Hi dear BroJoeK! Glad to see you again!
WRT the above statement: I agree with parts of it, but not all of it.
What I disagree with is the idea that the "pagans" are irrelevant to Christian theology. Also, though I think it's correct to say that Aquinas recognized "two realms" based on "different lines of reasoning," I do not get the sense from him that he intended to irrevocably separate the two realms, to somehow suggest that they are mutually exclusive. That would be tantamount to separating Faith and Reason. To do that would amount to the defacement of the very image of God that we each of us bears in our soul, thus rendering us "less than human."
But then dear BroJoeK, you did say, "What Aquinas did not recognize (as least so far as I know) was the possibility that the two realms might conflict — that scientific evidence from our senses might contradict theological words derived from the Bible." So I gather, you see the problem, too. [Question: Are you advocating for such conflict here?]
Personally, I do not find/experience any "conflict" along these lines, and never have. Since I was a small child, I "understood" (somehow) that the divine and the natural interpenetrate. It just took several decades for me to realize how and why that is. And that is still a work in progress — by the Grace and Light of the Holy Spirit I pray.
Notwithstanding its modern-day detractors, we still find Christianity inherently, eminently reasonable. I imagine the reason for this (in part) is its deep debt to the revolutionary thinking of "pagans" such as Plato and Aristotle, which gave birth to the knowledge disciplines of psychology, cosmology, logic, natural theology, natural philosophy, ethics, political theory; laying foundations for these disciplines which continue to bear up till this day, without which "modern science" would not be possible.
Actually, I find it quite amusing to hear you say that Plato, Aristotle, et al. — the "pagans" — are irrelevant to Christian theology because they were not Christians. How could they possibly have been Christians, since both men were dead some 400 or so years before the Incarnation of Christ?
What if — as was the case with St. Justin Martyr — Plato and Aristotle had actually lived long enough to hear the Word of God clearly articulated to man, with the Incarnation of Christ? My best guess is both men would have become Christians. As did Justin Martyr, a great student of the schools of ancient Greece (and especially of Plato) and elsewhere, who found in Christianity the culmination and fulfillment of classical philosophy, just as much as he found in it what Christianity proclaims itself to be: the culmination and fulfillment of the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testament.
I agree with Eric Voegelin's assessment of Justin Martyr's point of view and conclusions as a great classical and Christian thinker:
In the conception of Justin the Martyr (d. ca. 165), gospel and philosophy do not face the thinker with a choice of alternatives, nor are they complementary aspects of truth which the thinker would have to weld into the complete truth; in his conception, the Logos of the gospel is rather the same Word of the same God as the logos spermatikos [the creative word] of philosophy, but at a later state of its manifestation in history. The Logos has been operative in the world from its creation; all men who have lived according to reason, whether Greeks [Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato) or barbarians (Abraham, Elias), have in a sense been Christians [Apology 1:46]. Hence, Christianity is not an alternative to philosophy, it is philosophy itself in its state of perfection; the history of the Logos comes to its fulfillment through the incarnation of the Word in Christ. To Justin, the difference between gospel and philosophy is a matter of successive stages in the history of reason. — Eric Voegelin, "The Gospel and Culture," in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Volume 12: Published Essays, 1966–1985. [emphasis added]From which I conclude: The separation of faith and reason is an artificial construct designed to undermine human reason and human nature as well.
I sense that the difficulties we get into, dear BroJoeK, are the result of differences in the way we see things. I tend to be someone who sees history as indispensable to the analysis of human questions and problems, where you seem to be a bit more "scriptural" or "doctrinal" in basic approach. But I note that the promulgation of knowledge of human history is something actually repressed by the public schools and the institutions of higher learning nowadays.
Indeed, it seemed to me that, at the same time as lauding the great Saint and Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, you were trying to separate him from his own intellectual history. Which, to me, means you may have inadvertently falsified something very important about this man: That he, as a great genius of faith and reason, stood on the shoulders of other great geniuses of human faith and reason who came before him, who serve to illuminate the thinking of a great Saint in their turn.
Aquinas is one of my three favorite Saints and Doctors of the Church. The other two of my "three big A's" are Augustine and Anselm — both of whom were quite evidently heavily influenced by Plato. Aquinas is the most "Aristotelian" of the three. But if you've got Aristotle, you've got the most, if not the whole of Plato "for free" — for Aristotle was Plato's student and colleague of some 27 years.
To defend my claim that you may be more "doctrinal" than I am, I note that, from your writings, you are rather attracted to String Theory as ultimately accounting for the foundation of the world of experience.
