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StAnastasia
Guest
Typical ricmat un-Christian nastiness – on Good Friday, no less!
It seems you are incapable of conversing charitably on Catholic Answers.
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It seems you are incapable of conversing charitably on Catholic Answers.
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buffalo
Guest
Here is more from Carroll:
Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas
WILLIAM E. CARROLL****The analysis of creation and the distinctions Thomas Aquinas draws among the domains of metaphysics, the natural sciences, and theology can serve an important role in contemporary discussions of the relationship between creation and evolution.
A few important points he makes: My bolding and my comments in red.
…Thomas Aquinas as biblical exegete, metaphysician, and philosopher of nature offers us a rich array of insights for contemporary discourse on the relationship among sacred texts, the natural sciences, and philosophy. He can help us to avoid the whirlpool of a reductionist materialism as well as the stumbling block of biblical literalism. His principles continue to serve as an anchor of intelligibility in a sea of confusing claims. Rather than excluding Darwin from the curriculum, **the schools should add Aquinas. (A point I have made consistently, adding philosophy and metaphysics that is)
…** Eight hundred years before Aquinas, Augustine makes a crucial distinction between God’s causal activity and what in our own day has come to be called “intelligent design.” "It is one thing to build and to govern creatures from within and from the summit of the whole causal nexus — and only God, the Creator, does this; (IDvolution?) it is another thing to apply externally forces and capacities bestowed by Him in order to bring forth at such and such a time, or in such and such a shape, what has been created. **For all things were created at the beginning, being primordially woven into the texture of the world; but they await the proper opportunity for their existence."(**40)
…Aquinas thinks that a world of necessary connections between causes and effects, connections which he thinks are the hallmarks of its intelligibility, does not mean that the world is not dependent upon God.(43) Necessity in nature is not a rival to the fundamentally different kind of necessity attributed to God.(44)
…**Behe’s “irreducible complexities” are biological “singularities.” **In the hands of defenders, the existence of such “singularities” is strong, if not conclusive, evidence for an agent outside the regular course of nature. Most biologists respond to Behe’s claims of irreducible complexity by distinguishing between our not being able to explain the origin of complex structures like the cell in terms of evolutionary biology and Behe’s conclusion that in principle no such explanation is possible and that, therefore, we must admit the role of an intelligent designer. They might very well accept the former — the epistemological claim — but they would reject the latter — the ontological claim. As several commentators have observed, those, who argue for “irreducible complexity” and then move to claims about intelligent design, represent a contemporary version of what has been called the “god of the gaps.” (Does IDvolutions solve this?)
This section for granny: **Human Nature and the Creation of the Soul: A Preliminary Approach
…**However necessary evolutionary biology is for understanding nature, it is not a substitute for the complete study of *what *things are and how they behave. These are questions which engage not only the empirical sciences but also the philosophy of nature. What things are and how they function involve discussions in terms of matter and form, potentiality and actuality, substance and accident, the nature of change, etc.
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grannymh
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You may be a theologian, but it doesn’t sound like you teach Catholicism or even know Catholicism.
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ricmat
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So whom was I being nasty to?
I explained the meaning of the tower of Babel story.
Or perhaps you disagree with me that pride is a bad thing. If so, please explain your reasoning.
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ricmat
Guest
Something which I think applies to this thread (and similar ones):
From Good Friday Evening Prayer (Liturgy of the Hours) intecessions:
"Show the marks of your love in creation to those who deny them."
Let us all respond “By the merits of you Son’s death, hear us, Lord.”
Amen.
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From Good Friday Evening Prayer (Liturgy of the Hours) intecessions:
"Show the marks of your love in creation to those who deny them."
Let us all respond “By the merits of you Son’s death, hear us, Lord.”
Amen.
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larkin31
Guest
I have learned not to underestimate the scientific ignorance of people on matters like this. It is dismaying at times to think that the so many persons of the greatest country on the planet can get something so easy so wrong.
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larkin31
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I agree with both these points.
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StAnastasia
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More Good Friday unChristian nastiness – this time from Granny!You may be a theologian, but it doesn’t sound like you teach Catholicism or even know Catholicism.
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ricmat
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Thank you for the kind words above, Rossum. There are many people out there who see Catholicism on the whole as a bad thing. Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out the good things.
