Does this go for tsunamis and hurricanes as well? Geologists and meteorologists seem to have fairly convincing accounts of those phenomena, accounts that need not invoke the divine wrath or divine fingers pushing tectonic plates around after Noah’s flood.
The archaeologists didn’t observe anything 35,000 years ago, they made up a story to show us how man invented god.Excuse me, but what do you not understand about how science works?Observations are crucial to the scientific heuristic. Scientists develop explanations to account for the facts they observe.
Archaeologists have shown that religious consciousness evolved in early humans at least thirty-five thousand years ago…
Clearly then, religious consciousness has evolved along with the increasing neural complexity of the human brain.
God bless,
St. Anastasia
Thank you, Wildleafblower – I had a safe and enjoyable trip, bringing my thirteen-year-old with me, who spent time with the son of my Catholic philosopher friend. The kids even came to the conference for a couple of sessions!Hi AnastasiaI haven’t been keeping up on this topic.
Peace be with you.
Of course the archaeologists didn’t observe anything 35,000 years ago – they weren’t even alive then!
I agree, I believe the painters also painted what they saw.Of course the archaeologists didn’t observe anything 35,000 years ago – they weren’t even alive then!
… And cave paintings were not just for entertainment, but appear to testify to the belief of the painters in phenomena beyond the merely empirical.
StAnastasia
While high on peyote…
The incarnation wasn’t necessary
That is to say, please define how you mean “necessary”.
JR, thank you for your clarification – this is precisely what I meant. And yes, the evangelical atheists have made an illegitimate move from a justifiable methodological naturalism to an unjustifiable metaphysical naturalism. They explain God away in explaining religion.What scientists have discovered about ancient man’s evolution of a religious mind is what theologians call man’s innate tendency toward the transcendent. If we look at it this way science and theology do not contradict each other. They actually complement each other… Everything came in stages. This is evolution in a form where you can integrate empirical science, philosophy, history and theology.
Fraternally,
JR
Adam and Eve had a first hand relationship with God. They knew God.Redneck and St. Anastasia, I believe are really arguing the same point, but speaking past each other.
What scientists have discovered about ancient man’s evolution of a religious mind is what theologians call man’s innate tendency toward the transcendent. If we look at it this way science and theology do not contradict each other. They actually complement each other.
The Creator places in man’s nature a desire for the transcendent, from the moment that man appears in history. This desire for the transcendent is nothing more and nothing less than a quest for God. However, the fact remains that it is through this quest for the transcendent that God slowly reveals himself to man. As time passes man’s observation of his universe inspire him to become more curious and at the same time more confident that there is more to life than what meets the eye.
Man develops a thirst for truth and for the divine. Finally, through Israel, the fullness of one God is completely disclosed to man. Hence, the birth of monotheism. From there we know the rest of the story up to this day.
Given these facts that are both scientific and theological, we can see how the development of faith in one God is part of an evolutionary process, but it is not an accident. It was part of what philosophy calls the eternal plan set into motion by the primary mover that cannot be moved or who theology calls God.
From this perspective, man does develop religious consciousness and when he is ready, God self-discloses as the one and only God. Prior to God’s self-disclosure to Israel, God had already been at work in man, planting the hunger for the transcendent or for him, if we want to put it that way.
Every sign of religion that we see in primative societies is really the product of the Holy Spirit at work in humanity. In this regard, religious consciousness, at its different stages of sophistication, is a product of Divine Revelation working through the natural process of human evolution.
God does not fully disclose himself to man in one event, but through a series of events that can be tracked through human history and the story of human comprehension.
This is wher historical philosophy (not the same as the history of philosophy) and philosophy of theology can help us understand how this process unfolds. The emprical sciences help us understand the process by showing us how man expressed his desire for God. They can show us how man’s brain developed and culture developed to better understand God, the one and only Creator.
There is no denying a Divine initiative or divine plan. But the term plan itself implies process. Process implies evolution.
In its correct expression, evolution cannot deny that there has always been an innate transcendence in human nature. To say that man creates God in response to his questions for meaning, is incorrect. In reality, the thought of the supernatural predates the question about meaning and purpose in life. These questions did not appear in history until long after the appearance of theism, even though it was primative and polytheistic.
When we examine the OT, we observe that it is the product of the question for meaning and end that prompts the people of Israel to explore more deeply what they had come to understand about God. This is a historical fact.
They first had a relationship with God. Then they asked why this God had put them on earth, what he wanted and where he was leading.
Everything came in stages. This is evolution in a form where you can integrate empirical science, philosophy, history and theology.
Fraternally,
JR
The problem with that is that the Catholic Church does not hold fast to a literal Adam and Eve. The Catholic Church holds to the idea that there first parents whom God created and infused with grace. But Popes John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI as well as others in the past agree that the way the story of Adam and Eve is written is not mean to be taken literal fact, but as a historical reality, God creates man and selects him from all of his creation.
** III. ORIGINAL SIN **The problem with that is that the Catholic Church does not hold fast to a literal Adam and Eve. The Catholic Church holds to the idea that there first parents whom God created and infused with grace. But Popes John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI as well as others in the past agree that the way the story of Adam and Eve is written is not mean to be taken literal fact, but as a historical reality, God creates man and selects him from all of his creation.
The statement made by John Paul II that God reveals himself through language that man understands, does not preclude the idea that the story of Genesis with an Adam and Eve and a creation in six days is what the Jews have always said it was, a canticle of praise to the Creator. In this canticle, God communicates great historical truths using man’s language and images.
The Catechism of the Catholid Church explains why these texts were written and why they were placed where they were. It also explains the mystey that these texts try to convey. Their focus is not to make us believe there were one man and one woman, but something much greater.
JR
These are the great truths of which I was speaking in my post. These are the truths that are revealed through the story. Notice, the Church does not commit herself to including in these statements, the names Adam and Eve as historical figures. She says that Genesis PORTRAYS the sinfulness of man and his disobedience to God through Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are portraits of humanity. There is not commitment to their historical existence, but to a deeper historical truth, man has sinned and God has redeemed. The Church speaks of Man. She’s speaking of the mystery of creation, humanity, sin and redemption.
Let’s look at this important paragraph from Humani Generis.
Nice point, JR. Do you know a Dominican named Michael Dodds? He writes on the topic of science and religion, and has perhaps addressed this issue.uld like to understand how man comes into biological existence and see the power of God and his glory through all of it.Fraternally,JR
Man does not “come into biological existence” without possessing a rational soul. In order for man to possess a rational soul, there must be an “ontological leap” (quoting Pope John Paul II’s phrase).
