Page 42 et seq. of this linked docuмent has a strong critique of Fr. Robinson's book: http://www.ecclesiamilitans.com/The_Recusant_Issue46_MarchApril2018.pdf
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Thanks, klasG4e. Here's the copy:
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SSPX-Watch Special:
SSPX Promoting Bogus Modern “Science”
while Undermining Genesis
No, this is most certainly not an exaggeration. That is exactly what the SSPX is doing by promoting a new book by a Society of St. Pius X priest, Fr. Paul Robinson. The book goes under the rather misleading title: “The Realist guide to Religion and Science”.
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There are a few things to note first, before we go any further. Firstly, the author’s name on the book’s cover is given simply as “Paul Robinson,” with no indication that he is even a priest, much less a Society of St. Pius X priest. On the “New Titles” page of the publisher’s website (
www.gracewing.co.uk/ page182.html) one can see the book listed alongside other books, such as a book about the ‘resistance’ in nαzι Germany, and a book of selected “curate’s egg” columns from the Catholic Herald. Here too, it is noticeable that the author is listed simply as “Paul Robinson.” Not a big deal perhaps, but why..?
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Why, you might reasonably wonder, even though it is sold by Angelus Press, is this book being published by Novus Ordo publishers Gracewing..? Since when did SSPX priests publish books with Novus Ordo publishers? On this question, it is perhaps instructive to read a section on the Holy Cross Seminary website (
hcs.fsspx.org/en/news-events/news/sspx -seminary-professor-releases-new-book-realist-guide-religion-andscience-35424 ) concerning the book, entitled: “Notes on the Foreword.” It runs thus:
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“Fr Robinson would like to express his profound gratitude to Rev Dr Paul Haffner for publishing The Realist Guide to Religion and Science through Gracewing Publishers, of which he is the theological and editorial director. Fr Robinson is also grateful to Father Haffner for writing the foreword to his book. Father Haffner, in addition to being a professor at the Gregorian University in Rome for the past 30 years, is a specialist on the work of the late Father Stanley Jaki and The Realist Guide attempts to provide a philosophical backbone to the thesis of Fr Jaki’s Gifford Lectures of 1974–1975 and 1975–1976 (published as The Road of Science and the Ways to God). Thus, it was most appropriate for Father Haffner to compose the foreword for The Realist Guide, and Fr Robinson is pleased of Fr Haffner’s approval of his attempt to popularize Fr Jaki’s work.”
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Paul Haffner is a Novus Ordo priest, as was the late Fr. Stanley Jaki. Let there be no doubt: it is not we who are imagining the debt which this book and its contents and thinking owe to conciliar priests. We will at least give Fr. Robinson credit for his honesty in admitting that. And perhaps it is not all that significant. But then again, perhaps it is. The “Notes” continue:
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“In the foreword, Fr Haffner makes reference to the support of the Conciliar Popes for realism. In doing so, he assigns to Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II the titles of ‘Blessed’ and ‘Saint’ respectively. As Fr Robinson was not provided an opportunity to read the foreword before the publication of his book, he was not able to express his adherence to the position of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) on the doubtful nature of the canonizations […]”
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Oh dear. But, honestly, what did he expect? As for the conciliar Popes mentioned, the question of their titles is really the least of our concerns. John Paul II was an evolutionist who famously described Darwin’s fraudulent ideas as “more than a mere hypothesis” in a public address. He also stuffed the Pontifical Academy of Sciences full of evolutionists (the late Steven Hawking, an atheist, was a member), with no creationists allowed in. That’s what “realism” meant to John Paul II, and Fr. Haffner, to whom in turn Fr. Robinson expresses gratitude, points towards him as a bastion of “realism”. So it is really not a stretch to see where all this is coming from. This is the unsound foundation on which the book is based.
