Posted on 11/07/2005 12:05:04 PM PST by Mikey_1962
THE Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly. His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".
This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to "understand things better".
His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the "intelligent design" view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Point One: evolution, abiogenesis, and the Big Bang are mutually exclusive concepts. Point 1.5: monkeys are not the same thing as apes.
Second, the planets are "aligned" because of multiple natural forces we can quantify and calculate, gravity being an important one of them.
But hey, gravity is "just a theory".
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim,"
And you're not?? LOL! Get lost!
Apparently the Vatican, which speaks for the majority of the world's Christians, disagrees.
You either believe that God created the heavens and the earth, or you believe you evolved from monkeys and the universe just EXPLODED and came together to form that wonderful galaxy out there, planets aligned so neatly, everything in order.
False dichotomy. As this article shows, it seems that believing Christians can both accept that God created the cosmos and life and that evolution was one of His methods for doing so.
"You either believe that God created the heavens and the earth, or you believe you evolved from monkeys"
Or you could believe that the First Cause (God) created lesser causes (processes and laws) and that creation (except men) has obeyed in unbroken law.
Amen! Agree 100% with you.
I would like to get some clarification on what he is saying here ... there is a major different in viewing evolution as a valid created mechanism in intelligent design and rejection of "intelligent design"
Even the Bibles flood and Sodom and Gomorrah can be view as a form of selection and evolution...a "thinning the herd" or "pruning the branch" of the wicked
I don't see it that way at all. They're agreeing with Intelligent Design, at least as far as that God is real, and that God created the universe.
Microbial cause of infectious disease is just a theory too!!
The Bible says, "In the beginning God created MAN IN hIS OWN IMAGE" You know, man's been trying to repay the favor ever since.
IF YOU DON'T KNOW HIM, YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUE! ! !
....... just a thought..... and albeit a small one. We know that certain bacteria were once susceptible to certain types of antibiotics...now they can thrive on those antibiotics..Some were able to adapt and modify while others that had specific cell wall structures or enzymes were able to thrive. Now the hand of God created "the heaven and the earth and all the living creatures". He also gave us the ability to adapt and multiply. All the gifts and options that we have are of his doing. The age of the Earth, the "first" man, and all the other questions about our development of "consciousness" and self awareness fall within the "belief in God".
The other thing is that even if the universe EXPLODED, that doesn't mean that his hand wasn't the one directing things.
Evolution is quite compatible with a belief in God. God is the intelligent designer. The laws of physics, chemistry, and biology are His handiwork and His tools for Creation. The flaw with ID is not that it posits an Intelligent Designer, but that it purports to be able to use science to prove His existence.
You point to that wonderful galaxy with planets aligned so neatly and everything in order. But perhaps it's not so neat as you can see in our own solar system. As we do more and more exploration we find that there are numerous solar systems in the galaxy, most of which do not have the neat alignment. How many solar systems came into being where a giant planet spiraled in towards the systems' Suns and ejected all the planets (computer modeling says the answer is likely 'most'). How many stars are either too hot or too cold to support life? The galaxy itself, as well as the stars in it, are a lot more dynamic than you seem to think.
One point I would also like to make, and you might like : There's no way we should have the fossil records of the dinosaurs that we do, based on the mainstream theory of their demise. They have obviously been covered by layers upon layers of silt from some watery event....hmmm.
I know it sounds crazy and it took me a while to except it, but it's common sense to me.
Well here comes my turn to get blasted. lol
Evolution is compatible with the teaching of the Church if God is understood as the creator of all that is, including the evolutionary process, from nothing; Adam and Eve were the sole progenitors of the human race and they were uniquely among other living beings endowed by a soul created by God.
If the evolution is construed as a spontaneous self-creation through authorless trial and error and the soul, if acknowledged to exist at all, is viewed as part of that spontaneous development, then it is not compatible.
The intellectual vandalism that passes for the theory of evolution in American skulz is certainly not compatible with the teaching of the Church.
Literal traditional interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis is equally compatible with the Church.
It is not clear from the article what exactly Cardinal Poupard said and to what extent his views reflect the truths taught by the Church.
God set off the explosion.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1052-1860310,00.html
A pope for our times: why Darwin is back on the agenda at the Vatican
William Rees-Mogg
IN THE mid-1980s I was a member of a Vatican body with the impressive title International Committee of the Pontifical Council for Culture. Each year we had a meeting with Pope John-Paul II; on one occasion he gave us lunch and served a light white wine from, I think, a papal vineyard.
The other members of the committee included a splendid Ibo lady, the head of the Catholic Women’s Movement in Nigeria, an Indian nun, a Japanese Jesuit and a Francophone president of an African nation who believed that French culture and a sound classical education would be the best answer to Africa’s educational problems. I enjoyed our discussions, which were almost always held in French.
The idea, which came from the Pope himself, was far-sighted. We foresaw what has subsequently been called the “clash of civilisations”; we tried to relate that conflict to the widely differing cultures of the billion members of the Roman Catholic Church. We discussed the impact of particular developments in modern science but so far as I can remember we did not try to deal with the central problem of the relationship between science and religion; that seems to have come now.
