Posted on 02/07/2013 6:26:00 AM PST by Alex Murphy
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The biblical account of creation isn't a textbook for science, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Instead, the first chapter of Genesis reveals the fundamental truth about reality: that the world is not the result of chaos, but is born of and continually supported by God's love, the pope said Feb. 6 at his weekly general audience.
In a series of Year of Faith audience talks about the creed, Pope Benedict touched on the description of God as "creator of heaven and earth."
In an age of science and advanced technology, how are Catholics supposed to understand the Old Testament account of creation that says God created the heavens and earth in six days, and rested on the seventh? the pope asked.
"The Bible isn't meant to be a manual of natural science," the pope told the estimated 5,000 visitors and pilgrims gathered for his audience. "Instead it is meant to make understandable the authentic and deep truth of all things," he said.
The creation account in Genesis reveals the fundamental truth that "the world is not a collection of opposing forces, but has its origin and steadiness in the Word, in the eternal reason of God, who continues to sustain the universe," the pope said.
The creation story also points to the fact, he said, that God has a plan for the world and for humanity, a plan that gives people "the courage to face the adventure of life with trust and hope."
It shows that everything God creates is "beautiful and good, filled with wisdom and love; God's creative action brings order, leads to harmony and gives beauty," Pope Benedict said.
God created man and woman in his image and breathed life into the human form he molded out of clay from the earth, according to Genesis, the pope said. The biblical affirmation means that humanity is not self-made or god-like, but is united by the same origin despite cultural, historical and social differences.
It also means, he said, that "we all carry in us the vital breath of God, and every human life, the Bible tells us, is under the specific protection of God."
"This is the most profound reason behind the inviolability of human dignity against every temptation to measure a person's worth using criteria of utility and power," he said.
The description of the Garden of Eden means that God gave humanity, "not a wild forest, but a place that protects, nourishes and sustains," he said.
"Man must not see the world as his own property to pillage and exploit, but as a gift from God" to safeguard and develop with respect "following the rhythms and logic" of God's plan.
But while God created "a universe of goodness, harmony and beauty," human beings freely chose to believe in lies over the truth and, in that way, that brought evil into the world, the pope said.
The symbol of the serpent reflects the "constant temptation to abandon (man's) mysterious alliance with God," he said.
The serpent doesn't reject God but instigates suspicion by suggesting that following God's word is somehow "a chain that binds, that deprives one of freedom and the most beautiful and precious things in life," the pope said.
But breaking one's relationship with God through sin destroys every human relationship, and only God, who is always reaching out with his loving hand, can restore things the right way.
"Through the saving obedience of Christ, the new Adam, God himself has justified us and enabled us to live in freedom as his beloved sons and daughters."
At the end of the audience talk, the pope greeted members of the Conventual Franciscans who recently held their 200th general chapter in Assisi. The pope urged them to show the men and women of today "the beauty of following the Gospel in simplicity and fraternity."
“The physical mechanism is the same - if you think God is in control or you reject that view.”
Well, the physical mechanism may be the same, but you are positing an entirely different explanation of those mechanisms compared to the ones proposed and observed by science. As I explained in the previous post, you are transforming the random causes into deterministic ones with your rhetorical/logical acrobatics. If they operate so as to achieve a predetermined outcome, then they are not truly random, because they no longer fit the definition.
“My faith is not the same as the scientific theory; but as creationists cannot seem to seperate the two distinct and absolutely seperate concepts; no wonder you are having so much difficulty.”
The conflict is not between your faith and the scientific theory, despite you attempting to make it so. The conflict is between the theory that you espouse, which is compatible with your faith, and the traditional Theory of Evolution, which is slightly different, for the reasons that I’ve already pointed out.
The difference and thus your confusion is only in your mind. A dice roll is random not deterministic, but do you doubt that the result is known by God? I am not proposing supernatural intervention to determine dice rolls. That is an idiotic delusion that you dreamed up.
“A dice roll is random not deterministic, but do you doubt that the result is known by God?”
No, I don’t doubt it, but you are actually asserting much more than that. After all, you’re not just saying that all the results of the dice rolls are known to God beforehand. You are saying that the dice rolls will have just the right results to cause a predetermined path of evolution. Thus, the results of the supposedly random dice rolls are arranged to achieve a predetermined outcome. If that is the case, and it may be, as I conceded already, then the dice rolls are not really random at all. You cannot have a random process that will arrive at a predictable, predetermined outcome, because that is the description of a deterministic process!
“I am not proposing supernatural intervention to determine dice rolls”
No, you’re just proposing that He willed all the variables in the universe to line up so that the dice rolls would happen in just the right way to create everything the way He wills it. So, instead of manipulating individual dice rolls, God loaded the dice beforehand. However you phrase it, it is still supernatural causation, because either God created man or He didn’t. You’re saying that He did, so you are ascribing supernatural causation. You just want to move back the date of that causation further back in the past than those who think God intervened at distinct points in the process.
“That is an idiotic delusion that you dreamed up.”
No, I didn’t dream it up, because it was you that made that statement, not me. If you read my previous post, you would have seen that I already talked about the difference between what you are asserting and the people who believe in supernatural intervention throughout the process. I really wish you would stop attributing things to me that I didn’t say, and then topping that off with childish insults. It’s uncalled for.