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Then there is the problem of the title. Why is it misleading? There are a couple of reasons. Dogmatic atheists and apostles of Evolutionism like to talk about “Religion versus Science.” That is how they characterise the debate and always have done. It ought to be clear to the reader by now that our problem with evolution is precisely that it is not scientific, either in the broad or narrow sense of the term. It is not observable (has a single person ever observed a dog produce a non-dog, or a reptile a non-reptile?), it is not testable or falsifiable (what is the experiment which shows evolution?), not predictive (name one correct prediction made due to evolution?), does not improve anything for anyone (the 19th century is the century of crazy ideas, the 20th century the era of people actually trying to put them into practice…) - it doesn’t even advance technology, that golden calf of all moderns, as seen, for example, in the case of “junk DNA,” an idea promoted by men such as Richard Dawkins as recently as the early 2000s and now regarded by many as having held back medical science. Moreover it includes numerous logical fallacies and just sheer idiocies, even on its own terms. No one with a firm grasp of the sciences of philosophy or logic could entertain for a moment ideas (doctrines, really) such as “the Universe began when nothing exploded,” or “things created themselves.” Now, I am sure Fr. Robinson may well broadly agree with us on that point, and perhaps would say that he is talking about “true science,” and that may well be the case. But there are plenty of people out there (including his target audience whom he wants to reach) who might not grasp that. It does not help that, in his interview on the US District website (
sspx.org/en/news-events/news/sspx-priest-releases-new-book-realist-guide-religion-and-science35276 ), Fr. Robinson himself says, concerning his book: “I certainly would not have written it if I did not believe that it made a contribution to the whole religion/science debate.” Does this not tend to perpetuate the dishonest “Religion vs. Science” dialectic referred to above?
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The term
“Realist” is also potentially misleading, as in “A Realist Guide” - oh, so you mean, as opposed to a completely unrealistic guide, is that it? And what does an “Unrealistic Guide” to “Science and Religion” look like? Would this issue of The Recusant fit the bill? I wonder. But make no mistake: when dealing with heresies and false doctrine (such as evolution and the ideas it spawned), a priest talking about dealing with a heresy “realistically” or being “realistic” in our approach to it, should always cause alarm to Catholics who have the Faith. Your sensus fidei should be showing a flashing red warning light at the very least! Finally, there is the term
“religion.” This is being used here as a plural (he really means “religions,” which is as good as saying any religion). Now, strictly speaking, there is only one true religion. All the others are called “religions” but in reality they are forms of darkness which teach lies. They are clearly not “religions” in the sense that our religion is a “religion.” The term “religion” meaning anything and everything from the Catholic Faith to Islam to Falun Gong to the most incoherent pagan superstitions is a tactic beloved of the Godless secular media. Therefore, one must be very careful when using it and be clear about which religion you mean and why. But perhaps Fr. Robinson didn’t mean it in that sense? Let’s take a closer look. The promotional blurb on the back of the book says:
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“Why do some religious believers slaughter those who refuse to convert to their faith, refuse scientific evidence for an ancient universe, or hold God to be an utterly arbitrary being?”
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Now, in which sense is the term “religion” being used there? Is it being used to mean specifically the true religion? Or to mean anything which might be termed “religion” in general..? Again, on the ‘Holy Cross Seminary’ page concerning the book (
hcs.fsspx.org/en/news-events/ news/sspx-seminary-professor-releases-new-book-realist-guide-religion-and-science-35424 ), we read:
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“Typically, religions have tended toward an idealism that devalues the material world and the empirical data that it provides…”
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As before, “religions” clearly means anything and consequently nothing. Who cares what “religions” have “typically” done? There is only one true religion - why is language being used to hide that fact? This is all cause for alarm. The counterpointing of the words “Religion” and “Science,” the use of the term “realist” and the use of the term “religion” to mean any or every religion without distinction - don’t judge a book by its cover, to be sure. But if the title can be so misleading, it does not bode well for the rest of the book.
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What Exactly is being Promoted..? So maybe this is just one priest who is a bit liberal on the topic of modern “science” - that’s not necessarily the fault of the SSPX, is it? Well, not only is the Society perfectly happy for this book by one of its priests, published by a Novus Ordo publisher, to be sold by Angelus Press, the SSPX themselves have been promoting it to the faithful assiduously. The “official book launch,” according to the US District website (
sspx.org/en/news-events/news/sspx-priestreleases-new-book-realist-guide-religion-andscience-35276 ) took place at St. Mary’s Kansas on 18th February. And on another page of that website the reader will find an “interview with Fr. Paul Robinson” about his book (sspx.org/en/ news-events/news/author-realist-guide-religion-andscience-answers-questions-big-bang-36299) where one finds the following illuminating exchange:
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QUESTION: “If God could have created the world as explained in the Scriptures, why would he use the Big Bang? Wouldn’t that mean that God was trying to hide the way He created things? It could seem that this wouldn’t make sense, especially since this way of Creation is much more likely to give impression that the Earth is accidental than the literal Creation?”
