Donsnow, one of the things I appreciate most about the Church is Her constancy across languages and cultures. This year through family trips and academic conference trips I’ve participated in Masses in Italian, Basque, French, Spanish and English. Through all the diversity of languages, cultures, and liturgical practices, it is the same Church.I’ve seen some change here, in Texas, from so many Latinos coming here from south of the border. I’ve heard Masses given in both English/Spanish. That’s a change from when I converted to Roman Catholicism, in '68. There’s also other changes in the Liturgy of the Church, such as types of music. However, to my limited understanding of Vatican I and II, there has been little, if any, change of substance to the Doctrine and Dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. Which comforts me.
What is there to recant? I see nothing objectionable in what Fr. Coyne says.If you have a retraction by Coyne, please list it. Since you’ve been posting on this forum, you’ve mentioned 3 or 4 separate occasions during which you met him, ate dinner with him, convened with him, etc. Ask him where his retraction is posted.
Interesting. Only the government of the United States was reminding us that we were in a struggle with “Godless Communism.” The Godless part was important. The idea that we faced annihilation in about 28 minutes from Russian ICBMs did not crimp my childhood one bit. And we certainly weren’t taught fear at school. There was a yellow and black Civil Defense sign on the school gym.I too was in Catholic school in the 1960s (Wisconsin). It was a fairly conservative school that tried to scare the bejabbers out of us every week with stories of communism taking over the whole world. But I don’t recall scriptural literalism either in school or in the parish.
the point he makes about man could not just as well be here…What is there to recant? I see nothing objectionable in what Fr. Coyne says.
No, it’s not all that counts. Where did you come up with that?Pope John Paul II is the only ratifier of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and this is what counts.
I didn’t say that he was a heretic. What I did is quote from Schoenborn’s book. Schoenborn didn’t say that he was a heretic either.That someone disagrees with a Cardinal doesn’t make one a heretic, not even if that cardinal assisted the pope greatly in his teaching of the faithful.
The quote in question had nothing to do with arguments for the existence of God. No doubt, Coyne believes in God.However, Coynes states in the interview, that what he meant was, that “if God were a purely immanent being, could he ‘predict’ the outcome of evolution and the Big Bang?” In other words: Is the universe an effect of absolute determinism? His answer is no. God’s creation of the universe is on a deeper level, and Fr. Coyne here brings in none less than Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, to argue for the existence of God, and argues for the orthodox view of God as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe.
Well, I haven’t deemed him heretical. But given the controversy his quote generated, it would seem to me to be a good idea to put things straight - declaring in no uncertain terms, and very clearly what he does believe. As a Vatican official (or former official), his words carry great weight, and it would seem to be best for everyone to make things clear.Why would he recant? Has he been deemed heretical by anyone but yourself?
I’m not sure exactly what you’re getting at here.His comment in the Dawkins interview is, that if Schoenborn had used the wording that he now uses, from the beginning, there would have been no controversy.
- CB
We got it from pulpit and school.Interesting. Only the government of the United States was reminding us that we were in a struggle with “Godless Communism.” Peace,Ed
The part that Schoenborn was specifically criticizing was Coyne’s contention that God Himself could not know that man would be the outcome of the evolutionary process.What is there to recant? I see nothing objectionable in what Fr. Coyne says.
I would not express it in terms of God not being able to know the outcome of the evolutionary process. I tend to follow the Augustinian view that as God is outside of time, and all of time is within the encompassing divine plenum, the whole of creation is already complete from the divine eternal perspective. It’s not as if God is watching a process unfold.The part that Schoenborn was specifically criticizing was Coyne’s contention that God Himself could not know that man would be the outcome of the evolutionary process. Do you not find that line of reasoning objectionable?
What is there to recant?** I see nothing objectionable in what Fr. Coyne says.**
The part that Schoenborn was specifically criticizing was Coyne’s contention that God Himself could not know that man would be the outcome of the evolutionary process.
Do you not find that line of reasoning objectionable?
That’s pretty standard thinking so far…I would not express it in terms of God not being able to know the outcome of the evolutionary process. I tend to follow the Augustinian view that as God is outside of time, and all of time is within the encompassing divine plenum, the whole of creation is already complete from the divine eternal perspective. It’s not as if God is watching a process unfold.
Thank you for your De Chardin-esque essay on what you believe.Rather, God instantiated an evolving universe based on principles that would maximize evolutionary diversity from quarks to minds. In this sense God willed a universe that would evolve moral and spiritual response. I don’t see any reason to assume that Homo sapiens was necessary; intelligence and spirituality might just as well have evolved on a marsupial, or even a warm-blooded reptilian platform. On earth self-reflexive consciousness evolved from primate mammal roots.
