Posted on 11/20/2005 5:32:28 PM PST by Chi-townChief
When Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn waded into a heated debate over evolution in the United States, his goal was not to persuade American schools to teach that God created the world in six days.
Nor was it to condemn Charles Darwin and his "The Origin of Species," a book that Schoenborn, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Vienna, considers a great work in the history of ideas.
His concern, Schoenborn told Reuters at his episcopal palace in central Vienna, was to stand up for common sense in a debate that had become ideological. He wanted to make clear where the Church thinks scientists overstep their bounds.
"The Church's task now is to defend reason," he explained, citing as his inspiration his former theology professor Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.
"The theory of evolution is a scientific theory," he said. "What I call evolutionism is an ideological view that says evolution can explain everything in the whole development of the cosmos, from the Big Bang to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony."
Often tipped as a potential future pope, Schoenborn, 60, came under stinging attack by U.S. scientists after he published an op-ed article in the New York Times last July backing the "Intelligent Design" view of the world's origins.
The harsher critics charged he was a simpleton trying to replace science with creationism -- the view that God made the world exactly as laid out in Genesis, the first book of the Bible -- and throw American education back by a century.
Dismissing this censure with a smile, the cardinal spelled out a position that respects Darwin's achievements but rejects neo-Darwinist views he said go beyond what science can prove.
"The biblical teaching about creation is not a scientific theory," he said, restating a Catholic view that contrasts with the literal reading of some conservative U.S. Protestants opposed to Darwin. "Christian teaching about creation is not an alternative to evolution."
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Schoenborn agrees with the Intelligent Design theory that the complexity of life clearly points to a superior intelligence that must have devised this system. He based this on reason, not science, as Intelligent Design theorists claim to do.
"The next step is to ask -- which intelligence? As a believer, of course I think it is the intelligence of the Creator," he said."
Asked about the debate on teaching Intelligent Design in U.S. schools, Schoenborn declined to comment directly. A Pennsylvania school board was voted out this month for backing Intelligent Design in science classes, but Kansas decided to teach it.
He thought private and state schools in Austria should include in their science classes a mention of the "intelligent project that is the cosmos," as Pope Benedict put it last week in apparent backing for Intelligent Design.
Schoenborn, a good-humored Dominican who was the editor for the Church's authoritative Catechism published in 1992, expressed surprise at the barrage of criticism he got for saying Darwin could not explain everything.
DEFENDS CRITICISM
"If this is a scientific theory, it must be open to scientific criticism," he said. "What I'm criticizing is a kind of strategy to immunize it, as if it were an offence to Darwin's dignity to say there are some issues this theory can't explain.
"There's a kind of ban on discussing this and critics of the evolution theory are discredited or discriminated against from the start," he said.
"What I would like is to see in schools is a critical and open spirit, in a positive sense, so we don't make a dogma out of the theory of evolution but we say it is a theory that has a lot going for it but has no answers for some questions."
He questioned neo-Darwinism, the scientifically updated version of Darwin's thesis first published in 1859, and its argument that natural selection -- the so-called "survival of the fittest" -- created life out of matter randomly.
"Can we reasonably say the origin of man and life can only be explained by material causes?" he asked. "Can matter create intelligence? That is a question we can't answer scientifically, because the scientific method cannot grasp it."
"Common sense tells us that matter cannot organize itself," he said. "It needs information to do that, and information is a manifestation of intelligence."
Although his reading on evolution has covered several scientific disciplines, Schoenborn stressed his objections to neo-Darwinism were essentially philosophical.
Like his mentor Pope Benedict, he is deeply concerned that materialism -- the science-based view that matter is the only reality -- is crowding out religious and spiritual thinking in modern man's perception of the world.
"It's all about materialism, that's the key issue," he said.
Feel free to measure an effect & declare it is a cause.
there's a lot of clinical evidence that damage to the material brain causes many (usually damaging) effects to the nonmaterial mind.
A broken vessel isn't usually as successful for the purpose it was meant as an unbroken one.
He questioned neo-Darwinism, the scientifically updated version of Darwin's thesis first published in 1859, and its argument that natural selection -- the so-called "survival of the fittest" -- created life out of matter randomly.
"Can we reasonably say the origin of man and life can only be explained by material causes?" he asked. "Can matter create intelligence? That is a question we can't answer scientifically, because the scientific method cannot grasp it."
"Common sense tells us that matter cannot organize itself," he said. "It needs information to do that, and information is a manifestation of intelligence."
A reasonable man. He must be stopped.
Because most of them are militant atheists. Darwinism is their religious dogma.
You'are arguing with Descartes' dualism, not the Church's (Scholastic/Aristotelian) hylomorphism. The "soul" is the form (in the Aristotelian sense) of the body. [Aristotle on Substance, Matter and Form]
there's a ton of evidence that thoughts are always accompanied by electrochemical changes in the brain, and there's a lot of clinical evidence that damage to the material brain causes many (usually damaging) effects to the nonmaterial mind.
No one's arguing with that. The Church objects to reduction of the mind to matter alone, which is utterly incoherent.
Good Question.
What's TVC?
Common sense saved us from such enchanting theories as communism. Intellectuals are always enchanted by their theories, its always people who get in the way. After all is said and done, relativity and quantum are just theories, not facts.
Until we look at some water turning to ice crystals... :-/
So freezing is matter organizing itself?
I always imagined Hume dissecting a brain and upon seeing no mind there, declared that mind doesn't exist.
Bump
Actually if Bible were to be interpreted more literaly, the progression went DIRECTLY from "goo" to "you", skipping the "zoo" step.
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground" (Gen:2:7)
Like the atheists who can prove that there's no old man in the clouds.