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itinerant1
Guest
My only post for Good Friday will be this prayer:
Behold, O Kind and most sweet Jesus, before Thy face I humbly kneel, and with the most fervent desire of soul, I pray and beseech Thee to impress upon my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope and charity, true contrition for my sins and a firm purpose of amendment. With deep affection and grief of soul, I ponder within myself, mentally contemplating Thy five wounds, having before my eyes the words which David the Prophet spoke concerning Thee: “They have pierced my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones.”
Behold, O Kind and most sweet Jesus, before Thy face I humbly kneel, and with the most fervent desire of soul, I pray and beseech Thee to impress upon my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope and charity, true contrition for my sins and a firm purpose of amendment. With deep affection and grief of soul, I ponder within myself, mentally contemplating Thy five wounds, having before my eyes the words which David the Prophet spoke concerning Thee: “They have pierced my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones.”
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edwest2
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And what are the consequences? This strikes me as just an attempt to make sure that a few ideas are universally accepted.
I don’t think scientific ignorance has anything to do with it. To quote a vicious review for a creationist book I saw on amazon “You are a Christian extremist and a terrorist.” This is the type of thinking driving this. It’s about a balance of power.
God bless,
Ed
Choose Jesus.
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larkin31
Guest
The consequences are the damages of intentional lies to children about the nature of the world and their natural history. If you believe that this is no more grievous than telling them to believe in Santa Claus, then this is not the thread for you.
For me, it is simply about respecting the minds of children and not intentionally telling them scientific falsehoods based on very old religious documents and interpreting them literally.
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ricmat
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Certainly intentional lies against anything are wrong. But intention is hard to prove. And what is a scientific lie today may be the scientific truth of tomorrow. It happens regularly. “Yes, son, the Sun goes around the earth.” Was that an intentional lie in 450AD? Or was it a lie then to say that the earth goes around the Sun when most of the scientists of the time said otherwise?
In any case, it seems to me that lies against God are much more serious than lies against Science. So we should be very careful there.
I agree with Ed that there is an agenda behind much of this. But for something to actually be a lie, one must know that it is actually a lie. I’m not sure that that’s the case we’re dealing with here on either side.
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grannymh
Guest
Years ago, I listened to a junior high science teacher talk about his class. He said that just about everything he was teaching would be obsolete by the time his students finished high school. Reading the questioning faces before him, he added that the goal of his class was to teach students how to think about science, to give them the skills to explore on their own. In other words, he was teaching his students how to enter the realm of natural science with confidence and enjoy its wonders. This happened during an open house at a Catholic school.
During the same event, I entered a classroom with a saying from one of the Eastern religions on the blackboard. This teacher explained that her goal was to give the students a firm grounding in Catholicism so that they could be comfortable with different beliefs.
Both teachers demonstrated deep respect for children’s minds and the potential power within them. I am with you about respecting children’s minds even if it means tweaking our own.
One of the many reasons I am interested in the age of the earth is the exchange of information between the various sides. What I notice is that when one finding is presented, someone else would suggest doing the research a different way, someone else would question the method, someone else would limit the results while someone else expands the results. None of this is really about old religious documents which are still being published because consumers demand such. It is about doing science well as St. Thomas Aquinas would say.
Easter blessing to All
granny
John 20: 24-31
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grannymh
Guest
By the merits of Your Son’s death, hear us, Lord.
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Roy5
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- Personally, I believe in reasonable faiths and unreasonable faiths. I presume I always have been wary of paganism and superstition, wanting instead a religion that was basically in sync with proven science. Therefore, I confess to considerable difficulty when it comes to certain scriptural accounts. If, for example, Joshua succeeded in making the sun stand still - wow, think of all the cosmic consequences. So, I don’t believe it. Getting all those animals in the ark doesn’t strike me as reasonable, so I discard that legend, also. And, if I’m totally honest, I struggle with many historic doctrines, from the Immaculate Conception of Mary to Jesus casting demons into pigs.
- On the other hand, the marvel and majesty and mystery of this universe strikes me as compelling evidence of a creator God worthy of our adoration and worship. It’s ‘more reasonable’ to believe in such a God than to deny his/her existence.