Our chairman was Cardinal Paul Poupard, an admirable example of the cultivated French intellectual in the Roman Curia; he is still the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. Whether the council still has an international committee I do not know, since I left it nearly 20 years ago. Last week the cardinal was giving a press conference before a meeting in Rome of scientists, philosophers and theologians; this week they will be discussing the difficult subject of infinity. Cardinal Poupard had a beautifully trained French mind and inner loyalty to the Catholic faith. Nothing he says is said without careful thought. At the press conference he was discussing the issue of evolution, which is the critical dividing line between science and religion. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species shook religious belief when it was first published in 1859 in a way that Isaac Newton’s equally important Principia had not shaken the faith of 1687.
In The Times Martin Penner reported the cardinal’s argument. He had said that the description in Genesis of the Creation was “perfectly compatible” with Darwin’s theory of evolution, if the Bible were read properly. “Fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim.”
He argued that the real message of Genesis was that the Universe did not make itself, and had a creator. “Science and theology act in different fields, each in its own.” In Rome, the immediate reaction was that this was a Vatican rejection of the fundamentalist American doctrine of “intelligent design”. No doubt the Vatican does want to separate itself from American creationists, but the significance surely goes further than that. This is not another Galileo case; the teachings of the Church have never imposed a literal interpretation of the language of the Bible; that was a Protestant mistake. Nor did the Church condemn the theory of evolution, though it did and does reject neo-Darwinism when that is made specifically atheist.
Indeed, one can go back nearly 1,500 years before Darwin and find St Augustine of Hippo, the most commanding intellect of all the early doctors of the Church, teaching a doctrine of evolution in the early 5th century. In one of his greatest works, De Genesi ad Litteram, he stated that God did not create an organised Universe as we see it now, but in the beginning created all the elements of the world in a confused and “nebulous” mass. In this mass were the mysterious seeds of the creatures who were to come into existence.
Augustine’s thought does therefore contain the elements of a theory of evolution, and even a genetic theory, but does not have natural selection. St Augustine has always been orthodox. He did not foresee modern science in AD410, but he did have an extraordinary grasp of the potential evolution of scientific thought. Cardinal Poupard’s address to the journalists should not be seen as a matter of the Roman Church changing its mind and accepting Darwin after 145 years.
It is a precautionary statement, distancing the Church from the American attack on Darwinism that Rome considers to be neither good science, nor good theology. It will also be taken as an indication of the priorities of the present Pope Benedict XVI.
His critics had expected him to be more conservative than his predecessor. I tended to share this expectation myself, but refrained from expressing it because new leaders always surprise one; they move in directions no one had previously foreseen. We should have been more conscious of differences between the national traditions of the Catholic Church in Poland and in Germany. The Polish Church, which trained John-Paul II, had always combined conservative theology with support for the national claims to liberty. The German Church has always been challenged by the modernism of German theology.
In the 16th century Germany was the region where the Reformation happened. German theologians on the Roman Catholic side had to understand the arguments of the Reformers if they were to reply to them. In the 18th century Germans were fully exposed to the French Enlightenment. In the 19th century they were exposed to German philosophers such as Hegel, and to the challenge of German biblical scholarship. Modernism itself in the late 19th century had a great influence on German Catholic opinion.
All these arguments are well understood by Benedict XVI, because so many of them are German arguments.
Cardinal Poupard’s statement clarified the acceptance of Darwinism and rightly asserted that religious belief is compatible with the theory of evolution. He also gave a further indication that the mindset of Benedict XVI may be a good deal more modern than had been expected. One should have foreseen that with a German pope. The German Church has a strong tradition of theological inquiry in which Benedict XVI has been educated.
That's going to come as a big surprise to the millions of Americans who believe in both.
You either believe that God created the heavens and the earth, or you believe you evolved from monkeys
...or you believe that the latter is the method by which He accomplished part of the former results...
Look up "false dichotomy" sometime.
and the universe just EXPLODED
The "Big Bang" has nothing to do with an actual "explosion". Try to learn some physics before you attempt to critique it, and don't just jump to incorrect conclusions based on the name.
and came together to form that wonderful galaxy out there, planets aligned so neatly, everything in order.
The laws of physics naturally result in several kinds of order arising. Did you have some sort of point?
That indicates there was a creator,
No it doesn't.
Once you learn more about how natural processes interact, you become more aware of how they cause interesting things to come about, and the less you find yourself relying on lines of reasoning like, "well *I* can't imagine how this could have happened, so it *must* have been the result of some invisible guy in the sky whipping it up on his drawing board..."
how can one look around and see such beauty and not realize that some higher power put it there?
"Higher power" is not necessarily equivalent to "a supernatural intelligence".
Not to mention that Pluto is hardly in neat alignment with anything, and it's not as if the other planets are particularly uniform either.
http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/space/planets/planorbi.html
Their inclinations and eccentricities are all different. Pluto is especially weird; I hear it's not even considered a planet anymore.
What leads you to that conclusion?
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