Scripture: What's myth and what's history?

[TMC]

Pope Benedict XVI
L’Osservatore Romano - 10 December 2008
General Audience catechesis on St Paul’s teaching on Adam, the first man, and Christ, the second Adam

Monism maintains that there is no real distinction between God and the universe. Either God is indwelling in the universe as a part of it, not distinct from it (pantheistic Immanentism), or the universe does not exist at all as a reality (Acosmism), but only as a manifestation or phenomenon of God.
newadvent.org/cathen/10483a.htm

Your quote from Pope Benedict XVI conveniently omits the beginning of his remarks in which he makes clear that he is NOT saying that evolution is atheistic, he is explaining that the doctrine of original sin is not incompatable with evolution:

However, as people of today we must ask ourselves: what is this original sin? What does St Paul teach, what does the Church teach? Is this doctrine still sustainable today?
Many think that in light of the history of evolution, there is no longer room for the doctrine of a first sin that then would have permeated the whole of human history. And, as a result, the matter of Redemption and of the Redeemer would also lose its foundation. Therefore, does original sin exist or not?

He goes on, of course, to explain that original sin exists and discuss it in some detail.

Pope Benedict has repeatedly said that evolutionary biology and physics cannot answer the questions of who we are, how we came to be, what our purpose is, how we should behave towards one another, etc. His point in the remarks you quoted is that it is wrong and dangerous to replace religion with science.

It is the fundamentalist viewpoint that creates this danger. When supposedly learned Christians declare that to be Christian one must believe things that do not match observed nature, the rational mind rebels. People say “if that is Christianity, I must not be Christian.” But Christianity does not require the rejection of the very Creation that God made.

This is what confuses me about your postion. When you say religion and science are not incompatible, but then reject many (or most?) of the scientific developments of the last two centuries, I am truly confused as to what you mean. When did science go astray? Are all the good Christians that work in scientific fields deluded? Must scientific advance be frozen at the beliefs of the first century? Do you reject only evolutionary biology, or also physics and the other sciences? I really don’t understand how your worldview fits together.

 

[StAnastasia]

His Holiness Benedict XVI
TO MEMBERS OF THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR PLENARY ASSEMBLY
Clementine Hall,Friday, 31 October 2008 .

Catholic Johnny, this is a beautiful statement of Theistic Evolution. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

Ah, how telling that it comes to this. Those that defend the consistent, Holy Spirit vouchsafed message of the Lord, His Apostles, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are told to leave the Church. Just as the Lord and His disciples were rejected by Israel, so now those who stand for the Magisterial Proclamation are told to get out and start their own Church.

Catholic Johnny, it seems that by opposing the pope’s calling of a convention that will take evolution seriously, you are setting yourself up in opposition at least to the intellectual dimension of the Church’s mission. To be sure, you don’t have to accept evolution or the revolution or sphericity of the earth to receive the sacraments.

But as a theologian, I’m excited about participating in this upcoming Vatican conference – the worldview of an ancient and dynamic universe is pregnant with possibilities for the further evolution of Catholic theology.

StAnastasia

 

[wildleafblower]

Catholic Johnny, it seems that by opposing the pope’s calling of a convention that will take evolution seriously, you are setting yourself up in opposition at least to the intellectual dimension of the Church’s mission. To be sure, you don’t have to accept evolution or the revolution or sphericity of the earth to receive the sacraments.

But as a theologian, I’m excited about participating in this upcoming Vatican conference – the worldview of an ancient and dynamic universe is pregnant with possibilities for the further evolution of Catholic theology.

Hi TMC, Pope Benedict recently emphasized we are to refer to the catechism. Personally, I can believe in evolution and original sin without offending God –Father, Son and Holy Spirit because of God’s love.

