn’t mind watching the grass grow. Perhaps He added some catalyst here and there. Humans have only been around for such a small amount of time according to long ages theory.

 

[buffalo]

Nice try, but yet again you have proven nothing. You creationists keep insisting there can only be 2 extremes, one is either evolution without God or God with no evolution. Here is how evolution works: God created the universe knowing full well how everything will turn out. Therefore he created it to have life and random processes yet since he knows what those random processes will do, it will all eventually happen under his plan. Why is this incredibly simple idea so hard for the infantile brains of creationists so hard to understand?

Eve form Adam? Bodily immortality? First parents we are all descended form - you know the rest.

 

[Arandur]

Perhaps the six days of creation are God’s time as Genesis 1 is written from God’s perspective. I would see Him even more powerful if He sort of Terra formed creation in an instant. But because of the point of getting to the apex certain things had to happen. For example if we build a house we have to build sequentially. Some amount of time goes on. A slower builder takes more time, but in the end we can have identical houses.

God sequencing is logical. I guess He didn’t mind watching the grass grow. Perhaps He added some catalyst here and there. Humans have only been around for such a small amount of time.

I think we’re in agreement, then. Except that you find more glory in instantaneous creation (though you agree that it seems He didn’t choose to do it that way), and I find more glory in the complexity of time and span of ages so far beyond human comprehension

By the way, while I don’t think “catalysts” were necessary, I don’t have a problem with that concept. I don’t think science can rule them out, either, because Complexity Theory and Chaos Theory tell us that such catalysts could occur and we wouldn’t necessarily be able to isolate them through science. Thus God, being omniscient, could “flap” the proverbial butterfly’s wings to cause the hurricane on the other side of the world (really a very limited and faulty analogy of Chaos theory, but it provides a picture). Punctuated Equilibrium could be caused by such elements in Chaos Theory, and God could act in the natural world in such tiny ways as to bring about His ends on grand scales.

 

[buffalo]

You can ask God why He didn’t decide to do it that way, a way you may have preferred. But we DO observe so many things in nature that seem, across all the scientific disciplines, to indicate strongly and exclusively that God DID choose to take a lot of time to do these things.

It puzzles me that you’d ask the question, though, considering that the mere existence of random distributions that we were talking about indicates that God DOES allow variation on the path to His plan. For why have all those many points on the graph and just have a single point or line where everything lines up perfectly?

That might be the “easier,” more direct route. But really you’re asking the very same question as those who ask why God made free will. Why allow the other outcomes, possibilities? Why not make everything conform to your Good? Why allow choice at all? The answer to the existence of free choice also answers why God chose to allow variation in nature, to take time to achieve His will.

Beyond that, I have posited several times that taking such time and allowing such variation glorifies God far, far more than an Easy-Bake, Finger-Snap universe. It shows how wonderful and complex God is, how far beyond our limited perspectives He is, how nearly infinitely wondrous the world He gave us is. We not only have things to study in our own time, but we have a virtually limitless amount of things to study in the past time of our world, because it is so old.

I think God takes delight in His own creation, and it just makes sense that such a vast being as God would take delight in a vast creation, both in terms of space and time. And certainly He wants us to delight and wonder in His creation, to explore it, to learn about Him through all the wondrous fingerprints He left in it, to challenge our minds with the complexity of it.

What is more fitting for our God than effectively infinite time and space and complexity? This God of ours is infinitely beyond the pagan gods who are simplistic and childish by comparison in the ways in which their myths say they created the world. Why should God be limited by such a simplistic form of creation that leaves Him on the same level as the pagan Gods? I think the age and size of our universe, as well as the complexity of its processes such as evolution, are exactly what makes our God so far beyond those simple pagan gods, and one of the major reasons that I think it does a grave disservice to God, indeed shows that we want to limit Him in a simplistic box, when we try to dismiss what science observes of His creation in favor of simplistic notions of creation.

I agree with you about the difference between the One True God and the pagan gods.

 

[edwest2]

The other problem with these debates is the constant effort to align God with science as opposed to knowing what the Church teaches about God.

I have to add that it is the nature of deception to include some truth along with half truths and falsehoods.

First, the Church has ruled that the universe has a finite age. They have not ruled as to the age of the earth.

I think the problem is the ‘you can’t have God and reject science’ idea. The goal is not to reject solid science but to question and make clear the direction most of these debates take. The Church is concerned, as in Humani Generis, about evolution and especially as to those points that touch on truths held in the deposit of faith. This is not a matter of fear on the part of the Church that science will discover some truth that contradicts truth as revealed by God.

Human identity and dignity actually and physically comes from God. Not random/natural events, as if the machine called evolution operates by itself and does whatever it wills. It has no will. It has no intelligence. It is unreason. A mindless device that spits out randomly mutated and naturally selected organisms all over the place – according to the current version.

In the past, what was the foundation of atheism? Anyone? “You can’t show me God?”

Now, the New Atheism has science to back it up. And it’s all contained in the following. This is precisely where the clash is occurring today.

“Man made God.” is on the side of buses.

“God made man.” is from the Catholic Church.

Do you see it now?

Peace,
Ed

 

[buffalo]

I think we’re in agreement, then. Except that you find more glory in instantaneous creation (though you agree that it seems He didn’t choose to do it that way), and I find more glory in the complexity of time and span of ages so far beyond human comprehension

I think we have been in agreement form the beginning. You have articulated the apex point well. I could not put this into language as you have done. It was kinda stuck in my mind.

Polygenism is still ruled out.