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ANSWER: “In my view, things are exactly the opposite of the way that you portray them. If God created everything fully formed, as described in Genesis, then, based on what we know about planets and stars, they would have the appearance of having been formed over millions of years, but the Bible would be telling us that they were formed in an instant.
In other words, the reality that God has created would be telling us one thing and the Bible would be telling us another.
That is, in fact, the Protestant position, as I explain in chapter 7 of
The Realist Guide. Their idea of God is that He wanted to deceive our minds by creating a world in an instant that appears to have developed over long periods of time. Why would He do this? In order to convince us that the reason that He has given us is useless! I would argue that this is not the God that we worship as Catholics and not really a God that anyone would want to worship.
As for your last question above, no, a divinely-commenced Big Bang, far from making the development of the Earth seem accidental, rather makes it seem extremely carefully choreographed. Look up ‘fine-tuning of the universe’ and you will see what I am talking about. Or read chapter 9 of my book.”
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What is the problem here? The first and most obvious thing is that Fr. Robinson is a firm believer in the discredited “Big Bang” hoax. In fact, in the US District interview referred to above, he goes so far as to say:
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“In the 20th century science provided solid, empirical evidence that our universe began with a huge burst of energy 13.7 billion years ago.” That is simply not true. What is this “empirical evidence” for that fantastic timescale, please? (One might also be entitled to wonder how any evidence can be called “empirical” which concerns things so long ago that nobody was there to witness or experience them. Has the term “empirical” changed its meaning?) If any SSPX priest or faithful out there would like to defend Fr. Robinson or the Society promoting him, please answer this question. It is genuine and not rhetorical. What is this so-called “empirical evidence” that the Universe is 13,700,000,000 years old? We say it doesn’t exist. Prove the contrary.
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In fact, the question asked above is a perfectly reasonable one. If Sacred Scripture is true, then God made the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the earth, the animals and plants, all separately and with a distinct intention to create. Each one was created individually by Him, and He even used separate days on which to create them. There is a perfection to God’s creation. He created a fully-formed man (Adam) and placed him in a fully formed garden (Eden). He did not create a new-born baby and a packet of seeds with instructions to get planting if he wanted to eat. We know the answer to the old question, ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ It was the chicken. The evolutionist would say the egg. Therein lies the difference. Doesn’t Fr. Robinson here appear to be favouring the egg?
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Denying Sacred Scripture Imagine that I were to say to you: “If this newsletter were written in Japanese instead of English, you wouldn’t be reading it right now” - what am I telling you about The Recusant? Or how about: “If Hilary Clinton had won the 2016 election, World War Three would have begun already” - what does that say about who won the election? Go back and re-read the first part of Fr. Robinson’s answer. He says: “If God [had] created everything fully formed, as described in Genesis... [then God would be a liar who likes to deceive us.]” In what way is this not a complete denial of the truth of Sacred Scripture? How any Catholic priest calling himself traditional can begin a sentence with (in essence), “If Scripture were true…” and proceed to say that it isn’t, is quite beyond me. Did the person interviewing him not notice this? Or the transcriber, the proofreader, the webmaster? To give credit where it’s due, at least he is honest enough to admit that Genesis does say that God created things fully formed, that Genesis does contradict his own “Big Bang” worldview. But that he can calmly suggest that Genesis is wrong and he and his ‘friends’ are right - what must that take?
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Of course, the idea that special creation is somehow Protestant is untrue as well, and you will notice that Fr. Robinson’s explanation begs the question. He answers by referring to things which are themselves contested, a classic logical fallacy. “Why would God provide evidence that the stars and planets are billions of years old if they’re not?” Simple. He didn’t. They aren’t. There is a mountain of scientific evidence against the universe being billions of years old. So your question, Father, turns back on you: Why would God provide evidence of a young Universe if, as you and your evolutionist friends claim, it is billions of years old?