I would encourage people to read the the entire document Original Sin from the USCCB in its entirety. Here’s #2 quiz question:

**If the first Adam has sold us into slavery to sin, who is the second Adam who breaks the power of the evil one? (1)

Christ breaks the power of the evil one. Para. 421: Christians believe that “the world has been established and kept in being by the Creator’s love; has fallen into slavery to sin but has been set free by Christ, crucified and risen to break the power of the evil one . . .” (GS 2 § 2). (2)
**

1. usccb.org/catechism/quizzes/os.shtml
   http://www.usccb.org/catechism/quizzes/os.shtml
2. usccb.org/catechism/quizzes/os2.shtml
   http://www.usccb.org/catechism/quizzes/os2.shtml

May I suggest and encourage all Catholics to read in it’s entirety the Doctrinal Elements of a Cirriculum Framework for the Development of Catechetical Materials for Young People of High School Age by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis assists the bishops, both collectively and individually, in fulfilling their role as evangelizers and chief catechists in their dioceses by addressing all aspects of evangelization and catechesis for adults, youth, and children. This includes fostering the distribution and implementation of foundational documents related to evangelization and catechesis, the development of guidelines for both, and especially the evaluation of catechetical materials for their conformity to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The committee supports initiatives which focus on the Church’s world mission mandate and on stewardship. (from the Strategic Plan of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: 2008-2011)

usccb.org/education/framework.pdf
http://www.usccb.org/education/framework.pdf

Thank you to all and may the holidays bring about peace, joy, and love in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior. May our spiritual and immortal souls dance with God-the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and our Blessed Mother!

Peace be with you.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

wildleafblower:

**

## St. Thomas is Acosmist - but in a Catholic sense; & Dante is a Catholic Panentheist. These ideas are capable of being reclaimed for Christ, so we should do so, just as they did.

**
**I honestly don’t think the the Pope is promoting a panentheist approach for the Chruch. There are far too many other documents that Pope Benedict and Pope Paul have written to suggest otherwise. **
**Perhaps you aren’t aware of it Gottle of Geer but Teilhard de Chardin was a panentheist and his theology fell short in the eyes of the Chruch. Also, he saw God in rocks and wanted to get rid of Adam and original sin. He was an excellent scientist though. I’m fond of other wonderful things he contributed that the Church has accepted such as …he was against abortion. **

**If all creation is in some sense “in God”, then panentheism of some kind is asserted; if words mean anything. If some make a philosophy out of this from which God is excluded, that does not mean those who see God as the only “Place” of all creatures are wrong. **​

**That objection is like saying there can be no true God, because there are idols; no true reform, because there are mistaken ways of reform; no chastity, because there is lust; no good order in Church & state, because there are tyrannies. Such objectors through out the cleansed baby with the dirty bathwater. BTW, the use of the argument from guilt by association is non-probative - that X is wrong in using notion N in some way, does not mean that notion N cannot ever be legitimately used in some form. If the argument from guilt by association were valid, it would have been wrong to use the use the word homoousion, as Nicea I did; not only were the Arians able to point out that it was not used in the Bible (then a very strong argument); they were also aware that it had already been used in an heretical sense, by Paul of Samosata in the 270s. Yet it is used by Ecumenical Councils & in the catholic Creeds & theology, for all the world as though it had never been used in an heretical sense. The argument against the use of the homoousion is no weaker than that against the sort of panentheism already described; which is not the sort described in Wikipedia BTW. **

**Aristotle was reclaimed for Christ with difficulty, precisely because men saw in his ideas only danger & error & heathenism, rather than a source of stength for Christian thought - it took St. Albert of Cologne & his pupil St. Thomas to change that; & even after St Thomas died, his ideas were denounced & condemned - it took his canonisation in 1323 to change that. This is the man who became a Doctor in 1568, & has been all but identified with Catholic theology in some quarters. **

**Why should non-Christian ideas not be reclaimed ? Only Christ has any right to them. **

**As for the Popes, they can hardly contradict St. Paul, for whom all things are “in Christ” - there is no reason to think they would deny that. On the contrary, recent Papal teaching, notably in the CCC, is in some important respects a Christological panentheism - & in that, it follows Vatican II & (so I’m told) the Greek Fathers. If they do not contradict him, they are panentheists - as they should be. For if creatures are “outside” God, they are either damned or non-existent: God is utterly “Other” than all creatures, but they cannot even existent, if they are absent from God. If it were otherwise, God would be the Stranger God of the Gnostics, an interloper in a creation to which He is alien. This utterly destroys the Incarnation, because if the Word is alien to us - rather than being indescribably transcendent - the Incarnation becomes unnatural, an act of violence. **

**I’ve never read Teilhard - I knew he would be mentioned; I take my ideas from St Paul, other parts of the Bible, Dante, St. Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, & some others: not Teilhard, of whom I know little. So I can’t comment on him **

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I don’t mind your interjection of fancy and homespun euphemisms, as long as you qualify your remarks as opinion, personal philosophy and not science or theology. Your syncretizing of Christian dogmas with evolutionary theory is a grave and dangerous error. The Spirit of Christ knows nothing of the supposition that man evolved.

