Matthew, I think you posted this in the wrong place. I'll post it here:
Sean Johnson chimes in:
Friends-
Fr. Paul Robinson (SSPX) has recently written a book titled "The Realist Guide for Religion and Science," for which some information can be gleaned from this website promoting the book:
https://therealistguide.com/ (https://therealistguide.com/)
On the following link, you can read an unbelievable 2-page Foreword, which seems to partially rehabilitate JPII, BXVI, Francis, and the deceased modernist Fr. Stanley Jaki as "moderate realists."
https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/be041786-0638-4702-8262-80efb99dfec3/downloads/1c5r4kp28_40515.pdf (https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/be041786-0638-4702-8262-80efb99dfec3/downloads/1c5r4kp28_40515.pdf)
Never mind that John Paul II espoused phenomenology (i.e., Objective truths exist, but human reason cannot access them, only their various manifestations, or "noumena.");
Never mind that BXVI was primarily a Hegelian.
Never mind that Francis (Francis!) is completely a-systemic, and the Foreword quotes him thusly:
Quote
Let that quote, coming from an SSPX-promoted book, sink in: "Realities are more important than ideas."
This is the pollution coming from Bishop Fellay's ralliement: A practical accord (i.e., a reality) is more important than doctrine (i.e., ideas).
SSPX priests are being infected by their Superior General, and Fr. Robinson very obviously wanted to show the Vatican just how open the new SSPX is to conciliarist modernism.
And the deceased Fr. Stanley Jaki (whose organization has written this Foreword for Fr. Robinson)?
A thorough modernist, for whom science was superior to religion, having made many statements which implicitly deny the possibility of true miracles, such as this one regarding the miracle of the sun at Fatima:
Quote
And in Jaki's introduction to the English-language translation of Abbe Augustin Barruel's masterpiece "Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism" (which Weishaupt's conspiracy against altar, throne, and society), he makes this bewildering statement:
Quote
Some of you in this email are quite well read on St. Thomas Aquinas, and I should be extremely surprised if he ever taught such a thing!
Nonetheless, these are the people Fr. Robinson wants to promote his book: All of them conciliarist modernists to the man.
Obviously, the neo-SSPX is losing its mind (and its faith).
As time marches on, you can expect much more of this. It is only natural.
Cardinal Cottier would be quite pleased to see the "progress" Menzingen is making towards conciliarism, as he once counseled regarding Campos: "What is important is that there no longer be rejection in their hearts...we must be patient...gradually, we must expect additional steps, like concelebration...reconciliation carries within itself its own internal dynamism [self-censorship]."
Indeed it does, and Fr. Robinson's book is one more piece of evidence of that "dynamism."
Semper Idem,
Sean Johnson
Seeing as it is Sunday...
This email was circulated in a private distribution, and it was not my intention that it be posted on CI (or anywhere else), but as I neglected to make that request in the email itself, no harm done:
"Scripsi scripsit," as they say.
However, now that it HAS been posted, I would like to correct and explain my comment regarding Fr. Stanley Jaki:
1) I claim that he is a modernist. This is primarily based on his exegesis, which seems to embrace a mitigated form of the "historico-critical" method of exegesis (i.e., Which seeks to "re-examine" patristic exegesis under the pretext of modern "science").
2) Google Fr. Raymond Brown (i.e., the apostate apostle of the historico-critical method of exegesis in the Catholic Church);
3) The tendency of HC exegetes is to explain Biblical miracles according to merely scientific causes; to find novel explanations to the Genesis creation account; to question the authorship of the Pentateuch (i.e., the first 5 books of the Old Testament) by Moses; to re-explain the New Testament miracles in a sense other than the literal sense;
4) It is generally accepted that Fr. Brown was such an exegete (one of the more tame, but an adherent nonetheless). For example, one of his admirers writes of him: "A careful reading of Jaki's overall work bears out his belief in the original creation of the universe by the God of Christendom. At the same time Jaki cannot be called a creationist in full agreement with strict adherents to the Bible, especially the Genesis record, because he accepts the inerrancy of this record only with qualifications of a "higher critical" nature." http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v09n2p17.htm
5) Also, he is guilty of calling into question the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, as he says in his own words: "Does this mean that Moses, or whoever wrote Genesis 1,..." http://www.hprweb.com/1993/08/genesis-1-a-cosmogenesis/
6) St. Pius X condemned this in his scotching of the modernists in Pascendi (See #34, which explicitly mentions questioning the authorship of the Pentateuch).