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As for his highly contentious statement that: “a divinely-commenced Big Bang, far from making the development of the Earth seem accidental, rather makes it seem extremely carefully choreographed” and that the God who creates by fiat (and not by means of a “Big Bang”), is “not the God that we worship as Catholics and not really a God that anyone would want to worship”- the exact opposite is true. The God who would create via evolution, be it the evolution of stars and planets or the evolution of life forms on earth, such a “God” is not the God Catholics worship and not a “God” anyone ought to want to worship. He is wasteful, careless, a “God” who creates everything for man and yet for some reason allows billions of years to pass by before man even exists, and who uses explosion and chaos to accomplish his divine will. What sort of a God is that? You will notice that, although he claims that the idea of a Big Bang does not make “the development of the earth seem accidental,” no argument or evidence is provided to sustain the claim. Explosions are always chaotic and destructive: that is what we can observe empirically, today. Why was this explosion different, what’s the evidence, or is this a case of special pleading? The undeniable truth is that the “Big Bang” does make everything, including the earth, seem accidental. What sort of a God would do that if, instead of that, in order to create something he could just… create it?
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Ah, but that’s “Protestant,” you see! It is unfortunate that Fr. Robinson seems to have a bee in his bonnet when it comes to “the Protestants.” Yes, they follow a heretical false parody of the true religion; yes they’re wrong about a lot of stuff. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. And when they say that the Bible is 100% true in everything that it says, they are right. They may not even have the right Bible, but they are still right to hold that principle. Fr. Robinson does not believe it because, as we shall continue to see, Fr. Robinson is a modernist in the same mould as the modernists whom St. Pius X and the Pontifical Biblical Commission sought to root out some 100 years ago, and Fr. Robinson does not believe in the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. As far as he is concerned, anyone who holds to the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture is, by that very fact, somehow a Protestant. Elsewhere, on the book’s own website (therealistguide.com/q%26a), on the “Questions and Answers” page, he condemns the Kolbe Centre as being “fundamentalist Protestant.”
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QUESTION: “What do you think of the position of the Kolbe Center on the Bible and science?”
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ANSWER: “While I respect the good will of those at the Kolbe Center, I cannot but remark that they adopt the fundamentalist Protestant stance on the relation between the Bible and science.”
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And what evidence does Fr. Robinson provide for this shameful accusation against his fellow Catholics at the Kolbe Centre, that they are somehow “Fundamentalist Protestant”? He gives the following explanation:
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“As I explain in great detail in chapter 7 of
The Realist Guide, that exegetical stance has several terrible effects:
It makes the Bible out to be an enemy of science.
It makes religion out to be an enemy of reason.
It makes God out to be an arbitrary ruler of the universe.”
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As with other answers quoted above, this answer is merely one big logical fallacy, begging the question by appealing to the very things which are contested.
- The so-called “exegetical stance” (which in reality, one suspects, means nothing more than actually believing in Scriptural inerrancy) will only “make the Bible out to be an enemy of science” if the aforementioned “science” is in reality not really very scientific, as we have tried to show throughout this issue of The Recusant.
- It only “makes religion [which one? Our one, the true one, or any of the other many bogus ones?] out to be an enemy of reason” if we are assuming that reason is the keystone and foundation of modern “science.” But again, as we have tried to show throughout these pages, nothing could be further from the truth. Evolution in all its forms is entirely irrational.
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- As for belief in creation and Scriptural inerrancy making God look arbitrary, the view proposed by Fr. Robinson and those like him ends up making God look ten-thousand times more arbitrary! Consider. Instead of creating by “Fiat!”, God decided to use a huge explosion followed by more than 13 billion years of the explosion’s after-effects, one of the eventual consequences of which was (at last!) mankind. He caused a Bible to be written which makes no mention at all of this explosion (rather an important detail to leave out, wouldn’t you think?), but which does manage to get the order of creation the wrong way around (it says that the earth, the seas, the plants, etc. were created before the sun, moon and stars). He then sent his only son to earth but made sure that his son never once referred to that explosion, though he often quoted from Genesis in such a manner as to misleadingly suggest that he himself believed its literal truth. Finally he founded a Church which he allowed to fall instantly into error and believe a lot of falsehoods about creation for a good 1900 or so years until, finally, he chose men such as Lyell, Darwin, Lemaitre and Hubble as his means of lifting the veil of falsehood from the hearts of his people and teaching them the truth about his creation. How’s that for arbitrariness and opposition to reason?! You’re asking us to believe this? No thanks, I think I’ll take my chances with Sacred Scripture and the Faith of my forefathers. They didn’t believe this rubbish and neither will I.