- Is StAnatasia suggesting that God permitted 9/11 because we had built skyscrapers too high? It sounds that way. That’s letting the terrorists get away with wholesale murder. Actually, one issue in my mind forever and a day has been this: if God permits such an atrocity does he bear some of the blame? If a loving father knows his children are about to drown and doesn’t step in to save them, is God partly at fault? I don’t think so, but it does make me wonder. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, and if God is love as the Bible states, why does he allow so much suffering - whether in Haiti or Darfur, in Chile or Rwanda - etc? And St. A - not to compete with your credentials, but I taught college philosophy and comparative religions myself. That doesn’t mean I have the correct answers. But God ask simply faith and not necessarily acceptance of all sorts of uncertain doctrines. I’m content to live with such a faith and trust that someday “in a better place” we will know the answers to life’s greatest quandaries.
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ricmat
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That’s a very thoughtful letter, Roy.
Here are some thoughts on your thoughts.
Your item number 2. Absolutely!
Your item number 3. Your concerns fall into the general category of “Why does God permit evil and suffering in the world?” I just finished a book called “The Fulfillment of All Desire” which is based on the writings of 6 Saints of the Church. If you can get a copy, I’d like to refer you to pages 416-417 where Catherine of Siena explains a vision in which God told her the answers to those questions. It’s much better to read the whole book (which is the most awesome book I’ve EVER read.) but the bottom line is that God allows us to be tempted and to suffer as a trial to make us desire Him more, and as a way to grow in love (by increasing our empathy for those who suffer along side us).
Your item number 1. There is an inherent danger in what you appear to be thinking (IMO). To measure a religion by it’s adherence to science puts science above religion. There is much revealed to Christians which science cannot verify or explain (e.g. the Resurrection.)
Could God have stopped the Earth’s rotation with no other cosmological consequences? Since He created the entire universe, I’d have to say yes. Could God have been testing the faith of Noah (who got as many creatures on board as he could get a hold of locally), and then after the flood fully repopulated the earth Himself, filling in where Noah missed a few critters? I’d have to say that’s a possibility. God is outside science. God created the universe and the natural laws, and is not subject to them.
Beware those who say it couldn’t have happened that way because science says so. That means that God couldn’t have done it. And we know that’s not true.
This all having been said, you may not want to believe certain scriptural accounts for other reasons (like, they are obviously meant to be non-literal. Jesus is not REALLY a vine, for example). But don’t disbelieve because science says not to.
That’s my 2 cents.
May you also have a blessed and happy Easter!
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RACJ
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I highly doubt that the earth has existed for only thousands of years, BUT the theory of evolution is utter nonsense. No matter the age of the universe. 
Rob
Rob
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edwest2
Guest
God is found through a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. We just need to ask.
About this topic, we should carefully weigh what science tells us against what the Church teaches. Science is not about faith but too often here, on this forum, it is placed above God or presented as a requirement for believing in Christianity. How did Jesus perform His miracles? Certainly not with science. He showed us what God can do.
As we learn new things, we must be certain we understand them but realize how they fit into divine revelation. Just ask yourself: Why is it important to pick one age of the earth over the other? It has been my experience that it is often mentioned to promote an ideology, not science as such.
There has been a long conflict about the source of truth, science or the Bible. In wishing to diminish the work of the Living God, sometimes people insist on a belief of certain things called scientific. We must be careful.
God bless,
Happy Easter,
Ed
About this topic, we should carefully weigh what science tells us against what the Church teaches. Science is not about faith but too often here, on this forum, it is placed above God or presented as a requirement for believing in Christianity. How did Jesus perform His miracles? Certainly not with science. He showed us what God can do.
As we learn new things, we must be certain we understand them but realize how they fit into divine revelation. Just ask yourself: Why is it important to pick one age of the earth over the other? It has been my experience that it is often mentioned to promote an ideology, not science as such.
There has been a long conflict about the source of truth, science or the Bible. In wishing to diminish the work of the Living God, sometimes people insist on a belief of certain things called scientific. We must be careful.
God bless,
Happy Easter,
Ed
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buffalo
Guest
If the whole world was engaged in loving the one true God would any of this happen? The Virgin Mary has always told us to pray. Could it be that the quantum effects of mass prayer change the course of natural events? (chastisements?)
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