Explain the last comment, please. If the position that all creatures & all creation are & is in some sense in God is not a theological & philosophical one, perhaps you could tell me what it is. Thank you.​

It is completely alien to the Teaching Tradition of the Church.

Let’s suppose, for the moment, that is so: the same could be said of the use in Theology of certain works of that “infernal man” (as he was called) Aristotle. In 1215 some were banned - yet the two men most influential in reclaiming them for Latin theology are now both Saints, both Doctors of the Church.​

The use of Biblical commentaries was once “alien to the Teaching Tradition of the Church” (the first commentary on a book of the Bible was written by a Gnostic). There was a riot at one church when Jonah was read in the newfangled Vulgate translation. Veneration for this very version in the first years of the 1500s was one of the greatest obstacles to the revival of Hebrew in Europe. There was no “Teaching Tradition” at Pentecost. Everything in the Church was an innovation once, & there have always been people for whom the new is self-condemned because it is new; for whom its novelty is a failing worth a thousand other arguments. Jesus of Nazareth had to cope with resistance of this kind - his opponents wheeled out the arguments by Christian Traditionalists since - yet they were in the wrong. St. Paul was opposed by Traditionalists. The novelty of the Christian movement was a fatal objection to anything that it might say; the Apologists had some difficulty meeting it. Conversely, the religion of the City of Rome was true because it was ancient: it needed no other justification. Tradition is useful - but not all-sufficient; Traditionalism has damaged the Church more than once.

FWIW, fidelity to Tradition is not psittacosis; it is perfectly possible to be traditional without being stuck in the past. Conversely, it is more than possible to be a heretic or schismatic while being faithful to the past Tradition of the Church: because it is a serious error to reject the current teaching of the Church in favour of the past. The only complaint you can fairly make - apart from that about evolution - is that those ideas are not mine; that they are other men’s: including Brian Davis O.P. (who has been writing on St Thomas longer than some on CAF have been alive). A look at the OT might also be useful. What I wrote is ultraconservative in comparison with a lot of what has gone on in the last 2,000 years - it is because of what others have thought that I could say what I did.

It’s easy to criticise - so if (for example) man is not almost nothing, what is he ? You’ve ripped up one person’s ideas, but what are you going to replace them with ? Come up with something better; show what is wrong, & what should be put in its place.

This is **not **to say that whatever is modern is thereby put beyond criticism. That would be as ridiculous as the uncritical adulation accorded to the Fathers, as though they were the last word in theology & could not be improved on or corrected: a suicidal position for the Church. What is important is neither being modern, nor being conservative, but being faithful. Sometimes, or for some things, modernity is is what is needed for fidelity - sometimes, or for others, conservatism is essential. Without both in the Church, the Church becames one-sided, half-blind, unbalanced, either imprisoned in the past or captive to the spirit of the age. What is ruinous, is to make either of these an absolute that excludes all recourse to the other - they are good only in the measure that they serve the fidelity of the Church, to keep it faithful to its vocation & to Christ.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis

What is the purpose of the quotation ?​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis

What is the purpose of the quotation ? There’s no indication as to whether it is meant for anyone in particular.​

 

[wildleafblower]

**If all creation is in some sense “in God”, then panentheism of some kind is asserted; if words mean anything. If some make a philosophy out of this from which God is excluded, that does not mean those who see God as the only “Place” of all creatures are wrong. **​

Hi Gottle of Geer You say if! I can’t help but laugh out loud! Why? Because an iffy thing doesn’t really necessiate the truth.

Panenthesim is gnostic. As a Roman Catholic woman I’m not “in God”. I don’t see God in rocksor rocks in God. :whacky: The Catholic Chruch under the leadership of the Pope doesn’t promote gnosticism.

Let me deposit a few items for you to review that will better explain why panenthesim isn’t that healthy for us then I have to get it in geer (tee hee) because I am behind a tight schedule of
to-do’s. You may wish to reflect on the following:

Cathecism:

IV. THE IMPLICATIONS OF FAITH IN ONE GOD

230 Even when he reveals himself, God remains a mystery beyond words: “If you understood him, it would not be God” (St. Augustine, Sermo 52, 6, 16: PL 38, 360 and Sermo 117, 3, 5: PL 38, 663).