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If the reader wishes perhaps to find a clue to help better understand where Fr. Robinson is coming from and what motivates him, here is another little quote from the book’s website (therealistguide.com/big-bang-theory-reactions) which is rather revealing. In talking about the chapters in his book dealing with the “Big Bang,” he says:
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“Our objective in this multi-part article is to explore the attitude of three sets of people to Lemaître’s Big Bang Theory: atheist scientists, fundamentalist Protestants, and mainstream Catholics.”
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Ah! “Mainstream” Catholics? So that’s the problem. The Kolbe Centre, conservative Novus Ordo though they may be, just aren’t “mainstream” enough for Fr. Robinson and his SSPX backers. But then the Fathers of the Church or St. Thomas Aquinas wouldn’t be “mainstream” enough for him either. Such is the age in which we live, most “mainstream” Catholics don’t believe in Transubstantiation, Purgatory or the Church’s moral teaching, so perhaps it’s not that surprising that they don’t believe in the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture either. If that’s what you want to use as your gold standard, Father, you’re on a very slippery slope.
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Temporising with Darwin, Restricting Genesis On the same “Questions and Answers” page referred to above, there can also be found Fr. Robinson’s answer to a question regarding Darwinian Evolution:
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“I also agree with the claim […] that evolutionary theory predicts that we will find, in reality, genetic similarities among all living things such that we should be able to construct an evolutionary tree of descent of all things in the biological world from a common ancestor. Where I differ from the article is that it claims that evolution’s prediction has been verified. I would say it definitely has not.”
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Now, to be clear, Fr. Robinson does not profess himself a believer in Darwinian evolution. Nevertheless, the problem with evolution is not a failure on the part of evolutionists to “find genetic similarities” such that they can “construct an evolutionary tree of descent.” There are undoubtedly genetic similarities among creatures. But those similarities aren’t evidence for evolution. They are far more plausible as evidence of common design pointing to a common designer. The false claim that genetic similarities are evidence for evolution is, in reality, y, just another logical fallacy (to be precise, the fallacy of affirming the consequent - see the Jason Lisle video ‘Evolution and Logical Fallacies’ on youtube to learn more...). It is only a small thing. But these things matter. Darwinian Evolution is entirely irrational, unscientific and breaks every rule in the book. Strictly speaking it is not a ‘theory’ or even a hypothesis, it is a worldview, a religion, and a dangerous and deadly one at that. To be clear once again, Fr. Robinson is not endorsing Darwinism here. Yet he does seem to be ceding ground to it, a thing which nobody, especially a Catholic priest, should ever do, even in the slightest degree.
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QUESTION: “Do you no longer believe in the creation story in Genesis?”
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ANSWER: “I read Genesis in the way that the Catholic Church has directed her children to read it. The Church indicates that Genesis 1 is meant to teach us important dogmas of faith, but is not meant to teach us science. Here is a summary of what we are held to believe and what we are not held to believe. […]”
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So… that would be a “yes” then? As in, yes, correct, I no longer believe in the creation story in Genesis. We’ve already just seen a denial of fully-formed creation which, he even admits, is what Genesis says. But that’s the realm of “science” you see. Genesis is only right on the things concerning “religion,” it is unreliable on “science.” Who gets to define these arbitrary labels or categories? Err, we do. So, that would mean that we get to arbitrarily say what is true in Genesis and what isn’t? Err, well, yes. That, in the end, is what this amounts to.