SAnastasia
Where did I say that God didn’t know the outcome? Where did I say that evolutionary diversity is the pinnacle of creation?You would use different words, those in the above paragraph. You wouldn’t say that God COUDN’T know the outcome, but only that God DIDN’T know the outcome. Your main point seems to be that man was not the pinnacle of creation, the whole point of creation, evolutionary diversity was. And God, rather than making persons in the image and likeness of Himself, put his pinnacle of creation, evolution, into operation, and waited to see what happened. So long as “something” evolving spirituality came to be, well, that’s good enough for God.
I would not express it in terms of God not being able to know the outcome of the evolutionary process. I tend to follow the Augustinian view that as God is outside of time, and all of time is within the encompassing divine plenum, the whole of creation is already complete from the divine eternal perspective. It’s not as if God is watching a process unfold.
Rather, God instantiated an evolving universe based on principles that would maximize evolutionary diversity from quarks to minds. In this sense God willed a universe that would evolve moral and spiritual response. I don’t see any reason to assume that Homo sapiens was necessary; intelligence and spirituality might just as well have evolved on a marsupial, or even a warm-blooded reptilian platform. On earth self-reflexive consciousness evolved from primate mammal roots.
SAnastasia
“intelligence and spirituality might just as well have evolved on a marsupial, or even a warm-blooded reptilian platform.”Where did I say that God didn’t know the outcome?
Well, this certainly takes mankind out of the running. Maximize evolutionary diversity. “Homo sapiens not necessary.”Where did I say that evolutionary diversity is the pinnacle of creation?
Where did I say that God didn’t know the outcome? Where did I say that evolutionary diversity is the pinnacle of creation?Well, this certainly takes mankind out of the running. Maximize evolutionary diversity.
The answer is in my post above.Where did I say that God didn’t know the outcome? Where did I say that evolutionary diversity is the pinnacle of creation?
“self-reflexive consciousness evolved”? I don’t think so. All creatures were given their innate characteristics. Broadly speaking, we all know what sort of behavior to expect from dogs.I would not express it in terms of God not being able to know the outcome of the evolutionary process. I tend to follow the Augustinian view that as God is outside of time, and all of time is within the encompassing divine plenum, the whole of creation is already complete from the divine eternal perspective. It’s not as if God is watching a process unfold.
Rather, God instantiated an evolving universe based on principles that would maximize evolutionary diversity from quarks to minds. In this sense God willed a universe that would evolve moral and spiritual response. I don’t see any reason to assume that Homo sapiens was necessary; intelligence and spirituality might just as well have evolved on a marsupial, or even a warm-blooded reptilian platform. On earth self-reflexive consciousness evolved from primate mammal roots.
SAnastasia
The answer is in my post above. But just for simplicity you could answer this.
LATE EDIT:
- Is man the pinnacle of creation? Yes or no.
- Was man the exact target that God willed from the beginning of Creation? Yes or no.
3. Did God know in advance that man would come about as the result of evolution? Yes or no.
I’m not a “creationist” in that YEC sense, so I don’t regard immutable innate characteristics as intelligible.“self-reflexive consciousness evolved”? I don’t think so. All creatures were given their innate characteristics. Broadly speaking, we all know what sort of behavior to expect from dogs.Peace, Ed
By pinnacle - I mean “purpose of” (in a sort of non-technical, easygoing way.) I believe that God created mankind as his children, and created the universe as a place for us to live and worship. I thought that was a basic teaching of Genesis.
- There are 10\22 stars in the known universe. It is likely that numerous of them have planets in the habitable zone, some with chemistry very similar to that of our earth. As yet we have no reason to believe either that we are the pinnacle of creation nor that we are not (whatever “pinnacle” means).
I’m using target in the opposite sense of “God didn’t know what would happen in advance.” In your mind, when God started the evolution “engine”, did he want it to produce “man” as man actually came to be? Or was his target rather "any intelligent self reflective consciousness (to use your words) that happened to evolve?
- I don’t know what God’s ‘exact target’ was – I don’t use “target” language. We humans certainly seem to think we are the exact target at which God was aiming. It would be interesting to learn what rational life elsewhere in the universe would think was the target aimed at by God. The Hebrew psalmist (a member of Homo sapiens) opined that humans are “a little lower than the angels,…crowned with glory and honour.” (Psalm 8:4,5)
I’m not sure what you mean by “non-deterministically”.StAnastasia
- Not being God, I cannot say for certain. However, as a proponent of the Augustinian conceptual framework of time and eternity, I would say that from outside of time God eternally sees the outcome of all temporal processes, everywhere in the universe. In that sense, God non-deterministically “knows” from eternity that humans will evolve. God knows too what humans will evolve into if we survive for another five million years.