It seems to me that String Theory is fertile ground for the unfettered mathematical imagination. Yet it seems its account of actual Nature must include new spatial dimensions that are smaller than Planck length — and thus strictly speaking undetectable by human direct observation in principle. Thus so far, the "predictions" of String Theory remain yet to be detected because so far, they have produced nothing capable of human direct detection in actual experimental contexts. Same problem with Panspermia Theory. Even if we think our method of evaluation is "true," what we cannot explain by this method is the origin of the "space aliens" who did all this biological "seeding" in the first place.
Thus to me, neither theory rests on anything that can be called "scientific" at all — if all that science as it is presently constituted can do is to observe, record, and test objects in Nature that fall under direct human observation.
My final point here is that there are aspects of Nature that are not susceptible to the observing, recording, and testing of natural objects which constitute the "scientific method" as presently understood.
But from that fact, we cannot conclude that just because something cannot be "qualified" by the scientific method, that it does not exist, and is not important to the lives of human beings.
In conclusion, I do not see that a fatal distinction obtains between "theology, based on revealed truth," and "natural-philosophy (aka 'science'), which begins with input from our senses."
These are but different approaches that human beings follow to illuminate the truth of their existence. And they are not mutually exclusive.
Must run for now. Thank you so much, dear BroJoeK, for writing!
You’ve touched on something that I think about from time to time, which is the way various truths touch on one another.
If a collection of truths are in harmony with one another, which being true you would expect them to be, they become useful and we employ them in making sense of the world. We take them into the shop and build things with them.
Where there are small dis-harmonies, or apparent dis-harmonies, we can use one truth to illuminate the other, and vice versa.
As the contradictions grow, though, is where it gets interesting. Resolving the apparent contradictions is where you get the chance to move up to the next level. Where all your truths agree, thats great for the engineers and mechanics. Where they don’t all agree, thats where the scientists and philosophers and deep thinkers come in to play. Resolving the contradictions is where new knowledge is generated.
Something similar happens when the various truths are of different realms. They lend one another context and perspective where the apparent contradictions are small. Where they are larger, it doesn’t bother me. I’m happy to let the scientists do what they do, and I’m happy to let the theologians and cogitators figure out what the deeper meaning of it is. The human brain is quite capable, in fact it is well designed for handling and blending and splitting the difference between apparent contradictions and ricocheting ideas one to the other. And in the end, if we keep digging, truth is truth.
One of the things that make the arguments about evolution so bitter, I think, is that both sides of the debate seem to think the existence and godship of the Creator God is in play. It isn’t. If you’ve met him and walked with him that isn’t even in question; the only questions are the nuts and bolts “hows” of creation, which we generally let the science guys handle, and the “whys” of it which we generally leave to the philosophers and priests and amateur cogitators like us. I know, the scientists don’t really get us, but thats OK. They don’t have to. They gather the data, and where it impinges on the big picture and the “meaning of life” thats our job. If they think we’re wrong, they can go gather more data.
Whatever this "sense" you have is, it seems rather counter-intuitive. The act of defining "Realms" is intrinsically an exercise in finding mutually exclusive traits and characteristics that define the boundaries. The question is, what are the traits characteristics that delineate the Realms? If the realms themselves are not mutually exclusive, then nothing can be reasonably allocated to one or the other and every comparison results in a distinction without a difference.
No, not irrelevant to Christian theology generally, but certainly to this particular discussion on evolution theory, which involves the question: what do we do if/when it seems that Biblical Truth and scientific theory contradict each other?
Yes, I gather you don't agree they are in conflict, and I might well agree -- after all, when I look at science I see God's purpose, regardless of how "random" science claims it all is.
Likewise, when I read Genesis, I see metaphors made inevitable by the fact that those who first wrote and read it could not possibly have understood what was really going on, in scientific terms.
Neither scientific "randomness" nor Biblical metaphors cause me any particular problems in understanding.
But that is hardly the view of our Creationists, Intelligent Designers or Young Earthers posting on these threads.
They stubbornly insist the two accounts cannot be reconciled, and any efforts to explain Genesis in scientific terms they counter with other scripture passages which make reconciliation seem impossible.
And for them, it is not just a matter of understanding, but in spirited irish's article words: of "moral topsy-turvydom of Modernism" and even heresy:
For them, there is no reconciliation, and the very effort only serves "diabolical purposes".
betty boop: "...you did say, "What Aquinas did not recognize (as least so far as I know) was the possibility that the two realms might conflict — that scientific evidence from our senses might contradict theological words derived from the Bible."
