Posted on 01/30/2006 6:37:09 AM PST by PatrickHenry
That is an amazing thing for the Vatican's official head scientist to say. I think the Catholic Church is doing a great job in coming up with a way to keep their belief in God consistent with the facts on the ground.
But you have to do precisely that because there are rules for determining when to take scripture literally and metaphorically. Simply taking all of Genesis as metaphorical because a literal interpretation disagrees with current scientific theory is a slippery slope, especially for the Christian who considers scripture to be divinely inspired. You begin to judge the revelation of God with how well it agrees or disagrees with the reasoning of men.
A universal is an abstract term that applies to a class of things. The term applies to the nature of all members of a class, rather than an individual member, i.e., this chair versus "chair," the universal term. In the act of apprehension, the mind abstracts the nature of the subject, that is, what exists in every member of the species. Upon reflection the mind may attach a term to this abstraction, the universal term, "chair," in the example. The terminology, "genus" and "species," derives from this Aristotelian concept and was carried over into the field of biology.
The question arises, what is the relation between the universal idea and the concrete individual? Is the relationship certain? If not, human communication becomes fundamentally uncertain, since we communicate by way of universal terms. See the section, "In Modern and Contemporary Philosophy," in the link that I provided. The solution is given under the subhead "Moderate Realism."
Let's say there's an interbreeding population of birds. Half a million years from now, the birds aren't able to breed with their ancestors and produce fertile offspring any more.
So why can't one say that this interbreeding population is a species at every time during the half million years?
But is the ability to interbreed what constitutes a species of animal, in the broader philosophical sense? Consider that a child apprehends the nature of "squirrel" upon seeing a squirrel for the first time, without knowing anything about the interbreeding of species or even whether other squirrels exist.
If after 10,000 years, the "squirrel" was to develop stubby wings, while still maintaining the ability to interbreed, would the "squirrel" still be a squirrel? It seems not, because were it possible for the same child to travel to the future, he would not apprehend the same species.
Conversely, consider the case of a hydrocephalic infant. We apprehend the child to be a member of the species "human," yet the hydrocephalic infant lacks what seems to be essential to human nature, a brain. It's foolish for people to argue that the child is not human, because such people will refer to the hydrocephalic child as "a child born without a brain." The child's humanity is assumed and reflexively apprehended.
So in the first case we apprehend a member of a species that has undergone a "minor" evolutionary change as a member of a distinct species separate from the original species, and in the second case, we apprehend the species of an individual that differs dramatically from other members of its species as a member of the same species.
The mind then apprehends species in a manner at times antagonistic to biological methods of categorization.
They wouldn't be considered the **same** species at the beginning and at the end of this period, but they'd be an identifiable species at each instant.
The difference between species at each instant would have to be almost immeasurable. Yet it would be necessary for the mind to apprehend each stage in development as a distinct species, since the mind apprehends diverse species regardless of biological means of classification. Yet the problem of the categorization of the hydrocephalic child arises even more acutely. How is it possible for the mind to recognize a hydrocephalic child as a member of the species human, yet differentiate between extremely fine gradations of (hypothetical) missing links?
Excellent summary. Sadly, this mythology will live on as long as there are opponents of the Church.
The Catholics have a long intellectual tradition (stained by a few well-known lapses such as the Galileo affair, which they recognize as error). They understand that science is here to stay, and they plan to be around for the long haul too. Father Coyne knows that to remain credible, they must avoid what he terms "crude creationism." They're good at this stuff, and apparently getting better.
The Vatican says that God "does not intervene" in the affairs of men. How am I supposed to interpret that?
People can be over-educated. Not necessrily the years they attended institutions of learning, but they swallowed whole what should have been viewed through the glass of wisdom.
Many educated (and not so educated) people "believe" in the TOE solely because they care what other evofundies think of them. They're afraid of being labeled with all the nasty names evofundies label us with.
I say to them: I could give a rat's behind what anyone thinks of me. God's opinion is the only one that matters. Having this POV frees one up to believe the truth without fear.
Do you have an article about the above?
Evolution is for the weak of faith.
Excellent, Grasshopper. 8~)
That's really a separate issue though isn't it? That is, who determines these "rules"?
That point really doesn't address my fundamental point anyway, which was, again, "If the Bible shouldn't be taken literally all the time, then who is to say which scriptures should be taken literally where?"
Being a Catholic, I choose the Church's interpretation of Scripture, and since there has been no pronouncement ex cathedra regarding the veracity of evolution, I see no reason to get into such caniption fits over it (as many on these crevo threads do).
Now, you may say to me, "47, I'm not a Catholic, so you can't impose that on me!", which is perfectly fair to say. But then you're still left with the task of proving to me why should the Book of Genesis should be taken literally? By what "rules" do you go by?
And if you answer that question by saying, "The Bible's rules", or "Scripture tells me Genesis should be taken literally", you're really not getting my point at all.
God's motto?
Yes, when did he say that. Last time I checked he remained philosophical thought, neither proved or refuted by proof.
Wasn't that the name of minor character in a Verdi opera? I think he gets blown away in the First Act, but I could be mistaken; the opera didn't run for long -- the reviews say it sucked.
What's better than being an engineer?
Nothing, unless you are a philosopher too.
Don't you love revisionist history? Especially when they leave out the inconvenient parts (like showing Galileo the instruments of torture.)
It was the name of a hurricane back in '69. It blew out to sea.
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