231 The God of our faith has revealed himself as HE WHO IS; and he has made himself known as “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). God’s very being is Truth and Love.
vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p1.htm
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p1.htm

and

L’Osservatore Romano - 3 December 2008:
**History of humanity defined in three pivotal moments
God breaks the boundaries of time **

On Sunday, 30 November, the First Sunday of Advent, the Holy Father [BENEDICT XVI] introduced the prayer of the Angelus with comments on time, recalling that "God has time for us! ". The following is a translation of the Pope’s Reflection, which was given in Italian.
[snip]
In this regard too, the Church has “good news” to bring:** God gives us his time. We always have little time; especially for the Lord, we do not know how or, sometimes, we do not want to find it. Well, God has time for us! **
[snip]
Then there are the three great “points” in time, which delineate the history of salvation: at the beginning, Creation; the Incarnation-Redemption at the centre and at the end the “parousia”, the final coming that also includes the Last Judgment. However, these three moments should not be viewed merely in chronological succession.
[snip]
vatican.va/news_services/…ng/text.html#1
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/or/or_eng/text.html#1

And

BENEDICT XVI
GENERAL AUDIENCE
St Peter’s Square
Wednesday, 28 March 2007
Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
[snip- please read the entire document.]
His two extant works - the five books of The Detection and Overthrow of the False Gnosis and Demonstration of the Apostolic Teaching (which can also be called the oldest “catechism of Christian doctrine”) - exactly corresponded with these aims. In short, Irenaeus can be defined as the champion in the fight against heresies. The second-century Church was threatened by the so-called Gnosis, a doctrine which affirmed that the faith taught in the Church was merely a symbolism for the simple who were unable to grasp difficult concepts; instead, the initiates, the intellectuals - Gnostics, they were called - claimed to understand what was behind these symbols and thus formed an elitist and intellectualist Christianity. Obviously, this intellectual Christianity became increasingly fragmented, splitting into different currents with ideas that were often bizarre and extravagant, yet attractive to many. One element these different currents had in common was “dualism”: they denied faith in the one God and Father of all, Creator and Saviour of man and of the world. To explain evil in the world, they affirmed the existence, besides the Good God, of a negative principle. This negative principle was supposed to have produced material things, matter.
[snip]
Firmly rooted in the biblical doctrine of creation, Irenaeus refuted the Gnostic dualism and pessimism which debased corporeal realities. He decisively claimed the original holiness of matter, of the body, of the flesh no less than of the spirit. But his work went far beyond the confutation of heresy: in fact, one can say that he emerges as the first great Church theologian who created systematic theology; he himself speaks of the system of theology, that is, of the internal coherence of all faith. At the heart of his doctrine is the question of the “rule of faith” and its transmission. For Irenaeus, the “rule of faith” coincided in practice with the Apostles’ Creed, which gives us the key for interpreting the Gospel, for interpreting the Creed in light of the Gospel. The Creed, which is a sort of Gospel synthesis, helps us understand what it means and how we should read the Gospel itself.
[snip]

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070328_en.html
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070328_en.html

As far as Teilhard, he was repeatedly told about his theological errors that he promoted. He was then exciled and restricted to scientific endeavors.

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t see God except in the spiritual and immortal souls that he created. When I look at a mountain I don’t see God in it. I see beauty and wonder in the great outdoors of scenic wonders but I wouldn’t say they are in God.

Bless you!

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Hi Gottle of Geer You say if! I can’t help but laugh out loud! Why? Because an iffy thing doesn’t really necessiate the truth.

Have you not heard of the use of “if” as a way of saying “Even supposing X is the case, & leaving aside the issue of whether not it is…” ? The use of “if” does not always imply doubt. I meant no more than that.​

Panenthesim is gnostic. As a Roman Catholic woman I’m not “in God”. I don’t see rocks “in God” either. :whacky: The Catholic Chruch doesn’t promote gnosticism.