Sure. What is a crystal if not atoms arranged in a more orderly manner than when they're in a liquid state?
It's a simplistic example, to be sure. But organic molecules have an amazing propensity to spontaneously stick together in interesting ways.
No, the mundane, default explanation is that it was done by natural causes, since natural cause & effect is what we see in every moment. (Unless magical thinking dominates your everyday life, in which case, don't lose that rabbit's foot! :-)
The "soul" is the form (in the Aristotelian sense) of the body. [Aristotle on Substance, Matter and Form]
Interesting. Still, we're discussing the Cardinal's statement: "Can matter create intelligence? That is a question we can't answer scientifically, because the scientific method cannot grasp it."
Now, sure, anyone can claim that there's an extra-natural something that explains why we have thoughts. And they can keep on claiming that no matter how much evidence keeps piling up showing that the mind is indeed the work-product of the physical brain. But without any positive evidence for such a supernatural entity - "soul", "hylomorphic form", or whatever - that claim becomes vacuous.
there's a ton of evidence that thoughts are always accompanied by electrochemical changes in the brain, and there's a lot of clinical evidence that damage to the material brain causes many (usually damaging) effects to the nonmaterial mind.No one's arguing with that. The Church objects to reduction of the mind to matter alone, which is utterly incoherent.
But if a rock falls to the ground & breaks up into 3 pieces, we now have four entities: Three smaller rocks and one triangle. Is the triangle material? If not, then where did it come from? It wouldn't exist if not for the 3 rocks sitting in a plane.
The triangle is a higher-order system than the rocks themselves, but there's nothing supernatural about it. It's perfectly material, in that it's made up of the three material rocks & nothing else. And yet it has exactly zero mass. It is indeed incoherent (or at least it's useless) to say that the triangle is "merely" the three rocks. Yet it is a form that's created by the three rocks & nothing else.
Not extra-natural; extra-material. You're unnecessarily conflating matter and nature.
Aristotle's arguments for the existence of the soul are the best positive proof for its existence. The soul (or form) provides a coherent explanation for many difficult philosophical subjects, such as universals, the problem of change, and our ability to know things with certainty.
And they can keep on claiming that no matter how much evidence keeps piling up showing that the mind is indeed the work-product of the physical brain. But without any positive evidence for such a supernatural entity - "soul", "hylomorphic form", or whatever - that claim becomes vacuous.
The existence of the soul can also be argued negatively, by disproving materialist accounts of the mind.
The materialist may scoff at this approach, but as Lewis relished in pointing out, the materialist has his own problems: The materialist who debunks everyone else’s ideas as the subrational products of their brain chemistry or environment cannot avoid being debunked himself. If he is honest, says Lewis, the materialist will have to admit that his own ideas are merely the "epiphe-nomenon which accompanies chemical or electrical events in a cortex which is itself the by-product of a blind evolutionary process." If all thoughts are merely the products of non-rational causes, this includes the materialist’s own thoughts. In other words, there is no reason according to materialism for materialism itself to be regarded as true.Materialist accounts of the mind are self-refuting, necessitating an ultimately non-materialistic account of the mind.
But if a rock falls to the ground & breaks up into 3 pieces, we now have four entities: Three smaller rocks and one triangle. Is the triangle material? If not, then where did it come from? It wouldn't exist if not for the 3 rocks sitting in a plane.
[Note that the notion of "triangle" is an abstraction, since we can know "triangle" (without seeing a physical representation of one) as a three sided, closed geometric figure.]
This is the problem of change. How can one substance (a rock) become another substance (a triangle composed of three rocks)? Aristotle argues that the original rock possessed "triangle" in potency. When the rock broke apart, the triangle came into existence, or into "act." So the change can be described as beginning with a rock in act (possessing triangle in potency and three pieces in potency), to a triangle in act composed of three rocks in act.
This explanation may sound arcane, but it is the only coherent explanation for the problem of change that I know. The history of the problem and Aristotle's solution are very interesting. (See the link above)
The triangle is a higher-order system than the rocks themselves, but there's nothing supernatural about it.
But there's nothing material about it either. "Triangle" is a principle.
It's perfectly material, in that it's made up of the three material rocks & nothing else.
Not so. A triangle is a closed, three-sided geometric figure. I can know "triangle" without experiencing one through my senses, just as I can know a "sixteen-sided, closed geometric figure" without experiencing one through my senses.
And yet it has exactly zero mass.
Because it's a non-material principle which is apprehended by an (ultimately) non-material mind.
You're arguing against a rather naive materialism. Or more accurately, you're arguing in favor of the fallacy of composition. Remember: When things can come together in specific ways, they become components of the newly emerged complex entity (for example: an organism). An organism can be explained in terms of its component parts, but that doesn't mean it is nothing more than its parts. And yet the organism didn't "come from" anywhere else but the parts. You don't need to conjure up a supernatural intelligence, person, or whatever to explain the rise of an emergent property.The existence of the soul can also be argued negatively, by disproving materialist accounts of the mind.
The materialist may scoff at this approach, but as Lewis relished in pointing out, the materialist has his own problems: The materialist who debunks everyone else’s ideas as the subrational products of their brain chemistry or environment cannot avoid being debunked himself. ...Materialist accounts of the mind are self-refuting, necessitating an ultimately non-materialistic account of the mind.
What is organization? What is an organism? The "form" of a creature is its organizing principle. How can materialism account for organization?
Consider this case. The human body before death is very similar to the human body a moment after death. What's the difference between a corpse and a living human being? What's missing from the corpse?
An organism can be explained in terms of its component parts, but that doesn't mean it is nothing more than its parts.
Of course. But how can materialism account for this? Materialism is inherently reductionistic.
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