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Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true
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IWantGod
Guest
The question for me is not whether or not God created physical reality and designed it to produce a specific end, because as a Catholic this is my understanding and my faith. Rather it’s a question of how God’s design, his creation, works. I see no reason to reject evolution for Behe’s complexity argument and neither do i see anything anti-catholic or anti theism in the idea of God using secondary causes to bring about purposeful ends. The Catholic church rejects metaphysical naturalism, not evolution. The Church would not say that it is okay for scientist to inquire into the evolution of the human body so long as the soul was created from God if the Church was in principle against the idea of physical effects coming about as the result of secondary-causality. The Church has made it clear that it is not against evolution in principle, but rather they are against what some atheists believe the theory supports; a meaningless chain of cause and effect that doesn’t have it’s genesis in the Goal directed intentionality of God.
There is no point in pitting the Church against evolution. To do so would be shortsighted and at worst deceptive. It is not the theory that is the problem, but rather it is the materialistic beliefs that some people use science to justify, that is the real problem.
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rossum
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If God is omnipresent, then there should be signs of life (i.e. of the living God) on every other planet.
rossum
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rossum
Guest
They cannot be isolated from each other. an someone be a parent (cause) is they have never had any children (effect)? If there is no effect then there cannot be a cause; if there is no cause then there cannot be an effect. A cause must have caused some effect in order to be a cause; an effect must have been cause in order to be an effect.
Cause and effect are mutually dependent.
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Aloysium
Guest
The search adds to our desire and in dealing with the frustration, we become stronger and more resilient. The search involves the transformation of the person into love, necessary to knowing the uncaused Cause. In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks us to become fishers of men. He comes to us, and we respond. We may get discouraged at times, but the quest isn’t fruitless; it takes us beyond how we normally approach the truth into a new way of seeing things. We don’t find Him, as we dream in the darkness, but in waking up. Jesus is the Light that reveals the world; we need only turn on that light to everything.
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ProdglArchitect
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I don’t agree with you on the evolution point, but I do on the “signs of alien life” point.ProdglArchitect:
Don’t forget to factor in the immense doses of wishful thinking that make up any claims of “signs of life” on other planets. Just as with evolution, there is a great deal of atheist fantasising going on in this field.
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o_mlly
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As in “natural selection causes the effects known as speciation”? So, you argue that the answer to the OP is in the negative.
No, the very existence of planets is sufficient evidence that the being whose essence is to exist is omnipresent.
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Aloysium
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Some would have it that they could have physical bodies only if they evolved them. Since God, we are told, must follow the laws of physics, these would then either be myths, simple human beings or hallucinations.guanophore:
Genesis 18-19 describes how three “angels” ate food with Abraham. How coud they eat food if they didn’t have physical bodies? Perhaps they were humans
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PickyPicky
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That, of course, is not what the OP says. And even if it did it would be shorthand, since we know that the effects known as speciation are also caused by genetic mutations. And by whatever environmental issues natural selection was responding to. And, some would hold, by God. And so on and so on.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Sure, if that is how you want to define “cause.” So when the President flips the switch to light the national Christmas tree, he is not the cause of the lights going on. It is Niagra Falls.buffalo:
Right, the electricity itself, right from the start, is the greater cause.LeafByNiggle:
The power supply has the power available. Some of this current is lost in heat and noise. It amplifies a small (name removed by moderator)ut, but does consume power to do so and outputs less than 100%. The power supply has to have the available designed in output capability. The transistor is not creating more energy.
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buffalo
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and there is always a power loss.
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Wozza
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For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost…
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mVitus
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Thanks for sharing that. It’s rather interesting.
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buffalo
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Comet coincidence or divine providence?
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edwest
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Thank you for posting this.
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mVitus
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If we confirm it is the site of Sodom and Gomorrah then I’d have no reason to reject it scientifically being a coincidence while simultaneously being an intended occurrence by God.mVitus:
Comet coincidence or divine providence?
