Posted on 01/30/2006 6:37:09 AM PST by 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.
So no other scientists can offer an opinion on a piece of evidence? No tests can be performed? One scientist gets something wrong and you condemn the entire field of study?
That makes as much sense as condemning all who claim to be "Christian" based on observations of Jim Jones.
You have to accept on faith his/her opinion that a pig tooth is cro-magnon man, and accept on faith that an entire jaw is built on that one tooth,
No ... you don't. And science doesn't. Which is why *scientists* discovered the pig tooth mistake, not creationists. Harping on the mistakes of science does not make the rest of it false.
Sorry, evolution is just a faith based
Sorry, you're incorrect.
You remove the hypothesis of evolution from the origin of the universe and science is not affected in the least.
And your point is?
You can also add the scientific theory of evolution into the scientific understanding of the universe and science is not effected.
Not everyone who understands God to be the ultimate creator thinks the earth is only thousands of years old.
No. But is faith is different than yours. Is this a surprise?
That's my happy thought for today.
Are we going to hae another depression?
And not everyone who understands God as the ultimate creator rejects the science of evolution.
What you have to say is of no concern to me and hasn't been since you justifed the foul mouthed comments of your fellow traveler. No sense posting to me any more you won't get an answer.
Dittos to everything you said.
As a former anthro student, I was NEVER called upon to abandon my faith. Indeed, one of my archaeology professors had been through seminary to become a priest, and he was in regular attendance to the Massess held at teh Catholic Student Center. He was a grand gentleman and I wish I had had the smarts to get to know him better.
I miss all the fun ;)
Jesus of Nazareth.
The Jesuits God appears to be a deistic God which is not the God of the Catholic Church, never has been and never will be.
Oyvey. This Jesuit has lost his mind.
Sure looks that way. Unlike the physical sciences, philosophy should fall within the competence of a Jesuit.
One insurmountable philosophical problem with the aforementioned view is its conflict with the fundamental intellectual act of the abstraction of universals. If every creature is in the process of change from one species to another, it would be impossible in principle for the intellect to abstract the universal species from the apprehended individual creature.
More evidence that the Jesuits aren't what they used to be.
On a lighter note, the push is on to make JPII a saint:
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-01-30T144326Z_01_L30552020_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-MIRACLE.xml&rpc=22
Maybe we should start a movement for "Saint Chuckie of Darwin". Keep the waters muddy :)
God apparently does both. He does not follow any rules but His own.
That's not why those individuals were persecuted, or not exactly why at any rate. Besides, they have recanted their earlier stance.
Oh?
That's my happy thought for today.
<sarc> Cheers to the barbarians who burned down the Library of Alexandria! </sarc>
Why is this such an anathema to so many here on FR and elsewhere? Is it "evil" to believe that science (as we know it today) and religion (or faith if you recoil in disgust against the term religion) are incompatible? Why must the two be conjoined in some bizarre amalgam?
More to the point, and I'm starting to sound like a parrot on this issue I'll admit, but no one on any of these Crevo threads ever responds to this point, so I'll keep putting it out there until someone does: If the Bible is meant to be taken literally ALL the time, and you're a Christian who's not a Catholic, then why don't you take John 6:51 literally when Jesus CLEARLY says that his FLESH is to be eaten? The Bible is meant to be taken LITERALLY, ALL the time, right?
Or, if you don't like that, then: If the Bible is meant to be taken literally ALL the time, then why doesn't anyone here who's a Christian ever cut your right hand off when it offends you (takes part in a sin you commit), as Matt 5:30 CLEARLY instructs (if one is to take the Bible literally, ALL the time)?
Without getting into an exegetical argument about these verses (since this isn't a religion thread) the only answer one can give (if one rejects that these verses are to be taken literally, which I'd agree with such an analysis regarding Matt 5:30) is that they are meant to be taken SYMBOLICALLY, or METAPHORICALLY, which absolutely demolishes, therefore, any "need" to take Genesis literally, as there's no other reason to do so other than the (now clearly) weak argument that "the Bible is literally true, all the time".
Why is this?
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?
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.
Or is the alleged problem the fact that species are a fuzzy concept, as Darwin pointed out here. You've been on enough crevo threads to be familiar with ring species. (A and B produce fertile offspring, so do B and C, but A and C don't)
Or am I missing the point entirely? (I'm not sure what "universal species" is supposed to mean; what part of the link you provided applies here?)
Well, he's already buried in a holy shrine...
I normally don't go in for four letter words. What are you talking about?
No sense posting to me any more you won't get an answer.
Then my point that if the authors faith is meaningless to you, means that your faith is meaningless to others must have hit home.
If you can dismiss someone's understanding of faith because they believe something different than you, means that whatever you say can be dismissed as meaningless as well.
Please don't respond. You won't get an answer.
C'mon, imagine it.
Mass at St. Chuckie's. There's something to make WJB turn over in his grave.
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