6) Clearly, therefore, Fr. Jaki entertained the modernist "J,E,P,D" theory of exegesis (which claims that the books of the Pentateuch were compiled by various subsequent authors, based on alleged internal contextual and docuмentary evidence).
6) Such was the mindset of Fr. Jaki, and it would be a stretch to say that his scientific career had no influence on his faith: His mission was to harmonize science and faith (but it seems to me that he wanted to conform the latter to the former, and not the other way around).
7) The natural temptation, therefore, would be to take a critical (in the scholarly sense, meaning to examine them rationally, skeptical of their supra-scientific nature) view towards miracles. Now many citations can show Fr. Jaki as accepting and defending the reality of miracles.
However, do they preserve their same nature (i.e., no scientific explanation, as St. Thomas Aquinas in my email defines the term), or are miracles reduced to the level of scientificly explainable phenomena, such as seems to be implied in Fr. Jaki's explanation of the Fatima miracle (i.e., a meteorological phenomena, where the REAL miracle was that the event should be so significant all these years later).
Just wanted to clarify that comment.
But for one to embrace even a mitigated form of historical-critical exegesis, and call into question the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is plainly modernist (condemned, and uncatholic).
There is not a fig of difference between the atheist story of the Big Bang and that of Fr Robinson and other 'intellectual Catholics.' Fortunately others have addressed all that is in his diatribe above and shown that it is not only Einsteinian 'nonsense' but 'simple nonsense.' Accordingly I am willing over the next few days to illustrate what Fr Robinson is trying to convince others of is no more scientific evidence for anything, but has long been falsified.
Let me begin with Einstein:
‘The third and most important reason [to study this chapter well] is that he [Einstein and his theories of relativity] provides another opportunity to show up the fallacy of the general belief that modern science, in every field but perhaps especially in mathematics and physics, is so complicated that it cannot be understood by the non-specialist, and that the layman has no choice but to rely on the words of experts with superior intelligence and training. Stripped of its disguises, which as with other science and elite professions are mostly jargon and bluff, Relativity, whether Special Theory [STR] or General Theory [GTR], involves no major challenge to the intellect in order to be understood. [Einstein’s] Relativity is not merely nonsense, it is simple nonsense; and the only difficulty in seeing this lies in bringing oneself to believe it possible that anything so generally accepted by so many intelligent people really can be such obvious nonsense.’--- N.M. Gwynne: Einstein and Modern Physics, p.7.
Fr Robinsdon writes:
The Theory of Relativity quickly received several empirical confirmations, one being that it could calculate the orbit of Mercury around the sun with perfect accuracy, whereas the same calculation using Newton’s theory of gravitation contained statistical error.
Orbits remember; were measured by Domenico Cassini as Cassinian ovals and not Keplerian compromise ellipses, a fact that Fr robinson never heard of. The problem with Mercury’s perihelion then, is that it is not real but based on a false mathematical elliptical orbit of Kepler and Newton, whereas there is no sliding or shifting in Cassinian ovals. Nevertheless, to ‘solve’ this illusion Einstein used another newly invented incomprehensible mathematical system, the tensor calculus of the mathematicians Ricci and Levi-Civita. To say this exercise proved the GTR should now be seen for what it is; wishful thinking.
But here is something else so obvious that we cannot pass this supposed proof for the GTR without pointing it out. If Einstein’s whirlpool theory is correct, and Mercury gets sucked in to a spiral causing problems with its supposed orbit, how come all the other planets in Einstein's whirlpool theory seem to be immune from similar effects? Are they too not whirling around in this same spiral? Did all these planets come out squeaky-smooth in their ‘elliptical’ orbits when Einstein’s formula was used for the new astronomy?