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Fr. Robinson then goes on to elucidate what Pius XII said in Humani Generis and to recommend the book The Theory of Evolution Judged by Reason and Faith by Cardinal Ruffini. But the damage is done. Can anyone really not spot the problem with the idea that Sacred Scripture is good for theology and “spiritual matters” but not for science or history? How much more obvious does the modernism have to be? Can any Traditional Catholic, even those who have been quietly marinating in the soft-liberalism of the neo-SSPX for the past five years, witness such a display of naked, shameless modernism and not feel instinctively that something is very wrong? This idea of deconstructing Sacred Scripture is classic modernism! Ironically, for somehow who preaches to us about being “rational,” this idea is also wholly irrational. If our religion is true, then it must be true concerning science, history geography or any of the arbitrarily man-made categories or subjects. Is it a historical fact that Our Lord lived on earth? Is where he lived a geographical fact? Is the Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord from the dead a historical fact? The Catholic is bound to answer “yes.” The modernist may say “no,” because for him a “historical truth” is somehow distinct from a “religious truth.” But a moment’s consideration should show us that the same God who gave us our catechism is also the Author of the laws of physics, the Creator of the physical and geographical world, the Author of history, and so on. He sustains His creation at every moment. There can be no dividing, deconstructing or pigeon-holing Him into a corner away from the rest of His creation. All Catholics must believe the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. To say that Scripture is inerrant, “but only in certain arbitrary areas decided by me” is nothing less than to say that it is not inerrant. That is what Fr. Robinson appears here to be saying. How is this not a denial of the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture? I cannot see.
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The Church Speaks But don’t take my word for any of this. Have a look at what the Church has always taught. One of the things which I personally find so offensive about Fr. Robinson’s modernism, his grovelling before the fairy-tales and dogmas of evolutionary “scientists” and “cosmologists” and his consequent denial of the reliability of Sacred Scripture, is that he has the effrontery to present these ideas as coming from the Church. That is simply not the case, and to show how wrong he is, the reader may wish to consider what the Church has already said on the topic, what the Fathers, Doctors and Councils of the Church have had to say, and what all Catholics down the ages have believed. A decent sample of what the Church has said down the ages concerning creation is already provided in the Kolbe Centre article by Mr. Hugh Owen on p.37. If you are still not convinced, here is some more, though there is even more where this came from:
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“For as to the separate stars or the great lights, not this appeared first, and that second, but in one day and by the same command, they were all called into being. And such was the original formation of the quadrupeds, and of birds, and fishes, and cattle, and plants; thus too has the race made after God’s Image come to be, namely men; for though Adam only was formed out of earth, yet in him was involved the succession of the whole race.”
- St. Athanasius, ‘Four Discourses against the Arians’ “ ‘Let the earth bring forth.’ This short command was in a moment a vast nature, an elaborate system. Swifter than thought it produced the countless qualities of plants.”
- St. Basil,
‘de spiritu sancto’ homily “I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to make them serve their own ends. For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel.’ ”
- St. Basil, Hexaemeron “God commanded that the heavens should come into existence, and it was done; He determined that the earth should be created, and it was created. Who carried together the stones on his shoulders? Who supplied the expenses? Who furnished assistance to God as He toiled? These things were made in a moment.”
- St. Ambrose, ‘On Belief in the Resurrection,’ 85 “For with God nothing is difficult: but as the painter who has made one likeness will make ten thousand with ease, so also with God it is easy to make worlds without number and end. Rather, as it is easy for you to conceive a city and worlds without bound, so unto God is it easy to make them; or rather again it is easier by far. For thou consumest time, brief though it be, in thy conception; but God not even this, but as much as stones are heavier than any of the lightest things, yea even than our minds; so much is our mind surpassed by the rapidity of God’s work of creation.”
- St. John Chrysostom, Homily XVII “On the fourth day the luminaries were made; because God, who possesses foreknowledge, knew the follies of the vain philosophers, that they were going to say, that the things which grow on the earth are produced from the heavenly bodies, so as to exclude God. In order, therefore, that the truth might be obvious, the plants and seeds were produced prior to the heavenly bodies, for what is posterior cannot produce that which is prior.”
- St. Theophilus of Antioch, ‘To Autolycus,’ 2:15 “All the years from the creation of the world amount to a total of 5,698 years and the odd months and days… If even a chronological error has been committed by us, for example, of 50 or 100 or even 200 years, but not the thousands and tens of thousands, as Plato and Apollonius and other mendacious authors have hitherto written. And perhaps our knowledge of the whole number of the years is not quite accurate, because the odd months and days are not set down in the sacred books.”