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IWantGod
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The Catholic Pope has other ideas.
Last October 27, Pope Francis addressed members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, during its four day meeting entitled “Evolving Concepts of Nature.” As reported in Carol Glatz’s article for Catholic News Service, the pope said that the Big Bang theory and evolution do not eliminate the existence of God, who remains the one who set all of creation into motion. Pope Francis added that God’s existence does not contradict the discoveries of science.
According to the Academy’s website, he said: “When we read the account of creation in Genesis, we risk thinking that God was a magician, complete with an all-powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created living beings, and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which he endowed each one, that they might develop and reach their fullness.”
_Pope Francis noted that God gave creation full autonomy while also guaranteeing a constant divine presence in nature and people’s lives. The world comes not from chaos but from “a supreme Principle who creates out of love.”_
The pope continued: “The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator, but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of creation because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.”
Rafael Vicuna, professor of molecular genetics and molecular biology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, told academy members that the actual origin of life remains a perplexing question.
In a newspaper interview, he later added: “I can know perfectly what a cell is made up of, but how it works deep down, what really is the dynamism that makes it move—that is, life—I don’t know. A refrigerator and a car are complex structures that move, but only with an immense amount of energy from the outside. Life, in its deepest essence, remains something that escapes us. Life is more than molecules.”
The two very different creation accounts in the Book of Genesis reflect the most coherent physical explanations available to those authors. We know more now. The book’s theology of creation and its purpose, however, has never been surpassed.
https://catholicherald.co.uk/commen...-professed-the-likelihood-of-human-evolution/
# Pope Francis’s comments on the Big Bang are not revolutionary. Catholic teaching has long professed the likelihood of human evolution
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/ask-a-franciscan-pope-francis-big-bang-evolution/
Last October 27, Pope Francis addressed members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, during its four day meeting entitled “Evolving Concepts of Nature.” As reported in Carol Glatz’s article for Catholic News Service, the pope said that the Big Bang theory and evolution do not eliminate the existence of God, who remains the one who set all of creation into motion. Pope Francis added that God’s existence does not contradict the discoveries of science.
According to the Academy’s website, he said: “When we read the account of creation in Genesis, we risk thinking that God was a magician, complete with an all-powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created living beings, and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which he endowed each one, that they might develop and reach their fullness.”
_Pope Francis noted that God gave creation full autonomy while also guaranteeing a constant divine presence in nature and people’s lives. The world comes not from chaos but from “a supreme Principle who creates out of love.”_
The pope continued: “The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator, but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of creation because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.”
Rafael Vicuna, professor of molecular genetics and molecular biology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, told academy members that the actual origin of life remains a perplexing question.
In a newspaper interview, he later added: “I can know perfectly what a cell is made up of, but how it works deep down, what really is the dynamism that makes it move—that is, life—I don’t know. A refrigerator and a car are complex structures that move, but only with an immense amount of energy from the outside. Life, in its deepest essence, remains something that escapes us. Life is more than molecules.”
The two very different creation accounts in the Book of Genesis reflect the most coherent physical explanations available to those authors. We know more now. The book’s theology of creation and its purpose, however, has never been surpassed.
https://catholicherald.co.uk/commen...-professed-the-likelihood-of-human-evolution/
# Pope Francis’s comments on the Big Bang are not revolutionary. Catholic teaching has long professed the likelihood of human evolution
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/ask-a-franciscan-pope-francis-big-bang-evolution/
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www.catholicnews.com
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o_mlly
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The OP is a question, not a statement so it doesn’t say anything. Your answer does. If you argue that reason is daft when attempting to discern causes and effects then how do you answer the OP? It seems you must reply something like, “I should not think natural-evolution of species is true as we cannot know the causes of speciation whether they be natural or otherwise.”
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PickyPicky
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I don’t think I ever said we cannot determine causes. Of course some causes are more proximate than others, and therefore their effects easier to isolate. When science says A causes B it does not rule out the possibility that A is contingent on the existence of C, and B on D.
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