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On pp 1-2 of Robert Sungenis' new 564 page book Scientific Heresies and Their Effect on the Church -- A Critical Analysis of: "The Realist Guide to "Religion and Sicence" we find this remarkable passage: "A good friend of mine who is a priest in the SSPX confided the following to me: 'Let me just note that being in the SSPX for over 35 years now, there have always been priests who did not accept 6-day Creation, and who would not even have considered geocentrism as an option , and who were open to certain forms of evolution. The SSPX has always been a mix of ideas of everything that was still considered orthodox in the 1960s. Those in authority have feared to accept new creationist and geocentric proofs which have come forth since the 60's, and have willed to keep a 60's - 70's mentality, despite new proofs, or have not been willing to consider as serious science anything which has come forth from geocentric or creationist arguments. I know, however, several priests open to geocentrism, etc., in the SSPX. You will also note that Father Robinson's book [The Realist Guide to "Religion and Sicence] was curiously published by Gracewing Publishers and not an SSPX publisher such as the Angelus Press. Perhaps Father Robinson wanted a wider readership, at the same time Angelus Press might have realized that such a book would rock the boat among SSPX faithful."
I personally know of one SSPX priest who in a seemingly rather daring move a few years ago not only invited Dr. Sungenis to his parish to speak on geocentrism, but also set up a public debate between Sungenis and another individual on the subject of geocentrism at the local state university. The university audience was initially rather hostile to Sungenis, but in the end he carried the day when a final vote tally was taken of all those in attendance.
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In all seriousness, can anyone think of a worse (and more dangerous and more scandalous) book that has ever been officially sold by the SSPX in their entire history than The Realist Guide to Religion and Science by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX? Surely, this is one of the greatest testaments to how far astray the leadership in the SSPX has gone. They need to be made aware in the strongest of terms that the book is outright modernism, plain and simple.
https://angeluspress.org/products/the-realist-guide-to-religion-and-science (https://angeluspress.org/products/the-realist-guide-to-religion-and-science)
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In all seriousness, can anyone think of a worse (and more dangerous and more scandalous) book that has ever been officially sold by the SSPX in their entire history than The Realist Guide to Religion and Science by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX? Surely, this is one of the greatest testaments to how far astray the leadership in the SSPX has gone. They need to be made aware in the strongest of terms that the book is outright modernism, plain and simple.
https://angeluspress.org/products/the-realist-guide-to-religion-and-science (https://angeluspress.org/products/the-realist-guide-to-religion-and-science)
Robert Sungenis' book Scientific Heresies and Their Effect on the Church -- A Critical Analysis of: "The Realist Guide to "Religion and Science" provides a very thorough and devastating analysis and rebuttal of Fr. Robinson's book from a completely traditional Catholic perspective. See https://www.theprinciplemovie.com/new-book-by-robert-sungenis-scientific-heresies-and-their-effect-on-the-church/ (https://www.theprinciplemovie.com/new-book-by-robert-sungenis-scientific-heresies-and-their-effect-on-the-church/)
http://flatearthflatwrong.com/product/scientific-heresies-and-their-effect-on-the-church/ (http://flatearthflatwrong.com/product/scientific-heresies-and-their-effect-on-the-church/)
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Sungenis Is a ridiculous fundie who makes the Church look bad with his fundamentalism. Fr. Robinson’s work is excellent, and he makes a good point when he argues that too many Trads are being sucked into fundamentalist Protestant understandings of science. The Bible is not a science manual. There is no conflict between modern science and orthodox Catholicism. Read Providentissimus Deus by Pope Leo XIII.
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Modernist science (i.e. which was started by anti-catholic Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ (i.e. the "modernists) to attack the Church) is opposed to the Church Fathers' teachings and also the Magisteriums of the Middle Ages (when the Church was at the HEIGHT of orthodoxy). Fr Robinson supports modern science at the expense of the Church Fathers and previous magisterial teachings. Ergo, Fr Robinson is a modernist (in this one area).
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Modernist science (i.e. which was started by anti-catholic Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ (i.e. the "modernists) to attack the Church) is opposed to the Church Fathers' teachings and also the Magisteriums of the Middle Ages (when the Church was at the HEIGHT of orthodoxy). Fr Robinson supports modern science at the expense of the Church Fathers and previous magisterial teachings. Ergo, Fr Robinson is a modernist (in this one area).
Nonsnse, the Fathers are not infallible on science. Leo XIII explicitly states that the scientist must stay with in his field, and the theologian within his field. Heliocentrism and the Old Earth are scientific facts. Denying them makes Catholics look silly
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You're defending Heliocentrism and I'm attacking evolution (the errors of evolution could've never come about without the errors of heliocentrism first, but evolution's errors are far more nefarious than heliocentric's sun worship (which is satanic, by the way)). The Church Fathers' didn't have much to say on flat earth/geo/heliocentrism, but they had GOBS to say about Genesis, and Adam/Eve and creationism. Science doesn't support evolution, neither does the Church and neither does the Bible.
Fr Robinson's main error is that he drives a wedge between Scripture and the Church, by falsely ignoring the Church Fathers and lying that the Church has never taught anything related to Science/creationism. Therefore, he argues, we are free to believe what modern science says (even though the facts don't support evolution) about Genesis, because the origins of the world are in the realm of science and not religion. Pure Garbage.
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Fr Robinson's main error is that he drives a wedge between Scripture and the Church, by falsely ignoring the Church Fathers and lying that the Church has never taught anything related to Science/creationism. Therefore, he argues, we are free to believe what modern science says (even though the facts don't support evolution) about Genesis, because the origins of the world are in the realm of science and not religion. Pure Garbage.
Have you read the book? I have, and while I don't agree with parts of it, iI don't recall the author "falsely ignoring the Church Fathers and lying that the Church has never taught anything related to Science/creationism". Nor does he say anything like "we are free to believe what modern science says".
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Fr does not directly say these things, but he implies them. If you read Sungenis’ response to his book on the other thread, Sungenis explains how Fr glosses over certain facts which erroneously allows him to accept modern science’s views, even when they are contrary to the history of the Church.
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Pope Pius XII did a dangerous thing when he left open the door for Catholics to believe in evolution.
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The bottom line is that evolution always has as its primary goal, to undermine the dogma of original sin.
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Pope Pius XII did a dangerous thing when he left open the door for Catholics to believe in evolution.
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The bottom line is that evolution always has as its primary goal, to undermine the dogma of original sin.
I believe in evolution. John Henry Newman and Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange both said evolution is compatible with Catholic teaching. Evolutionism isn’t, but one can accept evolution without being a materialist.
http://iteadthomam.blogspot.com/2010/09/garrigou-lagrange-on-evolution-aka.html (http://iteadthomam.blogspot.com/2010/09/garrigou-lagrange-on-evolution-aka.html)
http://inters.org/Newman-Scarborough-Darwin-Evolution (http://inters.org/Newman-Scarborough-Darwin-Evolution)
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If you believe in evolution, you’re a modernist by philosophy. You implicitly accept that “science” (ie heretical lies posing as facts) is superior to Faith. The account of Genesis must be accepted with the simple faith of a child and to challenge the ages-old Church view of creationism is to exalt man’s reason above revelation. It is to exalt man’s “modern” understanding above the wisdom of the saints of the “dark ages”, who were the pillars of and cause for the growth of our entire Western civilization.
Until you come to realize that evolution and modern science is a satanic attack on Catholicism, a subversion of the material over the spiritual and an attempt to exalt man’s intellect over Divine Truth, then you’ll continue in your philosophical errors, even if you don’t explicitly agree with the errors that evolution (in any degree) represents. It is our fate that we modern men are so awash in error and half-truths (since Protestantism in the 1500s) that we have all compromised our Faith in some manner, even if just mentally. But we must continue to strive and pray for wisdom so that God will enlighten us and renew our minds. I’ll pray for you.
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If you believe in evolution, you’re a modernist by philosophy. You implicitly accept that “science” (ie heretical lies posing as facts) is superior to Faith. The account of Genesis must be accepted with the simple faith of a child and to challenge the ages-old Church view of creationism is to exalt man’s reason above revelation. It is to exalt man’s “modern” understanding above the wisdom of the saints of the “dark ages”, who were the pillars of and cause for the growth of our entire Western civilization.
Until you come to realize that evolution and modern science is a satanic attack on Catholicism, a subversion of the material over the spiritual and an attempt to exalt man’s intellect over Divine Truth, then you’ll continue in your philosophical errors, even if you don’t explicitly agree with the errors that evolution (in any degree) represents. It is our fate that we modern men are so awash in error and half-truths (since Protestantism in the 1500s) that we have all compromised our Faith in some manner, even if just mentally. But we must continue to strive and pray for wisdom so that God will enlighten us and renew our minds. I’ll pray for you.
Your mind is just clouded by fundamentalist thinking. That’s not how Catholics read Scripture
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If you believe in evolution, you’re a modernist by philosophy.
It is statements like this that cause many of our chlldren to leave tradition.
I don't believe in evolution, but I won't condemn everyone who does. The Biblical Commission made it clear that Catholics could interpret days as periods of time. (And if anyone thinks the Biblical Commission can be easily dismissed, remember that Lamentabili was a decision of the Holy Office approved in forma specifica by St. Pius X, same as decisions of the Biblical Commission.)
Furthermore, as to the claim that it's "modernist philosophy", most leading Thomists of the 20th century, including Garrigou-Lagrange, taught that some form of evolution from pre-existing matter was conceivable, within limits. Ott, another author trads should be familiar with, says "while the fact of the creation of man by God in the literal sense must be closely adhered to, in the question as to the mode and manner of the formation of the human body, an interpretation which diverges from the strict literal sense is, on weighty grounds, permissible." (Fundamentals, p95).
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It is statements like this that cause many of our children to leave tradition.
Nonsense!
The Biblical Commission made it clear that Catholics could interpret days as periods of time. (And if anyone thinks the Biblical Commission can be easily dismissed, remember that Lamentabili was a decision of the Holy Office approved in forma specifica by St. Pius X, same as decisions of the Biblical Commission.)
More nonsense.
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The PBC has no authority at all. It is purely a consultative body.
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http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_docuмents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_14071997_pcbible_en.html
The new Pontifical Biblical Commission
On 27th June 1971, in the context of the great work of post-conciliar reform, Paul VI, with the Motu proprio Sedula cura (cfr. AAS 63 [1971], 665-669), established new norms for the organisation and functioning of the Biblical Commission, in order to make its activity more fruitful for the Church and better adapted to the contemporary situation.
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This apostolic Letter marks a radical change for the role and organisation of the Commission. In fifteen brief articles the new structure is defined: the Members are no longer Cardinals, who are assisted by consultors, but teachers in biblical sciences coming from various schools and nations, who are distinguished ‘for their learning, prudence and Catholic respect for the ecclesiastical Magisterium’ (art. 3).
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From this change of structure there follows necessarily a change of nature and of functions. Since it is no longer composed of Cardinals, on the model of the Roman Congregations, the new Biblical Commission becomes a consultative body, placed at the service of the Magisterium and linked to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Prefect of which is also the President of the Commission (cfr. art. 1).
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Your mind is just clouded by fundamentalist thinking. That’s not how Catholics read Scripture
Define fundamentalist. If you are saying a fundamentalist is one who accepts the Church Fathers’ views and the 1,800 yrs of consistent teaching of the Church in regards to creation, then yes, I’m a fundamentalist.
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It is statements like this that cause many of our chlldren to leave tradition.
Anyone who leaves tradition (ie the only true Catholicism) because they can’t accept that “catholic evolution” doesn’t exist and is an error, has a superficial faith. Their love of the Church and Truth is weak, and easily lost, because they are infected with worldliness which causes them to want to explain Divine Truths with natural reason - both an impossibility and a heresy. Further, if they would leave the Faith for these petty reasons it is easily supposed that these persons fall prey to human respect because wanting to believe in “catholic evolution” is just a way for people to “fit in” with our godless, science-worshipping, freemasonic society. True Catholicism is ALWAYS at odds with the world, the flesh and the devil and its teachings do not change over time nor are they “updated for modern man”.
I don't believe in evolution, but I won't condemn everyone who does.
This is relativism.
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E & S are BOTH in lateral & rotational motion. Helio & Geocentrism are BOTH wrong.. :cheers:
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The PBC has no authority at all. It is purely a consultative body.
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http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_docuмents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_14071997_pcbible_en.html
Perhaps that's how it is with the modernist Church, but not so before. To quote Pope St. Pius X, Praestantia Scripturae:
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)]After mature examination and the most diligent deliberations the Pontifical Biblical Commission has happily given certain decisions of a very useful kind for the proper promotion and direction on safe lines of Biblical studies. But we observe that some persons, unduly prone to opinions and methods tainted by pernicious novelties and excessively devoted to the principle of false liberty, which is really immoderate license and in sacred studies proves itself to be a most insidious and a fruitful source of the worst evils against the purity of the faith, have not received and do not receive these decisions with the proper obedience.
Wherefore we find it necessary to declare and to expressly prescribe, and by this our act we do declare and decree that all are bound in conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Commission relating to doctrine, which have been given in the past and which shall be given in the future, in the same way as to the decrees of the Roman congregations approved by the Pontiff; nor can all those escape the note of disobedience or temerity, and consequently of grave sin, who in speech or writing contradict such decisions, and this besides the scandal they give and the other reasons for which they may be responsible before God for other temerities and errors which generally go with such contradictions.[/color]
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius10/p10prasc.htm
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This is relativism.
The Church has explicitly allowed discussion in this field.
What's the phrase, "in essentials, unity, in doubtful matters, liberty"?
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Perhaps that's how it is with the modernist Church, but not so before. To quote Pope St. Pius X, Praestantia Scripturae: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius10/p10prasc.htm
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]It's a sad fact that the Pontifical Biblical Commission established by Pope St Pius X no longer exists.[/color]
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Sungenis Is a ridiculous fundie who makes the Church look bad with his fundamentalism. Fr. Robinson’s work is excellent, and he makes a good point when he argues that too many Trads are being sucked into fundamentalist Protestant understandings of science. The Bible is not a science manual. There is no conflict between modern science and orthodox Catholicism. Read Providentissimus Deus by Pope Leo XIII.
The Church always looks "bad" to the ill-willed!
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Of course, there is no conflict between science and Catholicism, but your understanding of both science and Catholicism has been somehow warped most probably by a modernist education. You are far from alone in that. Most of us have been it.
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I'd like to hear how you define fundamentalism also, and while you are at it, can you define "modern" science and how it differs from science.
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Meanwhile you do well to read up at the Kolbe Center.
There is a particularly relevant article here:
http://kolbecenter.org/scoffers-will-arise-in-the-last-days-a-reply-to-fr-paul-robinson-fsspx/ (http://kolbecenter.org/scoffers-will-arise-in-the-last-days-a-reply-to-fr-paul-robinson-fsspx/)
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I don't believe in evolution, but I won't condemn everyone who does. The Biblical Commission made it clear that Catholics could interpret days as periods of time. (And if anyone thinks the Biblical Commission can be easily dismissed, remember that Lamentabili was a decision of the Holy Office approved in forma specifica by St. Pius X, same as decisions of the Biblical Commission.)
Furthermore, as to the claim that it's "modernist philosophy", most leading Thomists of the 20th century, including Garrigou-Lagrange, taught that some form of evolution from pre-existing matter was conceivable, within limits. Ott, another author trads should be familiar with, says "while the fact of the creation of man by God in the literal sense must be closely adhered to, in the question as to the mode and manner of the formation of the human body, an interpretation which diverges from the strict literal sense is, on weighty grounds, permissible." (Fundamentals, p95).
That's correct.
On the other hand, the ideas of modern scientists clash with other statements of the same Biblical Commission.
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E & S are BOTH in lateral & rotational motion. Helio & Geocentrism are BOTH wrong.. :cheers:
That's an opinion rejecting never abrogated condemnations of the church.
Besides: It is a preposterous statement. You're not able to prove what you claim.
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The Church has explicitly allowed discussion in this field.
That's true.
On the other hand, modern ideas of evolution since Darwin contradict the Biblical Commission anyway. E.g. they have no room for an Eve who does not have father and mother.
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The Church always looks "bad" to the ill-willed!
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Of course, there is no conflict between science and Catholicism, but your understanding of both science and Catholicism has been somehow warped most probably by a modernist education. You are far from alone in that. Most of us have been it.
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I'd like to hear how you define fundamentalism also, and while you are at it, can you define "modern" science and how it differs from science.
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Meanwhile you do well to read up at the Kolbe Center.
There is a particularly relevant article here:
http://kolbecenter.org/scoffers-will-arise-in-the-last-days-a-reply-to-fr-paul-robinson-fsspx/ (http://kolbecenter.org/scoffers-will-arise-in-the-last-days-a-reply-to-fr-paul-robinson-fsspx/)
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Good stuff, Nadir. Thanks for the Kolbe Center link!
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Scoffers will arise in the last days!
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St. Paul must have been privileged to see some amazing visions of the future.
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II Tim. 4:3-4
[3] (http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=62&ch=4&l=3#x) For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: [4] (http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=62&ch=4&l=4#x) And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.
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The Kolbe title (scoffers-will-arise-in-the-last-days) more specifically refers to Chapter 3 of the First Epistle of St. Peter, a short letter, just one page, which is shown to have been written a very short time before his martyrdom, and is thus seen as his final act of instruction for those who would be saved, an exhortation toward godliness. BTW evolution is not godly. In this very Epistle, St. Peter refers to St. Paul's prophesy and words of caution, saying the "unlearned and unstable" (the new Biblical Commission?!) wrest the words of St. Paul, with other Scriptures, to their own destruction! Not only that, St. Peter touches on several aspects of evolutionism, Modernism, our current conflict of faith vs. so-called science, the historical reality of the Flood of Noah (which evolutionists are famous for "scoffing" at!), the manner of the end of the world (by fire, with "heat," and the heavens rolled up like a scroll, which evolutionists are famous for "scoffing" at), and so on. It's veritably packed with hot topics relevant for us in our own time!
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The error of the unwise, in our age, are the "errors of Russia" that Our Lady warned us about: Modernism, scientism, denial of original sin (and therefore the necessity of Baptism and sanctifying grace!), evolutionism, abortion, euthanasia, atheism, materialism, willful ignorance, and pride. All of these are virtually identical with the literal words, "denying the second coming of Christ."
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Second Epistle Of Saint Peter
Chapter 3 | |
Against scoffers denying the second coming of Christ. He declares the sudden dissolution of this world and exhorts to holiness of life.
[1] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=1-#x) Behold this second epistle I write to you, my dearly beloved, in which I stir up by way of admonition your sincere mind: [2] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=2-#x) That you may be mindful of those words which I told you before from the holy prophets, and of your apostles, of the precepts of the Lord and Saviour. [3] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=3-#x) Knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts, [4] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=4-#x) Saying: Where is his promise or his coming? for since the time that the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. [5] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=5-#x) For this they are wilfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, consisting by the word of God.
[6] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=6-#x) Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. [7] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=7-#x) But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of the ungodly men. [8] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=8-#x)But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. [9] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=9-#x) The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance. [10] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=10-#x) But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up.
[11] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=11-#x) Seeing then that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in holy conversation and godliness? [12] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=12-#x) Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of the Lord, by which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat? [13] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=13-#x) But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to his promises, in which justice dwelleth.[14] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=14-#x) Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found before him unspotted and blameless in peace. [15] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=15-#x) And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you:
[16] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=16-#x) As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. [17] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=17-#x) You therefore, brethren, knowing these things before, take heed, lest being led aside by the error of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness. [18] (http://drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=68&ch=3&l=18-#x) But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and unto the day of eternity. Amen. |
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The Church always looks "bad" to the ill-willed!
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Of course, there is no conflict between science and Catholicism, but your understanding of both science and Catholicism has been somehow warped most probably by a modernist education. You are far from alone in that. Most of us have been it.
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I'd like to hear how you define fundamentalism also, and while you are at it, can you define "modern" science and how it differs from science.
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Meanwhile you do well to read up at the Kolbe Center.
There is a particularly relevant article here:
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http://kolbecenter.org/scoffers-will-arise-in-the-last-days-a-reply-to-fr-paul-robinson-fsspx/
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A very impressive article from the Kolbe Center!
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Fr. Robinson identifies his account of the origins of man and the universe as “progressive creation,” as defined above. However, he contends that his account is the one most in harmony with Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and Magisterial teaching and that the Kolbe Center’s defense of the fiat creation of all things at the beginning of time less than ten thousand years ago actually deviates from the Magisterial teaching of the Church on creation and represents a form of “biblicism,” an over-literal interpretation of the Bible derived from Protestantism rather than from the authentic Tradition of the Catholic Church. He then scoffs at the Kolbe Center for choosing St. Maximilian Kolbe as its secondary patron, after the Immaculate Conception, because, while rejecting molecules-to-man evolution, St. Maximilian acknowledged that the science of his day taught that the universe was hundreds of millions of years old, that the solar system was not specially created, and that the Earth revolves around the sun, as in the Copernican model of the solar system. We will address each of these points in turn...
