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?
Thanks for the ping. A problem with the argument about Biological information is starting from a common definition of biological information.
OK. I was just pinging you for possible reference to an item related to the more basic creation discussion.
Thanks
Thanks, but since it does not involve our Constitution (like suing to prevent the inclusion of a label on books) or direct studies(like junk DNA which isn't junk), I don't want to argue about what I believe with someone who won't accept it no matter what. I will comment that the symposium appears to be directed towards the establishment of "criteria" which would signal the presence of intelligent design.
Here is an article on the subject from an Israeli physicist:
Why else would evilutionist keep Dr Heckle's fraudulent drawings in school and college textbooks.
*** If anyone asked Jesus a technical question about biology or chemistry, would he have known the correct answer?***
The notion that you have put forth in your post is deadly.
If it is true, then you have opened the door to throwing out the entire New Testament as supseptable to error.
Jesus may or may not have posessed the knowlege fo the intracies of modern technology - but this is a FAR CRY from asserting that he may have been mistaken in his knowlege of God and His will and words!
Jesus said,
"I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. They understood not that he spake to them of the Father."
and later...
" I speak that which I have seen with my Father: "
and more significantly...
"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me,"
Jesus claimed that the things he spoke were not from himself, but they were things the Father had shown him. Even if you believe that Jesus was limited on the earth in his knowlege, to believe he was WRONG about what he said is to question the very heart of Christianity - the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
Sounds hopeful
information: Information is measured as the decrease in uncertainty of a receiver or molecular machine in going from the before state to the after state.
--- Claude Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Part III, section 20, number 3
You're quite welcome!
Thank you for this clear and strong statement from a scientist. Anyone who believes in the "fairy tale" of evolution can't have taken an objective look at the scientific evidence.
It is a fundamentally important question, in fact the most fundamental and the most important. This question places before you 2 world views: Creation or Hegelian Dialectic. You can't have it both ways.
To illustrate one important area where this choice of philosophies is crucial: Catholic moral theology is based upon the principle of teleology in which each thing is created by God for a purpose. Thus creation and purpose go together like peanut butter and jelly. But once you remove creation, then you also remove purpose.
Objects in a hegelian dialectical system do not have a purpose. They simply reflect the current status of the process. What darwinists hate most of all is any sort of teleology. To claim a purpose in a Darwinian process is to place yourself outside the pale of publishable scientists.
Today in modern philosophy there is a desperate attempt to create a new teleology without reference to creation. It has been a doomed and misguided project. There is no teleology without creation, and so there is no natural law and no morality without creation.
When some part of the Vatican speaks, then the pope must take responsibility. There is an implicit assumption that he agrees, unless he speaks up and clearly denies that they are speaking on his behalf. What we know of JPII's position is his statement that "Evolution is more than a theory."
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.
Correct. So how did it come about that the pope surrounded himself with atheist evolutionists in his Pontifical Academy of Scientists? Was it a secret plot of which he was totally unaware?
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.
Quite true again. Belief in evolution is an acid that eats away at any faith and must in the long run eventually dissolve it.
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.
I disagree. Of all the scandalous actions he has been guilty of, those which have caused the most scandal and the most damage to the simple faith of Catholic believers have been his statements that "Hell is not a place, but a state of being," and his statement that "Evolution must now be seen as more than a theory." A symposium like that described in this article must be seen as part and parcel of the pope's worldview, one that is radically dialectical and non-creationist.
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.
I have to disagree on this point also. Real science, like that being done by Michael Behe, can do the important work of proving the fraudulence of the Darwinist fairy tales. But the argument that the Darwinists come back with, "Okay if evolution is false, then what is your replacement," can only be answered through divine revelation.
Often the Intelligent Design theorists will take an agnostic viewpoint for pragmatic reasons. They say, "We are only disproving evolution. We have no positive alternative to put in its place." This might be fine for debating purposes, but for the purpose of having a coherent philosophy by which a man can live his life, it fails utterly, and there is only one valid replacement, divine revelation.
Well, actually, the entire NT is susceptible to error. I am not a Biblical literalist or inerrantist. I have explained earlier why I am confident in my faith based on the Bible, even though I believe that there are errors in it. Let me be as plain as possible: Christian faith is not the same as belief in Biblical inerrancy.
Put technically: Some Evangelicals, sometimes known as "fundamentalists", teach a doctrine referred to as "verbal plenary inspiration". This means every word of the Bible is inspired by God. I emphatically believe that this teaching is
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