Posted on 08/28/2004 9:10:46 PM PDT by AskStPhilomena
In what appears to be its latest capitulation to worldly wisdom, the Vatican apparatus now assumes (contrary to the teaching of Pius XII in Humanae Generis) that the evolution of men from animals is a proven fact.
On June 24, 2004 Zenit.org reported that "Vatican Observatory has convoked a range of experts to reflect on a question that at times seems to be forgotten in scientific research: Is there purpose in evolution?" That is, evolution is now assumed to have occurred, and the only debate is over whether it has a purpose. The Vatican called a symposium of experts to meet on June 24-26 to discuss whether evolution has a "purpose."
The Vatican Observatory’s announcement of the symposium states that "in scientific circles, there is a very deep-seated distrust of teleological language, even though researchers may occasionally use the word ‘design’ in an attempt to grapple with the often astonishing adaptive complexes they study … Put crudely, the widely accepted scientific worldview is that human beings or any other product of evolutionary diversification is accidental and, by implication, incidental."
Well, that’s right, of course. And what is the Vatican’s response to this worldview? Read it for yourself, if you can believe it: "The purpose of this symposium is not to dispute this worldview, but to inquire whether it is sufficient and, if it is not, to consider what we need to know and ultimately how we might discover the requisite information with one or more research programs." So, the Vatican does not dispute the view that the emergence of human life is merely incidental to the process of "evolution," whose truth is now apparently assumed.
The symposium (whose results have not yet been published) was asked to address five questions:
-- Can we speak of a universal biochemistry?
-- How do levels of complexity emerge, and are they inevitable?
-- Can we properly define evolutionary constraints?
-- What does convergence [different species displaying the same traits] tell us about evolution?
-- What do we mean by intelligence? Is intelligence an inevitable product of evolution?
Notice that every question presumes that evolution has, in fact, occurred, even though there is abundant evidence showing no gradual transition from one form of life to another (as evolution supposes), but rather the sudden appearance of every basic form in the fossil record, which is precisely what one would expect to see if God directly and specially created each kind, as the Book of Genesis recounts.
In Humani Generis Pope Pius XII warned that "the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own."
Moreover, Pope Leo XIII taught in his encyclical letter Arcane Divinae Sapientiae (Christian Marriage) that Adam and Eve, and they only, are our first parents and that Eve was created from Adam's body:
We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep. God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be propagated, and preserved by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity of time.
The Church says that no one may doubt these things. Yet how can these things be reconciled with the view that Adam and Eve (and who knows how many other humans) "evolved" from apes and that Eve was not formed from the body of Adam, as the Vatican now seems to suppose, in calling for a symposium to discuss the "purpose" of evolution.
So the question must be asked: Do those who are in charge of the Vatican’s approach to "modern science" still believe in what the Church teaches concerning the origin of the human race? Or are we witnessing yet another sign of the great apostasy in the Catholic Church beginning at the top, which was predicted by the Third Secret of Fatima?
I always intend to read these threads
Thomas Aquinas placemarker
Summa Contra Gentiles - "The Real Prime Cause of the Variety of Creatures.
SINCE every agent intends to induce its own likeness in the effect, so far as the effect can receive it, an agent will do this more perfectly the more perfect itself is. But God is the most perfect of agents: therefore it will belong to Him to induce His likeness in creation most perfectly, so far as befits created nature. But creatures cannot attain to any perfect likeness of God so long as they are confined to one species of creature; because, since the cause exceeds the effect, what is in the cause simply and as one thing is found in the effect in a composite and manifold way, unless the effect be of the same species as the cause; which is impossible in the case before us, for no creature can be equal to God. Multiplicity therefore and variety was needful in creation, to the end that the perfect likeness of God might be found in creatures according to their measure.
2. As the things that are made of any material are contained in the potentiality of the material, so the things done by any agent must be in the active power of the agent. But the potentiality of the material would not be perfectly reduced to actuality, if out of the material were made only one of those things to which the material is in potentiality. Therefore if any agent whose power extends to various effects were to produce only one of those effects, his power would not be so completely reduced to actuality as by making many. But by the reduction of active power to actuality the effect attains to the likeness of the agent. Therefore the likeness of God would not be perfect in the universe, if there was only one grade of all beings.