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It is tragic that Fr. Robinson gives great weight to statements of Pope Leo XIII that seem to allow for a revision of the traditional Catholic understanding of the sacred history of Genesis but no weight at all to the much more authoritative statements of the Magisterium that support the traditional reading. In this respect, Fr. Robinson has much in common with the mainstream modernist Catholic exegetes who cite Paragraph 36 of Humani generis as their charter to embrace and teach theistic evolution in the face of the plain statements of Pope Pius XII elsewhere in Humani generis that uphold fundamental tenets of the traditional doctrine of creation which clash with the evolutionary hypothesis. These include the requirement that Bishops must teach that all of Genesis 1-11 is true history (HG, 38-39); that Bishops must teach that the Bible is inerrant in all that it teaches, not just in matters of faith and morals; and that the literal sense of Scripture must be believed unless reason dictates or necessity requires. (HG, 24); that the metaphysical principles of traditional Catholic philosophy must be maintained in the examination of the evolutionary hypothesis (HG, 29); and that Speculation is sterile, while investigation of the Deposit of Faith is fruitful (HG, 21). Moreover, in Humani generis Pope Pius XII explicitly stated that the Pontifical Biblical Commission refused to abrogate its prior decrees on Genesis at the request of the Archbishop of Paris, thus confirming that those decrees, cited above, are still binding on Catholics...
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When the testimony of the Church Fathers and Doctors is taken seriously, it becomes apparent that the fiat creation of all things at the beginning of time is absolutely integral to the true Catholic doctrine of creation and that the insertion of long ages of time into the creation period involves a denial of the goodness of God and of the goodness of the first created world before the Original Sin and calls into question the inerrancy of the chronological information contained in the sacred history of Genesis...
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With their distinction between the supernatural work of creation and the natural order of providence, the Fathers and Doctors expose the principal error of the progressive creationists—their mixing of the order of the supernatural work of creation and the natural order of providence which are always kept separate in the writings of the Fathers and Doctors. Indeed, the progressive creationist makes a second error in tandem with the first when, by the introduction of long ages, he inserts supernatural creative acts of God into the natural order of providence but also into a fallen world, thus denying the unanimous testimony of the Fathers to the fact that God created a perfectly complete and harmonious universe for our first parents in the beginning of creation (...all of the different kinds of creatures, angelic and corporeal, each one perfect according to its nature, existed together with man and for man, in perfect harmony, at the same time, in a world that was completely free not only from human death, but from deformity, disease, man-harming natural disasters or any kind of disorder in nature, all of which “natural evils” only came into the world because of the Original Sin of Adam).
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Both of these errors flow from the uniformitarian error that St. Peter warned us would enter the Church in the last days—the false assumption that things have always been the same from the beginning of the universe and that therefore we can legitimately extrapolate from the material processes that are going on now all the way back to the beginning of time to determine the age of the universe. With this in mind, we will now examine the rise of the uniformitarian scoffers during the so-called Enlightenment to see how the revolution against the true Catholic doctrine of creation began outside of the household of the faith before eventually infiltrating the highest levels of the Church in the form of theistic evolution and progressive creation...
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St. Thomas Aquinas summed up the framework within which all of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Council Fathers of the Church understood the relationship between the natural order and the order of creation when he wrote in the Summa Theologiae of the “first perfection of the universe” which he defined as its “completeness at its first founding.” By this he meant that all of the different kinds of creatures were created for man, and they existed together with him in the beginning of creation, in perfect harmony. Thus, he defined the relationship between the work of creation and the operation of the natural order which began after its completion as follows:
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The completion of the universe as to the completeness of its parts belongs to the sixth day, but its completion as regards their operation, to the seventh (ST I, Q. 73, Reply to Obj. 2).
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In other words, the origin of the different kinds of creatures—stars, plants, animals and men—cannot be explained in terms of the activity of created things—that is, in terms of the same material processes that are going on now. Thus, according to all of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Council Fathers, in their authoritative teaching, it is impossible to extrapolate from the present order of nature and from the material processes that are going on now to explain how these things came to be in the past.
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This framework was not based on human reasoning or experience. It was based on God’s revelation to Moses in which He clearly stated that the work of creation was a fiat creation and that it was finished on the sixth day with the creation of Adam and Eve. Therefore, ALL the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Council Fathers drew the boundary between theology and natural science AFTER the creation of Adam and Eve. From this starting point, they recognized that the work of creation was the proper realm of the theologian. The natural order—which began AFTER creation was finished—was the proper realm of the natural scientist.
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Those who defend atheistic or theistic evolution do not accept this premise from Divine Revelation. They believe that the same material processes that are going on now have been operating in the same way since the BEGINNING of creation—in contradiction to all of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Council Fathers in their authoritative teaching. Progressive creationists like Fr. Robinson reject the evolutionist error that one kind of living organism can generate one of a different kind but accept the uniformitarian chronology for the Earth and the universe which is based on assuming that the material processes that are going on now have been operating in more or less the same way since the beginning of creation.
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We have seen that St. Peter the first Pope actually predicted this revolution in men’s ideas when he wrote that scoffers would come in the latter days, asserting that “things have always been the same since the BEGINNING of creation.” St. Peter went on to predict that these scoffers—[Rene] Descartes, [Immanuel] Kant, [James] Hutton, [Charles] Lyell, [Charles] Darwin, [Pierre] Teilhard de Chardin and all other theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists and their modern disciples— would have to deliberately ignore the FACT—not the pious belief—that it was the Word of God that brought the heavens and the Earth and all they contain into existence, NOT a material process like what we observe in the world today. And this is, indeed, the fundamental error of all evolutionists, theistic or atheistic. Progressive creationists avoid the most egregious error of the evolutionists but still accept the false uniformitarian framework of the Enlightenment philosophers and deny the fiat creation of all things from the beginning of creation as well as the radical distinction between period of Creation and the period of Providence and between the pre-Fall and post-Fall world.
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No one exposed the folly of a uniformitarian approach to the origins and antiquity of man and the universe better than St. Augustine. In The City of God, he reflected on the creation of Eve from Adam’s side and observed that:
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This [the creation of Eve] He did as God…some people use the standards of their own daily experience to measure the power and wisdom of God, by which he has the knowledge and the ability to make seeds even without seeds. And so they regard the account of man’s Creation as fable, not fact; and because the first created works are beyond their experience, they adopt a skeptical attitude. (St. Augustine, The City of God, (London, Penguin Books, 1984), p. 504).
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In this passage St. Augustine lays bare the error that St. Peter warned us against in 2 Peter 3 and which remains the fatal flaw in all accounts of origins put forward by theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists. Both of them regard the account of creation at least in part as a “fable,” precisely because the “first created works are beyond their experience,” and they “adopt a skeptical attitude” toward the literal historical truth of Genesis 1-11 in regard to the chronology of the world.
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René Descartes (1596-1650) was the first Catholic thinker of note—i.e., the first Baptized Catholic “scoffer”—to propose that it would be “more reasonable” to explain the origin of stars, galaxies and other kinds of creatures in terms of the same material processes going on now than by fiat creation. In his Discourse on Method (of Rightly Conducting the Reason), Part V, Descartes wrote:
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But it is certain, and it is an opinion commonly received by the theologians, that the action by which He now preserves is just the same as that by which He at first created it. In this way….we may well believe…that by this means alone all things which are purely material might in course of time have become such as we observe them to be at present; and their nature is much easier to understand when we see them coming to pass little by little in this manner, than were we to consider them as all complete to begin with (emphasis added) (Great Books of the Western World, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor, Vol. 31, Descartes / Spinoza, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. Chicago, William Benton, Publisher, pp. 55-56.)
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In reality, Descartes wittingly or unwittingly distorted the “common opinion” of theologians which identified the creative action of God in creating the universe with His action in maintaining it. Rightly understood, this common opinion held that God created and sustained the universe by His divine omnipotent power, but it distinguished (on the side of the effect) between the exercise of that power to create the corporeal and spiritual creatures ex nihiloand the maintenance of the universe after it was finished and complete.
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To appreciate the importance of this conflation of the order of creation with the natural order of providence, consider the following statement by humanist philosopher John Dewey about the pivotal importance of this concept in Descartes’ writing and its link to Darwinism:
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When Descartes said: “The nature of physical things is much more easily conceived when they are beheld coming gradually into existence, than when they are only considered as produced at once in a finished and perfect state,” the modern world became self-conscious of the logic that was henceforth to control it, the logic of which Darwin’s Origin of Species is the latest scientific achievement (John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 997), p. 8.)
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In light of the fact that John Dewey (1859-1952)—the man most responsible for destroying the moral integrity of public education in the United States—identified Descartes as the one who laid the FOUNDATIONS of modern evolutionary thought, we might ask ourselves: WHY was René Descartes the first Catholic thinker of note to embrace this idea? Was he really so much smarter than St. Augustine, St. Thomas and all of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church? Is it a coincidence that Descartes dabbled in the occult and then had three “mystical dreams” brought to him by a “spirit of truth” which gave him the key to igniting a revolution in men’s thinking— a revolution that would overturn the traditional teaching that “the past—as revealed in Divine Revelation—is the key to the present” with the new mantra of the evolutionists, “the present is the key to the past”?
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Perhaps we need look no further for an answer than to Descartes’ devout Catholic contemporary Blaise Pascal. Pascal was as great a genius as Descartes but, unlike Descartes, he had true piety and he saw the terrible consequences that would result from Descartes’ arrogant denial of the traditional teaching on fiat creation in favor of a naturalistic account of origins. Hence, Pascal wrote in Pensees:
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I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy he did his best to dispense with God. But he could not avoid making Him set the world in motion with a flip of His thumb; after that he had no more use for God (Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 669) Sect. 4, No. 6.).
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St Thomas followed Aristotle in teaching that a small error in the beginning becomes a huge error later on. But in the case of Descartes, a huge error in the beginning became an unimaginably monstrous error in the end. And this explains why highly intelligent and virtuous people can be completely wrong in their conclusions about origins—because in regard to the origins of man and the universe they have accepted the false premise of Descartes and unwittingly rejected the premise that was held by ALL of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Council Fathers in their authoritative teaching. Indeed, a man could be the smartest person in the world—and virtuous and well-intentioned to boot—yet if he starts from a false premise, he will always reason (perhaps even sincerely and brilliantly) to a false conclusion—as all evolutionists do.
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In the fourth century, one generation after the Council of Nicea defined the divinity of Christ as “of the same substance as the Father,” a still larger council approved a watered-down version of the Creed which styled Him only “of like substance with the Father.” Of this dark moment in Church history, St. Jerome wrote that “The world groaned and found itself Arian.”
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Less than 150 years ago, Vatican Council I reaffirmed the teaching of Lateran IV verbatim—that God created all the different kinds of corporeal and spiritual creatures by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time—but it went further. In response to the errors of Descartes, Hutton, Lyell, Darwin and other evolutionists, already gaining widespread acceptance among intellectuals in Europe and North America, the Council condemned the following proposition:
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If anyone says that it is possible that to the dogmas declared by the Church a meaning must sometimes be attributed according to the progress of science, different from that which the Church has understood and understands, let him be anathema (Vatican I, Faith and reason – Canon 3).
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In the light of this forgotten and most charitable anathema, the case is clear: No Catholic is permitted to argue that the progress of the natural sciences requires that the traditional Catholic doctrine of creation be changed. Therefore, if the fiat creation of all things at the beginning of time IS the traditional teaching of the Church—as even theistic evolutionists admit—then the progress of the sciences may not be used as grounds for changing that teaching. And yet, if St. Jerome were walking the earth today, he would surely say of our time, “The whole world groaned . . . and found itself Cartesian”!
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[And so on -- the article is several times longer than the excerpts above! ...
... FYI -- "Cartesian" means based on Descartes' work. The Cartesian plane, for example, is the basis of all higher mathematics, and as such is indispensable to physics, engineering, modern methods of transportation, technology and science, among others.]
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I don't believe in evolution, but I won't condemn everyone who does. The Biblical Commission made it clear that Catholics could interpret days as periods of time. (And if anyone thinks the Biblical Commission can be easily dismissed, remember that Lamentabili was a decision of the Holy Office approved in forma specifica by St. Pius X, same as decisions of the Biblical Commission.)
Furthermore, as to the claim that it's "modernist philosophy", most leading Thomists of the 20th century, including Garrigou-Lagrange, taught that some form of evolution from pre-existing matter was conceivable, within limits. Ott, another author trads should be familiar with, says "while the fact of the creation of man by God in the literal sense must be closely adhered to, in the question as to the mode and manner of the formation of the human body, an interpretation which diverges from the strict literal sense is, on weighty grounds, permissible." (Fundamentals, p95).
Ah! Here is the problem with the traditional and the novus PBC. Which one to follow? (facetious question)
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According to the given link from Kolbe:
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Pope Leo XIII founded the Pontifical Biblical Commission to combat modernism in the realm of Scriptural exegesis, and Pope St. Pius X made the PBC an arm of the Magisterium and declared dissent from its decrees a serious sin. In 1909, the PBC replied to eight questions about Genesis 1-3 and declared that no Catholic could deny three “facts” contained in Genesis 1-3 that pertain to the foundations of the Christian Faith. These were the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special creation of Adam body and soul; and the creation of Eve from Adam’s side. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how the creation of “all things” at “the beginning of time” can be reconciled with Fr. Robinson’s Big Bang cosmology in which the only things created at the “beginning of time” are some hydrogen, helium and lithium.
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Moreover, in its other answers, the PBC ruled that all of Genesis 1-3 is historical and that exegetes must adhere to the proper, or literal and obvious, sense of the text of Genesis 1-3, unless reason dictates or necessity requires. Indeed, while allowing scholars to discuss whether “day” in Genesis 1 refers to a 24-day or an indefinite space of time, the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way.” But the Fathers held that the days of Genesis were either 24-hour days—the overwhelming majority view—or an instant—the Augustinian minority view. Hence, rightly expounded, the PBC decrees of 1909 leave exegetes without any choice for the length of the creation period except for “six 24-hour days” or an instantaneous creation.*
Emphases mine.
*In other words, why did creation take so long as 6 days. It seems a Catholic may opt for 6 days or he may opt for a shorter time span - an instant, but not a longer time span. I go for 6 days myself.
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I'd like to hear how you define fundamentalism also, and while you are at it, can you define "modern" science and how it differs from science.
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Asking a neo-Catholic liberal to define anything is like asking for blood out of a turnip.
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They're all about steering clear of definition, and abhor the preeminence of doctrine, that is, unless the doctrine is liberalism.
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As far as I know Catholics including clerics of the SSPX have generally agreed that it is axiomatic that error has no rights. They also hold as far as I know that macro evolution including theistic evolution is error and no small one at that. Fr. Robinson pushes a form of theistic evolution in his book. In doing this Fr. Robinson is most unfortunately in grave error regardless of whether he realizes it or not.
Fr. Robinson promotes other serious errors as well which are subversive of the Catholic Faith. Amazing, absolutely amazing, how the leadership of the SSPX has not only permitted Fr. Robinson to have his book published, but then has actually "blessed"/promoted/sold it on at least one its websites! A book that would surely have merited to be placed on the Index of Forbidden Books when that Index was still operating is now given a wide open green light by the SSPX.
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Yes, theistic evolution is the ultimate compromise ... from people trying to make peace with the errors of the world. Isn't that how Vatican II billed itself?
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My favorite argument that the Kolbe Center has made against theistic evolution is their pointing out the implications of Our Lady of Lourdes referring to herself as “the Immaculate Conception”. The language used by Our Lady implies that her privilege of being immaculately conceived was singular and unique. Now if Eve was not literally created by God from the rib of Adam as an adult (as Scripture and Tradition clearly teach), but was instead conceived from some kind of sub-human primate, then Eve would also have been immaculately conceived because at this point there was no original sin. One of the antiphons of the Little Office of the BVM makes reference to Our Lady's role as the destroyer of heresies, “Rejoice, O Virgin Mary thou alone hast destroyed all heresies in all the world.” It is not irreverent to speculate that Our Lady said what she did at Lourdes precisely to destroy the heresy of evolution. In all of Our Lady's major modern apparitions she has done something to destroy one or more of the modern heresies. For example, at Fatima she destroyed the heresy of universal salvation by showing the children the vision of hell and by instructing us to say the “Oh my Jesus” prayer at the end of each decade of the Rosary.
Leo XIII wrote the following in his encyclical Arcanum:
We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep.
It is not all that surprising that the SSPX is supportive of theistic evolution given their high esteem for Pope Pius XII. Pius XII's undermining of the Genesis creation account was just one of his many faults. More traditionalists are starting to wake up to this fact as is evident by even the FSSP criticizing the Holy Week “reforms” that took place under his pontificate. And of course Pius XII's greatest offense was his failure to defend the thrice defined dogma, outside the Church there is no salvation, despite his having been informed by Fr. Leonard Feeney and the other members of the St. Benedict Center that this particular dogma was being either ignored, denied, or made meaningless by the vast majority of the clergy in the United States. Father Feeney's The Point was a newspaper written in the 1950's that is very much worth reading for those who want to get a better sense of the existence and extent of the crisis in the Church in that decade. Here is a link to the articles https://fatherfeeney.wordpress.com/
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Anyone who leaves tradition (ie the only true Catholicism) because they can’t accept that “catholic evolution” doesn’t exist and is an error, has a superficial faith. Their love of the Church and Truth is weak, and easily lost, because they are infected with worldliness which causes them to want to explain Divine Truths with natural reason - both an impossibility and a heresy. Further, if they would leave the Faith for these petty reasons it is easily supposed that these persons fall prey to human respect because wanting to believe in “catholic evolution” is just a way for people to “fit in” with our godless, science-worshipping, freemasonic society. True Catholicism is ALWAYS at odds with the world, the flesh and the devil and its teachings do not change over time nor are they “updated for modern man”.
I didn't say this in a vacuum. It's not specifically about what you call "catholic evolution", but as I said "statements like this". That is, statements imposing a restriction the Church does not.
Consider Galatians 1-2, where St. Paul rebuked St. Peter for implying the Mosaic law was binding. When St. Paul had taught otherwise he was not trying to "fit in" and please men (Gal 1:10)! No, it was St. Peter who was trying to "fit in" with the Hebrew Catholics by adopting restrictive practices contrary to the true Faith.
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In all seriousness, can anyone think of a worse (and more dangerous and more scandalous) book that has ever been officially sold by the SSPX in their entire history than The Realist Guide to Religion and Science by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX?
Still no contending nominations? Just one drop of modernism can poison the well and Fr. Robinson's misguided and misinformed work has a lot more than one drop.
Robert Sungenis in his thoroughly docuмented 564 page book Scientific Heresies and Their Effect on the Church -- A Critical Analysis of: "The Realist Guide to Religion and Science" repeatedly quotes Archbishop Lefebvre, himself, to show how at variance the thinking of the founder of the SSPX was from that of Fr Robinson. Sungenis states on p. 29: "It is my contention that Fr. Robinson, insofar as he represents the SSPX, has abandoned the aforementioned teachings on Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium that Archbishop Lefebvre left to the SSPX. As his book outlines, the escape route Fr. Robinson uses to make his departure from tradition is his 'reason,' that is, he has reasoned -- through what he understands to be the 'truths' of science -- that he cannot hold Scripture as an authority on science or history; nor can he accept the Fathers and their consensus on these issues; and he has the right, through the same reason, to ignore what the medieval Magisterium decreed on these same issues. In this regard, it appears he is little different than the liberals coming out of Vatican II."
Sungenis goes on to state on p. 29 that Fr. Robinson in publishing his rather lengthy book and then obstinately doubling down when challenged on his views expressed therein "becomes somewhat of a Poster Boy for all those in the Catholic Church today who have abandoned the Church's traditional interpretation of the Bible in favor of current scientific theories (the Big Bang, long-ages, evolution, heliocentrism, uniformitarianism, radiometry, sedimentology, etc.)."
The last thing the SSPX needs is a Poster Boy for scientific heresies!
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Your mind is just clouded by fundamentalist thinking. That’s not how Catholics read Scripture
It is perfectly clear reading this thread that confusion reigns with regard the subject of faith and reason, also called faith and science, and the part Scripture plays in this subject.
Now you would think after 2018 years of Catholicism the flock should know WHAT the Church teaches. Yet, look at the profound differences of opinions here among mostly 'traditional Catholics,' and all those likes and dislikes on this one thread, and it looks like an argument that one would find in a boxing ring.