- Ibid., 3:28 “Thus we find it said at first that “He called the light Day”: for the reason that later on a period of 24 hours is also called day, where it is said that “there was evening and morning, one day […] The words “one day” are used when day is first instituted, to denote that one day is made up of 24 hours. Hence, by mentioning “one”, the measure of a natural day is fixed. Another reason may be to signify that a day is completed by the return of the sun to the point from which it commenced its course. And yet another, because at the completion of a week of seven days, the first day returns which is one with the eighth day. The three reasons assigned above are those given by Basil.”
- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 69 ff
As well as repeating what others say, that the sun, moon and stars were created after the earth , so as to guard against idolatry, it is also worth noting that on the topic of Creation, throughout the Prima Pars, for St. Thomas it is evident that “The authority of Scripture suffices,” an answer which he uses more than once. And, as mentioned, there is plenty more where that came from. ‘Ah yes, they may have been Church Fathers and Doctors, but they didn’t know as much as Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Karl Sagan, Stephen J Gould and so on. They didn’t understand about the billions and billions of years and the slow, gradual way in which the universe developed and unfolded, the stars before the earth, all of it almost seemingly by chance, as modern “science” now understands it! They only believed that God created by fiat because, well, they were simple souls. They didn’t have facebook, iphones and contactless payment, it’s not their fault they were so backwards and ignorant!’
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So why does Fr. Robinson tell us that it is “the Church” which teaches his ideas? As already mentioned, he is referring to Pius XII’s Humani Generis. Now, the reader will be well aware that a Papal Encyclical can be free of error, can restate Church teaching, but can nevertheless sin by omission in not presenting it as clearly or as forcefully as could have been the case. I think it is fair to say that Humani Generis falls into that category. When we read that: “What Catholics are not held to believe from Genesis 1-3 [is that] the universe is a certain age, the Earth is a certain age, the human race is a certain age” - what does this actually mean? It means what it says. If you believe that the earth was created in 4004BC, you cannot excommunicate or regard as doctrinally unsound someone else who believes that it was created in 4003BC or 4005BC. Differences in age, in themselves, are permissible, in other words.
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But what about the idea that the earth is four or five billion years old, and that human beings have been around on it for millions of years? Here I think the same rule does not apply. This is not a mere difference in numbers but a different scale, a whole different order of magnitude so vast that it amounts to a difference in kind. If I say that there were 4000 years between Adam and Our Lord, and another man says that there were, in fact, 4001, that does not alter the reality of what we are talking about. It still makes sense that Our Lord has a traceable lineage through David, through Noah all the way back to Adam, that He is truly the second Adam. But if I say that there were, in fact, five million years between Adam and Our Lord, or even just one million years, then that idea becomes a nonsense simply because of the scale involved. Can the human mind even grasp how long five million years lasts? It is so incomprehensible as to become nonsensical and might just as well be 500 billion years.
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Darwin’s Intellectual Grandchildren An important point to keep in mind is that the ideas of Lyell and Darwin are only the starting point for bogus modern “science.” Since the 19th century, they have spawned whole realms of new, auxiliary heresies, becoming a veritable industry of fake “science”. Every time one idea is proven wrong, some new ones are dreamt up to keep it all going, rather than admit the unthinkable. Not just the “Big Bang” idea itself, but the ridiculous timescale too, all are 20th century products of evolutionary thought. If mankind “evolved” then millions of years on earth must be claimed for this to have taken place. But the timescale for “macro evolution” on the earth must itself be placed as a percentage of the time taken for planet earth to “evolve”; and that too must, itself, be placed within the Universe “evolving.” Like the area of a cone radiating outwards, when one time at the small-end is increased, the others must be scaled-up proportionally. Because we now need 65 million years to fit in dinosaurs, 500 million years for the “more primitive” organisms and so on, therefore the earth needs to be 4 or 5 billion years old, and thus the Universe, in turn, nearly 14 billion. It is said that Edwin Hubble had to continually “re-calculate” the age of the Universe to get an ever larger timescale, for precisely that reason: too young a Universe would not have accommodated Darwin. Of course, in reality it doesn’t make any difference anyway: living matter can never come from non-living matter, but the proponents of the bogus ‘theory’ still want their timescale. The point here is that it is evolution which drives these other bogus “sciences” such as the “Big Bang.” They are the intellectual offspring of Darwinism. Darwin proposed the evolution of life on earth. This