I should hope not. Neither do I. Those quotations from Irenaeus describe nothing that I believe, so why post them ? I’ve already pointed out that the existence of one type of panentheism does not mean that all other types there might conceivably be, must be of the same kind: identity of name does not prove identity of content. Does it follow that because there can be - & is - an American game of football, that therefore Australian rules football & football in the UK can’t possibly differ from it ? The fact remains that they do - & they differ from each other. If there can be only kind of democracy, why isn’t the US type a carbon copy of the English or the ancient Athenian ? They are all different, yet are all types of democracy. So with panentheism - there is more than one kind, just as there is more than one kind of Platonism, more than one kind of Aristotelianism.​

If all creation is not in some sense “in God” - where is it ? Where else is there for it to be ? If God is “everywhere, & totally everywhere” - what in creation can possibly be absent from Him ? How can there be any “where” at all, if God is transcendent, omnipresent, infinite, eternal, uncircumscribed ? Do you deny that He is all this ? If He is, then some sort of panentheism is a fact. St. Paul speaks of this or that as being “in Christ” over 100 times - is he a Gnostic ? Is St.John a Gnostic ? The “Farewell Discourse” in his gospel, & the Prayer of Jesus in the chapter following (chapters 14-17) speak as St. Paul does.

Let me deposit a few items for you to review that will better explain why panenthesim isn’t that healthy for us then I have to get it in geer (tee hee) because I am behind a tight schedule of
to-do’s. You may wish to reflect on the following:

SNIP] What’s been quoted goes without saying - tell me something I don’t know & **don’t **believe. ​

And

BENEDICT XVI
GENERAL AUDIENCE
St Peter’s Square
Wednesday, 28 March 2007
Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
[snip- please read the entire document.]
His two extant works - the five books of The Detection and Overthrow of the False Gnosis and Demonstration of the Apostolic Teaching (which can also be called the oldest “catechism of Christian doctrine”) - exactly corresponded with these aims…
[snip]
Firmly rooted in the biblical doctrine of creation, Irenaeus refuted the Gnostic dualism and pessimism which debased corporeal realities. He decisively claimed the original holiness of matter,

“Holiness” ? - how ? How does saying this not confuse nature with grace ? Matter is not evil - but how does it follow that it had original holiness, rather than goodness ? They are not the same (as C. S. Lewis points out)​

…LONG SNIP…]
[snip]

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070328_en.html
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070328_en.html

As far as Teilhard, he was repeatedly told about his theological errors that he promoted. He was then exciled and restricted to scientific endeavors.

What has Teilhard to do with any of this ? And since none of that Gnostic stuff is remotely like anything I believe, why quote it ? What sort of Gnostic believes in a real Incarnation, a real Crucifixion, a real Resurrection ? As for dualism, there is more than one kind - the mitigated, as well as the absolute. The NT is full of the mitigated kind.​

It isn’t good enough to say panentheism is wrong - those who think so, have a moral duty to support their claims, by reason - not by cut-and-paste: a robot could do that. I can defend my position - the posts criticising it appeal only to authority; they don’t deal with any of the ideas criticised. Why should I take their criticisms seriously, if they don’t do that ? There is a big difference between regurgitating what Pope X or Father Y has said, &, dealing with ideas to which one objects. The Summa Theologiae would have been a great deal shorter, if Aquinas had argued as some do. He didn’t quote Popes non-stop, or say without furtjher ado that people’s positions were wrong: he relied on argument & reasoning to show where the truth lay. His writings give no comfort to those who refuse to think & reason.

This exchange is very loosely related to the topic of the thread - we should get back to that, as a matter of urgency.

 

[wildleafblower]

This exchange is very loosely related to the topic of the thread - we should get back to that, as a matter of urgency.​

Then please tell me why did you in your posting # 308 ask me many questions to only end your response as noted above. Basically, I’m under the impression you are telling me to hush up. That’s not fair or charitable. It gives me the impression that you are trying to intimidate me with an authoritative tone. I don’t think I should be penalized for speaking up and replying to those questions if I choose to though they don’t disprove a single document I’ve provided to this topic. Furthermore, we are discussing the history of “our” Church and within my links there’s a lot of scripture.

**As for the Popes, they can hardly contradict St. Paul, for whom all things are “in Christ” - there is no reason to think they would deny that. On the contrary, recent Papal teaching, notably in the CCC, is in some important respects a Christological panentheism - & in that, it follows Vatican II & (so I’m told) the Greek Fathers. **

There isn’t any mention of ‘Christological panentheism’ in the Vatican:Holy See archives that I have found, and your mention of “ St. Paul, for whom all things are “in Christ” is somewhat misleading. Read this:

The whole confession of the Apostolic Creed, of the Nicene Creed, developed from these words. St Paul also says in another passage of his First Letter to the Corinthians: “Although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth…” - and we know that today too there are many so-called “gods” on earth - for us there is only “one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (I Cor 8: 5-6).