What I have learned from my own research and more recently from reading the 2013 book on the papal speeches to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, is that the argument going on in this thread began in 1616 when Galileo and his friends decided to read the Bible according to their own opinions just liker the Protestants. Oh Yes, he said the very same things I see repeated here, that the Bible is not a science book and those sorts of subjects in it belong to science not revelation. Cardinal Bellarmine put him right when he said that the problem is not the subject matter but what the authors of the Scriptures said. In other words, it is heresy to contradict the revelations of Scripture no matter what the subject matter.
Now we all know what happened. Heliocentrism was defined as formal heresy in 1616, confirmed as irreversible in 1633, and further confirmed as 'infallible' in the records of the Holy Office in 1820. Meanwhile all those proofs for heliocentrism came pouring in from astronomers and philosophers and all attacked the Church for condemning Galileo and for impeding the progress of science. As it turned out no such proof was ever found as science had to admit no human science can confirm for certain the helio or geo order of the universe. Thus they began to treat it as a metaphysical matter. Now Metaphysics is a matter belonging to the Catholic Faith. Catholics believe things on faith alone and that is why the Church and all the Fathers believed in their senses and the revelation of Scripture that the sun moves around the Earth. Their proof was because God said it in His Scriptures.
In 1835, after near a 100 years of Church battering by proud 'intellectuals' and the Masonic Royal Socierty of London that the papal decree was wrong in science, the popes conceded and allowed the flock to believe heliocentrism as a truth of nature thus inferring in no uncertain manner that the moving sun of Scripture really meant a fixed sun. In other words, popes now gave science, or rather theories because there are no proofs in science, the ability to change the literal meaning of Scripture, especially Genesis.
The very first evolutionary theory arose when Laplace modified the Nebular theory in 1796. This theory speculated how that solar systen, the one defined as formal heresy that was adopted as a scientific FACT (not as a heresy) by popes later in 1835. So, having fallen for their false scientific proofs, popes were now COMPELLED to ignore the evolution of their new natural and biblical solar system. Carried along with the FLOOD of origin theories now, popes had to accept billions of years of evolution in the creation act of God whether they liked it or not. Oh yes, in their speeches which you can read in the book below, they made this pot-puree of Catholicism and billions of years of evolution look as Catholic as they could.
http://www.pas.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv100.pdf (http://www.pas.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv100.pdf)
So, from 1835 it was popes who were fooled into dismissing the traditional ex nihilo immediate creation as revealed in Genesis, and MODERNISE it make the billions of years of evolution look like it is the very same teaching.
Three Encyclicals have been weritten by three popes on the subject of Scriptural interpretation. Leo XIII gave licence for changes if science showed they were needed. Benedict XV tried to put a stop to these changes stating the Bible is without error in EVERYTHING it says, but Pope Pius XII the evolutionist came back with a third encyclical, opening the doors to 'scientific' changes and understanding once again if any changes were needed.
If you do not believe me study the history of it all and read how all these 'scientists' are praised by them over the years, some anti-Christs like Voltaire are mentioned as champions in the speeches in the book above.
Vatican I decreed the Church was to prevent the flock from heresy and false philosophy. Popes failed to save the Church from false assertions that geocentrism was proven wrong. The Creative act of God was turned into a nonsense billions of years of evolution, an insult to human intelligence. Heretical aliens were reintroduced as probable.
The evolution popes allowed creep into Catholic belief became the bedrock of Communism and atheism. Millions of souls did not fall for the claims of popes that God was behind all these billions of years on miracles turning sponges into the body of Adam. No, they, like Laplace, praised by Pope Pius XII, who, when asked where God fits into natural evolution of their heliocentric solar system, coined the phrase 'I have no need of that hypothesis.' If both Popes and science, allow as a truth a natural evolution of all, then who need God?
Finally, ever read Ratzinger's book In the Beginning? Well Adam and Eve are Gone and Original Sin is gone in its traditional meaning. Pope francis would baptise a Martian if asked. And we thought only the descendants of Adam needed Baptism.
Today it is faith and science-fiction. For me and others it is simple immediate creation of all by God in the beginning. How simple is that, even a child could understand its simplicity.
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Today it is faith and science-fiction. For me and others it is simple immediate creation of all by God in the beginning. How simple is that, even a child could understand its simplicity.
Matt 18: 1-3
At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who thinkest thou is the greater in the kingdom of heaven?
And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them,
And said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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the argument going on in this thread began in 1616 when Galileo and his friends decided to read the Bible according to their own opinions just liker the Protestants. Oh Yes, he said the very same things I see repeated here, that the Bible is not a science book and those sorts of subjects in it belong to science not revelation. Cardinal Bellarmine put him right when he said that the problem is not the subject matter but what the authors of the Scriptures said. In other words, it is heresy to contradict the revelations of Scripture no matter what the subject matter.
Cardinal Inquisitor Bellarmine (later to be canonized and declared a doctor of the Church) wrote to Father Paolo Antonio Foscarini on 4-12-1615: "Second, I say that, as you know, the Council [of Trent] has prohibited interpretation of Scripture contrary to the common agreement of the Holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence will read not only the Holy Fathers but also the modern commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Joshua, you will find that they all agree on the literal interpretation that the sun is in heaven and rotates around the earth with great speed, and that the earth is very far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the world. Ask yourself then how could the Church, in its prudence, support an interpretation of Scripture which is contrary to all the Holy Fathers and to all the Greek and Latin commentators. Nor can one reply that this is not a matter of faith, because even if it is not a mater of faith because of the subject matter [exparte objecti], it is still a matter of faith because of the speaker [ex parte decentis]. Thus anyone who would say that Abraham did not have two sons and Jacob twelve would be just as much of a heretic as someone who would say that Christ was not born of a virgin, for the Holy Spirit has said both of these things through the mouths of the Prophets and the Apostles."
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Stanley N said:
The Church has explicitly allowed discussion in this field. What's the phrase, "in essentials, unity, in doubtful matters, liberty"?
Nadir's post (below) answered your question. Yes, the Church has allowed discussion. No, this does not mean you are free to believe whatever you want but MUST discuss Genesis WITHIN THE PARAMETERS of what the Church Fathers debated - i.e. 6 day creation or instant creation.
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According to the given link from Kolbe:
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Pope Leo XIII founded the Pontifical Biblical Commission to combat modernism in the realm of Scriptural exegesis, and Pope St. Pius X made the PBC an arm of the Magisterium and declared dissent from its decrees a serious sin. In 1909, the PBC replied to eight questions about Genesis 1-3 and declared that no Catholic could deny three “facts” contained in Genesis 1-3 that pertain to the foundations of the Christian Faith. These were the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special creation of Adam body and soul; and the creation of Eve from Adam’s side. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how the creation of “all things” at “the beginning of time” can be reconciled with Fr. Robinson’s Big Bang cosmology in which the only things created at the “beginning of time” are some hydrogen, helium and lithium.
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Moreover, in its other answers, the PBC ruled that all of Genesis 1-3 is historical and that exegetes must adhere to the proper, or literal and obvious, sense of the text of Genesis 1-3, unless reason dictates or necessity requires. Indeed, while allowing scholars to discuss whether “day” in Genesis 1 refers to a 24-day or an indefinite space of time, the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way.” But the Fathers held that the days of Genesis were either 24-hour days—the overwhelming majority view—or an instant—the Augustinian minority view. Hence, rightly expounded, the PBC decrees of 1909 leave exegetes without any choice for the length of the creation period except for “six 24-hour days” or an instantaneous creation.*
Emphases mine.
*In other words, why did creation take so long as 6 days. It seems a Catholic may opt for 6 days or he may opt for a shorter time span - an instant, but not a longer time span. I go for 6 days myself.
That is, statements imposing a restriction the Church does not.
Consider Galatians 1-2, where St. Paul rebuked St. Peter for implying the Mosaic law was binding. When St. Paul had taught otherwise he was not trying to "fit in" and please men (Gal 1:10)! No, it was St. Peter who was trying to "fit in" with the Hebrew Catholics by adopting restrictive practices contrary to the true Faith.
The Church's PBC said that Catholics are allowed to debate based on what the Church Fathers had debated. They also "left the door open" for the Church to redefine parts of Genesis if science/facts add additional insights. To date, there are NO FACTS which support "catholic evolution" (yet Fr R presumes that science has proven evolution, which is a false foundation). Also, Fr R continues with his false starting point and then takes the PBC out of context to re-define "day" as millions of years, because he argues that science has "proven" evolution, so the PBC allows a re-defining of Genesis.
Fr R's acceptance of the lies of modern science is at the heart of his error. If a catholic accepts the reality that there is NO scientific evidence for evolution and those "evidences" which exist are hoaxes, then he will easily see that 1) there is no reason to re-define "day" apart from the allowed debate of the Church Fathers and 2) there is no reason to doubt Scripture's creation account as it is taught and understood by 4 yr olds.
And said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18:3)
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In 1835, after near a 100 years of Church battering by proud 'intellectuals' and the Masonic Royal Socierty of London that the papal decree was wrong in science, the popes conceded and allowed the flock to believe heliocentrism as a truth of nature thus inferring in no uncertain manner that the moving sun of Scripture really meant a fixed sun.
Although Galileo's name came off the Index of Forbidden Books in 1835 it must be noted (perhaps, contrary to popular albeit mistaken opinion) that imprimaturs cannot change Catholic doctrine.
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Fr. R. was taught and believed the Biblical 7 days of Creation, and Geocentrism.
He changed after he got involved with the Society. Now he thinks going "back with Rome" is a good thing.
His book is a useful tool for the "New Society" - they can show it at Rome and say, "See, you can trust us - we are coming along!"
Fr. R. is also himself, a useful tool. He is in over his head.
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Any SSPX Priest that teaches Evolution is acceptable to be taught in their schools should be kicked out. Don't let the door hit you in the butt either. Whats wrong with teaching what the church always taught from the beginning. Evolution is a communist invention to usurp the faith of christians. Its purpose is to get them to deny their "GOD " . to get them to put everything they've been taught by the church in doubt. Any Pius X Priest that promotes evolution is knowningly or unknowingly useful idiots.
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It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how the creation of “all things” at “the beginning of time” can be reconciled with Fr. Robinson’s Big Bang cosmology in which the only things created at the “beginning of time” are some hydrogen, helium and lithium.
One way to do the reconciliation would be in the manner of Augustine. For Augustine all things where included in the act of creation but some in act and others in potency. In act was created the fundamental elements, the angels, and the "eternal" heavenly bodies. The plants, and animals where created only in potency.
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Yes, theistic evolution is the ultimate compromise ... from people trying to make peace with the errors of the world. Isn't that how Vatican II billed itself?
May I ask Ladislaus, do you believe in a young earth?
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May I ask Ladislaus, do you believe in a young earth?
While not directed to me, I believe in biblical timing.
The Scriptures state: Adam 5 days, Noah and the flood 1056 years (2941BC), Abraham 1950 after creation (AC), Exodus 2540AC, birth of Jesus 3997AC, death of Jesus 4030AC at 33 years, fall of Jerusalem 4070AC, world on 2000AD was 5997 years old, 2018 years after Christ was the year 6,014AC and so on.
Just as popes fell for the false science that biblical geocentrism was proven false, so too did they fall for uniformitarianism and Einstein's age for the stars. And just as biblical geocentrism was discarded by 'intellectual' Catholicism, sciences theories caused them to discard the very timing given by Scripture itself.
Go read the teachings of Councils and the three encyclicals on the Scriptures and you will see them tell us every word of Scripture is true. Then, when James Hutton Charles Lyell and the boys in the Geological Society of London around 1830, just before Pope Gregory XV got rid of the last five books advocating heliocentrism from the Index 'without comment,' proposed that sediments were laid down over millions of years. In his book The Rise of the Evolution Fraud Malcom Bowden quotes a letter from Lyell saying his theory will 'free science from Moses.' In our time, mount St Helens erupted forming millions of years of their layers of sediments in a few days.
As a consequence of this theory, the Flood of Noah that the Bible tells us laid down the strata we now find filled with 100% perfect Fossils of all Kinds, had to go into Uniformitarian mode. So, today it is portrayed in Catholic encyclopedias as a LOCAL flood. This in turn makes a joke of Noah building an Arc and all that when he could have gone elsewhere on holiday for a year. The Arc, as a divine type of the Church as the only way to salvation now looks like another fairy tale.
As for Einstein's multi-aged universe, well go read Genesis and you will see God created Man with all the visible stars visible. Thus there is no time necessary for starlight to reach Adam. In other words God created the universe in one time zone, all revolving in the same time.
Earlier the question as to why God created all in seven days; As we know the theology of God is infinite and there had to be a reason why he chose six days and rested on the seventh to show creation was complete. Here is one account of the theology of seven day creation.:
29. ‘I learnt also to understand the quality of these perfections of the highest Lord: that He is beautiful without a blemish, great without quantity, good without need of qualification, eternal without the duration of time, strong without any weakness, living without touch of decay, true without deceit, present in all places, filling them without occupying them, existing in all things without occupying any space….
Although, this divine knowledge is one, most simple and indivisible, nevertheless since the things which I see are many, and since there is a certain order, by which some are first and some come after, it is necessary to divide the knowledge of God’s intelligence and the knowledge of his will into many instants, or into many different acts, according as they correspond to the diverse orders of created things. For as some of the creatures hold their existence because of others, there is a dependence of one upon the other. Accordingly we say that God intended and decreed this before that, the one on account of the other; and that if He had not desired or included in the science of vision the one He would not have desired the other. But by this way of speaking, we must not try to convey the meaning that God placed many acts of intelligence, or of the will; rather we must intend merely to indicate, that the creatures are dependent on each other and that they succeed one another. In order to be able to comprehend the manner of creation more easily, we apply the order of things as we see them objectively, to the acts of the divine intelligence and will in creating them…. [Genesis: creation of heaven, Earth, sun, stars, flora, fauna and mankind.]
I understood that this order comprises the following instants. The first instant is: God recognizing his infinite attributes and perfections together with the propensity and the ineffable inclination to communicate Himself outwardly… The second instant was to confirm and determine the object and intention of this communication of the Divinity ad extra, namely… to set in motion his Omnipotence in order that He might be known, praised and glorified… The third instant consisted in selecting and determining the order and arrangement, or the mode of this communication, so as to realize in an adequate manner the most exalted ends…. The fourth instant was to determine the gifts and graces, which were to be conferred upon the humanity of Christ, our Lord, in union with the Divinity…. In this fifth decree the creation of the angelic nature which is more excellent and more like unto the spiritual being of the Divinity was determined upon, and at the same time the division or arrangement of the angelic hosts into nine choirs and three hierarchies was provided and decreed.… To this instant also belong the predestination of the good, and the reprobation of the bad angels. God saw in it, by means of his infinite science, all the works of the former and of the latter and the propriety of predestination by his free will and by his merciful liberality, those that would obey and give honour, and of reprobating by his justice those who would rise up against his Majesty in pride and disobedience on account of their disordered self-love. In the same instant also was decreed the creation of the empyrean heaven, for the manifestation of his glory and the reward of the good; also the Earth and the heavenly bodies for the other creatures; also in the centre or depth of the Earth, hell, for the punishment of the bad angels….
In the sixth instant was decreed the creation of a people and the congregation of men for Christ, who was already formed in the divine mind and will, and according to his image and likeness man was to be made, in order, that the incarnate Word might find brethren, similar but inferior to Himself and a people of his own nature, of whom He might be the Head. In this instant was determined the order of creation of the whole human race, which was to begin from one man and woman and propagate itself, until the Virgin and her Son should be born in the predestined order….
In the same instant, and as it were in the third and last place, God determined to create a locality and an abode, where the incarnate Word and his Mother should converse and dwell. For them primarily did He create the heaven and Earth with its stars and elements and all that is contained in them. Secondarily the intention and decree included the creation of the members, of which Jesus was to be the Head, and of whom He would be the King; in order that with kingly providence, all the necessary and befitting arrangements might be made beforehand….
Of the first day Moses says that “In the beginning God created heaven and Earth.” And before creating intellectual and rational creatures, desiring also the order of executing these works to be most perfect, He created heaven for angels and men; and the Earth as a place of pilgrimage for mortals. These places are so adapted to their end and so perfect that as David says of them, the heavens publish the glory of the Lord, the firmament and the Earth announce the glory of the work of his hands (Ps.18, 2). The heavens in their beauty manifest His magnificence and glory, because in them is deposited the predestined reward of the just. And the earthly firmament announced that there would be creatures and man to inhabit the Earth and that man should journey upon it to their Creator. Of the Earth Moses says that it was void, which he does not say of the heavens, for God had created the angels at the instant indicated by the word of Moses: “God said: Let there be light, and light was made.” He speaks here not only of material light, but also of the intellectual or angelic lights…. God created the Earth co-jointly with the heavens in order to call into existence hell in its centre; for, at the instant of its creation, there were left in the interior of that globe, spacious and wide cavities, suitable for hell, purgatory and limbo. And in hell was created at the same time material fire and other requisites, which now serve for the punishment of the damned. The Lord was presently to divide the light from the darkness and to call the light day and the darkness night. And this did happen not only in regard to the natural night and day, but in regard to the good and bad angels; for to the good, He gave the eternal light of his vision and called it day, the eternal day, and to the bad, the night of sin, casting them into the eternal darkness of hell.
The angels were created in the empyrean heavens and in the state of grace by which they might be first to merit the reward of glory. For although they were in the midst of glory, the Divinity itself was not to be made manifest to them face to face and unveiled, until they should have merited such a favour by obeying the divine will. The holy angels, as well as the bad ones, remained only a very short time in the state of probation; for their creation and probation with its result were three distinct instants or moments, separated by short intermissions. In the first instant they were all created and endowed with graces and gifts, coming into existence as most beautiful and perfect creatures. Then followed a short pause, during which the will of the Creator was propounded and intimated, and the law and command was given to them, to acknowledge Him as their Maker and supreme Lord, and to fulfil the end for which they have been created. During this pause, instant or interval, Saint Michael and his angels fought that great battle with the dragon and his followers, which is described by the apostle Saint John in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. The good angels, persevering in grace, merited eternal happiness. The disobedient angels, rebelling against God, merited the punishment, which they now suffer….
During the whole first week of the creation of the world and its contents Lucifer and the demons were occupied in machinations and projects of wickedness against the Word, who was to become incarnate, and against the Woman [who was to crush his head (Gen. 3,15)] of whom He was to be born and made man. On the first day, which corresponds to Sunday, were created the angels. Laws and precepts were given to them, for the guidance of their actions. The bad ones disobeyed and transgressed the mandates of the Lord. By divine providence and disposition then succeeded all the other events, which have been recorded above, up to the morning of the second day, corresponding to Monday, on which Lucifer and his hosts were driven and hurdled into hell. The duration of these days corresponds in the small periods, or delays, which intervened between their creation, activity, conquest and fall or glorification…. ‘The most High looked upon His Son, and upon His most holy Mother as models, produced in the culmination of his wisdom and power, in order that They serve as prototypes according to which He was to copy the whole human race. He created also the necessary material beings required for human life, but with such wisdom that some of them act as symbols, to represent, in a certain way these two Beings. On this account He made the luminaries of heaven, the sun and the moon (Gen. 1,16) so that in dividing the day and the night, they might symbolise the Sun of Justice, Christ, and His holy mother, who is beautiful as the moon (Cant: 6, 9) for these two divide the day of grace and the night of sin.
‘The sun illuminates the moon; and both, together with the stars of the firmament, illume all other creatures within the confines of the universe…. He created the rest of the beings and added to their perfection, because they were to be submissive to Christ and the most holy Mary and through them to the rest of men. Before the universe proceeded from its nothingness, He set it as a banquet abundant and unfailing, for he was to create man for his delight and to draw him to the enjoyment of his knowledge and love. Like a most courteous and bounteous Lord He did not wish that the invited guests should wait, but that both the creation and the invitation to the banquet and love by one and the same act. Man was not to lose any time in that which concerned him so much; namely, to know and to praise his almighty Maker….‘On the sixth day he formed and created Adam, as it were of the age of thirty-three years. This was the age in which Christ was to suffer death and Adam with regard to his body was so like unto Christ, that scarcely any difference existed. Also according to the soul Adam was similar to Christ. From Adam God formed Eve so similar to the Blessed Virgin that she was like unto her in personal appearance and in figure. God looked upon these two images of the great Originals with the highest pleasure and benevolence, and on account of the Originals He heaped many blessings upon them, as if He wanted to entertain Himself with them and their descendants until the time should arrive for forming Christ and Mary. But the happy state in which God had created the parents of the human race lasted only a very short while. The envy of the serpent was immediately aroused against them, for Satan was patiently awaiting their creation, and no sooner were they created, than his hatred became active against them. However, he was not permitted to witness the formation of Adam and Eve, as he had witnessed the creation of all other things: for the Lord did not choose to manifest to him the creation of man, nor the formation of Eve from a rib; all these things were concealed from him for a space of time until both of them were joined. But when the demon saw the admirable composition of the human nature, perfect beyond that of any creature, the beauty of the souls and also of the bodies of Adam and Eve; when he saw the paternal love with which the Lord regarded them, and how He made them the lords of all creation, and that He gave them hope of eternal life: the wrath of the dragon was lashed to fury, and no tongue can describe the rage with which that beast was filled, nor how great was his envy and his desire to take the life of these two beings. Like an enraged lion he certainly would have done so, if he had not known that a superior force would prevent him. Nevertheless he studied and plotted out some means, which would suffice to deprive them of the grace of the Most High and make them God’s enemies….’ ---- ‘The Mystical City of God.’