So you do not have faith that reality proceeds in the way God knows that it will?
Faith is the evidence of things unseen. It is quite different than confidence in the accuracy of a scientific theory based upon the evidence that is seen. But creationists have a hard time differentiating the two, thus the confusion exists only in your own mind.
???
A random event is not controlled. It is random, and does not occur as part of a plan.
Retelling an event to tell us the truth about God is not a fairy tale. It might be a “myth” in the classical sense, but not a lie. Read Tolkien’s essay on mythology and his discussion of mythmaking to CSLewis.
A Catholic sees God’s hand in evolution. Science might tell us the “how” but the Bible tells us the “Why”.
“So you do not have faith that reality proceeds in the way God knows that it will?”
No, I never said that.
“Faith is the evidence of things unseen. It is quite different than confidence in the accuracy of a scientific theory based upon the evidence that is seen.”
Having confidence in the accuracy of a scientific theory is quite different than inventing your own hybrid version of the theory that falls outside the bounds of naturalistic science.
Actually, I was quoting allmendream there, he doesn’t seem to understand that an event which has a predetermined outcome can’t be called random.
I don’t, thus the basis of your confusion. Accepting the theory of gravitational attraction is based upon evidence. Accepting that the heavens form according to how God wanted them to is based upon faith. Faith that reality unfolds according to God’s will doesn’t change the scientific theory that helps to explain and predict reality. Quantum mechanics are probabilistic, acceptance of that doesn’t mean one must give up the faith that reality proceeds as God wants it to and has forseen.
“Retelling an event to tell us the truth about God is not a fairy tale. It might be a “myth” in the classical sense, but not a lie.”
Alright, I say fairy tale, you say myth. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Either way, they doesn’t seem to be the words of a man who believes that Genesis is an accurate, non-fictional record of events. If that’s the case, then, since it portrays itself to be an accurate, non-fictional record of events, it would be deceptive document if this view were true. Hence the contradiction.
It’s similar to the contradiction that Lewis talked about regarding those who say Christ wasn’t the Messiah, but simply a great moral teacher. One doesn’t have the luxury of believing Genesis to be both a fiction and an authentic work of a loving, truthful God. If it’s a fiction, then, since it portrays itself as nonfiction, it must be a work of deception, and not of love and truth.
You believe that man evolved according to God’s will, but you also believe that the way in which man evolved was controlled random events. That’s a logical contradiction, unless the events are not truly random.
I’m not the one who is confused here, if you can’t grasp that.
Random according to who? The evidence shows that mutations, and much else besides, are random. Faith informs us that God is in control. The Bible tells us that the results of random events are within the power of God. A gambler takes random probabilities into account, but the outcomes of his games of chance are not unforseen by God. It isn’t THAT hard to understand!
“Random according to who?”
Well, according to mainstream science, that’s who. They say the events are random. You say otherwise, hence there is a contradiction.
And by all observable evidence they are random. But if one has faith and believes the Bible, all results are “ from the Lord”. Do you have a similar problem with quantum mechanics?
It’s not me who has a problem... you are the one redefining the concept of random events so they are no longer compatible with the definitions of science. As I said in previous posts, your redefinition has an impact on all sorts of theories, and yes, that obviously includes QM.
It has zero scientific impact if one accepts the theory based upon evidence and has faith that that things proceed as God has forseen them. One is based upon evidence and the other on faith. A good gambler plays the odds, even if he has faith that his life is in God’s hands. But it is obvious that as a creationist you are incapable of differentiating faith and science.
“It has zero scientific impact if one accepts the theory based upon evidence and has faith that that things proceed as God has forseen them.”
What does that have to do with anything, since I’ve explained to you quite a few times that you don’t actually accept the theory?
“But it is obvious that as a creationist you are incapable of differentiating faith and science.”
You keep saying stuff like that, as if by repeating it, you can make it be true. What’s up with that?
You have no doubt deluded yourself into thinking so, but your explanation has no merit. Randomness is observed in the world all over the place and yet you fail to explain how one such an observation is incompatible with acceptance of the Biblical principle that reality unfolds as God has forseen it.
That I was created by God is a statement of faith. That I was created via a process involving the random shuffling of DNA is based on evidence. There is no incompatibility.
Do you think a Christian has to give up on the indeterminate nature of everything from quantum mechanics, to DNA shuffling, to games of chance in order to have faith that reality unfolds as God has forseen it? Or are you trying to make a special exemption for evolution because you have convinced yourself it is a theory that is against your faith?
“Randomness is observed in the world all over the place and yet you fail to explain how one such an observation is incompatible with acceptance of the Biblical principle that reality unfolds as God has forseen it.”
I haven’t taken any issue with the Bible, only with your interpretation, that the seemingly random causes are actually deterministic ones which arrive at a predetermined outcome, at least as far as evolution is concerned. I’ve explained several times why that is a conflict, and if you can’t understand the concept, that is no fault of mine.
Why only evolution? Why have you convinced yourself that the conflict is limited to evolution? Why not also quantum mechanics and DNA shuffling? How is it somehow impossible to observe randomness in reality, accept it, and have faith that reality unfolds as God has forseen? Would you tell anyone who accepts quantum mechanics that they cannot also have faith that God is in control? If so it is obviosly YOU who has the problem. And if not, why not?
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