“Thus, from the outset the disciples recognized the Risen Jesus as the One who is our brother in humanity but is also one with God; the One who, with his coming into the world and throughout his life, in his death and in his Resurrection, brought us God and in a new and unique way made God present in the world: the One, therefore, who gives meaning and hope to our life; in fact, it is in him that we encounter the true Face of God that we find what we really need in order to live.

“Educating in the faith, in the sequela, and in witnessing means helping our brothers and sisters, or rather, helping one another to enter into a living relationship with Christ and with the Father. This has been from the start the fundamental task of the Church as the community of believers, disciples and friends of Jesus. The Church, the Body of Christ and Temple of the Holy Spirit, is that dependable company within which we have been brought forth and educated to become, in Christ, sons and heirs of God.”
(ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE CONVENTION OF THE DIOCESE OF ROME, Basilica of Saint John Lateran, Monday, 11 June 2007)
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2007/june/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070611_convegno-roma_en.html

.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070611_convegno-roma_en.html.

(continued)

 

[wildleafblower]

I’ve never read Teilhard - I knew he would be mentioned; I take my ideas from St Paul, other parts of the Bible, Dante, St. Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, & some others: not Teilhard, of whom I know little. So I can’t comment on him

I was trying to be thoughtful toward you by providing some information about him as you can see in a previous posting.

## ## What has Teilhard to do with any of this ? And since none of that Gnostic stuff is remotely like anything I believe, why quote it ? What sort of Gnostic believes in a real Incarnation, a real Crucifixion, a real Resurrection ?

Look above and below. Ho, ho, ho!

Well, the Vatican:Holy See has some information about Gnosis which might be helpful:

Gnosis: in a generic sense, it is a form of knowledge that is not intellectual, but visionary or mystical, thought to be revealed and capable of joining the human being to the divine mystery. In the first centuries of Christianity, the Fathers of the Church struggled against gnosticism, inasmuch as it was at odds with faith. Some see a reborth of gnostic ideas in much New Age thinking, and some authors connected with New Age actually quote early gnosticism. However, the greater emphasis in New Age on monism and even pantheism or panentheism encourages some to use the term neo-gnosticism to distinguish New Age gnosis from ancient gnosticism. (PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR CULTURE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE, JESUS CHRIST THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE, A Christian reflection on the “New Age”
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html

.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...s/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html.

Teihard was a panentheist. He was teaching psuedo-science as a priest. There were errors with his theology. This is one reason why he was exiled and told to stick with his field of expertise, which was in the field of Geology and Zoology. He also didn’t agree with the Pope about an Adam, or Original Sin, or a real Incarnation from what I gather, but he did believe in a Resurrection. Very complicated to explain but he did sign a document leaving it up to the Church to decide what was best, considering it was based on an apparition he had early on in life. I’ll leave it at that since I have my own research that I don’t wish to disclose at this time.

As far as your remaining questions that I have omitted from my post, they are quaint little rolling waves against my tsunami of documents from the Vatican: Holy See!

The Pope has recently written quite a bit about Christology. I suggest one and all visit the Vatican website and read about it.

Maybe we should talk about the Parousia sometime in the future!

God bless you. Make it a good day! And thanks Michael for reminding me how much I love Calvin and Hobbes. It’s been ages since I’ve looked at his cartoons. This is a present for you.

 

[StAnastasia]

If all creation is not in some sense “in God” - where is it ? Where else is there for it to be ? If God is “everywhere, & totally everywhere” - what in creation can possibly be absent from Him ? How can there be any “where” at all, if God is transcendent, omnipresent, infinite, eternal, uncircumscribed?

Indeed, if the universe and all it contains does not lie within the divine reality, then that divine reality (God) must be contained within or part of the universe. This is the folly of atheism: assuming that what is not contained within the universe does not exist. God is bigger than the universe, so all things exist within God.

StAnastasia

 

[RobbyS]

That only proves the inroads satan has made into our institutions of higher learning. Those who promulgate these theories are spoken of in Matthew 23:

Unbelief in the miracles of God does not nullify the miracles. It is more an indicator that you and your contemporaries have surrendered to the spirit of this age and the rationalism condemned by the Teaching Office of the Church.