Fr Robinson states as PROOF for his Big Bang theology:
The most important confirmation of Einstein’s theory was Sir Arthur Eddington’s observation of a star shift during a solar eclipse in West Africa in 1919, a shift predicted by the theory of relativity
My Answer:
A camera was set up; steady as a rock. Photographs of the sky were taken just before the eclipse. Shortly afterwards the sun and moon converged, leaving all in darkness. A second series of photographs were taken. Then it was back to the laboratory for development and comparisons. There were 43 photographic plates in all; the Sobral team took 27 and the Principe team took 16. Fifteen of these, however, were discarded because they were clouded, no use for their purpose. The conclusion, well first let us see the propaganda that Fr Robinson fell for:
‘Eddington found that light rays which had left the surface of stars thousands of years ago and had been bent by the curved space near the Sun only eight minutes previously, passed through the lens and exposed the photograph plates just where Einstein said they would. One of the most remarkable experiments in scientific history had been completed. The results of the eclipse expedition were presented by the Astronomer Royal at a meeting of the Royal Society on 6th November 1919 [announcing the observers had confirmed Einstein’s theory], and Einstein became a national hero overnight. Headlines in the New York Times suggested that a new Universe had been discovered… and this time the newspaper hype was not exaggerated. A world weary from war embraced the quiet and eccentric scientist, sitting in his study in Berlin with a pencil and pad, who had figured out the great plan of the Almighty for the entire Universe.’[1] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn1)
Keep on reading however, and we find the following tucked into the corner of the next page: ‘Many critics said the results were inconclusive, that the possibility of error in the star measurements was too great, so the scepticism continued.’ But note ‘Einstein became a national hero’ anyway, and the New York Times did suggest ‘that a new Universe had been discovered.’
If the theory is true, then all the stars positioned near the sun should have been displaced towards the sun. They were not. The stars in fact were displaced in the photographs in every conceivable direction, this way, that way, and every which way, but a long way from showing Einstein’s GTR to be true.
‘To make the observations come out to support Einstein, Eddington and the others took the Sobral 4-inch results as the main findings and used the two Principe plates as supporting evidence while ignoring the 18 plates taken by the Sobral astrographic… On 6th Nov. 1919, Sir Joseph Thomson, the President of the Royal Society, chaired a meeting at which he said: “It is difficult for the audience to weigh fully the meaning of the figures that have been put before us, but the Astronomer Royal and Professor Eddington have studied the material carefully, and they regard the evidence as decisively in favour of the larger value for the displacement.” ’[2] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn2)
Ah yes, the Royal Society, doing what it was established to do, dictate what ‘science’ the world was to believe, and what it was to ignore. They approved Newton’s eureka mind-conclusions and then Einstein’s ‘proofs.’ ‘The results of the measurements confirmed the theory in a thoroughly satisfactory manner,’ wrote Einstein in his paper already quoted.
Rejection and Rebuttals
Dr Arthur Lynch, the distinguished mathematician, let the cat out of the bag:
‘The results of the observations are shown on a chart, by a series of dots, and by tracing connections between these dots it is possible to obtain a “curve” from which the law of deviation is inferred. But the actual charts show only an irregular group of dots, through which, if it be possible to draw a curve that seems to confirm the theory of Relativity, it is equally possible to draw a curve which runs counter to the theory. Neither curve has any justification.’[3] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn3)
And if that is not enough to show a ‘scientific’ farce, Professor Charles Lane Poor really spilled the beans on the tricksters:
‘The table showing displacement of individual stars shows that on average the observed deflection, as given by the British astronomers, differ by 19% from the calculated Einstein value. In the place of two stars the agreement between theory and observation is very nearly perfect… in other cases however, the differences range from 11% to 60% [from the calculated Einstein value]. The diagrams show clearly that the observed displacements of the stars do not agree in direction with the predicted Einstein effect. This point was nowhere mentioned in the report… But, after the measurements of the plates became available for study, several investigators called attention to this fact of a radial disagreement in direction between the observed and the predicted displacements.’[4] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn4)
Professor Poor then goes on to tell us that the Einsteinian relativists tried to claim the differences between the predicted and observed shifts are no greater than should be expected. Consequently, ‘This very question was investigated by Dr Henry Davies Russell, of Princeton University, a most ardent upholder of relativity theory.’ After ‘an exhaustive examination’ he found the differences are real, and are contradictory.