All are descended from Adam and Eve.

Eve came from Adam

Bodily immortality

Preternatural gifts.

At some point God had to intervene supernaturally.

How about God created Adam and Eve supernaturally and inserted them into the timeline wherever He wished regardless of what may or may not have been happening in the universe at the time?

 

[Arandur]

The other problem with these debates is the constant effort to align God with science as opposed to knowing what the Church teaches about God.

I have to add that it is the nature of deception to include some truth along with half truths and falsehoods.

First, the Church has ruled that the universe has a finite age. They have not ruled as to the age of the earth.

I think the problem is the ‘you can’t have God and reject science’ idea. The goal is not to reject solid science but to question and make clear the direction most of these debates take. The Church is concerned, as in Humani Generis, about evolution and especially as to those points that touch on truths held in the deposit of faith. This is not a matter of fear on the part of the Church that science will discover some truth that contradicts truth as revealed by God.

Human identity and dignity actually and physically comes from God. Not random/natural events, as if the machine called evolution operates by itself and does whatever it wills. It has no will. It has no intelligence. It is unreason. A mindless device that spits out randomly mutated and naturally selected organisms all over the place – according to the current version.

In the past, what was the foundation of atheism? Anyone? “You can’t show me God?”

Now, the New Atheism has science to back it up. And it’s all contained in the following. This is precisely where the clash is occurring today.

“Man made God.” is on the side of buses.

“God made man.” is from the Catholic Church.

Do you see it now?

Peace,
Ed

Are you arguing with me, or agreeing? I’ve always seen it. Yes, God made man. Yes, evolution is one of the things atheists hide behind today, like they hid behind other true things in the past. Yes, the Church holds the deposit of truth and is not threatened by science, while it acknowledges that science can discover truths.

 

[buffalo]

I think we’re in agreement, then. Except that you find more glory in instantaneous creation (though you agree that it seems He didn’t choose to do it that way), and I find more glory in the complexity of time and span of ages so far beyond human comprehension

.

I am not agreeing He chose to do it that way. It could be a frame of reference thing. From inside our frame we see it differently than from outside the frame.

Like a tape measure rolled up. From the outside it is very compact, but as a flatlander on the tape when we walk backward it takes an agonizing long time.

St Augustine thought that everything in its potentiality was produce instantaneously.

 

[Arandur]

I think we have been in agreement form the beginning. You have articulated the apex point well. I could not put this into language as you have done. It was kinda stuck in my mind.

Polygenism is still ruled out.

All are descended from Adam and Eve.

Eve came from Adam

Bodily immortality

Preternatural gifts.

At some point God had to intervene supernaturally.

How about God created Adam and Eve supernaturally and inserted them into the timeline wherever He wished regardless of what may or may not have been happening in the universe at the time?

I’m glad we’re understanding each other better and agreeing.

I think God could have dropped Adam and Eve in supernaturally, sure. I think doing so would have been inconsistent with how He has done other things in the physical world, and while that doesn’t rule it out, I’m not troubled by the idea that man was made physically through the same processes. The supernatural part was the creation of the human soul in God’s image and likeness, and God taking this human physical form He had sculpted (like clay!) over time and making giving it true life as His children, Adam and Eve. He did that at some point in time, in our prehistory.

While I accept a singular Adam and Eve and don’t have a problem with it theologically or scientifically, I have been meaning to study more what the Church says about that (as opposed to a population) and why, because it is my understanding that “Adam” in Hebrew meant “man” as in “mankind.” Thus the language seems to allow a group. So does the nature of Original Sin as communal, and tribal culpability as seen through Israelite history. So I’m not sure why the Church doesn’t see this as another “both/and” situation, or if it really does rule out the latter possibility.

 

[buffalo]

I’m glad we’re understanding each other better and agreeing.

I think God could have dropped Adam and Eve in supernaturally, sure. I think doing so would have been inconsistent with how He has done other things in the physical world, and while that doesn’t rule it out, I’m not troubled by the idea that man was made physically through the same processes. The supernatural part was the creation of the human soul in God’s image and likeness, and God taking this human physical form He had sculpted (like clay!) over time and making giving it true life as His children, Adam and Eve. He did that at some point in time, in our prehistory.

While I accept a singular Adam and Eve and don’t have a problem with it theologically or scientifically, I have been meaning to study more what the Church says about that (as opposed to a population) and why, because it is my understanding that “Adam” in Hebrew meant “man” as in “mankind.” Thus the language seems to allow a group. So does the nature of Original Sin as communal, and tribal culpability as seen through Israelite history. So I’m not sure why the Church doesn’t see this as another “both/and” situation, or if it really does rule out the latter possibility.

Which of our “brothers” then would be without original sin and how do we know?

 

[Arandur]

I am not agreeing He chose to do it that way. It could be a frame of reference thing. From inside our frame we see it differently than from outside the frame.

Like a tape measure rolled up. From the outside it is very compact, but as a flatlander on the tape when we walk backward it takes an agonizing long time.

St Augustine thought that everything in its potentiality was produce instantaneously.

Possibly. I think what I elaborated earlier about everything being subjective to God and God being the fixed reference point for us (everything by use perceived relatively) allows what you’re suggesting as a “frame of reference thing.” But that seems to me too much like the “deceiver God” making things to just look old.

Although, if what you really mean by the “frame of reference thing” is that to God, since He can see all of Time at once, all of His creation does or can seem “instantaneous” to Him. But God, I think, can also experience time if He wants to, so He could see it from both perspectives (and certainly did when He became one of us).