May God have mercy on the poor victims of such ‘teaching’.

Are we sure what the Bible means by the sun standing still during this battle?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Ah, how telling that it comes to this. Those that defend the consistent, Holy Spirit vouchsafed message of the Lord, His Apostles, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are told to leave the Church. Just as the Lord and His disciples were rejected by Israel, so now those who stand for the Magisterial Proclamation are told to get out and start their own Church.

Now you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the comments made by anti-liberal zealots. Not very comfortable, is it ? You’re being told no such thing, anyway.​

Teilhard de Chardin’s views have long been rejected as WildLeafBlower correctly reminds us. His idolatrous adoration of evolutionary principle was formally denounced by the Holy See. And why should I care for Haught when I have Peter, Paul, John, Basil, Augustine, Aquinas and Leo XIII?

Aquinas was little more than than a 13th-century Haught in his own time. It’s an optical illusion to imagine that his thought anything like the status in his lifetime that it had after 1879. You - we - can talk of Aquinas as a great authority only because he is no longer one Dominican theology professor among others, as he was during his academic career. One day, the Church is going to be looking back to from 2708 to 2008 - if Haught, or anyone else now living, has anything valuable to say, it will be no no more accurate than it is now. And a 28th-century Catholic Johnny may very well be lambasting his opponents by saying he has Haught, or someone else repugnant to you (& those who hold the sorts of view you value), on his side A truth is still true, even if not ancient or canonised.​

Catholicism ‘accepts’ evolution? Then why this thread?

Because some Catholics don’t, & argue against it - just as some don’t accept Vatican II. Do thieves accept that theft is wrong ? Disobedience to legitimate authority does not invalidate it. If theistic evolution of some sort is a fact, it doesn’t matter whether those who seel this are saints or paedophiles, black or white, green with stripes or particolored.​

Oh, we must leave and start our own Church, therefore, in your view, we are not Catholics. ‘True’ Catholics dismiss the Magisterial Teaching Authority and ‘accept’ unproven pagan theories because some theologian says its so.

A “True Catholic” who rejects the magisterium is not a Catholic, but a divider of the Church. The very label is schismatic.​

Was Plato a Christian, or Aratus of Soli, or Aristotle ? Aquinas accepted a lot of Aristotle’s ideas. Paul quotes Aratus. The Greek Fathers drew on Plato - as did Augustine. If recent Popes have no problems with Justin’s notion of “seeds of the Word” (as the idea is rather imprecisely called, why must this idea be beyond the pale ? If pagan, it may be one of those seeds. What that was not Jewish or Samaritan or Christian in the beginning of the Church was not pagan ? Are you going to throw the use of litanies, lights, incense, vestments ? They were used among the pagans. Literacy is a pagan invention.

You would win so much more respect if you would just admit that its a belief and not a fact. No transistional forms in the fossil record. Uniformitarianist geology has been disproven. Laws of thermodynamics and irreducible complexity. No evidence of human civilization older than 10,000 years. Hundreds of corroborations of Genesis from the fossil and archeological record. No dissidence or divergent theories are even considered by the intolerant consensus of [unbelieving] scientists. And yet we are to overthrow 5,000 years of the testimony of the holy martyrs for this.

And theistic evolutionists shrug off the fact that Jesus Himself believed Genesis. Wow.

I can’t speak for any one else, but I don’t shrug it off. Does anyone ? BTW - how did you reach that 5,000 years of testimony ? And how is martyrdom for Christ an argument against theistic evolution ? That’s like saying that the tradition of requiring continence in the Latin-Rite clergy is an argument against differential calculus or the existence of Australia or the learning of Sumerian. No cChurchman of any kind whatever refers to Australia for at least 1600 years: how final a proof that no such thing can exist. More than one Father condemned belief in the Antipodes: a further proof that no such thing can exist.​

Belief in the message of a text is not the same as belief that it relates what is historically actual. Where is the significance in mere historicity ? Even if Jonah is relating a series of facts of history, what is special about them ? Attempts to prove the book history, merely succeed in showing that - if (to assume for the sake of argument something not in fact the case) those attempts are valid as understandings of the book - nothing in it is of any importance. They trivialise it The Resurrection does not depend for its reality upon a tall tale about the swallowing of an errant prophet by an outsize cetacean. It’s completely irrational to think that something utterly real is made into a fiction when a fiction is used to illustrate it. People who think like that can’t read

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

This is what confuses me about your postion. When you say religion and science are not incompatible, but then reject many (or most?) of the scientific developments of the last two centuries, I am truly confused as to what you mean. When did science go astray? Are all the good Christians that work in scientific fields deluded? Must scientific advance be frozen at the beliefs of the first century? Do you reject only evolutionary biology, or also physics and the other sciences? I really don’t understand how your worldview fits together.

