Intelligent Design belittles God, Vatican director says

Catholic Online ^ | 30 January 2006 | Mark Lombard

[PatrickHenry]

Intelligent Design reduces and belittles God’s power and might, according to the director of the Vatican Observatory.

Science is and should be seen as “completely neutral” on the issue of the theistic or atheistic implications of scientific results, says Father George V. Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory, while noting that “science and religion are totally separate pursuits.”

Father Coyne is scheduled to deliver the annual Aquinas Lecture on “Science Does Not Need God, or Does It? A Catholic Scientist Looks at Evolution” at Palm Beach Atlantic University, an interdenominational Christian university of about 3,100 students, here Jan. 31. The talk is sponsored by the Newman Club, and scheduled in conjunction with the Jan. 28 feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Catholic Online received an advanced copy of the remarks from the Jesuit priest-astronomer, who heads the Vatican Observatory, which has sites at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, and on Mount Graham in Arizona.

Christianity is “radically creationist,” Father George V. Coyne said, but it is not best described by the “crude creationism” of the fundamental, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis or by the Newtonian dictatorial God who makes the universe tick along like a watch. Rather, he stresses, God acts as a parent toward the universe, nurturing, encouraging and working with it.

In his remarks, he also criticizes the cardinal archbishop of Vienna’s support for Intelligent Design and notes that Pope John Paul’s declaration that “evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis” is “a fundamental church teaching” which advances the evolutionary debate.

He calls “mistaken” the belief that the Bible should be used “as a source of scientific knowledge,” which then serves to “unduly complicate the debate over evolution.”

And while Charles Darwin receives most of the attention in the debate over evolution, Father Coyne said it was the 18th-century French naturalist Georges Buffon, condemned a hundred years before Darwin for suggesting that “it took billions of years to form the crust of the earth,” who “caused problems for the theologians with the implications that might be drawn from the theory of evolution.”

He points to the “marvelous intuition” of Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman who said in 1868, “the theory of Darwin, true or not, is not necessarily atheistic; on the contrary, it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of divine providence and skill.”

Pope John Paul Paul II, he adds, told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996 that “new scientific knowledge has led us to the conclusion that the theory of evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis.”

He criticizes Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna for instigating a “tragic” episode “in the relationship of the Catholic Church to science” through the prelate’s July 7, 2005, article he wrote for the New York Times that “neo-Darwinian evolution is not compatible with Catholic doctrine,” while the Intelligent Design theory is.

Cardinal Schonborn “is in error,” the Vatican observatory director says, on “at least five fundamental issues.”

“One, the scientific theory of evolution, as all scientific theories, is completely neutral with respect to religious thinking; two, the message of John Paul II, which I have just referred to and which is dismissed by the cardinal as ‘rather vague and unimportant,’ is a fundamental church teaching which significantly advances the evolution debate; three, neo-Darwinian evolution is not in the words of the cardinal, ‘an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection;’ four, the apparent directionality seen by science in the evolutionary process does not require a designer; five, Intelligent Design is not science despite the cardinal’s statement that ‘neo-Darwinism and the multi-verse hypothesis in cosmology [were] invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science,’” Father Coyne says.

Christianity is “radically creationist” and God is the “creator of the universe,” he says, but in “a totally different sense” than creationism has come to mean.

“It is unfortunate that, especially here in America, creationism has come to mean some fundamentalistic, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis,” he stresses. “It is rooted in a belief that everything depends upon God, or better, all is a gift from God. The universe is not God and it cannot exist independently of God. Neither pantheism nor naturalism is true.”

He says that God is not needed to explain the “scientific picture of life’s origins in terms of religious belief.”

“To need God would be a very denial of God. God is not a response to a need,” the Jesuit says, adding that some religious believers act as if they “fondly hope for the durability of certain gaps in our scientific knowledge of evolution, so that they can fill them with God.”

Yet, he adds, this is the opposite of what human intelligence should be working toward. “We should be seeking for the fullness of God in creation.”

Modern science reveals to the religious believer “God who made a universe that has within it a certain dynamism and thus participates in the very creativity of God,” Father Coyne says, adding that this view of creation is not new but can be found in early Christian writings, including from those of St. Augustine.

“Religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly.”

He proposes to describe God’s relationship with the universe as that of a parent with a child, with God nurturing, preserving and enriching its individual character. “God should be seen more as a parent or as one who speaks encouraging and sustaining words.”

He stresses that the theory of Intelligent Design diminishes God into “an engineer who designs systems rather than a lover.”

“God in his infinite freedom continuously creates a world which reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater complexity,” he said. “God lets the world be what it will be in its continuous evolution. He does not intervene, but rather allows, participates, loves.”

The concludes his prepared remarks noting that science challenges believers’ traditional understanding of God and the universe to look beyond “crude creationism” to a view that preserves the special character of both.

[longshadow]

From the Dover judgement:

Finally, although Buckingham, Bonsell, and other defense witnesses denied the reports in the news media and contradicted the great weight of the evidence about what transpired at the June 2004 Board meetings, the record reflects that these witnesses either testified inconsistently, or lied outright under oath on several occasions, and are accordingly not credible on these points. P. 105

Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al..

[PatrickHenry]

Don't you love revisionist history? Especially when they leave out the inconvenient parts (like showing Galileo the instruments of torture.)