3. A creature approaches more perfectly to the likeness of God by being not only good itself, but able to act for the good of others. But no creature could do anything for the good of another creature, unless there were plurality and inequality among creatures, because the agent must be other than the patient and in a position of advantage (honorabilius) over it.
5. The goodness of the species transcends the goodness of the individual. Therefore the multiplication of species is a greater addition to the good of the universe than the multiplication of individuals of one species.
7. To a work contrived by sovereign goodness there ought not to be lacking the height of perfection proper to it. But the good of order in variety is better than the isolated good of any one of the things that enter into the order: therefore the good of order ought not to be wanting to the work of God; which good could not be, if there were no diversity and inequality of creatures. There is then diversity and inequality between creatures, not by chance, not from diversity of elements, not by the intervention of any (inferior) cause, or consideration of merit, but by the special intention of God, wishing to give the creature such perfection as it was capable of having. Hence it is said, God saw all things that he had made, and they were very good (Gen. i, 31); and this after He had said of them singly, that they were good; because while things are good singly in their several natures, all taken together they are very good, because of the order of the universe, which is the final and noblest perfection of creation.
Now there's a sweeping assertion. I think you're quite wrong. Do you have anything to back that up?
"Do those who are in charge of the Vatican’s approach to "modern science" still believe in what the Church teaches concerning the origin of the human race?"
Good thing the Vatican Observatory has no authority in the Church whatsoever, and that it forms no part whatsoever of the Magisterium!
This kind of BS is what you get when a Pope surrounds himself with so-called experts in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the majority of whom are non-Catholic and every one of them being an evolutionist.
Evolutionism is the greatest con-trick ever fobbed off on the "scientific community" and because the N.O. Church now affords greater authority to men-in-white-coats than it does to Scripture and Tradition, most Western prelates have swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
However, as the Pope's charism extends in no way to the validation of speculative pseudo-scientific theories, the Church will be far less scathed by this silliness than it will by the secondary heresies that "evolutionism" spawns.
The question of origins isn't primarily a religion vs. science issue - it is a science vs. pseudo-science issue and it should be fought out on these grounds.
The Pope/Vatican should learn from the Galileo affair, keep their big gobs shut for once, and science will end up destroying evolutionary theory on technical grounds before he puts his actor's tootsies any further into the poop!
ping
I assume you are referencing some of the writings on the six days of creation.
I have 2 major problems with macro evolution.
1. It violates the laws of thermodynamics.
2. It starts down the slope where God gets removed from the creation of man.
As for how long creation took, don't know. That is one of the questions I want to ask when I get to heaven (I have quite a list actually!). The language used in Genesis points to a series of 6 "conventional" days, but not necessarily.
The quote is in context, just as stated, that the premise proposed is absurd.
Why am I not the least bit surprised. The wet finger decided another Catholic doctrine. Anyone for co-redeemer.
You are "right on the money" with this post.
>>I assume you are referencing some of the writings on the six days of creation. <<
Actually, I was not. That's been on this thread by others, actually; his searching for alternate meanings of what a "day" means certainly suggests he is arguing against 144-hour creationism. But he elsewhere demonstrates a notion of an extremely vast period of geological time.
>>I have 2 major problems with macro evolution.
1. It violates the laws of thermodynamics. <<
I've had this discussion with physics majors. The generation of a photon is the result of an electron dropping from a high-energy state into a low-energy state. This leaves the atom in question with a lot less entropy. Since a photon can then excite another electron, a photon is essentially a bearer of entropy as well as energy. Now, life first formed in the chemical soup of early earth, where you had many intermediate stores of entropy and energy, so for simplicity's sake, I'll simply talk about modern life forms:
When a plant absorbs the photon, it absorbs its entropy. Hence, it can assimilate other matter without violating entropy. (the decreasing of entropy is, I presume, the law you're referring to?)