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Indeed, while allowing scholars to discuss whether “day” in Genesis 1 refers to a 24-day or an indefinite space of time, the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way.” But the Fathers held that the days of Genesis were either 24-hour days—the overwhelming majority view—or an instant—the Augustinian minority view. Hence, rightly expounded, the PBC decrees of 1909 leave exegetes without any choice for the length of the creation period except for “six 24-hour days” or an instantaneous creation.*
According to the Kolbe Center interpretation, the PBC decision to permit "day" to be considered a certain space of time, actually meant that it couldn't be considered a certain space of time? That a decision which apparently permits "free disagreement among exegetes" actually left those "exegetes without any choice"? What are they talking about? They seem to be interpreting the words of the PBC decision to mean the opposite of the plain sense of the PBC decision..
The PBC decision in question:
Whether in that designation and distinction of six days, with which the account of the first chapter of Genesis deals, the word (dies) can be assumed either in its proper sense as a natural day, or in the improper sense of a certain space of time; and whether with regard to such a question there can be free disagreement among exegetes? -- Reply: In the affirmative.
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You can’t look at the PBC’s “affirmative” in isolation of the Church Fathers or the past. The PBC was opening the door to change, based on the false assumption the science would prove that a change in “day” is necessary. However, modern science has proven no need to redefine “day” as longer than 24 hrs because they can’t prove evolution. So, we’re back to square one - the opinions of the Church Fathers.
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However, modern science has proven no need to redefine “day” as longer than 24 hrs because they can’t prove evolution. So, we’re back to square one - the opinions of the Church Fathers.
This doesn't directly concern "evolution". But are you saying the PBC decision is now obsolete?
// I find the acronym PBC somewhat funny because to me it means peanut butter cookie.
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Bellarmine: "Nor can one reply that this is not a matter of faith, because even if it is not a mater of faith because of the subject matter [exparte objecti], it is still a matter of faith because of the speaker [ex parte decentis]. Thus anyone who would say that Abraham did not have two sons and Jacob twelve would be just as much of a heretic as someone who would say that Christ was not born of a virgin, for the Holy Spirit has said both of these things through the mouths of the Prophets and the Apostles."
I had this argument with JayneK in the context of flat earth. Thanks for this quote, because St. Robert is saying the exact same thing I was arguing. JayneK was essentially saying that because the Scripture didn't "intend to teach" about natural science, whatever Scripture has to say about it should be taken with a grain of salt (implying that Scripture could be in error)." Later she backed off when I pushed against this, but kept subtly implying the same thing throughout the argument. What's lost by most people contaminated with Modernism is that the Holy Spirit is the primary author of Sacred Scripture and there can be NO error in Scripture, even with regard to historical facts or statements regarding natural science. Now, one could INTERPRET Scripture in difference senses. So, for instance, if the Scriptures said the earth is flat, that doesn't necessarily mean that the entire earth is a flat plane, but might be no different than if I were looking out over a 10,000-acre flat cornfield in Kansas and stated that it's flat (i.e. relatively flat). But to attribute ANY ERROR to Scripture, even on matters of history or natural science, was considered heretical by St. Robert Bellarmine and the theologians of his time. Even if the subject itself is not a matter of faith, the implied attribution of error to Scripture is heretical.
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May I ask Ladislaus, do you believe in a young earth?
Absolutely. I certainly believe that it's de fide that human beings haven't been in existence for more than about 6,000 years (give or take). To say otherwise would be to attribute error to Scripture and therefore heretical (as per St. Robert Bellarmine). One could make an argument that the "days" in the description of Creation meant something other than what later came to be measured by the rising and setting of the sun ... since the sun wasn't created until the 4th "day". So day could be a metaphorical use of a common term in lieu of scientific terms that were missing from the Hebrew language. But I certainly don't believe this was millions of years. You have lots of scientific evidence that backs up young earth, with fossils of dinosaurs and what even scientists consider to be "modern" humans found within the same strata.
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This doesn't directly concern "evolution". But are you saying the PBC decision is now obsolete?
The only reason to re-define "day" to mean a period of millions of years is because evolution is proven to be true, which hasn't happened. The entire reason why the PBC opened the door to "theistic evolution" was because it was thought, in 1909, that evolution had facts to prove it was correct. (Remember, in 1909, you were a few decades removed from Darwin's book on evolution, electricity had just been invented, the steel industry was taking off, the automobile was in development, - all of the industrial revolution and modern inventions were taking the world by storm. Science and engineering were growing exponentially and changing the world.)
So Pope Leo XIII, i'm sure, when faced with the THEORY that science had proven x, y and z about a change in the creation story, decided to call the PBC so the Church could study the matter. But the Church moves slowly because She is wise. So the PBC said that certain parts of Genesis could be interpreted to agree with science...if the science was true. But evolution is a lie and we know this with certainty 100 years later. So, yes, I think the PBC opinion is obsolete, when it comes to re-defining "day". If evolution is false, what need is there to re-define day? Science has given us no reason to believe evolution, therefore, there's EVERY reason to believe the creation account as the Church Fathers said - either a literal 6 days or St Augustine's instant creation.
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You can’t look at the PBC’s “affirmative” in isolation of the Church Fathers or the past. The PBC was opening the door to change, based on the false assumption the science would prove that a change in “day” is necessary. However, modern science has proven no need to redefine “day” as longer than 24 hrs because they can’t prove evolution. So, we’re back to square one - the opinions of the Church Fathers.
#1) this PBC decision has nothing to do with the question of how long human beings have been in existence
#2) it's a not a redefinition of day. In Scripture the sun was created on the 4th day. So what did "day" mean during Days 1 - 3?
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The only reason to re-define "day" to mean a period of millions of years is because evolution is proven to be true, which hasn't happened.
No, that's not the only reason. Yes, I grant that it's why most people want to redefine day. I am seeking a definition because of the problem that the sun wasn't created until the 4th day. I understand that this plays into the hands of the evolutionists. BUT ... we MUST hold de fide that human beings have been around for only about 6,000 years. I doubt you'll find anyone who redefines day who also believes that human beings haven't been around very long.
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Sacred Scripture is very clear and detailed about what it means by the term "Day"
"And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day....and the evening and morning were the second day... And the evening and the morning were the third day" etc.
How much clearer can you get? These arguments about "how long a day is" are senseless and cloud the faith. Take God at His Word.
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#2) it's a not a redefinition of day. In Scripture the sun was created on the 4th day. So what did "day" mean during Days 1 - 3?
If the same word “day” was used to describe the pre-Sun periods as the post-Sun periods, then logically, the word “day” means the same in both instances and that means that each day of creation is the same amount of time.
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How much clearer can you get? These arguments about "how long a day is" are senseless and cloud the faith. Take God at His Word.
Totally agree.
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Whether in that designation and distinction of six days, with which the account of the first chapter of Genesis deals, the word (dies) can be assumed either in its proper sense as a natural day, or in the improper sense of a certain space of time; and whether with regard to such a question there can be free disagreement among exegetes? -- Reply: In the affirmative.
This simply gives permission to scripture scholars to discuss the matter, it does not change anything, define anything, or instruct that what is discussed among the exegetes is to be taught to the faithful.
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It is distressing to see so-called traditional Catholics (re: supposedly orthodox, "true/real/old fashioned," Bible-believing Catholics) discuss Creation as though it cost God an effort to create the world. This isn't Howdy Doody we are dealing with! It's God Almighty! He could have created it all in a nano second - had it all up and running all at once - animals on the earth, Adam and Eve, sun circling, etc., and it would have cost Him no effort, not a grunt or a heave-ho. He didn't even need the time that He did take - He could have created all at once.
Instead He created with wisdom, with thought, with deliberation - in sections - to establish the hours, the days, the morning, the night, the seasons. To establish ORDER for us, and the rhythm of the world and seasons. To establish the WEEK. Where do we think the week comes from? God laid it all out for us. He "set us up" - and that He would need millions or billions of years, or "long" 7 days that aren't really 24 hours - is a blasphemy.
How can one pray, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth" - and not know that we are supposed to be telling Him that we believe in the Biblical 7 day creation of the Catholic Church, and as the Church has always taught it? He does not want to hear us tell of any other creation "type" of belief.
When the Sisters of St. Joseph taught us our catechism in the early 60's, it was a 7 day creation, just as laid out in the Bible. We all understood that. And had no problem with it. It was our delight.
"Unless ye become as little children...".
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Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day. Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works. But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.
Notice the reason God gave us for the third commandment of the decalogue. These are the very words of God Himself, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
On a side note, I knew Fr. R quite well before he went into the seminary. He knows better. Shame on him.
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I had this argument with JayneK in the context of flat earth. Thanks for this quote, because St. Robert is saying the exact same thing I was arguing. JayneK was essentially saying that because the Scripture didn't "intend to teach" about natural science, whatever Scripture has to say about it should be taken with a grain of salt (implying that Scripture could be in error)."
I neither said nor "essentially said" that Scripture should be taken with a grain of salt. I have clearly said many times that Scripture is inerrant, so it is unfair and unreasonable to claim that I have ever implied that it could be in error.
My position is that since the Church teaches that Scripture does not intend to teach about natural science, that is a principle to keep in mind when interpreting Scripture. Of course, it could not possibly mean that Scripture can be in error.
I am not sure why Ladislaus is dragging my name into a thread that I am not even part of, apparently to misrepresent my views. If you want to agree with St. Robert, please do so without making me the heretical side of an imagined debate with you.
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Here is my position on Scripture in my own words, from a post written on Dec 30, 2017. I am explaining a passage from Spiritus Paraclitus:
This section is about people who were misusing the teaching of Providentissimus Deus to claim that only the parts of Scripture concerning faith were inspired and without error. But we must not ever claim that there are errors in Scripture. Understanding that Scripture is not intended to teach science does not mean there are errors in it.
Let's say for example there were a passage of Scripture that said Joseph set out on a journey as the sun was rising in the east. According to Providentissimus Deus, the intended meaning would be that he started his journey early in the morning and this meaning would be true, inspired and without error. It would not be its intended meaning that the earth stays still while the sun moves around it because Scripture does not have the intent to teach about physical science. A phrase like "the sun was rising in the east" may be understood as a sort of figure of speech based on how it appears. It does not oblige us to believe anything about the nature of the earth.
Understanding Scripture this way in no way implies there are any errors in it or that any part lacks inspiration, but modernists were twisting Providentissimus Deus to claim that it does. Benedict XV was correcting the modernists' errors, not disagreeing with Leo XIII.
https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/galileo-was-wrong-and-the-church-was-right-to-condemn-him/msg586688/#msg586688 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/galileo-was-wrong-and-the-church-was-right-to-condemn-him/msg586688/#msg586688)
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My position is that since the Church teaches that Scripture does not intend to teach about natural science, that is a principle to keep in mind when interpreting Scripture.
When it comes to Genesis (and virtually every other part of scripture), we're dealing with history, not "science". The modernist "exegetes" of the last century or so have hidden their treachery behind the mantra "the bible isn't a science book", and then proceed to claim that it (or our "understanding" of it) is in error when it doesn't conform to their new-fangled, modern "scientific" ideas, none of which can be subjected to the scientific method.
To be clear, I'm not calling you a modernist, JayneK, I'm simply pointing out the fact that scripture is an historical book. Genesis is a history of what took place at the creation. If it says six days, it means six days.
The notion that Genesis can be interpreted contrary to the literal, historical sense was squashed by the same Pontifical Biblical Commission docuмent that Fr. R loves to cite.
Do the various exegetical systems excogitated and defended under the guise of science to exclude the literal historical sense of the first three chapters of Genesis rest on a solid foundation?
Answer: In the negative.
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Most if not all Catholic teaching is based in Scripture, or at the very least, not contrary to it. So to suggest information about creation is not contained in Scripture, or that Scripture should not be referenced for things related to creation, or that the Fathers who agree with each other on what Scripture says about creation were wrong simply because their teachings touch on science, is obviously false.
"(51) If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St. Augustine, for the theologian: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so." --Providentissimus Deus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providentissimus_Deus)
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Notice, PD equates Scripture with Catholic Faith.
which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, ...
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Let's say for example there were a passage of Scripture that said Joseph set out on a journey as the sun was rising in the east. According to Providentissimus Deus, the intended meaning would be that he started his journey early in the morning and this meaning would be true, inspired and without error. It would not be its intended meaning that the earth stays still while the sun moves around it because Scripture does not have the intent to teach about physical science. A phrase like "the sun was rising in the east" may be understood as a sort of figure of speech based on how it appears. It does not oblige us to believe anything about the nature of the earth.
If the fathers understand a given passage as a figure of speech, then that is how it must be read. If the fathers understand it literally, then we are not free to understand it otherwise.
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If the fathers understand a given passage as a figure of speech, then that is how it must be read. If the fathers understand it literally, then we are not free to understand it otherwise.
Absolutely.
Often however, people believe something to be a figure of speech not knowing, or not believing, that the Fathers have interpreted the passage(s) literally.
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My position is that since the Church teaches that Scripture does not intend to teach about natural science
The Church teaches that Sacred Scripture is totally inerrant. It should go without saying that since the ultimate author of SS is God who can neither deceive nor be deceived that SS intends to teach us the truth and only the truth. Part of the truth it teaches us does indeed touch on natural science. Hence, is it not somewhat misleading to say that "Scripture does not intend to teach about natural science"?
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The Church teaches that Sacred Scripture is totally inerrant. It should go without saying that since the ultimate author of SS is God who can neither deceive nor be deceived that SS intends to teach us the truth and only the truth. Part of the truth it teaches us does indeed touch on natural science. Hence, is it not somewhat misleading to say that "Scripture does not intend to teach about natural science"?
Pope Benedict XV assures us in Spiritus Paraclitus (Sept. 15, 1920):
"... by these precepts and limits [set by the Fathers of the Church] the opinion of the more recent critics is not restrained, who, after introducing a distinction between the primary or religious element of Scripture, and the secondary or profane, wish, indeed, that inspiration itself pertain to all the ideas, rather even to the individual words of the Bible, but that its effects and especially immunity from error and absolute truth be contracted and narrowed to the primary or religious element. For their belief is that that only which concerns religion is intended and is taught by God in the Scriptures; but that the rest, which pertains to the profane disciplines and serves revealed doctrine as a kind of external cloak of divine truth, is only permitted and is left to the feebleness of the writer. It is not surprising then, if in physical, historical, and other similar affairs a great many things occur in the Bible, which cannot at all be reconciled with the progress of the fine arts of this age. There are those who contend that these fabrications of opinions are not in opposition to the prescriptions of our predecessor [Leo XIII] since he declared that the sacred writer in matters of nature speaks according to external appearance, surely fallacious. But how rashly, how falsely this is affirmed, is plainly evident from the very words of the Pontiff."
Interesting that Jaynek referenced this a few comments ago, yet it denies her entire premise. In fact, the Church teaches that She *the Church* reserves the right to proscribe false science.
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The Church teaches that Sacred Scripture is totally inerrant. It should go without saying that since the ultimate author of SS is God who can neither deceive nor be deceived that SS intends to teach us the truth and only the truth. Part of the truth it teaches us does indeed touch on natural science. Hence, is it not somewhat misleading to say that "Scripture does not intend to teach about natural science"?
This statement summarizes the Church teaching in this passage from Providentissimus Deus by Leo XIII:
...the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation."(53) Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us - `went by what sensibly appeared,"(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that this teaching is misleading, but there is no question that Modernists misinterpreted it. That is why, when Benedict XV issued Spiritus Paraclitus in 1920, he addressed the misinterpretations. It is probably a good idea to read both docuмents together to make sure that one is understanding the passage as intended.
At any rate, I was not introducing this as relevant to this thread. Genesis is full of essential theological concepts that are tied to the historical events that it relates, so this passage does not reallly apply. This passage is more of an issue in the flat earth discussion, where people are taking figurative passages literally in order to make assertions about natural science. I only wanted to illustrate that Ladislaus was not presenting my views accurately. Anyone interested may look at the exchange that he remembers as a debate here: https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732)
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If the fathers understand a given passage as a figure of speech, then that is how it must be read. If the fathers understand it literally, then we are not free to understand it otherwise.
When the Fathers teach unanimously it is a guide to Faith. Their individual opinions, however, may be wrong and just about every Father has taught something that was later overturned.
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The Church teaches that Sacred Scripture is totally inerrant. It should go without saying that since the ultimate author of SS is God who can neither deceive nor be deceived that SS intends to teach us the truth and only the truth. Part of the truth it teaches us does indeed touch on natural science. Hence, is it not somewhat misleading to say that "Scripture does not intend to teach about natural science"?
One of the categories of natural science, for example, is natural cosmology and there are many references in SS which indicate that the Earth is motionless, but not a one that indicates that the sun is. Thus, it was certainly no mere coincidence that the Fathers believed in geocentrism as opposed to heliocentrism.
As per Fr. Robinson's book, Robert Sungnis spoke wisely when he said: "Much of Fr. Robinson’s book is not “Catholic.” It is filled with
modernism and liberalism. Anyone who ignores the consensus of the Fathers
on these particular subjects (as Fr. Robinson does) is not being Catholic.
Anyone who ignores the magisterial decrees against these particular subjects
(as Fr. Robinson does) is not being Catholic. Anyone who accepts, uncritically,
the views of modern science on these particular subjects (as Fr. Robinson does)
is not being Catholic."
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This statement summarizes the Church teaching in this passage from Providentissimus Deus by Leo XIII:
...the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation."(53) Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us - `went by what sensibly appeared,"(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that this teaching is misleading, but there is no question that Modernists misinterpreted it. That is why, when Benedict XV issued Spiritus Paraclitus in 1920, he addressed the misinterpretations. It is probably a good idea to read both docuмents together to make sure that one is understanding the passage as intended.
At any rate, I was not introducing this as relevant to this thread. Genesis is full of essential theological concepts that are tied to the historical events that it relates, so this passage does not reallly apply. This passage is more of an issue in the flat earth discussion, where people are taking figurative passages literally in order to make assertions about natural science. I only wanted to illustrate that Ladislaus was not presenting my views accurately. Anyone interested may look at the exchange that he remembers as a debate here: https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732)
Jaynek said:
"At any rate, I was not introducing this as relevant to this thread. Genesis is full of essential theological concepts that are tied to the historical events that it relates, so this passage does not reallly apply. This passage is more of an issue in the flat earth discussion, where people are taking figurative passages literally in order to make assertions about natural science."
Two things: 1. Jaynek, you introduced this into THIS thread and it undermined your argument. Then you say it wasn't relevant. Why post it if it is not relevant? 2. Who are you to say people are taking "figurative" passages literally? What proof do you have?
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I am not sure why Ladislaus is dragging my name into a thread that I am not even part of, apparently to misrepresent my views. If you want to agree with St. Robert, please do so without making me the heretical side of an imagined debate with you.
I brought you up because this quote from St. Robert dovetails into an earlier disagreement I had with you. I did not misrepresent your views. In fact, it was I who pushed you into your latter affirmation that there's no error in Scripture. You had said that Scripture was only infallible and inerrant in things that it "intended" to teach, and that it did not intend to teach about natural science. I took exception to that and stated that there can be no error in Scripture period. I explained that one COULD understand a metaphorical use of language, where "rising" of the sun can just be a relative description from the vantage point of the one viewing it ... but metaphorical language is not the same as error. Do you really want me to go back through those threads to dig it up?
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Notice the reason God gave us for the third commandment of the decalogue. These are the very words of God Himself, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
On a side note, I knew Fr. R quite well before he went into the seminary. He knows better. Shame on him.
Shameful indeed.
A blackening of the SSPX that they would allow a book promoting Stanley Jaki's errors.
This is what associating with the Novus Ordo gets you: modernism & errors.
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When it comes to Genesis (and virtually every other part of scripture), we're dealing with history, not "science".
In either case, Scripture cannot be in error about history OR science. I think that there's an admixture of both in Genesis. I firmly believe that metaphorical language was used to describe scientific things in some cases where the Hebrew language lacked specialized terms. So, for instance, when Scripture states that God created man from the clay of the earth, IMO He did not actually use "dirt" but rather the term "clay of the earth" refers to MATTER, the building blocks of all things physical and thus described as a "clay". But this clearly states that God did not create man ex nihilo but from pre-existing matter (that He had created earlier). Woman, on the other hand, came from God's modification of male DNA either literally taken from the rib ... or else the rib was metaphorical from some other scientific thing. So what Scripture describes is God creating man from matter (note, not from chimps or other animals) and woman from man (using material already pre-formed with DNA, not ex nihilo and not from plain matter or "clay of the earth"). Anyone who would deny either of these things and speculate that man came from chimps or that woman was created independently of man ... would be a heretic, implicitly denying the inerrancy of Scripture (as per St. Robert Bellarmine).