‘The results given in the Report for the observations are the means (average) of the radial components (direction towards or away from the sun) only, nothing whatever being given to the directions in which the actual displacements took place. The Einstein theory requires a deflection, not only of a certain definite component, but also in a certain observed direction. To discuss the amount of the observed deflection is to discuss only one-half of the whole question and the less important half at that. The observed deflection might agree exactly with the predicted amount, but, if it were in the wrong direction, it would disprove, not prove, the Relativity theory. You cannot reach Washington from New York by travelling south, even if you do go the requisite number of miles.’ --- Gravitation v Relativity
But the Royal Society, as we have already seen, has long been taking homo consensus to Washington from New York travelling south, west and east.
‘Now the diagrams of the seven best plates, the seven taken at Sobral with the 4-inch camera, show clearly and definitely that the observed deflections are not in the directions required by the Einstein theory… The relativists either totally disregard these discordances, or invoke the heating effect of the sun to distort the vision by just the proper amount to explain them away.’ --- Gravitation V Relativity.
Find any old ad hoc that can be said to cause the problem by ‘just the proper amount’ and that explains it. Recall this ploy was used to explain the Airy and Michelson & Morley failures. But then Professor Poor offered another solution to ‘starlight-bending.’ one Cassini was well aware of back in 1650.
‘Further… there are other perfectly possible explanations of a deflection of a ray of light; explanations based on every-day, common-place grounds. Abnormal refraction in the Earth’s atmosphere is one; refraction of the solar envelope is another… Such is the evidence, and are the observations, which according to Einstein, “confirm the theory in a thoroughly satisfactory manner.’[5] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn5)
[1] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref1) J.P. McEvoy and O. Zarate: op. cit., pp.43-44.
[2] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref2) H. Collins and T. Pinch: The Golem, p.51, and quoting J. Earman, and C. Glymour, ‘Relativity and Eclipses: The British Eclipse Expedition of 1919 and their Predecessors,’ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 11 (1), 49-85.
[3] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref3) Arthur Lynch: The Case Against Einstein, 1932, p.264.
[4] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref4) C.L. Poor: Gravitation V Relativity, pp.218-226.
[5] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref5) C.L. Poor: Gravitation V Relativity, pp.218-226.
There is not a fig of difference between the atheist story of the Big Bang and that of Fr Robinson and other 'intellectual Catholics.' Fortunately others have addressed all that is in his diatribe above and shown that it is not only Einsteinian 'nonsense' but 'simple nonsense.' Accordingly I am willing over the next few days to illustrate what Fr Robinson is trying to convince others of is no more scientific evidence for anything, but has long been falsified.
Let me begin with Einstein:
‘The third and most important reason [to study this chapter well] is that he [Einstein and his theories of relativity] provides another opportunity to show up the fallacy of the general belief that modern science, in every field but perhaps especially in mathematics and physics, is so complicated that it cannot be understood by the non-specialist, and that the layman has no choice but to rely on the words of experts with superior intelligence and training. Stripped of its disguises, which as with other science and elite professions are mostly jargon and bluff, Relativity, whether Special Theory [STR] or General Theory [GTR], involves no major challenge to the intellect in order to be understood. [Einstein’s] Relativity is not merely nonsense, it is simple nonsense; and the only difficulty in seeing this lies in bringing oneself to believe it possible that anything so generally accepted by so many intelligent people really can be such obvious nonsense.’--- N.M. Gwynne: Einstein and Modern Physics, p.7.
Fr Robinsdon writes:
The Theory of Relativity quickly received several empirical confirmations, one being that it could calculate the orbit of Mercury around the sun with perfect accuracy, whereas the same calculation using Newton’s theory of gravitation contained statistical error.
Orbits remember; were measured by Domenico Cassini as Cassinian ovals and not Keplerian compromise ellipses, a fact that Fr robinson never heard of. The problem with Mercury’s perihelion then, is that it is not real but based on a false mathematical elliptical orbit of Kepler and Newton, whereas there is no sliding or shifting in Cassinian ovals. Nevertheless, to ‘solve’ this illusion Einstein used another newly invented incomprehensible mathematical system, the tensor calculus of the mathematicians Ricci and Levi-Civita. To say this exercise proved the GTR should now be seen for what it is; wishful thinking.
But here is something else so obvious that we cannot pass this supposed proof for the GTR without pointing it out. If Einstein’s whirlpool theory is correct, and Mercury gets sucked in to a spiral causing problems with its supposed orbit, how come all the other planets in Einstein's whirlpool theory seem to be immune from similar effects? Are they too not whirling around in this same spiral? Did all these planets come out squeaky-smooth in their ‘elliptical’ orbits when Einstein’s formula was used for the new astronomy?