So I gather, you see the problem, too.
[Question: Are you advocating for such conflict here?]"
I don't advocate anything, merely report the obvious fact that our Creationists, Intelligent Designers and Young Earthers are unwilling to accept any explanation that doesn't match up with their own interpretations of scripture.
betty boop: "Actually, I find it quite amusing to hear you say that Plato, Aristotle, et al. — the "pagans" — are irrelevant to Christian theology because they were not Christians.
How could they possibly have been Christians, since both men were dead some 400 or so years before the Incarnation of Christ? "
The important point about all those pagan philosophers -- for purposes of this particular discussion -- is that not one of them could even conceive the possibility that scientific theories and Biblical doctrines might conflict.
That's why they are irrelevant here.
betty boop: "I agree with Eric Voegelin's assessment of Justin Martyr's point of view and conclusions as a great classical and Christian thinker."
Understood, and not wishing to split hairs, yet still must point out that Justin Martyr was comparing Christian doctrine to the best of pagan theistic philosophy, and declaring them equivalent.
Martyr did not address the possibility of doctrine conflicting with natural-philosophy (aka "science").
And yet that is the conflict insisted on by our Biblical literalists.
betty boop: "I tend to be someone who sees history as indispensable to the analysis of human questions and problems, where you seem to be a bit more "scriptural" or "doctrinal" in basic approach."
Sorry, but I don't know what that means.
The truth is, I am merely responding to some very strong language posted on this thread (and others) by people like spirited irish.
betty boop: "at the same time as lauding the great Saint and Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, you were trying to separate him from his own intellectual history.
Which, to me, means you may have inadvertently falsified something very important about this man"
Sorry, but I'm only trying (and trying...) to draw your attention to the facts about Aquinas which relate to this thread, and those have to do with any potential for conflict between science and religion -- or in Aquinas' terms: between theology based on the Bible and natural-philosophy based on inputs from our senses.
Aquinas understood those are two separate modes of thinking, but did not expect them to conflict.
However in fact, for some centuries now, they have conflicted, at least in the minds of some believers.
betty boop: "To defend my claim that you may be more "doctrinal" than I am, I note that, from your writings, you are rather attracted to String Theory as ultimately accounting for the foundation of the world of experience."
Then you missed the ironic point of my mentioning "string theory", namely that it is hypothesis, not confirmed theory, and the very name "string" is total metaphor!
So "string theory" is scientific metaphorical guess-work.
It is not metaphysical or ontological, it's neither theological Truth nor philosophical truth, and it's not even a scientific fact, law or theory.
It's just scientific metaphorical guesswork, and yet, it's the best they can do at providing natural explanations for natural processes.
Of course I think it's interesting, and who knows where it might lead?
But "string theory" illustrates my main point: that science by its very nature is a highly restricted, limited enterprise which cannot leave the boundaries imposed by its mission to provide natural explanations for natural processes."
betty boop: "Same problem with Panspermia Theory.
Even if we think our method of evaluation is "true," what we cannot explain by this method is the origin of the "space aliens" who did all this biological "seeding" in the first place."
Well.... despite what you may have watched on some Discovery channel, there is no scientific theory of "space aliens" -- that is pure fantasy.
At most, "panspermia" posits that certain critical organic chemicals arrived on earth aboard comets or meteors, and for that there is some evidence.
There are also suggestions -- hints, really -- that some exotic organic chemistry may have been on-board certain rocks blasted off Mars and later fell to earth.
No confirmation on that as yet.
But that's it -- everything else is pure imagination without supporting evidence.
So it still remained for the Earth itself to provide conditions in which "exotic organic chemistry" may have grown complex enough to be classified as "primitive life-like forms".
betty boop: "Thus to me, neither theory rests on anything that can be called "scientific" at all — if all that science as it is presently constituted can do is to observe, record, and test objects in Nature that fall under direct human observation."
But of course, neither "theory" is a "theory", they are both just scientific hypotheses, meaning highly educated guess-work.
Yes, someday they may be confirmed by evidence or falsification-tests, but not yet.
betty boop: "But from that fact, we cannot conclude that just because something cannot be "qualified" by the scientific method, that it does not exist, and is not important to the lives of human beings."
Agreed, and thank you for a most interesting discussion, FRiend!
These are but different approaches that human beings follow to illuminate the truth of their existence. And they are not mutually exclusive.
Thank you so much for your illuminating essay-post!