The problem I have is this: if space travel causes life to jump from one planet to the next, the colonized planet would appear to have a fantastic, sudden jump in order. I have been told this is a "biocentric" view, that I value biological order greater than other forms of order which can be rapidly diminished by the sudden emergence of life on a colonized planet. So I suppose the issue is that of the *significance* of life, which shifts us back out of physics and back into philosophy and theology. But I'm still not entirely satisfied.
>>2. It starts down the slope where God gets removed from the creation of man. <<
Yes, but that can be said of all science. Religionists, including Christians, used to think of weather as purely "acts of God." Does our understanding of meteorology remove God? The key thing is that somewhere, somehow, Man received the Divine Spark of reason. Someday, perhaps soon, biology may explain how man acquired reason, but the material explanations of consciousness will never even describe the phenomenon of it.
"Darwin's whole theory hinges on the idea of a simple one/few cell organism that evolved. The biochemists who work on RNA and DNA realize the complexity of these molecules and understand that there is simply insufficient time for such a molecule to develop by "chance." I just spent a week with a creationist who has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and prefers to let God speak for Himself in the Scriptures. As One with a Ph. D. in Polymer Science and Engineering, I am not embarrassed to join my Biochemist friends in calling Jesus Christ 'Lord.'"
As a neuro-biochemist and Associate of the Royal College of Science, I would have to agree with everything you have said here!
;)
Question for all evolutionists: which came first - ribosomes or polymerised nucleic acids?
Thanks, but I'm not Roman Catholic.
***How amazingly differnt do things have to be to form a tree ring?***
How amazingly different do things have to be for a fully formed man to appear out of the dust instantaniously?
***fit the evidence to the preconcieved conclusion***
Such as the preconcieved conclusion that the theory of evolution is fact?
If Genesis is accurate and you came across Adam a few hours after his creation - and you were armed with your billion-year, deistic evolution theory, you would be sure he was the product of eons of survival of the fittest...
...and you would be dead wrong.
If you came to the wedding a Cana and drank the wine you'd be sure it was the product of years of expert viticulture...
...and you'd be dead wrong.
???
For Lurkers: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories
The above peer reviewed article provides an excellent summary of the alternative scientific points of view concerning the origin of body plans.
The origin of information (especially biological information) is a poison pill to large scale evolution theory and various forms of atheism and agnosticism.
As a thought experiment, compare a live skin cell to a dead skin cell and meditate on the difference. The difference of course is information which Shannon (paraphrased) defines as "successful communication". When the biological form communicates within itself and its environment, it is alive. When it does not, it is dead.
Science cannot dismiss the question "what is life?" without first answering the question "where does information come from?" Thus far, I have seen no accepted theory for a materialistic origin of information in the universe. This poison pill is as devasting as the cosmological fact of a beginning to anyone who would want to deny God.
Additionally, the linked article raises geometry as a poison pill.
For example, the DNA itself - and all the proteins and underlying chemistry - are not adequate to explain the origin of form in four dimensions (3 space and 1 time). Body plans emerge because of the geometry. Moreover, there have been virtually no new body plans since the Cambrian explosion which is a relatively small segment of the geological timescale.
Please re-post the link.
This one appears to be a map of a campus!
Excellent question regarding information, AG. (As ususal)
One above question deals with the 6 days of creation. Your links to the issue of "creation, relativity, and time" would also be useful. Thank you for being involved.
****to say that God made something happen that looks to us like evolution is *not* to cast aside the notion that God created the world.****
No, it doesn't cast aside the notion of a diety. It does cast aside the God of the Bible who has spoken to us in an authoritative and trustworth manner through the Scripture.
***Did He create it this way, or did He create it that way?***
...Words which are very close to those of the serpent in the garden when he said...
"Yea, hath God said,...?"
***I don't even really see that it's an important question.***
Theologically it is of critical importance. EVERY theological concept in the Bible has its origin in Genesis. If the events of Genesis are not historical then Biblical theology falls apart.
I was just saying that what they think or have as dogma has no bearing on my beliefs.
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