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When the Fathers teach unanimously it is a guide to Faith. Their individual opinions, however, may be wrong and just about every Father has taught something that was later overturned.
Jaynek, the Church Fathers do disagree on some things, but many times, the disagreement comes down to 2 or 3 options, which are very similar. Your logic would argue that there is no consensus on the time period of a “day” in Genesis, so, you say, we are free to interpret as we like. No! This is wrong.
As the PBC pointed out, yes, there was no consensus but there were 2 main opinions and ALL Catholics are to interpret WITHIN THOSE 2 options ONLY. Catholics are NOT free to come up with a 3rd option which is contrary to the Church Fathers.
So it is with scripture verses which the Church has not decided. We (laity) must still look to the Church Fathers (and the Doctors of the Church) and even if there is no consensus, our personal interpretation can ONLY be ONE OF the options which is supported by them, or part of them.
It doesn’t make any sense nor is it in keeping with the Church’s love of Traditions and Consistency that some new interpretation of scripture is going to come “out of left field”. It’s more likely that some future saint or saints will prove that this or that Church Father’s EXISTING opinion is true.
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In either case, Scripture cannot be in error about history OR science. I think that there's an admixture of both in Genesis. I firmly believe that metaphorical language was used to describe scientific things in some cases where the Hebrew language lacked specialized terms. So, for instance, when Scripture states that God created man from the clay of the earth, IMO He did not actually use "dirt" but rather the term "clay of the earth" refers to MATTER, the building blocks of all things physical and thus described as a "clay". But this clearly states that God did not create man ex nihilo but from pre-existing matter (that He had created earlier). Woman, on the other hand, came from God's modification of male DNA either literally taken from the rib ... or else the rib was metaphorical from some other scientific thing. So what Scripture describes is God creating man from matter (note, not from chimps or other animals) and woman from man (using material already pre-formed with DNA, not ex nihilo and not from plain matter or "clay of the earth"). Anyone who would deny either of these things and speculate that man came from chimps or that woman was created independently of man ... would be a heretic, implicitly denying the inerrancy of Scripture (as per St. Robert Bellarmine).
I added quotes around the word "science", but to be clear, I hold the absolute inerrancy of scripture, including what it relates concerning the natural sciences.
Regarding Adam and Eve, I hold to what Genesis says. Literal dust/earth, a literal rib, since the Church in her liturgy (e.g., Ash Wednesday, "I saw water flowing from the right side of the temple..." etc.,) and the fathers themselves don't go beyond what is stated there.
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When the Fathers teach unanimously it is a guide to Faith. Their individual opinions, however, may be wrong and just about every Father has taught something that was later overturned.
Clearly. However, when it comes to Genesis, they are unanimous in their interpretation of six days and the length of a day (with the exception of St. Augustine, who held that all things may have been created in an instant).
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I brought you up because this quote from St. Robert dovetails into an earlier disagreement I had with you. I did not misrepresent your views. In fact, it was I who pushed you into your latter affirmation that there's no error in Scripture. You had said that Scripture was only infallible and inerrant in things that it "intended" to teach, and that it did not intend to teach about natural science. I took exception to that and stated that there can be no error in Scripture period. I explained that one COULD understand a metaphorical use of language, where "rising" of the sun can just be a relative description from the vantage point of the one viewing it ... but metaphorical language is not the same as error. Do you really want me to go back through those threads to dig it up?
I already found it. https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732)
You said that, even though Pope Leo talked about Scripture not intending to teach about science, the phrase was later adopted and distorted by modernists. We agreed on how Scripture should be understood and I said that I would be more cautious about using the expression in the future. It was not a debate.
I have believed that Scripture is inerrant since I began taking a traditional perspective on my faith years ago. I did not require any pushing from you to affirm a basic tenet of Catholicism.
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I already found it. https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732)
You said that, even though Pope Leo talked about Scripture not intending to teach about science, the phrase was later adopted and distorted by modernists. We agreed on how Scripture should be understood and I said that I would be more cautious about using the expression in the future. It was not a debate.
I have believed that Scripture is inerrant since I began taking a traditional perspective on my faith years ago. I did not require any pushing from you to affirm a basic tenet of Catholicism.
Since you were so sure there was a debate, I kept looking and found another thread after the one above (and after my clear statement on the inerrancy of Scripture) which was more like a debate: https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/what-do-flat-earthers-believe-is-the-single-most-compelling-piece-of-evidence/msg586732/#msg586732)
You were objecting to how I phrased things, claiming that using the word "intend" had bad implications. I said that I meant it the same way that Pope Leo did. It was a debate about wording. There was never any question that I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. There was no disagreement on how to view Scripture.
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You stated at one point that Scripture was inerrant with regard to things that it intends to teach. Then you said that Scripture did not intend to teach about science.
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You stated at one point that Scripture was inerrant with regard to things that it intends to teach. Then you said that Scripture did not intend to teach about science.
I explained what I meant in that thread and it is silly to rehash it here. Anyone who actually cares can read the original at the link. At worst, I was guilty of clumsy phrasing. It was perfectly clear that I do not question the inerrancy of Scripture. There is no justification for telling people that I am a modernist who thinks that there are errors in Scripture.
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Matt 18: 1-3
At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who thinkest thou is the greater in the kingdom of heaven?
And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them,
And said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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I recall hearing that one of the early Church Fathers believed that the young boy in Matt 18:2 grew up to become St. Ignatius of Antioch.
It's not too difficult to understand how having that experience (v. 1-10) in youth could affect the rest of one's life:
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"See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that
their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven."
(Matt. 18:10)
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(https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholicprayercards.org%2Fi%2FMale%2520Saints%2F75_front.jpg&sp=b633a9b26f43ba425df1f5972ba47fa2)
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Well said!
These hard to imagine modified verses remind me of how our language has evolved in an ugly way.
Matt 18: 1-3
At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who thinkest thou is the greater in the kingdom of heaven?
And Jesus calling unto him a little kid, set him in the midst of them,
And said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little kids, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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I'm simply pointing out the fact that scripture is an historical book. Genesis is a history of what took place at the creation. If it says six days, it means six days.
The notion that Genesis can be interpreted contrary to the literal, historical sense was squashed by the same Pontifical Biblical Commission docuмent that Fr. R loves to cite.
The historical account may also touch on the science of natural cosmology. For example, the status quo narrative of natural cosmology starts with the Big Bang. The traditional Catholic interpretation of Genesis, however, rules out any possibility of the Big Bang. The first verse of Genesis insists that the Earth came before the Light while the Big Bang claims the Light came before the Earth.
(P.S. This bears repeating: the word "Day" in the original Hebrew refers to a 24 hour period, not millions of years.)
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At the following link we read Fr. Robinson's below words: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2474173646 (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2474173646)
"My book was written to popularize the thesis of this book [The Road of Science and the Ways to God] by Fr Jaki."
Information on Fr. Jaki's book is seen here: https://www.giffordlectures.org/books/road-science-and-ways-god (https://www.giffordlectures.org/books/road-science-and-ways-god)
The Road of Science and the Ways to God
Lecture:
The Road of Science and the Ways to God (https://www.giffordlectures.org/lectures/road-science-and-ways-god)
(https://www.giffordlectures.org/sites/default/files/styles/book_cover_300/public/1502075.jpg?itok=Rvkrk4mk) (https://www.giffordlectures.org/sites/default/files/1502075.jpg)
Chicago, IL
University of Chicago Press
1978
ISBN:
978-0226391441
Summary
Part I: Twice Twenty Centuries
Lecture 1: Pattern in Blind Alleys
Introduces the lecturer’s aim: to show that ‘the road of science, both historically and philosophically, is a logical access to the ways to God’ (4). The ways are Aquinas’ five proofs of God, or more broadly, natural theology. Lectures 1-10 cover pre-20th-century foundations, dead-ends and developments in science. Attacks on the traditional proofs have been myopic about epistemological issues, and this myopia would destroy science itself if rigorously applied. This is because the proofs are ‘the embodiment of reflections on what is the ultimate in intelligibility and being’ (5), and science begins from the same reflections. Previous historiographies of science, indebted to variations of Enlightenment rationalism and deistic anti-supernaturalism, have failed to understand that ‘from Copernicus to Newton it was not deism but Christian theism that served as a principal factor helping the scientific enterprise reach self-sustaining maturity’ (11). Despite long periods of economic and political stability, science failed to rise in any other culture for religious and metaphysical reasons: a ubiquitous belief in the divinity of the heavens and the eternal recurrence of all. These produced an epistemology filled with inconsistency that destroyed belief in humanity’s power to discover the laws of the cosmos. In contrast, medieval theism offered the only successful venue for the birth and rise of science, providing foundational themes necessary to that success: an intelligible cosmos, created, not divine; therefore contingent; and time as linear. These themes are entirely indebted to distinct theological tenets.
Lecture 2: A Lesson in Greek
Science began but eventually withered in ancient Greece. Their insight was that mechanistic physics, concerned only with the configuration and succession of events, is not an argument against purpose, since discovering the mechanics is itself a most purposeful enterprise. Their failure was that their desire to save purpose for humanity and the world overrode their study of actual phenomena. Where phenomena are not studied for themselves without a priori precommitments to what must be found, one may be blind to what is actually there. The Greek focus on human intellect turned their science into philosophy, bypassing empirical research into nature and blinding them to ‘deeper patterns of intelligibility’, effectively killing nascent science.
Lecture 3: Steps to God as Stepping-Stones to Science
The worldview of the Middle Ages included key Christian beliefs in the personal, transcendent God, and the created, orderly and contingent cosmos. These were shared as cultural convictions, not just intellectual fashion. Competing worldviews did not recognize nature’s creaturely and contingent status. Aquinas corrected Aristotle with three principles: ‘the existence of the transcendent God, the creation out of nothing and the freedom of man rooted in the immortality of the soul’ (39). The cosmos’s contingency points to a transcendent source and eliminates the usefulness of a priori discourse, while its rationality makes it open to rational and empirical investigation, though only in a posteriori fashion. These beliefs were indispensable to the progress of science out of infancy in the 17th century. There were many Renaissance dead-ends for science – Ockham’s nominalism, astrology, magic, cabbala, Bruno’s pantheistic cyclic cosmos, Plato, Aristotle, and even Archimedes. In contrast, the rise of science from the genius of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo was rooted in very distinctly Christian foundations.
Lecture 4: Empirical Scouting
The empiricist movement of the early 17th century, including Bacon and Hobbes, failed to inspire maturing science. Rejecting metaphysics from natural science, it noted a connection between knowledge and the world of the senses, but failed to provide a sound scientific method, or to show that science could indeed be divorced from metaphysics. Regarding the world as noncontingent and necessary decapitates cosmology, since not only is the cosmos a nonnecessary inference from the empirical data, but empiricism disallowed framing theories about any such potentially entire entity as the cosmos.
Lecture 5: Rationalist Road Charting
Descartes’ rationalism used a priori reasoning based on human self-knowledge, supposedly invalidating a posteriori proof. But under such subjectivism, natural theology withered, and so too did the advance of science. Without the linking of sense and rationality, science, world, God and soul all appeared to be illusory according to Cartesian logic. This generated the scepticism of Hume, but no progress in physical science. Likewise, Spinoza’s pantheism, Malebranche, Berkeley and his categorical denial of an external world and the pure materialism of Diderot were all abortive to science.
Lecture 6: Instinctive Middle
Natural theology and progress in science were intimately related in the 17th century, having a shared epistemological basis. This is especially evident in Isaac Newton, who took a middle road between Bacon’s undirected empiricism and Descartes’ a priori theorizing, inspiring ordinary science for two centuries. He believed the existence of a coherent and noncontingent Being, ‘whose essence is existence itself’ (89), explained the world’s coherence and contingency. Science could only progress with this view of the world. It was to be understood by experimental investigation, rather than by a priori theories, but understood nevertheless. Clarke, Leibniz and Locke rejected this middle road in favor of nominalist empiricism and gave nothing new to science.
Lecture 7: Bricks without Mortar
Hume allowed only sensory impressions to build ‘truth’ in his system. His writings about science badly misrepresent Copernicus and Galileo as cursory empiricists. In fact, they were willing to follow with their minds a direction contrary to their senses and believed the cosmos’s rationality was a reflection of the Creator’s rationality, and so accessible to his highest creation, the human mind. This link to natural theology led Hume to insist there was no mind, only distinct thoughts strung together in the appearance of consciousness, with no intrinsic connection of sensations to either mind or the objective world. Such a mystifying and unintelligible vision of the cosmos is an attack on both the ways to God and the possibility of science.
Lecture 8: Arch without Keystone
Kant insisted a priori philosophy could be used to discover the nature of the cosmos, advocating an infinite cyclic universe. His efforts at science in terms of his Critique of Pure Reason are a failure, leaving the seeker of truth trapped in his own mind, since it was impossible to know things in themselves. His keystone uniting the mind with the phenomena is a priori subjective mental assumptions and imagination. He aimed to destroy natural theology, but did not touch its heart in the cosmological argument: nonnecessary beings imply a necessary Being. His principle that the Creator must ‘bring into existence all conceivable possibilities’ destroys ‘the possibility of a logically consistent cosmology,’ and renders both God and cosmos unintelligible (120). The lesson: rejecting the ways to God also prevents travel on the road of science.
Lecture 9: The Illusions of Idealism
Examines 19th-century philosophical idealism in Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche and the Marxists. Many advocated the eternal return, and all rejected the ‘empirical given of nature’, including empirical evidence of God, using variations of Kant’s subjectivist arch or keystone of knowledge. Such idealism, wherein the subjective trumped the objective and the connection between the two was broken, was inimical to science. Where knowledge is regarded as complete in structure in a priori fashion, a posteriori science is unlikely. These related illusions about the world, humanity and God would have ended the progress of science if followed: without contingency, no science is logically possible.
Lecture 10: The Price of Positivism
The philosophy of positivism in Comte, J. S. Mill and Ernst Mach was an epistemological failure for science. The positivists rejected metaphysics and the idea that there is anything objective in the relations of cause and effect. These assumptions destroy the basic motivation to do physical science. Science is only possible where there is ‘unrestricted consistency’ – which Mill’s empiricist positivism saw as an epistemological impossibility. Historical accounts of science produced by the positivists ignore the contribution of medieval natural theology.
Part II: The Twentieth Century
Lecture 11: The Quantum of Science
Part II begins with an analysis of Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, who was committed to belief in the ‘absolute embedded somehow in the physical’ (167). His efforts to match theoretical physics with observation eventually led to his breakthrough to quantum theory. He saw pure reflection on the laws of nature as helpful, but also that science only truly advanced where the cosmos was regarded as objective and its laws as unchangeable, ‘independent of the scientist’s culture and habitat’ (175). He noted the religious and intellectual convictions of science’s early giants. Planck’s contribution, the h of quantum physics, points to nature’s unity, contingency and its source beyond.
Lecture 12: The Quantity of the Universe
Einstein had metaphysical faith in objective reality. He rejected positivism and embraced metaphysics as necessary, since the goal of science was to discover both how nature worked and why it was the way it was and not otherwise. The triumph of modern cosmology showed that our notion of the universe as a totality of all interacting material entities was valid. This is a death’s-blow to Kant’s claim that universals are not valid knowledge, and it reopens the supposedly discredited subject of natural theology. Although claiming no religion, Einstein repeatedly marveled at both the god-like quality of a brilliantly ordered universe and the miracle of human intellect that made understanding possible (192).
Lecture 13: The Horns of Complementarity
Examines inconsistencies in the ‘Copenhagen school of epistemology’, the semi-philosophical interpretation of quantum theory followed by Niels Bohr and others. Claiming that objective knowledge of reality is impossible because observation influences phenomena, they believed their methods were sufficient to explain the phenomena as an accident of sense experiment without actually describing reality itself. Yet the concurrence of their mathematical models with nature is itself a marvel to be explained. By rejecting a common-sense grasp of reality, their epistemology fails at the ontological level.
Lecture 14: The Ravages of Reductionism
The logical positivism of the Vienna Circle inspired by Mach, including that of Schlick and Neurath, was rooted in a superficial understanding of the connection between epistemology and the type of knowledge available in the ‘exact sciences’. Its failure in such soft sciences as psychology is evident in its inability to address the questions of freedom and dignity. Metaphysics is rejected as meaningless as a basic assumption, not as a result of their work. This systematic exclusion of metaphysics also means the exclusion of science. For example, without the deeply metaphysical assumption that nature obeys mathematical simplicity, science and modern cosmology are stranded.
Lecture 15: Paradigms or Paradigm
Koyré and Kuhn cast psychology and sociology in the role of metaphysics in their histories of science. Koyré saw scientific revolutionaries as ‘sudden mutations of intellect’ (233), suggesting that science creates patterns, but does not follow any grand overall pattern. Kuhn’s Structures of Scientific Revolutions usefully describes science’s advance in terms of paradigm shift, but reduces that advance to political and sociological processes and ultimately to irrationality, ignoring the thought and genius of the contributing scientists. His theory cannot explain the growing correspondence of scientific paradigms to physical reality or the unparalleled consensus of scientific knowledge in the past four centuries. The assumptions science must make about reality to progress require that an honest history include epistemology and metaphysics.
Lecture 16: The Reach of the Mind
Feats of the mind are basic to the history of scientific discovery. Histories that neglect this mental aspect or credit it to pure empiricism or reduce it to sociology are inadequate. The greatest scientists from Copernicus to Einstein were none of them pure empiricists. They believed in two propositions as essential truths: there is an objective truth embodied in the universe; and our minds are able to grasp that truth ‘ever more comprehensively’. Metaphysical questions remain unavoidable, but the tendency has been to avoid the highest metaphysical answer. Without an implicit reference to the underlying divine cause, science must rest upon the ‘paradoxical experience of the unintelligibility of intelligibility’ (259).
Lecture 17: Cosmic Singularity
Modern science begins with cosmology: a consistent discourse about the whole universe. The post-Newtonian science of the Enlightenment followed a false vision of a closed eternal cosmos until the 20th century, avoiding the cosmological question. Since cosmology has become the basis of modern legitimate science, that question reemerges as central. The contingencies of the cosmos, from the big bang singularity on, demand explanation, but an explanation is not self-contained within physics. The logical anchoring for a science of contingent singularity requires a rationale pointing beyond the cosmos. It is therefore illogical to espouse science while rejecting fundamental questions about the world that have only metaphysical answers.
Lecture 18: Pointers of Purpose
This chapter examines the question of purpose in the contingencies of nature. The contingent and fragile existence of life in the cosmos is a problem for the pure materialists who reject belief in purpose. From the beginning the scientific quest for understanding is purposeful in the fullest sense. The precise boundary conditions necessary for the actual unfolding of the cosmos and the processes of life are evidence of contingency, a feature central to Aquinas’ arguments. Efforts to isolate life from other aspects of nature are bad science, since the basic boundary conditions of the cosmos are the necessary prerequisite of life. Nature’s uniqueness and contingency are difficult to explain without reference to God.
Lecture 19: The Ethos of Science
Science entails a resolute ethical break ‘with subjectivist, irrational world views and the acceptance of the consistency of nature and the consistent exercise’ of human freedom, an ethic science did not create. Inspired by evolutionary and pragmatic philosophy, Marxism, National Socialism and capitalism have all victimized persons. Difficult for the materialistic naturalist to defend, freedom of thought and conscience is usually defended by religious, not scientific, organizations. Cultural relativism is unable to honestly accommodate the scientific ethos of love of truth. It cannot explain why one culture gave birth to science, or why when science is introduced into other cultures it is not science but those cultures that are faced with the problem of major adjustment.
Lecture 20: Teaching by Examples
Christian theism has provided an indispensable light for the rise and success of science. Western anti-Christian sentiment has led to the despising of natural theology and metaphysics, but only by wilfully ignoring the history of science and the unanswered questions left by mechanistic naturalism. Natural theology was at the heart of successful scientific epistemology during ‘its first phase of maturity . . . from Galileo to Kelvin’. Those who rejected the connection between the proofs and scientific epistemology, such as Hume, Kant, Hegel, Comte and Mach, all failed to produce decent science themselves. Only Planck and Einstein, with their conviction of the world’s coherence and singularity, were able to take science out of its Newtonian ‘inland sea’ to the ‘wide ocean’ of modern physics (322).
