CathInfo.com

Years ago a friend of Fr. PR's was in UL Speed Engineering School; the guy was a Protestant, and took instruction and ended up converting to Catholicism.  This guy brought up the theory of "Black Holes" with me, postulating that matter is sucked into these Black Holes and consequently destroyed.  I wrote him a small refutation stating that sound philosophy is, "Matter can undergo change, but can never be destroyed."  Insofar as matter exists, it is good, and good can never be destroyed; and that evil in the philosophical sense, is a privation.  A one-winged bird suffers the privation of a wing, and this is evil, in the sense it is a consequence of evil, lacking something due to its nature. This was the short of it.  There were multiple issues with his philosophic principles which he failed to see.  

The guy took a job with Ratheon down in Texas and eventually lost the faith.  It is apparent, and experience has proven time and again, that many people enter the godless universities, and without having solid philosophical principles, their thoughts become corrupted, and they abandon the Faith.  But in the end this man left the Faith because of the flesh, and, as any informed Catholic knows, people almost never leave the Faith because of some intellectual aberration. 

That is bat-shit insane. I'm sorry. There's only one reason to adopt "random chance and millions of years" to explain all the wonders of this brilliant-design-and-order-filled Creation, and that's to escape the reality that God created the world, God created US, we have an immortal soul, we have been given Commandments by God, we owe God our love, obedience, and respect, and we will be judged by God one day.

It's like he can't quite bring himself to go whole-hog on the Modernism. No matter. Fr. Paul Robinson is the priest equivalent of Pope Paul VI, who was a divided man, a split personality. I'll never forget the artwork that was done of him -- it accurately captured his essence. I wish I had a copy of it.

But remember, Paul VI implemented the Novus Ordo Missae, while also declaring that "The smoke of satan" has entered the Church. He was a two-faced man. A torn man, a tragic figure.

Exactly-the Fr. Robinson book (and his overall outlook) struck me as a kind of chimera; it is composed of discordant parts and is split between different viewpoints. He doesn't want to go "full-throttle", and so adopts a very strange, discordant middle ground which seems to be biased from a personal liking for Big Bang cosmology. From the very first "kick-off" event of the book at St. Mary's, I was astounded by just how much undue credibility he assigned to the Big Bang cosmology and all of its adherents. He treats it as though it is all a rock-solid idea, when even mainstream astronomers are starting to doubt/revise what is thought of Big Bang cosmology!

And then he blends the orthodox Thomistic arguments in with all of this novelty, and argues that St. Thomas supports it (or at least doesn't contradict it). I'm not sure how many people read the book/were influenced by it, but it might be worthwhile for someone with an advanced theology/philosophy background to do a full "dissection" and analysis of it, especially of the way he uses (or misuses) his Thomistic references.

Maybe slightly off-topic, but it was also fascinating to observe the reactions to the book when it was "advertised" by Fr. Robinson in-person. Some were interested/favorable, but to be honest many seemed either confused or highly suspicious of it. There definitely seems to be a camp that favors him (how else would he be making all these videos/talks), but it would be interesting to assess how significant it really is...