As long is science remains in its proper sphere and is the servant and not the master, it is a great good for humanity.

Evolutionary theory is not science, it is a cosmogeny fatally at odds with the Cosmology taught by Jesus.

I am definitely pro-science; and real science is not dependent on macro-evolutionary theory.

My worldview begins with the spiritual, not the material. The material is secondary to and dependent upon the supranatural. How any Christian could believe otherwise is a mystery to me. St. Paul teaches the Corinthians that “the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him.” You begin with material, physical science and then seek to conform spiritual truth to a contemporary opinion/theory about nature. These theories have been changing for millenia.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. Real science poses no threat to the faith. You must be absolutely in staggering denial of the evidences and fruit of syncretizing Christianity and evolutionism: the Churches in the West are in decay, and in Europe where these abominable pagan ideas arose, are nearly empty. The Church is growing fastest in Africa where they don’t have to negotiate simple belief in Message proclaimed as taught authoritatively by the Church for 2k years.

Everywhere evolution is taught there is utopianism, persecution of religion, moral decay and finally the death of religion. In our own country the death of 45 million babies from abortion traces roughly the same trajectory of the dehumanizing indoctrination of our children in evolutionary theory. Evolution teaches that you descended from apes; the Gospel teaches that we are created by God in His own image and likeness. The only way our society could possibly tolerate infanticide on this massive, tragic level is for the dehumization indoctrination to occur first. To baptize evolutionary theory and attempt to syncretize it with Christianity is the same heresy that doomed the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and Judah in 586 BC. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Our Lord stated that “you shall know them by their fruits”. The fruit of evolutionary theory has been the death of hundreds of millions, moral decay, apostasy and every form of heresy and blasphemy imaginable.

As for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences hosting any symposium examining evolution, it should surprise no one. St Paul prophesied in his letters to the Thessalonians that the return of Christ would not come until there first comes a great apostasy. He says that God Himself will send a strong delusion among them that love not the Truth. Paul says that in the last times, men will not tolerate sound doctrine.

As with St. Paul, my appeal is the every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

Now you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the comments made by anti-liberal zealots. Not very comfortable, is it ? You’re being told no such thing, anyway.​

They trivialise it The Resurrection does not depend for its reality upon a tall tale about the swallowing of an errant prophet by an outsize cetacean. It’s completely irrational to think that something utterly real is made into a fiction when a fiction is used to illustrate it. People who think like that can’t read

You are not being honest now. StAnastasia did say we should start our own Church and that Catholicism accepts evolution.

Resurrection not dependent on Jesus’ teaching about Jonah?

for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Mt. 12:40

I tremble at the levity and audacity with which you flippantly change the meanings of Jesus’ preaching.

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished. Mt. 5:18

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

You are not being honest now. StAnastasia did say we should start our own Church and that Catholicism accepts evolution.

Resurrection not dependent on Jesus’ teaching about Jonah?

I tremble at the levity and audacity with which you flippantly change the meanings of Jesus’ preaching.

 

[StAnastasia]

As for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences hosting any symposium examining evolution, it should surprise no one. St Paul prophesied in his letters to the Thessalonians that the return of Christ would not come until there first comes a great apostasy. He says that God Himself will send a strong delusion among them that love not the Truth. Paul says that in the last times, men will not tolerate sound doctrine.

You may have to start your own church then, as the pope, most cardinals and bishop, and the vast majority of priests and religious, understand science and accept evolution.

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

You may have to start your own church then, as the pope, most cardinals and bishop, and the vast majority of priests and religious, understand science and accept evolution.

As I asked earlier, please cite one syllable of official Church Teaching that asserts evolution is a Catholic truth, a scientific fact, or binding upon any Catholic Chrstian.

There will be a massive apostasy in the end time. Its easy to see post Christian Europe and its embrace of evolutionary theory as the beginnings of this ripening of iniquity and apostasy.