And when they ignore the indictment and the actual confession he was forced to make. Doesn't seem to mention ellipses. The Crime of Galileo: Indictment and Abjuration of 1633.

[Oztrich Boy]

one passage that relates to this whole topic is 1 Timothy 6:20-21 "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen."

No it doesn't. That had a specific meaning in the first century totally unrelated to modern science. Something Father George V. Coyne probably knows, and the ill-educated boobs pushing Creationism don't

[jec41]

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.

Yes, they need the money.

[jec41]

How am I supposed to interpret that?

If you are of the church why not just accept it.

[jec41]

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.

Gods opinion? Not Gods proof or is there any proof that God has a opinion.

[Manfred the Wonder Dawg]

You err, bird boy. The Word of God in not trapped in time and man's vain desire to justify himself with "knowledge" is constant as well. God is the Author of all creation, including what we call science. While the Bible is not a science book, when it speaks about science it is truthful. And when science agrees with the Scripture (as when the "non existent" pool of Bethesda was recently discovered), it's not the Bible being validated - it's science that is being validated.

The wisdom of man is folly in the eyes of God. No human knowledge can approach His and no vain imaginations can refute His Truth.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Don't you love revisionist history?"

I especially love the revisionist history about Kepler, who was not Catholic but Lutheran (though he had trouble with them too). You'd think these kinds of facts would be easily researched; apparently not.

[Oztrich Boy]

The Word of God in not trapped in time

I never knew that

1 Timothy 4:13: The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.

Truely a message for the teaching of the Ages

[JCEccles]

Father Coyne is dingy.

[Theo]

I'm not a member of the Roman Catholic Church. No need for me to accept what they say.

[curiosity]

But the problem arises here again.

Why is it a problem? There are just some animals whose metaphysical "kinds" are indetermiante.

[curiosity]

I especially love the revisionist history about Kepler, who was not Catholic but Lutheran (though he had trouble with them too).

There's nothing wrong with revisionism if the prevailing interpretation of history is wrong.

It's true Kepler was a Lutheran, but he was given shelter and sanctuary by the Jesuists, without whom he would have been killed by either Calvinsits or Lutherans, who were dogmatically geocentrists (unlike the Catholics).

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

I'm still wondering about this passage from Genesis:

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground...

Sounds an awful lot like primordial soup, to me.

[curiosity]

Copernicus had the luxury of being dead right after his book was published,

Yes, but he openly presented his heliocentric model to clerics in Rome and suffered no persecution.

As for Kepler, he was a Lutheran, not a Catholic. He worked in Protestant countries away from Papal power.

Actually, he worked under the protection of Jesuits. Protestants at the time were much more dogmatically geocentric than Catholics.

"Galileo was not persecuted for supporting the theories of Copernicus."

Sure he was.

Not he wasn't. He was persecuted for presenting the Copernican hypothesis as proven and demanding that certain passages of scripture be reinterpreted in its light. The Inquisition was open to the possibility that evidence would one day validate the hypothesis would, but until that happened, the literal sense of the relevent sciptures was not to be contradicted.

And in truth, the tibunal was correct. Galileo's evidence, while highly suggestive, could not overturn the dominant geocentric model of the day (Tycho Brae's). It wasn't until Newton that this happened.

[PatrickHenry]

Galileo's evidence, while highly suggestive, could not overturn the dominant geocentric model of the day (Tycho Brae's). It wasn't until Newton that this happened.

I discussed this very topic with a couple of other freepers just a few days ago. Their position was the same as yours. Is there some website out there with your account of things? Anyway, here's my view:

Galileo's evidence was just fine. A prediction of the Copernicus theory was that Venus would be seen to go through phases. This was visible with Galileo's telescope.

The visible evidence of the phases of Venus was an extremely powerful confirmation of part of the Copernicus model. That evidence made it undeniable that Venus orbited the sun. But that didn't show anything about the Earth's movement. Specifically, the phases of Venus didn't rule out hybrid models that allowed for the planets to orbit the sun, while the sun and everything else still orbited the earth. There were such models at the time.

Galileo's observations, however, took away yet another argument for a stationary earth -- one which has been largely forgotten. It had been argued that the earth must be fixed in place because if it moved, it would leave the moon behind! That sounds goofy now, but Galileo flourished a generation before Isaac Newton, and in Galileo's day, no one realized that gravity held the moon in its orbit around the earth.

What Galileo argued here was a deduction that followed from his discovery that Jupiter had moons. Those moons clearly orbited Jupiter, and somehow they didn't get left behind, even though it was obvious to all that Jupiter was moving. Thus, although then inexplicable, our moon's similar behavior couldn't be advanced as "proof" that the earth was stationary. Therefore, Galileo's work left no argument remaining that the earth was stationary -- except the then-current interpretation of scripture.

This was more than enough evidence to be persuasive. Isaac Newton didn't add anything specific to this, at least not that I'm aware of.

[jec41]

I'm not a member of the Roman Catholic Church. No need for me to accept what they say.

I am not a member of any church. I neither accept or deny the theology philosophy but I enjoy the arguments.

[jim_trent]

Read the findings of the court here:

http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf

Especially the part about the defendants "flagrant and insulting falsehoods" stated while under oath to the court.

[PatrickHenry]

Rades, I need your opinion on the issues discussed in post 156.

[PatrickHenry]

Meant to ping you to the previous post.