Fr Robinson states as PROOF for his Big Bang theology:
The most important confirmation of Einstein’s theory was Sir Arthur Eddington’s observation of a star shift during a solar eclipse in West Africa in 1919, a shift predicted by the theory of relativity
My Answer:
A camera was set up; steady as a rock. Photographs of the sky were taken just before the eclipse. Shortly afterwards the sun and moon converged, leaving all in darkness. A second series of photographs were taken. Then it was back to the laboratory for development and comparisons. There were 43 photographic plates in all; the Sobral team took 27 and the Principe team took 16. Fifteen of these, however, were discarded because they were clouded, no use for their purpose. The conclusion, well first let us see the propaganda that Fr Robinson fell for:
‘Eddington found that light rays which had left the surface of stars thousands of years ago and had been bent by the curved space near the Sun only eight minutes previously, passed through the lens and exposed the photograph plates just where Einstein said they would. One of the most remarkable experiments in scientific history had been completed. The results of the eclipse expedition were presented by the Astronomer Royal at a meeting of the Royal Society on 6th November 1919 [announcing the observers had confirmed Einstein’s theory], and Einstein became a national hero overnight. Headlines in the New York Times suggested that a new Universe had been discovered… and this time the newspaper hype was not exaggerated. A world weary from war embraced the quiet and eccentric scientist, sitting in his study in Berlin with a pencil and pad, who had figured out the great plan of the Almighty for the entire Universe.’[1] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn1)
Keep on reading however, and we find the following tucked into the corner of the next page: ‘Many critics said the results were inconclusive, that the possibility of error in the star measurements was too great, so the scepticism continued.’ But note ‘Einstein became a national hero’ anyway, and the New York Times did suggest ‘that a new Universe had been discovered.’
If the theory is true, then all the stars positioned near the sun should have been displaced towards the sun. They were not. The stars in fact were displaced in the photographs in every conceivable direction, this way, that way, and every which way, but a long way from showing Einstein’s GTR to be true.
‘To make the observations come out to support Einstein, Eddington and the others took the Sobral 4-inch results as the main findings and used the two Principe plates as supporting evidence while ignoring the 18 plates taken by the Sobral astrographic… On 6th Nov. 1919, Sir Joseph Thomson, the President of the Royal Society, chaired a meeting at which he said: “It is difficult for the audience to weigh fully the meaning of the figures that have been put before us, but the Astronomer Royal and Professor Eddington have studied the material carefully, and they regard the evidence as decisively in favour of the larger value for the displacement.” ’[2] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn2)
Ah yes, the Royal Society, doing what it was established to do, dictate what ‘science’ the world was to believe, and what it was to ignore. They approved Newton’s eureka mind-conclusions and then Einstein’s ‘proofs.’ ‘The results of the measurements confirmed the theory in a thoroughly satisfactory manner,’ wrote Einstein in his paper already quoted.
Rejection and Rebuttals
Dr Arthur Lynch, the distinguished mathematician, let the cat out of the bag:
‘The results of the observations are shown on a chart, by a series of dots, and by tracing connections between these dots it is possible to obtain a “curve” from which the law of deviation is inferred. But the actual charts show only an irregular group of dots, through which, if it be possible to draw a curve that seems to confirm the theory of Relativity, it is equally possible to draw a curve which runs counter to the theory. Neither curve has any justification.’[3] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn3)
And if that is not enough to show a ‘scientific’ farce, Professor Charles Lane Poor really spilled the beans on the tricksters:
‘The table showing displacement of individual stars shows that on average the observed deflection, as given by the British astronomers, differ by 19% from the calculated Einstein value. In the place of two stars the agreement between theory and observation is very nearly perfect… in other cases however, the differences range from 11% to 60% [from the calculated Einstein value]. The diagrams show clearly that the observed displacements of the stars do not agree in direction with the predicted Einstein effect. This point was nowhere mentioned in the report… But, after the measurements of the plates became available for study, several investigators called attention to this fact of a radial disagreement in direction between the observed and the predicted displacements.’[4] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn4)
Professor Poor then goes on to tell us that the Einsteinian relativists tried to claim the differences between the predicted and observed shifts are no greater than should be expected. Consequently, ‘This very question was investigated by Dr Henry Davies Russell, of Princeton University, a most ardent upholder of relativity theory.’ After ‘an exhaustive examination’ he found the differences are real, and are contradictory.