‘Real science is the science of a contingent universe’ (324). That this only makes sense within Christian theism is a key truth to pass on to each generation. The actual history of science is ‘vibrant with metaphysics’. But its teaching in the modern secular state increasingly strips away this essential element and leaves only the bare skeleton behind, a tool of half-truth for the agnostic and atheist agenda. When such an intentional avoidance of ultimate questions is pushed as a core academic and scientific ideal, the future will not be science’s improvement, but its death. True inspiration for the advancement of science is only possible “from unreserved commitment to the very same inner logic which gives life to theism as well as to science” (331). Our chief cultural task is to transmit to the next generation ‘the tie binding the road of science to the ways to God’ (331).
Contributor(s)
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Quote from: ihsv on Today at 09:42:29 AM (https://www.cathinfo.com/sspx-resistance-news/modern-science-and-the-sspx/msg630695/#msg630695)
Notice the reason God gave us for the third commandment of the decalogue. These are the very words of God Himself, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
On a side note, I knew Fr. R quite well before he went into the seminary. He knows better. Shame on him.
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Shameful indeed.
A blackening of the SSPX that they would allow a book promoting Stanley Jaki's errors.
This is what associating with the Novus Ordo gets you: modernism & errors.
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Boy, Fr. Robinson is getting dragged through the hot coals these few days after Paul VI, the man of sin, was so-called canonized.
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So Fr. Robinson can rest assured he's getting less criticism than the latter, at this time.
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It is distressing to see so-called traditional Catholics (re: supposedly orthodox, "true/real/old fashioned," Bible-believing Catholics) discuss Creation as though it cost God an effort to create the world. This isn't Howdy Doody we are dealing with! It's God Almighty! He could have created it all in a nano second - had it all up and running all at once - animals on the earth, Adam and Eve, sun circling, etc., and it would have cost Him no effort, not a grunt or a heave-ho. He didn't even need the time that He did take - He could have created all at once.
On the other hand, this is what we have been getting from popes for 70 years if not longer.
Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are real and God is not 'a magician with a magic wand'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-evolution-and-big-bang-theory-are-right-and-god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-9822514.html (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-evolution-and-big-bang-theory-are-right-and-god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-9822514.html)
You are addressing the highly complex subject of the evolution of the concept of nature. I will not go into the scientific complexity, which you well understand, of this important and crucial question. I only want to underline that God and Christ are walking with us and are also present in nature, as the Apostle Paul stated in his discourse at the Areopagus: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). When we read the account of Creation in Genesis we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created beings and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one, that they might develop, and reach their fullness. He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time in which He assured them of his continual presence, giving life to every reality. And thus Creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives life to all beings. The beginning of the world was not a work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Principle who creates out of love. The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve.
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Francis and his mitred mob dream of the day they finally get credit for creation and be fully appreciated for the semantics they pretend will prove it. Francis' words make sentences but the content is eyewash.
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On the other hand, this is what we have been getting from popes for 70 years if not longer.
Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are real and God is not 'a magician with a magic wand'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-evolution-and-big-bang-theory-are-right-and-god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-9822514.html (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-evolution-and-big-bang-theory-are-right-and-god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-9822514.html)
You are addressing the highly complex subject of the evolution of the concept of nature. I will not go into the scientific complexity, which you well understand, of this important and crucial question. I only want to underline that God and Christ are walking with us and are also present in nature, as the Apostle Paul stated in his discourse at the Areopagus: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). When we read the account of Creation in Genesis we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created beings and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one, that they might develop, and reach their fullness. He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time in which He assured them of his continual presence, giving life to every reality. And thus Creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives life to all beings. The beginning of the world was not a work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Principle who creates out of love. The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve.
Modernists often have plausible deniability down to a state of the art. In reading this, it is easy to see how Francis could claim that he himself was not asserting here that the Church herself accepts/teaches Big Bang as the origin of the world. Modernists are masters in the use of ambiguity and chaotic/confused thinking. Even when they know the truth and the consequences of lying they go for the lie -- the mystery of iniquity!
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On the other hand, this is what we have been getting from popes for 70 years if not longer.
Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are real and God is not 'a magician with a magic wand'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-evolution-and-big-bang-theory-are-right-and-god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-9822514.html (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-evolution-and-big-bang-theory-are-right-and-god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-9822514.html)
You are addressing the highly complex subject of the evolution of the concept of nature. I will not go into the scientific complexity, which you well understand, of this important and crucial question. I only want to underline that God and Christ are walking with us and are also present in nature, as the Apostle Paul stated in his discourse at the Areopagus: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28 ). When we read the account of Creation in Genesis we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created beings and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one, that they might develop, and reach their fullness. He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time in which He assured them of his continual presence, giving life to every reality. And thus Creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives life to all beings. The beginning of the world was not a work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Principle who creates out of love. The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve.
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Only a Jesuit!
A lesson in abuse of Scripture!
Remove the one direct reference to Scripture and there is nothing left that has any relevance to the Bible:
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You are addressing the highly complex subject of the evolution of the concept of nature. I will not go into the scientific complexity, which you well understand, of this important and crucial question. I only want to underline that God and Christ are walking with us and are also present in nature, as the Apostle Paul stated in his discourse at the Areopagus: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28 ). When we read the account of Creation in Genesis we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created beings and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one, that they might develop, and reach their fullness. He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time in which He assured them of his continual presence, giving life to every reality. And thus Creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives life to all beings. The beginning of the world was not a work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Principle who creates out of love. The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve.
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...And you end up with the custom-made NEW DOCTRINE of Bergoglian subjectivism; perfect, that is, perfectly Modernist.
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But even the one (removed) reference to Scripture is defective! Why say, "...God and Christ are walking with us...?" The Apostle didn't say "God and Christ." Why God AND Christ? Does that make two, 1) God and 2) Christ? Something like Moslems, "Allah and his prophet?"
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"You are addressing the highly complex subject of the evolution of the concept of nature."
-- No, the concept of nature does not evolve.
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"I will not go into the scientific complexity, which you well understand, of this important and crucial question."
-- What's "important and crucial" about the evolution of the concept of nature? Nature does not evolve!
-- You're "not going into the scientific complexity" -- because you're not a scientist, so you're not qualified! Your elder brothers are! (NOT!)
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I only want to underline that God and Christ are walking with us and are also present in nature, as the Apostle Paul stated in his discourse at the Areopagus: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28 ).
"When we read the account of Creation in Genesis we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all powerful magic wand."
-- Who's risking anything? You sound like Roger Cardfile Balony with his "Beware of any magical notion of the Sacraments."
-- With this blasphemous statement alone, Bishop-of-Rome Francis digs himself a deep pit in the bowels of hell, with his OWN MAGIC WAND!
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But that was not so. He created beings [WHEN? MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO?] and he let them develop [FOR HOW LONG? MILLIONS OF YEARS? INCREASING IN PERFECTION? WHERE IS THAT IN SCRIPTURE?] according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one [SO EACH CREATED THING HAD ITS OWN SET OF "INTERNAL LAWS" LIKE THEIR OWN SUBJECTIVE REALITY?], that they might develop, and reach their fullness [AND THAT IS FOUND IN SCRIPTURE or TRADITION, WHERE, EXACTLY?].
-- This is simply complete fantasy! BoR Francis is dreaming his own self-induced hallucination having nothing to do with history or fact!
-- This is literally the Bergoglian New Gospel (cf. Gal. 1:8 ).
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He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time in which He assured them of his continual presence, giving life to every reality.
-- Giving life with what, an all-powerful magic wand? You just said, "But that was not so."
-- Did God give life to rocks and space dust? How about inert matter like titanium, does titanium have life, too? Isn't titanium a reality?
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And thus Creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives life to all beings.
-- There we go again, with the Creator giving life to sand grains on the beach, meteorites and diatomaceous earth!
-- "God is not a demiurge..." -- well, at least now we know BoR Francis is not Platonic or Neopythagorean, but just what he IS, is another question.
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The beginning of the world was not a work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Principle who creates out of love.
-- The Principle.......... isn't that the name of a movie? Is this an ad?
-- Or is this BoR F's way of taking issue with the multiverse, since he says it doesn't owe its origin to another?
-- Stay tuned for later developments, after all, if all life develops, then BoR F's explanations might EVOLVE, too!
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The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but depends on it.
-- All righty, then! His elder brothers in science have doggedly refused any hint of a deity pre-existing the Big Bang, but that shall not stand!
-- If BoR Francis' elder brothers in science refuse to include "a divine creator" in their Big Bangism, BoR Francis is going to inject one.
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Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve.
-- Oh, oh, right. Now we have a NEW GOSPEL, since we can read for ourselves in Genesis 1:10,12,18,21,25, "God saw that it was good."
-- If God saw that it was good from the beginning, what need is there for beings to "evolve?"
-- "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema" (Gal 1:8 ).
-- Okay then, we can let BoR Francis be anathema. A nice Irish lady (Mary Myers, RIP) told me, "That means he can GO TO HELL!"
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In the context of this thread the following are worth taking a look at:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/docuмents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html (http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/docuмents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html)
PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS
Faith Subject to Science [as understood by the modernists]
17. Yet, it would be a great mistake to suppose that, given these theories, one is authorised to believe that faith and science are independent of one another. On the side of science the independence is indeed complete, but it is quite different with regard to faith, which is subject to science not on one but on three grounds. For in the first place it must be observed that in every religious fact, when you take away the divine reality and the experience of it which the believer possesses, everything else, and especially the religious formulas of it, belongs to the sphere of phenomena and therefore falls under the control of science. Let the believer leave the world if he will, but so long as he remains in it he must continue, whether he like it or not, to be subject to the laws, the observation, the judgments of science and of history. Further, when it is said that God is the object of faith alone, the statement refers only to the divine reality not to the idea of God. The latter also is subject to science which while it philosophises in what is called the logical order soars also to the absolute and the ideal. It is therefore the right of philosophy and of science to form conclusions concerning the idea of God, to direct it in its evolution and to purify it of any extraneous elements which may become confused with it. Finally, man does not suffer a dualism to exist in him, and the believer therefore feels within him an impelling need so to harmonise faith with science, that it may never oppose the general conception which science sets forth concerning the universe.
Thus it is evident that science is to be entirely independent of faith, while on the other hand, and notwithstanding that they are supposed to be strangers to each other, faith is made subject to science. All this, Venerable Brothers, is in formal opposition with the teachings of Our Predecessor, Pius IX, where he lays it down that: In matters of religion it is the duty of philosophy not to command but to serve, but not to prescribe what is to be believed but to embrace what is to be believed with reasonable obedience, not to scrutinise the depths of the mysteries of God but to venerate them devoutly and humbly.
The Modernists completely invert the parts, and to them may be applied the words of another Predecessor of Ours, Gregory IX., addressed to some theologians of his time: Some among you, inflated like bladders with the spirit of vanity strive by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the sense of the heavenly pages . . .to the philosophical teaching of the rationals, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a show of science . . . these, seduced by strange and eccentric doctrines, make the head of the tail and force the queen to serve the servant.
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10lamen.htm (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10lamen.htm)
Lamentabili Sane
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I recall hearing that one of the early Church Fathers believed that the young boy in Matt 18:2 grew up to become St. Ignatius of Antioch.
It's not too difficult to understand how having that experience (v. 1-10) in youth could affect the rest of one's life:
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"See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that
their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven."
(Matt. 18:10)
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(https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholicprayercards.org%2Fi%2FMale%2520Saints%2F75_front.jpg&sp=b633a9b26f43ba425df1f5972ba47fa2)
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This October 17th date must be the Newchurch newfangled date, pulled out of a hat like a magician's rabbit. It has nothing to do with any of the historical dates associated with St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. I heard Brother Francis of the St. Benedict Center say, that the only possible reason (for changing so many dates and feast days on the traditional calendar) could have been to instigate confusion.
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In the Roman Martyrology, there are 3 dates relative to this saint, December 20th, the date of his martyrdom, December 17th, the translation day of his relics, and February 1st, the day his feast has been observed for many centuries. Curiously, that puts his feast, which was moved from December 20th in Advent (the vigil of the Apostle Thomas, and very close to Christmas Day) to a later day (Feb. 1) which is the very last day still within the season of Christmas (which ends on Candlemas, Feb.2).
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For December 20th we read: "In the same city (Rome), the martyrdom of St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr. He was the third (bishop of Antioch) after St. Peter the Apostle to rule the church of Antioch, and in the persecution of Trajan was condemned to the beats. By order of Trajan he was sent to Rome in fetters, and there tortured and afflicted with the most cruel torments in the midst of the assembled Senate. Finally he was cast to the lions, and being round by their teeth became a sacrifice for Christ. His feast is observed on the 1st of February."
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For February 1st, we read: "St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch and martyr, who gloriously suffered martyrdom on the 20th of December."
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For December 17th, we read: "...Also, the translation of St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr, who, the third after the blessed Apostle Peter, governed the Church of Antioch. His body was taken from Rome, where he had suffered martyrdom under Trajan on the 20th of December, and deposited in the church cemetery near the Gate of Daphne at Antioch. St. John Chrysostom, on that solemn occasion, preached the sermon to the people. Afterwards his relics were carried back to Rome and placed with the highest reverence in the church of St. Clement, together with the body of that blessed pope and martyr."
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Reading this, it crossed my mind, "when was the last time the 'greatest reverence' was on display in Rome, for something other than honoring false religions, Sodomites, environmentalism, or wild animals in their natural habitats?"
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When we read the account of Creation in Genesis we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created beings and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one, that they might develop, and reach their fullness.... And thus Creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives life to all beings.
"Day 7: So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." (Genesis.)
‘God…creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, both of the spirit and the body.’ - - - Lateran Council IV, 1215.
‘All that exists outside God was, in its whole substance, produced out of nothing by God. (De fide.) --- Vatican I.
According to the 'intellectual JESUIT' (yes Neil, they are the worst Modernists of all) called Pope Francis, God did not create all, complete at once in the beginning of time according to the Word of God and the Pope's predecessors. Not at all, that is Moses up to his fairy-tales again. 'We now know,' as they love saying, 'that the universe was created by a Big Bang billions of years ago and all evolved since then. At Vatican I the Cardinals were ignorant of the Big Bang, just like the popes and Cardinals of 1616 were ignorant of the heliocentric evolution.'
Now evolution does not stop, it is never completed, it goes on forever, no happy Sunday's rest for evolution. No need for Mass day with evolution. As I said, it is POPES who have led the flock down the road to where they now have to try to make evolution Catholic. Vatican I decree above is De fide. This makes the opinion of the Bog above heresy.
The theory of evolution undermines divine Catholic Faith, poisons the mind in which it takes residence, obscures the supernatural truths of Faith and warps the natural powers of reason. It is incompatible with divine Catholic Faith and in its theistic form, constitutes a major heresy infecting the Church today.’ --- Paula Haigh: ‘30 Theses against Evolutionism, 1976.’
Evolution is nonsense. Here is my favourite reasons for its nonsense:
What part of any creature evolved first from an evolved cell? Was it tissue, bone, muscle, blood, skin, hair or what? Which organ evolved first, the brain, the heart, the kidneys, the spleen, the glands, the eyes? Which organ system evolved first, the circulatory system, the digestive system, the endocrine system, the respiratory system, the nervous system, the immune system, the lymphatic system, the muscular system, the skeletal system, the urinary system, the reproductive system? Could any creature function with an evolving endocrine system, an evolving digestive system, evolving senses etc.? Can one essential part of a living creature exist without the other? The answer is no and to argue otherwise is to indulge in discussing simple nonsense.
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#2) it's a not a redefinition of day. In Scripture the sun was created on the 4th day. So what did "day" mean during Days 1 - 3?
It was this problem that caused St Augustine to propose creation of all immediately rather than six days of creation.
But hadn't God/Moses told us in the first words of his Bible:
"Day 1: In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day."
In other words, God used light and darkness to cause days and nights. For Him, no bother. On the 4th day he created the sun and moon to do the job as we see below . I do not have a problem with a six day Genesis based on the sun not being created until day four.
"Day 4: And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars. And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth, to rule the day and the night and to divide the light and the darkness. "
See,
Are they saying that right from the beginning of revelation the Bible cannot be taken literally? For many thousands of years this simple account was accepted in the manner it was told. It was only when the long-agers and evolutionist proposed their theories that the literal was discarded. And, like popes (the elect) were deceived into discarding the long-held literal geocentric revelation, more popes were deceived into discarding the literal immediate creation for that joke of a theory, evolution.
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To key back to the title of this thread (Modern Science and the SSPX), it has been astutely observed that, "Unfortunately, the SSPX, since its inception in 1970, has never had a leader with a professional or academic scientific background who could provide a critical eye toward the major scientific theories of the last few centuries. As a result, it has more or less been every-man-for-himself with regard to science in the SSPX." If that be so the question which arises is how in the world can the leadership of the SSPX (or Fr. Robinson, himself, for that matter) be convinced that his book is in serious error and that the printing/distribution cord should be yanked posthaste.
We have gone from junior high school teacher Jason Winschel's cover story in the October 2003 issue of The Angelus wherein heliocentrism was given a clear and unequivocal acceptance to the 2018 book by Fr. Robinson wherein he goes full throttle in his endorsement of Big Bang. By the SSPX sale and promotion of Fr. Robinson's book it looks like it will take a real movement of grace and humility to get them to reverse course.
Interesting to note how Bp. Williamson was sacked from seminary rector and sent into internal exile, having been stripped of his public ministry, all for his sincere and honest questioning of the "official" narrative of something said to have taken place in Europe more than sixty years ago. On the other hand, Fr. Robinson has in effect been made the SSPX Science Poster Boy for his one book, The Realist Guide to Religion and Science.
Bishop Williamson had the temerity to write up and send out a short column (Eleison Comments) once a week to an email subscriber list. No doubt, these ECs have consoled, informed, and generally helped a lot of people as they struggle to keep the faith. Still others may have come for the first time to the Catholic Faith or come back to the Faith by way of these fatherly words from the Bishop. I can't imagine anyone having lessened their fervor in, much less lost their faith as a result of these comments. Ironically, however, it was these comments which helped seal the Bishop's fate so to speak in being expelled from the Society.
Contrast His Lordship's persecution, ridicule, and general humiliation by the SSPX leadership sparked by his taking a small hatchet to the sacred h0Ɩ0h0αx tree with that of the SSPX adulation bestowed upon Fr. Robinson in the wake of his taking a liberal blow torch to the Church's traditional interpretation of the Bible in favor of current scientific theories (the Big Bang, long-ages, evolution, heliocentrism, uniformitarianism, radiometry, sedimentology, etc.). Fr. Robinson has a lot more than a weekly Eleison Comments. Why should that be surprising? Isn't it only right that the SSPX Science Poster Boy have some special perks (along with a whole lot of social media followers/"friends") such as seen below?
1.) His own website: https://therealistguide.com/ (https://therealistguide.com/)
2.) His own blogsite: https://therealistguide.com/blog (https://therealistguide.com/blog)
3.) His own facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realistguide (https://www.facebook.com/realistguide)
4.) His (by proxy -- Jeanette?) own twitter: https://twitter.com/GuideRealist (https://twitter.com/GuideRealist)
5.) His (by proxy -- Jeanette?) own Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/109099222303871237875 (https://plus.google.com/109099222303871237875)
6.) His own goodreads account: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18237620.Paul_Athanasius_Robinson (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18237620.Paul_Athanasius_Robinson)
7.) His own Quora account: https://www.quora.com/profile/Paul-Robinson-410 (https://www.quora.com/profile/Paul-Robinson-410)
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In other words, God used light and darkness to cause days and nights. For Him, no bother. On the 4th day he created the sun and moon to do the job as we see below . I do not have a problem with a six day Genesis based on the sun not being created until day four.
Indeed, days and nights were defined as alternating periods of light and darkness. But the MEASURE of a day (a period of light) as 24 hours remains in doubt. Also, there's nothing to say that at that point in Creation, even after the sun was created on the 4th day, the sun did not have a much longer period of rotation around the earth. People also lived much longer before the flood.
I guess that my point is that, as per the Holy Office also, it's not heretical to speculate that the days of Genesis may have been longer than 24-hour periods. Of course it's no bother for God to make alternating periods of light and darkness without the sun.
So a good Catholic could hold that creation in general has been around longer than 6,000 years plus or minus. But it would be heretical to assert that human beings have been around for more than about that period of time.
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I added quotes around the word "science", but to be clear, I hold the absolute inerrancy of scripture, including what it relates concerning the natural sciences.
Regarding Adam and Eve, I hold to what Genesis says. Literal dust/earth, a literal rib, since the Church in her liturgy (e.g., Ash Wednesday, "I saw water flowing from the right side of the temple..." etc.,) and the fathers themselves don't go beyond what is stated there.