was then applied to the Universe to show that it, too had somehow “evolved”. The “Big Bang” idea itself must presuppose ‘Red Shift’ and the Theory of Relativity, neither of which are themselves beyond question; onto it there were later bolted other “hypotheses,” such as “inflation theory.” When it became undeniable that nowhere near enough matter or energy exist in the known Universe to keep their fantastic exploding-expanding-billions-of-years-olduniverse story afloat, the “scientific community” tried further to dig their way out of the proverbial hole by inventing “dark matter” and “dark energy.” These things are pure fantasy and do not exist: there is no evidence for their existence whatsoever. Even they admit that they are “only an inference”. The “evidence” is the fact that without them, the equations do not add up and the universe must be much younger than claimed. That is the equivalent of saying that we know that 2 + 2 = 100, we just can’t seem to find the missing 96, it must exist because we already know in advance that the answer is 100, so the remaining 96 must be “dark”. Pure, utter nonsense. And not really very honest or “scientific” for that matter either. Try telling your bank manager that you’re a millionaire, and the only reason he can’t see the missing £999,000- or-so is because it’s “dark money.” Even the staunchly evolutionist-atheist Wikipedia begins its article on “Dark Matter” by telling the world that:
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“Dark matter is a type of unidentified matter that may constitute about 80% of the total matter in the universe.” (See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter )
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It “may” constitute 80% of the universe. In other words, we can only find about 20% of what there needs to be for our “theories” to be true. Notice how it is described euphemistically as “unidentified” - like the “missing link”, it has never actually been seen! How “scientific”..!?
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The more recent sci-fi fantasies proposed by the “scientific community,” including “multiverses,” infinite multiverses and so on, are even more ridiculous and unscientific. The more it goes on, the sillier it gets. This is the consequence of allowing people to study the physical sciences without first requiring that they have a solid grounding in the science of (true) philosophy or the science of logic.
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But it doesn’t matter to them how ridiculous or unscientific their ideas really are, because in the end it is the court of public opinion which matters, and most people these days will believe anything which “science” with a straight face proposes for public consumption. And that is because “science” has supplanted the Church. It is an atheistic magisterium all of its own, and decades of Hollywood propaganda from Star Wars to Star Trek to a significant proportion of the films released even today, have served to slowly and silently indoctrinate the masses without their ever even realising what has happened. Most people now believe in alien life on other planets, even though there is not and has never been the tiniest single shred of evidence for it, and all the experiments (missions to Mars from the mid-1970s onwards, for example) have only served to show that the rest of the Universe is entirely sterile and without life.
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In the end, the whole rotten edifice of modern “science” deserves to come crashing down. The SSPX which promotes the ideas of Fr. Robinson, like Fr. Robinson himself, in seeking to appease the golden calves of modern “science” are only helping to support that rotten, worm-infested structure. What is worse, though they may not realise it, they are also helping to undermine the faith and morals of potentially millions, including those not yet born. Most people aren’t stupid, they can see when you are bending your religion to make it fit in with whatever modern “science” has proclaimed. The fight will not be won by appeasing the “theories” of godless unbelievers who scoff at our religion in this way. It is time to start worrying about souls in the SSPX who are being exposed to this deadly atmosphere of compromise and appeasement to the world, especially the younger generations. A decade or two hence they will be set to lapse in record numbers if what we see here is in any way typical. Please God that doesn’t happen, but it does not look hopeful and would be entirely unsurprising if it did happen.
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All of that without even reading the book yet! Yes, this article commits the cardinal sin of condemning a book without having read it. In reality, of course, what we are looking at, what is being “condemned,” are Fr. Paul Robinson’s own words, available on various websites, and along with them, the SSPX priests who have made those words widely available and promoted them to the faithful. There’s always the possibility that book may turn out to be perfectly sound, but I somehow doubt it. If someone who already has a copy (don’t go and buy one specially, we don’t want to encourage this sort of thing!) would care to write a book review and send it to
recusantsspx@hotmail.co.uk , we’d all be very grateful.
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St. Pius X, confessor of biblical truth and crusher of pseudo-scientific heresies, pray for us!
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Topic: Let us not forget Fr Robinson's (SSPX) pagan cosmology (Read 3275 times)