StAnastasia -Donsnow, one of the things I appreciate most about the Church is Her constancy across languages and cultures. This year through family trips and academic conference trips I’ve participated in Masses in Italian, Basque, French, Spanish and English. Through all the diversity of languages, cultures, and liturgical practices, it is the same Church.
Dearest brother Don:Hi, Johnny -
I’m neither a Modernist nor a Postmodernist, but call myself a Traditionalist. And, I respectfully and gently disagree that some theories of evolution themselves are too dangerous and all of their fruit is not "…death, destruction, statism, utopianism, eugenics, paganism, and destruction of Catholic faith. Our Blessed Lord said, “You shall know them by their fruits.”
However…imho, your quote does accurately describe Darwinism.
I am learning to separate the teachings of Charles Darwin from contemporary theories of evolution. Johnny, evolution appears to me, as one of the tools which our Creator employed to effect His creation: if and only if, in fact, there are billions of years that things happened during. I believe the Holy Bible as the inspired word of God.
For example, I have taken the stand that Genesis 1, 1 could cover billions of years. That is,
“In the beginning,…” (before time and space)
“…God created…”(Big Bang? Fourteen billions of years ago?)
"…The heavens…"From 14 billion years (?) to present)
“…and the earth,…” anywhere from four to six billion (?) years ago.
Notice the qualifying question marks. To me, those times are theory. At length, I could state my opinion that Biblical days of creation are true, and the evidence to the contrary was planted by the Devil, like salting a mine to appear it has more than it does. And, God allows this as a test of faith.
So, in my mind, both a literal interpretation of the Creation account or the evolutionary account of development are unproven. And unprovable:shrug:. And, that acceptance of either concept becomes, therefore, an act of faith. I believe the Holy Bible and the Church’s teaching, not Charles Darwin. (I try to separate Darwin’s teachings from other theories of evolution).
I read the quote of Pope Benedict XVI’s answer to the priest. I see no equivocation in it. Now, Pope Pius X you quote, an excerpt which apparantly shows him in disagreement. Here, I exercise my freedom of choice in a way I learned to choose between disagreeing science authorities: Choose the one I agree with. I don’t agree with your choice but I do agree with both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, the latter imho the greatest Pope the church has ever had, since and not including St. Peter.
Nevertheless, I submit that we are not to follow this Pope nor that Pope, but rather recognize that all the Popes and we are in Christ Jesus. Let us not turn the Church against itself.
I hope the above makes sense, to you.
Well, sir -Dearest brother Don:
Thanks for your gentle remarks and thoughtful ruminations. I think we can find some firm common ground on a variety of issues as a fellow Traditionalist (although I prefer the term orthodox).
Two items up front:
Tradition (as well as Jesus) ascribes the authorship of Genesis to Moses;
Jesus knows nothing of evolutionism in His proclamation. The Fathers and Doctors of the Church vehemently denounced the Greek speculations of atomism - the forerunner of evolutionism. St. Thomas Aquinas also rejected the existence of organisms as having evolved from previous organisms on philosophical and theological grounds as not being compatible with the Gospel.
If evolutionism were true, why would God allow atheists to correct the Teaching of the Divine Word after 6,000 years of error?
Moses spoke to God ‘face to face’ and not as other prophets. His revelation comes directly from heaven. St. Basil the Great in his Hexameron extols this point as the primary consideration when handling Genesis. Speculations about the age of the earth are unscientific and lead to cosmological conclusions, not scientific ones. That is a transgression of science into the realm of theology and philosophy, about which it can contribute but little seeing most profane scientists reject the existence of the spirit.
There is no historical precedence for revising the revelation given to the Church in Genesis, confirmed by the Prophets, the Son of God and the Holy Apostles, the venerable Fathers and Doctors of the Church. This is a 19th century novelty without any roots or mooring in Sacred Tradition. It arrives at different conclusions than what the Magisterium allows, which Pius XII forbad in Humani Generis.
Making a ‘choice’ as you put it, Don, about which Pontiff to believe when they are in contradiction is an unfortunate circumstance. Far be it from me to criticize a Pope, but neither JP II not B16 are at liberty to confound, contradict or argue against a Papal Encyclical promulgated by a legitimate Pope - let alone one who is beatified.
Agree, we do not follow Popes instead of our Blessed Redeemer, but as St. Paul instructs, “imitate me as I imitate Christ” and so much more as the heir of Blessed Peter to whom Jesus gave authority to govern the Church Militant. Modernism is completely dependent on evolutionism as it’s cosmological underpinning, and collapses as the house of cards it is without ‘faith’ in it as a cosmology.
Theories based on models (without observable conditions) that receive a consensus do not constitute real science, and certainly do not present any weight of evidence for which we should overthrow the authority of divine revelation.