I too believe in the absolute inerrancy of Scripture. But the understanding of the Hebrew term "clay" as referring to a more abstract notion such as "raw material that is then shaped into something" does absolutely nothing to undermine the inerrancy of Scripture. What does an artist who works in clay do? He takes a formless lump of material and FORMS it (adds form to the matter). In fact, the term "clay of the earth" as referring to matter is incredibly profound and only enhances the credibility of Scripture. Hebrew did not have terms for the later scholastic (and Aristotelian) terms "matter" and "form". But a shapeless material to which form is added describes the notion of matter quite profoundly.
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Indeed, days and nights were defined as alternating periods of light and darkness. But the MEASURE of a day (a period of light) as 24 hours remains in doubt. Also, there's nothing to say that at that point in Creation, even after the sun was created on the 4th day, the sun did not have a much longer period of rotation around the earth.
The word "Day" in the original Hebrew refers to a 24 hour period.
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The word "Day" in the original Hebrew refers to a 24 hour period.
There are many occurrences in the Bible of the Hebrew word being used to mean "time" rather than a 24 hour period. For example, the expression "day of harvest" means the time of harvest.
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There are many occurrences in the Bible of the Hebrew word being used to mean "time" rather than a 24 hour period. For example, the expression "day of harvest" means the time of harvest.
Of course! The word day in the English language as well is used to mean other things besides a 24 hour period. The traditional meaning of the word day in the first book of Genesis, however, was and continues to be a 24 hour period. Some folks such as Fr. Robinson, however, do not wish to adhere to this traditional interpretation. Evolutionists including those of the theistic stripe can obviously and absolutely not abide by the traditional meaning of the word day in the first book of Genesis.
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Ah! Here is the problem with the traditional and the novus PBC. Which one to follow? (facetious question)
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According to the given link from Kolbe:
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Pope Leo XIII founded the Pontifical Biblical Commission to combat modernism in the realm of Scriptural exegesis, and Pope St. Pius X made the PBC an arm of the Magisterium and declared dissent from its decrees a serious sin. In 1909, the PBC replied to eight questions about Genesis 1-3 and declared that no Catholic could deny three “facts” contained in Genesis 1-3 that pertain to the foundations of the Christian Faith. These were the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special creation of Adam body and soul; and the creation of Eve from Adam’s side. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how the creation of “all things” at “the beginning of time” can be reconciled with Fr. Robinson’s Big Bang cosmology in which the only things created at the “beginning of time” are some hydrogen, helium and lithium.
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Moreover, in its other answers, the PBC ruled that all of Genesis 1-3 is historical and that exegetes must adhere to the proper, or literal and obvious, sense of the text of Genesis 1-3, unless reason dictates or necessity requires. Indeed, while allowing scholars to discuss whether “day” in Genesis 1 refers to a 24-day or an indefinite space of time, the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way.” But the Fathers held that the days of Genesis were either 24-hour days—the overwhelming majority view—or an instant—the Augustinian minority view. Hence, rightly expounded, the PBC decrees of 1909 leave exegetes without any choice for the length of the creation period except for “six 24-hour days” or an instantaneous creation.*
Emphases mine.
*In other words, why did creation take so long as 6 days. It seems a Catholic may opt for 6 days or he may opt for a shorter time span - an instant, but not a longer time span. I go for 6 days myself.
Sorry to interrupt this topic but the Forum should be reminded that AFTER the 1903 Conclave fiasco Pope Pius X appoints Cardinal Rampolla as Chmn of Pontifical Biblical Commission..... :fryingpan:
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Sorry to interrupt this topic but the Forum should be reminded that AFTER the 1903 Conclave fiasco Pope Pius X appoints Cardinal Rampolla as Chmn of Pontifical Biblical Commission.....
.... and so?
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In case you haven't heard, there continues to be a fanatical faction seeking to indict the great cardinal as a Knights Templar--OTO-- freemason..... :confused:
It just might be a problem if a saintly pope is appointing a freemason to interpret the Bible... :confused:
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There are many occurrences in the Bible of the Hebrew word being used to mean "time" rather than a 24 hour period. For example, the expression "day of harvest" means the time of harvest.
This is exactly why the PBC allows us to debate the age of Universe.... :cheers:
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This is exactly why the PBC allows us to debate the age of Universe.... :cheers:
Ah, huh -- debate, debate, debate. Well, while some wish to debate, debate, debate just remember that the Fathers, the Bible, and the official teaching of the Church don't debate the matter. They have never taught long-ages, and modern science has no proof of long-ages.
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In case you haven't heard, there continues to be a fanatical faction seeking to indict the great cardinal as a Knights Templar--OTO-- freemason..... :confused:
It just might be a problem if a saintly pope is appointing a freemason to interpret the Bible... :confused:
Ah, hello roscoe, I always thought you were an earth around the sun machine. So, you are a person who can use words.
Pope Saint Pius X is not free from all blame with regard to the progress of Modernism. As you know well he presided over the progress of biblical heliocentrism, the ROCK of biblical and thus theological modernism.
In 1906 Pope Pius X entrusted the Vatican Observatory to the Jesuits and thus it acquired a central role among Jesuit observatories. The first Jesuit director of the Observatory was Johann Georg Hagen (1847-1930).’
So, what were Fr Hagen and the Jesuits up to at the Observatory? Was he, as a champion of Pope Pius X and then Pope Pius XI, doing what he should have been doing, looking at the sun, moon and stars doing what they are seen doing, moving around the Earth and confirming the fact that the Church’s 1616 condemnation was never falsified?
‘The Rev. William F. Rigge, S. J., professor of physics and astronomy at Creighton University, has a long article running through the April and May [1913] numbers of Popular Astronomy on “Experimental Proofs of the Earth’s Rotation.” It is an abridged and popular presentation of the book published by Father Hagen S.J., [1847-1930] director of the Vatican Observatory. It is divided into four parts. The first treats of bodies falling from a height, which on account of their being farther from the Earth’s axis of revolution when on the top of a tower, move eastward faster than the ground and must therefore fall east of the point directly below them. The second mentions various forms of pendulums, especially Foucault’s, whose plane of vibration, while really fixed, appears to shift on account of the Earth’s rotation. The third part treats of gyroscopes, and shows how they are used to prove that our Earth turns on an axis. The fourth part explains various other apparatus, including two machines of Father Hagen’s own invention. “It looks like an amende honorable [English law. A penalty imposed upon a person by way of disgrace or infamy, as a punishment for any offence, or for the purpose of making reparation for any injury done to another, as the walking into church in a white sheet, with a rope about the neck, and begging the pardon of God, or the king, or any private individual, for some delinquency], to the Galileo imbroglio [An acutely painful or embarrassing misunderstanding.],” says Fr. Rigge in the Creighton Chronicle “that the Pope’s own astronomer should come openly before the world with such a learned work and should even produce two new experiments to prove the fact of the Earth’s rotation. Not that we imply that Galileo was condemned for the sole reason that he upheld this doctrine of the Earth’s motion — for which however he had absolutely no proof whatever — but that we have now one argument more, and one that fully offsets any fault that may have been committed before.”’
In other words, the Jesuits of the Vatican Observatory in Pope Pius X’s time and after were now hell-bent on asserting Galileo was right and the Church of 1616 wrong, regurgitating all the so-called proofs for a rotating Earth
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modern science has no proof of long-ages.
What are you talking about here?
There are many old earth creationists in our chapels, and they don't hold the old earth part without reason.
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What are you talking about here?
There are many old earth creationists in our chapels, and they don't hold the old earth part without reason.
I said, "... modern science has no proof of long-ages." Do you disagree with that statement? If so I would ask that you please try to present your case with some scientific and or theological precision. What exactly is your proof?
Your statement that, "There are many old earth creationists in our chapels, and they don't hold the old earth part without reason" is about as useless to the discussion as me saying, "There are many young earth creationists in our chapels, and they don't hold the young earth part without reason."
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[quoting Kolbe Center article]
Moreover, in its other answers, the PBC ruled that all of Genesis 1-3 is historical and that exegetes must adhere to the proper, or literal and obvious, sense of the text of Genesis 1-3, unless reason dictates or necessity requires. Indeed, while allowing scholars to discuss whether “day” in Genesis 1 refers to a 24-day or an indefinite space of time, the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way.” But the Fathers held that the days of Genesis were either 24-hour days—the overwhelming majority view—or an instant—the Augustinian minority view. Hence, rightly expounded, the PBC decrees of 1909 leave exegetes without any choice for the length of the creation period except for “six 24-hour days” or an instantaneous creation.*
I have been looking at the PBC docuмent in question: Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis June 30, 1909, using the translation at http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm (http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm)
I cannot see where it is saying what the Kolbe Center article claims it is saying. I cannot find where the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way” or that we have to choose between 24 hour days or instantaneous creation.
I looks to me like the PBC said the opposite in question IV:
In the interpretation of those passages in these chapters which the Fathers and Doctors understood in different manners without proposing anything certain and definite, is it lawful, without prejudice to the judgement of the Church and with attention to the analogy of faith, to follow and defend the opinion that commends itself to each one?
Answer: In the affirmative.
The Fathers disagreed on whether the Hebrew word for day had to be understood as a 24 hour period in the Creation account. Isn't this saying that therefore people are allowed to follow and defend their own opinions on this question? I can't find anything about being limited to positions already proposed by a Father. There is something about the Church and Fathers leading the way, later at question VI:
Provided that the literal and historical sense is presupposed, may certain passages in the same chapters, in the light of the example of the holy Fathers and of the Church itself, be wisely and profitably interpreted in an allegorical and prophetic sense?
Answer: In the affirmative.
This is saying that we may follow the example of the Fathers and the Church in making allegorical interpretations while presupposing the literal and historical sense. It does not say we may only use interpretation already made by them.
I cannot see anything in this docuмent which limits the permission for free discussion given in question VIII:
In the designation and distinction of the six days mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis may the word Yom (day) be taken either in the literal sense for the natural day or in an applied sense for a certain space of time, and may this question be the subject of free discussion among exegetes?
Answer: In the affirmative.
This docuмent carries the authority of Pius X behind it, so it is important to understand it properly. As I see it, this is the main source for me, as a lay person, to understand what opinions are acceptable for Catholics. But, even after reading it carefully many times, I cannot see the position the Kolbe Center attributes to it.
I wonder if it is a translation issue. Does anyone know of other translations, or, even better, a link to the original Latin?
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I had an idea about how to look for the Latin original and it worked: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_docuмents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19090630_genesi_lt.html (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_docuмents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19090630_genesi_lt.html)
Here is the Latin for the 3 passages I quoted above:
IV. Utrum in interpretandis illis horum capitum locis, quos Patres et Doctores diverso modo intellexerunt, quin certi quippiam definitique tradiderint, liceat, salvo Ecclesiae iudicio servataque fidei analogia, eam quam quisque prudenter probaverit, sequi tuerique sententiam?
Resp. Affirmative.
VI. Utrum, praesupposito litterali et historico sensu, nonnullorum locorum eorumdem capitum interpretatio allegorica et prophetica, praefulgente sanctorum Patrum et Ecclesiae ipsius exemplo, adhiberi sapienter et utiliter possit?
Resp. Affirmative.
VIII. Utrum in illa sex dierum denominatione atque distinctione, de quibus in Geneseos capite primo, sumi possit vox Yom (dies), sive sensu proprio pro die naturali, sive sensu improprio pro quodam temporis spatio, deque huiusmodi quaestione libere inter exegetas disceptare liceat?
Resp. Affirmative.
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The word "Day" in the original Hebrew refers to a 24 hour period.
Nonsense. What if in the earlier periods of the earth it took longer than 24 hours for the sun to revolve around the earth? It's quite possible that things have changed. People also no longer live into their 900s.
In addition, there's nothing to preclude a metaphorical use of the word day. I argue that "clay of the earth" (from which Adam was made) refers to matter itself, the raw material onto which form is imposed.
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VIII. Utrum in illa sex dierum denominatione atque distinctione, de quibus in Geneseos capite primo, sumi possit vox Yom (dies), sive sensu proprio pro die naturali, sive sensu improprio pro quodam temporis spatio, deque huiusmodi quaestione libere inter exegetas disceptare liceat?
Resp. Affirmative.
This is all we need. I as a Catholic am free to hold this opinion. No bigger proponent of the inerrancy of Scripture can be found than myself, but figurative use of language is not error.
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This is all we need. I as a Catholic am free to hold this opinion. No bigger proponent of the inerrancy of Scripture can be found than myself, but figurative use of language is not error.
Your Latin is better than mine. Could you say if this is limiting permitted opinions to those already expressed by the Fathers? I am not confident of my translation.
IV. Utrum in interpretandis illis horum capitum locis, quos Patres et Doctores diverso modo intellexerunt, quin certi quippiam definitique tradiderint, liceat, salvo Ecclesiae iudicio servataque fidei analogia, eam quam quisque prudenter probaverit, sequi tuerique sententiam?
Resp. Affirmative.
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Ah, hello roscoe, I always thought you were an earth around the sun machine. So, you are a person who can use words.
Pope Saint Pius X is not free from all blame with regard to the progress of Modernism. As you know well he presided over the progress of biblical heliocentrism, the ROCK of biblical and thus theological modernism.
In 1906 Pope Pius X entrusted the Vatican Observatory to the Jesuits and thus it acquired a central role among Jesuit observatories. The first Jesuit director of the Observatory was Johann Georg Hagen (1847-1930).’
So, what were Fr Hagen and the Jesuits up to at the Observatory? Was he, as a champion of Pope Pius X and then Pope Pius XI, doing what he should have been doing, looking at the sun, moon and stars doing what they are seen doing, moving around the Earth and confirming the fact that the Church’s 1616 condemnation was never falsified?
‘The Rev. William F. Rigge, S. J., professor of physics and astronomy at Creighton University, has a long article running through the April and May [1913] numbers of Popular Astronomy on “Experimental Proofs of the Earth’s Rotation.” It is an abridged and popular presentation of the book published by Father Hagen S.J., [1847-1930] director of the Vatican Observatory. It is divided into four parts. The first treats of bodies falling from a height, which on account of their being farther from the Earth’s axis of revolution when on the top of a tower, move eastward faster than the ground and must therefore fall east of the point directly below them. The second mentions various forms of pendulums, especially Foucault’s, whose plane of vibration, while really fixed, appears to shift on account of the Earth’s rotation. The third part treats of gyroscopes, and shows how they are used to prove that our Earth turns on an axis. The fourth part explains various other apparatus, including two machines of Father Hagen’s own invention. “It looks like an amende honorable [English law. A penalty imposed upon a person by way of disgrace or infamy, as a punishment for any offence, or for the purpose of making reparation for any injury done to another, as the walking into church in a white sheet, with a rope about the neck, and begging the pardon of God, or the king, or any private individual, for some delinquency], to the Galileo imbroglio [An acutely painful or embarrassing misunderstanding.],” says Fr. Rigge in the Creighton Chronicle “that the Pope’s own astronomer should come openly before the world with such a learned work and should even produce two new experiments to prove the fact of the Earth’s rotation. Not that we imply that Galileo was condemned for the sole reason that he upheld this doctrine of the Earth’s motion — for which however he had absolutely no proof whatever — but that we have now one argument more, and one that fully offsets any fault that may have been committed before.”’
In other words, the Jesuits of the Vatican Observatory in Pope Pius X’s time and after were now hell-bent on asserting Galileo was right and the Church of 1616 wrong, regurgitating all the so-called proofs for a rotating Earth
E & S are Both in two types of motion-- lateral & rotational.
You are hilarious trying to pin Modernism on the very Pope who identified it. LOL LOL :baby:
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I said, "... modern science has no proof of long-ages." Do you disagree with that statement? If so I would ask that you please try to present your case with some scientific and or theological precision. What exactly is your proof?
What, if anything, would you consider "proof"?
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The Church always looks "bad" to the ill-willed!
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Of course, there is no conflict between science and Catholicism, but your understanding of both science and Catholicism has been somehow warped most probably by a modernist education. You are far from alone in that. Most of us have been it.
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I'd like to hear how you define fundamentalism also, and while you are at it, can you define "modern" science and how it differs from science.
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Meanwhile you do well to read up at the Kolbe Center.
There is a particularly relevant article here:
http://kolbecenter.org/scoffers-will-arise-in-the-last-days-a-reply-to-fr-paul-robinson-fsspx/ (http://kolbecenter.org/scoffers-will-arise-in-the-last-days-a-reply-to-fr-paul-robinson-fsspx/)
A fundamentalist is one who takes an unnecessarily literalist view of the entirety of Scripture while ignoring its other senses. Scripture has several senses. Genesis 1 does have a literal sense( in that it tells us that God created man) but it also has an allegorical sense. The days in Genesis May very well be thousands or millions of years. God is outside of time. God could have created man through evolution. Newman and Garrigou were in agreement on that.
Nadir, you may not appreciate this, but I really don’t think a woman should be arguing theology on these forums. I see mothers at Traditional parishes talking nonsense about theological topics all the time, and I understand why St. Paul said “I bear not a woman to teach.”
Lads idea that it’s “de fide” that men have only been on the Earth for a few thousand years because “that’s what Scripture says” is a clear example of fundamentalism. That’s not how Catholics read the Bible. I’m not saying one mayn’t interpret Genesis 1 literally, but it most certainly is not de fide. Here’s a great critique of the Kobe Center from Fr. Robinson
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/st-maximilian-kolbe%E2%80%99s-disagreement-with-the-kolbe-center (https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/st-maximilian-kolbe%E2%80%99s-disagreement-with-the-kolbe-center)
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A fundamentalist is one who takes an unnecessarily literalist view of the entirety of Scripture while ignoring its other senses. Scripture has several senses. Genesis 1 does have a literal sense( in that it tells us that God created man) but it also has an allegorical sense. The days in Genesis May very well be thousands or millions of years. God is outside of time. God could have created man through evolution. Newman and Garrigou were in agreement on that.
Nadir, you may not appreciate this, but I really don’t think a woman should be arguing theology on these forums. I see mothers at Traditional parishes talking nonsense about theological topics all the time, and I understand why St. Paul said “I bear not a woman to teach.”
Lads idea that it’s “de fide” that men have only been on the Earth for a few thousand years because “that’s what Scripture says” is a clear example of fundamentalism. That’s not how Catholics read the Bible. I’m not saying one mayn’t interpret Genesis 1 literary, but it most certainly is not de fide. Here’s a great critique of the Kobe Center from Fr. Robinson
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/st-maximilian-kolbe%E2%80%99s-disagreement-with-the-kolbe-center (https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/st-maximilian-kolbe%E2%80%99s-disagreement-with-the-kolbe-center)
Since your and Fr. Robinson's ideas concerning the interpretation of Genesis are novelties, not seen in Catholic theology prior to the 19th Century, I challenge you to back up your interpretation of Genesis using the Fathers of the Church. Your view is new, it is novel, and shows that you (and Father Robinson) have been infected by the liberalism that was slithering its way into the theology manuals of the last century and a half. You will not find your interpretation of Genesis reflected in any of the writings of the fathers, doctors, popes, saints or councils.
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Since your and Fr. Robinson's ideas concerning the interpretation of Genesis are novelties, not seen in Catholic theology prior to the 19th Century, I challenge you to back up your interpretation of Genesis using the Fathers of the Church. Your view is new, it is novel, and shows that you (and Father Robinson) have been infected by the liberalism that was slithering its way into the theology manuals of the last century and a half. You will not find your interpretation of Genesis reflected in any of the writings of the fathers, doctors, popes, saints or councils.
A theological view originating in the 19th century does not mean its wrong or bad. Novelty in the bad sense started after Vatican 2. The Fathers are not infallible on science. You’ve been infected by Fundamentalism
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A theological view originating in the 19th century does not mean its wrong or bad. Novelty in the bad sense started after Vatican 2. The Fathers are not infallible on science. You’ve been infected by Fundamentalism
I point out to the board that you completely dodged the challenge.
Thank you for ADMITTING that your novelty originated in the 19th century, and therefore can NOT be considered as part of the deposit of faith.
What you hold concerning Genesis was never held by Catholics prior to the 1800s. It is new, it is a novelty, and on that score alone is to be rejected.
I challenge you to find ONE father, ONE doctor, who shares your views on Genesis.
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The Fathers are not infallible on science.
The length of a day is not science, it's math and/or history, or a combination thereof. The account of Genesis and the length of creation is ALSO a matter of HISTORY, not STRICTLY science. The Church Fathers are called "fathers" because they learned directly from the Apostles. We cannot sweep away their opinions on a whim.
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The length of a day is not science, it's math and/or history, or a combination thereof. The account of Genesis and the length of creation is ALSO a matter of HISTORY, not STRICTLY science. The Church Fathers are called "fathers" because they learned directly from the Apostles. We cannot sweep away their opinions on a whim.
Banezian MUST sweep them aside, since his beliefs do not correspond to theirs. In order to hold his modern, liberal views, he must minimize the fathers to make room for his novel interpretation of scripture. Anyone who holds the same faith and interpretation of scriptures as that of the fathers is labeled a "fundamentalist" by him and Robinson.
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I point out to the board that you completely dodged the challenge.
