Indeed... (The image is a "hot link" to the APOD explanation, BTW -- click it...)
I find that many who constrain the Creator via a primitive interpretation of Genesis actually fear (and refuse to contemplate) such evidence.
Posted on 08/22/2005 5:03:52 PM PDT by curiosity
It's never been easy being Charles Darwin. Rodney Dangerfield talked about getting "no respect," but the brickbats thrown Darwin's way are putting poor Rodney to shame. Alabama pastes warning stickers in any textbook that mentions evolution; a member of the Kansas Board of Education pronounces evolution "biologically, genetically, mathematically, chemically and metaphysically impossible." And now even a cardinal of the Catholic Church has taken a potshot at poor old Charles.
Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, editor of the Church's Catechism, recently wrote that any notion that neo-Darwinian theory is "somehow compatible with Christian faith" is simply "not true."
The cardinal asserted that evolution is an "unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection." Evolution, in his view, isn't science so much as a "materialistic philosophy" that denies the existence of a creator's plan. It's anti-Christian, and it's bad science to boot.
The cardinal may think that evolution deserves the Dangerfield treatment, but in his understandable eagerness to stand up for God, he's made three glaring mistakes: The most obvious is scientific. The second is political. And the third, dare I say as a Catholic lay person, is theological.
Knowing how the cardinal's words will be misused by the enemies of science, I think it's important to set the record straight.
Let's start with what Schonborn got right. The Catholic Church has always opposed any view of life that would exclude the notion of divine purpose. As the Catechism says, scientific studies of "the age and development of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man . . . invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator." Indeed they do.
But Schonborn's assertion that the theory of evolution is inherently anti-God is simply wrong. Consider these words from George Gaylord Simpson, widely recognized as one of the principal architects of the neo-Darwinian synthesis:
"The process [of evolution] is wholly natural in its operation. This natural process achieves the aspect of purpose without the intervention of a purposer; and it has produced a vast plan without the concurrent action of a planner. It may be that the initiation of the process and the physical laws under which it functions had a purpose and that this mechanistic way of achieving a plan is the instrument of a Planner -- of this still deeper problem the scientist, as scientist, cannot speak."
Exactly. Science is, just as Pope John Paul II said, silent on the issue of ultimate purpose. This means that biological evolution, correctly understood, does not address what Simpson called the "deeper problem," leaving that issue, quite properly, to faith.
The cardinal's second error was to enter American politics by supporting the "intelligent-design" movement. This movement seeks to short-circuit science by applying political pressure at state and local levels, and the cardinal's misrepresentation of evolution will only further a growing entanglement between church and state. He seems not to understand that the neo-creationists of "intelligent design," unlike Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, argue against evolution on every level, asserting that a "designer" has repeatedly intervened to subvert the laws of nature. This view stands in sharp contradiction to a 2004 International Theological Commission document approved by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.
This document carries a ringing endorsement of the "widely accepted scientific account" of life's emergence and evolution; describes the descent of all forms of life from a common ancestor as "virtually certain"; and echoes John Paul's observation of the "mounting support" for evolution from many fields of study.
More important, the document makes a critical statement on how to interpret scientific studies of the complexity of life: "[W]hether the available data support inferences of design or chancecannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency" -- that is, dependence upon chance -- "in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence."
Right there, in plain view, is the essence of compatibility between evolution and Catholic theology. "Contingency in the created order," the very heart of evolution, is not at all incompatible with the will of God. The church document re-emphasizes this point by stating that "even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God's providential plan for creation." And evolution, as scientist Stephen Jay Gould emphasized, is truly a contingent natural process.
The concerns of Pope Benedict, as expressed in his earlier writings, are not with evolution per se, but with how evolution is to be understood in our modern world. Biological evolution fits neatly into a traditional Catholic understanding of how contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God's plan, while "evolutionist" philosophies that deny the divine do not. Three popes, beginning with Pius XII, have now made this clear.
John Paul's 1996 letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences bore the magnificent title "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth." Writing in the tradition of Augustine and Aquinas, the late pope affirmed the church's twin commitments to scientific rationality and to an overarching spiritual view of the ultimate meaning and purpose of life.
Like many other scientists who hold the Catholic faith, I see the Creator's plan and purpose fulfilled in our universe. I see a planet bursting with evolutionary possibilities -- a continuing creation, in which the divine providence is manifest in every living thing. I see a science that tells us there is indeed a design to life. And the name of that design is evolution.
Kenneth R. Miller is a Brown University professor of biology and the author of Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.
What do you think a miracle is? Any Christian has to believe that God breaks the laws of nature, at least sometimes. The problem for "intelligent design" proponents is that they must believe he does this constantly.
They probably don't even realize that this is what their beliefs require.
Agreed. I am particularly offended by those who insist (despite all the evidence -- and ignoring the facts of relativity) that God's timescale of creation was dictated by the rate of rotation of this insignificant planet.
Evolution is a developing process in which the entire universe is a progression of interrelated phenomena.
Thank you! Be my guest.
If the GOP and conservative movement become associated with the anti-evolution movement, it's going to set the conservative cause back 20 years.
Our credibility on all issues related to science, from global warming to stem cells to nuclear power to junk science lawsuits is going to go straight down the drain.
If the GOP and conservative movement become associated with the anti-evolution movement, it's going to set the conservative cause back 20 years.
Really, why?
Why cannot conservatives teach both?
Because only one has any scientific merit and the other is junk science. Advocating junk science is going to destroy our credibility on all scientific issues.
Indeed... (The image is a "hot link" to the APOD explanation, BTW -- click it...)
I find that many who constrain the Creator via a primitive interpretation of Genesis actually fear (and refuse to contemplate) such evidence.
I was taught that miracles do not break the laws of nature.
Well, they certainly violate the laws of physics and chemistry. Which is fine. God created the laws, so he need not be constrained by them.
How could turning water into wine, or raising Lazurus, not violate the laws of nature?
That's just it. We don't know that those events violated the laws of nature.
In what ways?
That would mean there would be some scientific explanation for them, which would seem to defeat the purpose of miracles.
Well, changing water into wine violates conservation of matter, for one.
In general, the purpose of miracles is to help people.
Miracle-workers achieve this purpose very nicely.
Magicians are the folks with the aim of confounding people.
(Latin miraculum, from mirari, "to wonder").
In general, a wonderful thing, the word being so used in classical Latin; in a specific sense, the Latin Vulgate designates by miracula wonders of a peculiar kind, expressed more clearly in the Greek text by the terms terata, dynameis, semeia, i.e., wonders performed by supernatural power as signs of some special mission or gift and explicitly ascribed to God. These terms are used habitually in the New Testament and express the meaning of miraculum of the Vulgate. Thus St. Peter in his first sermon speaks of Christ as approved of God, dynamesin, kai terasin kai semeiois (Acts 2:22) and St. Paul says that the signs of his Apostleship were wrought, semeiois te kai terasin kai dynamesin (II Cor. 12:12). Their united meaning is found in the term erga i.e., works, the word constantly employed in the Gospels to designate the miracles of Christ. The analysis of these terms therefore gives the nature and scope of the miracle.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.