‘The results given in the Report for the observations are the means (average) of the radial components (direction towards or away from the sun) only, nothing whatever being given to the directions in which the actual displacements took place. The Einstein theory requires a deflection, not only of a certain definite component, but also in a certain observed direction. To discuss the amount of the observed deflection is to discuss only one-half of the whole question and the less important half at that. The observed deflection might agree exactly with the predicted amount, but, if it were in the wrong direction, it would disprove, not prove, the Relativity theory. You cannot reach Washington from New York by travelling south, even if you do go the requisite number of miles.’ --- Gravitation v Relativity
But the Royal Society, as we have already seen, has long been taking homo consensus to Washington from New York travelling south, west and east.
‘Now the diagrams of the seven best plates, the seven taken at Sobral with the 4-inch camera, show clearly and definitely that the observed deflections are not in the directions required by the Einstein theory… The relativists either totally disregard these discordances, or invoke the heating effect of the sun to distort the vision by just the proper amount to explain them away.’ --- Gravitation V Relativity.
Find any old ad hoc that can be said to cause the problem by ‘just the proper amount’ and that explains it. Recall this ploy was used to explain the Airy and Michelson & Morley failures. But then Professor Poor offered another solution to ‘starlight-bending.’ one Cassini was well aware of back in 1650.
‘Further… there are other perfectly possible explanations of a deflection of a ray of light; explanations based on every-day, common-place grounds. Abnormal refraction in the Earth’s atmosphere is one; refraction of the solar envelope is another… Such is the evidence, and are the observations, which according to Einstein, “confirm the theory in a thoroughly satisfactory manner.’[5] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn5)
[1] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref1) J.P. McEvoy and O. Zarate: op. cit., pp.43-44.
[2] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref2) H. Collins and T. Pinch: The Golem, p.51, and quoting J. Earman, and C. Glymour, ‘Relativity and Eclipses: The British Eclipse Expedition of 1919 and their Predecessors,’ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 11 (1), 49-85.
[3] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref3) Arthur Lynch: The Case Against Einstein, 1932, p.264.
[4] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref4) C.L. Poor: Gravitation V Relativity, pp.218-226.
[5] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref5) C.L. Poor: Gravitation V Relativity, pp.218-226.
God bless you cassini for your magnificently well informed/educated (and inspiring) analysis!
‘Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that we can refer “not improperly” to the initial singularity [the Big Bang] as an act of creation [As Fr Robinson does in his much publicised 'Catholic creation' book tries to confirm]. What conclusions can we draw from it? That a Creator exists? Suppose still, for the sake of argument, that this, too, is conceded. The problem now is twofold. Is this creator theologically relevant? Can this creator serve the purpose of faith?
My answer to the first question is decidedly negative. A creator proved by [Big Bang] cosmology is a cosmological agent that has none of the properties a believer attributes to God. Even supposing one can consistently say the cosmological creator is beyond space and time, this creature cannot be understood as a person or as the Word made flesh or as the Son of God come down to the world in order to save mankind. Pascal rightly referred to this latter Creator as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” not of philosophers and scientists. To believe that cosmology proves the existence of a creator and then to attribute to this creator the properties of the Creation as a person is to make an illegitimate inference, to commit a category fallacy. My answer to the second question is also negative. Suppose we can grant what my answer to the first question intends to deny. That is, suppose we can understand the God of [Big Bang] cosmologists as the God of theologians and believers. Such a God cannot (and should not) serve the purpose of faith, because, being a God proved by cosmology he [or it] should be at the mercy of cosmology. Like any other scientific discipline that, to use Pope John Paul II’s words, proceeds with “methodological seriousness,” cosmology is always revisable. It might then happen that a creator proved on the basis of a theory will be refuted when that theory is refuted. Can the God of believers be exposed to the risk of such an inconsistent enterprise as science?’[1] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftn1)
[1] (http://file:///C:/Users/JamesRedmond/Desktop/T.E.%20The%20Book.doc#_ftnref1) Marcello Pera: The god of theologians and the god of astronomers, as found in The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp.378, 379.