Thank you for ADMITTING that your novelty originated in the 19th century, and therefore can NOT be considered as part of the deposit of faith.
What you hold concerning Genesis was never held by Catholics prior to the 1800s. It is new, it is a novelty, and on that score alone is to be rejected.
I challenge you to find ONE father, ONE doctor, who shares your views on Genesis.
Of course other interpretations of Genesis 1 were not held before the 19th century, because they didn’t have the science that we have. The theory of evolution had not been proposed and carbon dating was not discovered. They worked with what they had. I recommend Fr. Robinson’s series on Scripture and science
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-1 (https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-1)
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-2 (https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-2)
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-3 (https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-3)
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Since your and Fr. Robinson's ideas concerning the interpretation of Genesis are novelties, not seen in Catholic theology prior to the 19th Century, I challenge you to back up your interpretation of Genesis using the Fathers of the Church. Your view is new, it is novel, and shows that you (and Father Robinson) have been infected by the liberalism that was slithering its way into the theology manuals of the last century and a half. You will not find your interpretation of Genesis reflected in any of the writings of the fathers, doctors, popes, saints or councils.
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Especially considering how modern scientists have been bowing and scraping to their idols:
Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, who were amateurs, btw.
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The vast ages of the geological record are all based on conjecture and have no basis in fact.
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We have clearly seen firsthand how strata forms in a matter of seconds, not hundreds of millions of years.
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Ice cores taken in Greenland have been presumed to have strata and layers that represent years, when it has been found to be otherwise.
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The layers that theorists presume to be seasons or years turn out to be due to a change in wind direction, which can happen many times a day.
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The same layers are observed in the built-up snowpack 2' thick on a car's windshield that was in a blizzard for ONE DAY.
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A 200' deep shaft in the Greenland icepack to uncover and retrieve a P-38 exposed the same strata that had been thought to be millennia.
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But the P-38, found at the bottom, was known to have landed on the Greenland surface in 1943, not 2,000 BC.
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Mt. St. Helens erupted just a few years ago and formed what appears to be identical strata indicating 20 million years, in ONE DAY.
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A seal's carcass washed up on a beach in Hawaii, with fresh meat stuck to the bones, obviously having recently died, perhaps one month.
Sample bones were dried and sent to a lab for analysis.
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The laboratory was not informed as to the condition of the carcass with fresh meat, and the results came back: 20,000 years old!
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So much for the reliability of modern scientific dating of ancient fossils.
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Of course other interpretations of Genesis 1 were not held before the 19th century, because they didn’t have the science that we have. The theory of evolution had not been proposed and carbon dating was not discovered.
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Carbon dating is fiction, and evolution is a fairy tale for grownups who refuse to grow up, like Banezian here.
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Of course other interpretations of Genesis 1 were not held before the 19th century, because they didn’t have the science that we have. The theory of evolution had not been proposed and carbon dating was not discovered. They worked with what they had. I recommend Fr. Robinson’s series on Scripture and science
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-1 (https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-1)
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-2 (https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-2)
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-3 (https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/scripture-and-science-the-voices-of-authority-part-3)
I have read Fr. Robinson's book. In fact, I pretty much grew up with Fr. Paul. We went to the same chapel and used to hang out a lot before he went off to the seminary. I'm not impressed by him (for a variety of reasons) or his arguments.
So again, you ADMIT that your interpretation of Genesis is NOT of apostolic origin, that it was never held by the Fathers, and that it is new.
Three solid reasons to reject it.
It takes a wicked amount of pride and arrogance to think you're smarter or know more than the Fathers.
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What, if anything, would you consider "proof" [of long-ages]?
Give it you best shot Stan. Knock it out of the park and we'll go from there.
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Anyone who holds the same faith and interpretation of scriptures as that of the fathers is labeled a "fundamentalist" by him and Robinson.
Right, the modernist tactic of calling orthodox catholics "antiquated" or "old fashioned", etc. As if the Church needs "updating" to become more in line "with the times".
The fact of the matter is that one cannot come up with a new interpretation of Scripture unless you have FACTS to back it up. There are NO scientific facts to back up a re-definition of day or the idea that the creation days happened over millions of years. In absence of these facts, the new interpretation is unnecessary and baseless.
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What, if anything, would you consider "proof" [of long-ages]?
If even HALF of modern science's fairy-tales regarding evolution were true, we'd have evidence we need. But every proof they've offered (carbon dating, missing links, fossils, etc) are complete crap. There's simply NO EVIDENCE that evolution happened.
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Give it you best shot Stan. Knock it out of the park and we'll go from there.
Better to get some principles agreed first. Do you think it is possible for natural science to "prove" anything? If you don't, there's no point discussing it.
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Carbon dating is fiction, and evolution is a fairy tale for grownups who refuse to grow up, like Banezian here.
Yes, carbon dating is pure crap. I even saw an episode of the show "Ancient Aliens" where they destroyed carbon dating.
PS -- I really do enjoy that show. It's entertaining and informative. Put aside the alien garbage, and they do a lot of good stuff with rejecting evolution and things like carbon dating. They also expose how older civilizations were not a bunch of idiots but had very advance science and even technology. Now, of course, their explanation is that "evolution is ridiculous, so aliens must have made human beings" ... without ever explaining who made the aliens.
(https://i.pinimg.com/236x/1f/e9/8f/1fe98f8d014d34b9d7eff86e8055ae7e--ancient-aliens-meme-aliens-guy.jpg)
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Sorry to interrupt this topic but the Forum should be reminded that AFTER the 1903 Conclave fiasco Pope Pius X appoints Cardinal Rampolla as Chmn of Pontifical Biblical Commission..... :fryingpan:
Well, in that case, we could reject all opinions of the PBC since the chairman was a Freemason. :laugh1:
[you that I'm just yanking your chain]
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Your Latin is better than mine. Could you say if this is limiting permitted opinions to those already expressed by the Fathers? I am not confident of my translation.
IV. Utrum in interpretandis illis horum capitum locis, quos Patres et Doctores diverso modo intellexerunt, quin certi quippiam definitique tradiderint, liceat, salvo Ecclesiae iudicio servataque fidei analogia, eam quam quisque prudenter probaverit, sequi tuerique sententiam?
Resp. Affirmative.
I'm not understanding it that way. I think that it's saying that, where the Fathers and Doctors didn't agree but had differing explanations, people could hold anything consistent with Church teaching and the Catholic principles of Scriptural interpretation ... including some new opinion not held before by the Church Fathers. It's implicitly reaffirming the principle that we must hold to any interpretation unanimously held by the Fathers, but if they didn't agree unanimously, then it's no longer a rule that we must follow.
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Sungenis Is a ridiculous fundie who makes the Church look bad with his fundamentalism.
Really? I consider him to be a liberal. :laugh1:
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There is no conflict between modern science and orthodox Catholicism.
Modern pseudo-science has an agenda ... to undermine belief in God, and is anything but "scientific" and objective.
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I don't believe in evolution, but I won't condemn everyone who does. The Biblical Commission made it clear that Catholics could interpret days as periods of time. (And if anyone thinks the Biblical Commission can be easily dismissed, remember that Lamentabili was a decision of the Holy Office approved in forma specifica by St. Pius X, same as decisions of the Biblical Commission.)
Furthermore, as to the claim that it's "modernist philosophy", most leading Thomists of the 20th century, including Garrigou-Lagrange, taught that some form of evolution from pre-existing matter was conceivable, within limits. Ott, another author trads should be familiar with, says "while the fact of the creation of man by God in the literal sense must be closely adhered to, in the question as to the mode and manner of the formation of the human body, an interpretation which diverges from the strict literal sense is, on weighty grounds, permissible." (Fundamentals, p95).
What does a possible metaphorical use of the term "day" have to do with evolution? Evolution is stupid and it undermines Catholic teaching.
You can diverge from a strict literal sense only to the extent of understanding certain things metaphorically, not in dismissing them as false.
It's a contradiction against Scripture to say that God created man from anything but the "clay of the earth". To say that God created man from monkeys is heretical. There's no way it can be reconciled with Scripture.
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E & S are BOTH in lateral & rotational motion. Helio & Geocentrism are BOTH wrong.. :cheers:
You can't prove that geocentrism is wrong. Only thing in the universe that's not in motion is the universe's center of mass, and you cannot prove that the earth is not at the universe's center of mass.
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A 200' deep shaft in the Greenland icepack to uncover and retrieve a P-38 exposed the same strata that had been thought to be millennia.
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But the P-38, found at the bottom, was known to have landed on the Greenland surface in 1943, not 2,000 BC.
The P-38s crashed in south Greenland near the shore, which accuмulates a lot of snow and has and had many melt cycles every year. An ice core was not taken and tested by standard methods.
The GISP2 ice core was taken at a different location in central Greenland with different conditions. Melt cycles are rare there, and the layers would not look the same.
https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Seely.pdf (https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Seely.pdf) discusses this.
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Better to get some principles agreed first. Do you think it is possible for natural science to "prove" anything? If you don't, there's no point discussing it.
Of course, I do. Still waiting for your best shot or give it your best 3 or whatever how many best shots you want -- best shots at proving (beyond a reasonable doubt) long-ages that is.
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Banezian MUST sweep them aside, since his beliefs do not correspond to theirs. In order to hold his modern, liberal views, he must minimize the fathers to make room for his novel interpretation of scripture. Anyone who holds the same faith and interpretation of scriptures as that of the fathers is labeled a "fundamentalist" by him and Robinson.
Thank you!
B.C. The prophets who were sent to them got killed. (Luke 13:34)
A.D. The saintly Fathers who have for centuries graced the Church with their collective wisdom and truth are now marginalized (if not totally ignored) to the point of ridicule and mockery by modern (mostly atheistic or agnostic) scientists and their adherents who are informing those rigid ....... (fill in the blank) Christians that they know better.
How ironic -- due to their literal interpretation of SS the Fathers are now metaphorically killed -- even by some traditional Catholics
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Especially considering how modern scientists have been bowing and scraping to their idols:
Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, who were amateurs, btw.
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The vast ages of the geological record are all based on conjecture and have no basis in fact.
.
We have clearly seen firsthand how strata forms in a matter of seconds, not hundreds of millions of years.
.
Ice cores taken in Greenland have been presumed to have strata and layers that represent years, when it has been found to be otherwise.
.
The layers that theorists presume to be seasons or years turn out to be due to a change in wind direction, which can happen many times a day.
.
The same layers are observed in the built-up snowpack 2' thick on a car's windshield that was in a blizzard for ONE DAY.
.
A 200' deep shaft in the Greenland icepack to uncover and retrieve a P-38 exposed the same strata that had been thought to be millennia.
.
But the P-38, found at the bottom, was known to have landed on the Greenland surface in 1943, not 2,000 BC.
.
Mt. St. Helens erupted just a few years ago and formed what appears to be identical strata indicating 20 million years, in ONE DAY.
.
A seal's carcass washed up on a beach in Hawaii, with fresh meat stuck to the bones, obviously having recently died, perhaps one month.
Sample bones were dried and sent to a lab for analysis.
.
The laboratory was not informed as to the condition of the carcass with fresh meat, and the results came back: 20,000 years old!
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So much for the reliability of modern scientific dating of ancient fossils.
Well said Neil!
Just remember, the next time you are at the Grand Canyon and the Park Ranger solemnly informs the gawking crowd, "What you are looking at is the result of a little water and a whole lot of time," you can respond: "Nope. What you are looking at is the result of a little time and a whole lot of water."
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God could have created man through evolution. Newman and Garrigou were in agreement on that.
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Lads idea that it’s “de fide” that men have only been on the Earth for a few thousand years because “that’s what Scripture says” is a clear example of fundamentalism. That’s not how Catholics read the Bible. I’m not saying one mayn’t interpret Genesis 1 literally, but it most certainly is not de fide.
No, Scripture clearly indicates that God made man from the "clay of the earth", not from monkeys or beasts or anything of that sort. Catholics may interpret certain things figuratively, but cannot CONTRADICT Scripture or Church teaching or the unanimous interpretation of the Fathers in doing so. Newman and Garrigou were WRONG.
Scripture clearly lays out the progression of the generations from Adam, right down to giving the exact lifespans of the early human beings. There's no theory that human beings have been around for millions or even hundreds of thousands of years that does not contradict Scripture.
That is PRECISELY how Catholics read the Bible. So I'm not sure what that makes you, Banezian.
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Really? I consider him [Robert Sungenis] to be a liberal. :laugh1:
Really?
Well, just for the record, after favorably quoting Archbishop Lefebvre 9 separate times, Sungenis on p. 29 of his new 575 page book Scientific Heresies and Their Effect on the Church -- A Critical Analysis of: "The Realist Guide to Religion and Science" states the following: "It is my contention that Fr. Robinson, insofar as he represents the SSPX, has abandoned the aforementioned teachings on Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium that Archbishop Lefebvre left to the SSPX. As his book outlines, the escape route Fr. Robinson uses to make his departure from tradition is his 'reason,' that is, he has reasoned -- through what he understands to be the 'truths' of science -- that he cannot hold Scripture as an authority on science or history; nor can he accept the Fathers and their consensus on these issues; and he has the right, through the same reason, to ignore what the medieval Magisterium decreed on these same issues. In this regard, it appears he is little different that the liberals coming out of Vatican II."
Of course, as you may recall Fr. James Wathen considered the Archbishop and the SSPX way back when to be liberal. (cf. Who Shall Ascend?)
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No, Scripture clearly indicates that God made man from the "clay of the earth", not from monkeys or beasts or anything of that sort. Catholics may interpret certain things figuratively, but cannot CONTRADICT Scripture or Church teaching or the unanimous interpretation of the Fathers in doing so. Newman and Garrigou were WRONG.
Scripture clearly lays out the progression of the generations from Adam, right down to giving the exact lifespans of the early human beings. There's no theory that human beings have been around for millions or even hundreds of thousands of years that does not contradict Scripture.
That is PRECISELY how Catholics read the Bible. So I'm not sure what that makes you, Banezian.
Lad, you’re free to believe that, but preeminent orthodox theologians ( like Garrigou and Newman) disagree with you. I’m not saying you can’t believe what you believe, but you have no right to impose your interpretation of Genesis on others.
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preeminent orthodox theologians ( like Garrigou and Newman) disagree with you.
1. If they disagree with the Church Fathers, it's hard to call them "orthodox".
2. What is the foundation for their new views?
3. What reason do they have for creating an anti-Church Father view?
4. How are they consistent with 2,000 yrs of Church teaching?
I'm honestly curious.
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1. If they disagree with the Church Fathers, it's hard to call them "orthodox".
2. What is the foundation for their new views?
3. What reason do they have for creating an anti-Church Father view?
4. How are they consistent with 2,000 yrs of Church teaching?
I'm honestly curious.
Your argumentation is silly and I’ve already answered you. The Fathers are not infallible on science. Listen to St. Augustine.
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [quoting 1 Tim 1:7].”
This quote from Augustine applies perfectly to people like you and Lad. Geocentrism and the idea of a young Earth are no longer scientifically tenable. You embarrass Christians by holding these views
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I'm not understanding it that way. I think that it's saying that, where the Fathers and Doctors didn't agree but had differing explanations, people could hold anything consistent with Church teaching and the Catholic principles of Scriptural interpretation ... including some new opinion not held before by the Church Fathers. It's implicitly reaffirming the principle that we must hold to any interpretation unanimously held by the Fathers, but if they didn't agree unanimously, then it's no longer a rule that we must follow.
Thanks. Yes, that is how I understood it too. Yet the Kolbe Center article claims that the PBC teaches that we can only take a position that has been expressed by a Father. There have been some posters in this thread taking that position. Perhaps they can explain why they think the PBC teaches such a thing.
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Banezian,
You didn't answer my question. What scientific evidence is there to believe 1) the earth is millions of years old and 2) that the time periods in Genesis for 'day' are more than 24 hours?
If there is no evidence which gives a REASON to re-interpret Genesis from what the Church Fathers thought, then to do so is arrogant and impulsive.
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Banezian,
You didn't answer my question. What scientific evidence is there to believe 1) the earth is millions of years old and 2) that the time periods in Genesis for 'day' are more than 24 hours?
If there is no evidence which gives a REASON to re-interpret Genesis from what the Church Fathers thought, then to do so is arrogant and impulsive.
The evidence for an Old Earth is covered in Fr. Robinson’s book. Here are some good links on evolution
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/ (https://evolution.berkeley.edu/)
https://biologos.org/ (https://biologos.org/)
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Geocentrism and the idea of a young Earth are no longer scientifically tenable. You embarrass Christians by holding these views
Largely faulty, but hardly ever lacking in presumption, modern science should more often than not be an embarrassment to Catholics who are so often taken in by it all as though they were girls swooning over some latest rock star. In most cases modern man does not possess true science. This is particularly true in cosmogony and cosmology. As the Russian Nobel Prize-winning physicist Lev Landau put it: "Cosmologists are often wrong, but never in doubt."
Contrary to popular opinion, geocentrism has never been disproven; nor has young Earth ever been disproven.
The real issue is whether modern science itself is tenable. The sad, but unmistaken reality is that quite often it is not. Can you imagine grown men (our "great" iconic scientists) absurdly pontificating that BB came from nothing as a way of saying it didn't come from God?! Well, at least they are right about it not coming from nothing in so far as there never was any BB in the first place since BB is diametrically opposed to Genesis as taught by the Fathers, the Bible and the Magisterium.
As for our "great" atheist scientists it can well be said that if one acts like an animal (which is the case when men pretend God doesn't exist), then God will allow one to believe one is descended from an animal.
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Largely faulty, but hardly ever lacking in presumption, modern science should more often than not be an embarrassment to Catholics who are so often taken in by it all as though they were girls swooning over some latest rock star. In most cases modern man does not possess true science. This is particularly true in cosmogony and cosmology.
You talk about "presumption" yet almost entirely dismiss science, and cosmology in particular.
You might consider reflecting on that, my friend.
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The evidence for an Old Earth is covered in Fr. Robinson’s book. Here are some good links on evolution
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/ (https://evolution.berkeley.edu/)
https://biologos.org/ (https://biologos.org/)
Aside from the fact that evidence is not synonymous with proof, there are different ways of interpreting the evidence. The famous MM experiment is a classic example. The results stunned the scientific world in the 19th and going into the 20th Centuries in so far as they were seen as seemingly irrefutable evidence for a motionless earth. For philosophical reasons a motionless earth was totally unacceptable to the powers that be in the scientific community and elsewhere. Voila -- Finally, the immoral (adulterous, plagiarizing, and child abandoning) and atheistic Einstein and his fantastical notions encompassed in the Special Theory of Relativity to the rescue and the rest is the diseased history of cosmogony and cosmology.
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You talk about "presumption" yet almost entirely dismiss science, and cosmology in particular.
You might consider reflecting on that, my friend.
Believe me I have reflected on it -- reflected on it a good deal as have a good number of top notch and honest scientists who are on record as being very wary and knowledgeable of the blind arrogance and presumption which sad to say are a large part of the real landscape in their profession. Some scientists are driven by money, others by power, others by security, others by a God-less philosophical disposition, others by an ideological agenda, and many by some combination of the afore-mentioned. Still others are driven by an impartial God fearing desire for the truth and nothing but the truth regardless of the cost. I think it is quite safe to say that this latter group makes up a small minority
All that said, I'm afraid you are misjudging me, if you actually believe I "almost entirely dismiss science, and cosmology in particular." True science including true cosmology is from God, the source of all truth. And, you can hopefully take my word on it -- I am 100% pro-God!
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Believe me I have reflected on it -- reflected on it a good deal as have a good number of top notch and honest scientists who are on record as being very wary and knowledgeable of the blind arrogance and presumption which sad to say are a large part of the real landscape in their profession. Some scientists are driven by money, others by power, others by security, others by a God-less philosophical disposition, others by an ideological agenda, and many by some combination of the afore-mentioned. Still others are driven by an impartial God fearing desire for the truth and nothing but the truth regardless of the cost. I think it is quite safe to say that this latter group makes up a small minority
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Scientists are people like everyone else: complex and motivated by various things. And like other people, they make mistakes. But other scientists review and criticize them. Cases of intentionally falsified results are rare, because even in a tenure system it has consequences including ending careers.
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I'm not sure what you're getting at. Scientists are people like everyone else: complex and motivated by various things. And like other people, they make mistakes. But other scientists review and criticize them. Cases of intentionally falsified results are rare, because even in a tenure system it has consequences including ending careers.
Absolutely right. Take Dr. Francis Collins as an example. He was the head of the Human Genome Project and is now the Director of the National Institute of Health. He accepts evolution and yet he’s a devout Christian. Why assume someone like him has a wicked agenda?
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Your argumentation is silly and I’ve already answered you. The Fathers are not infallible on science. Listen to St. Augustine.
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [quoting 1 Tim 1:7].”
This quote from Augustine applies perfectly to people like you and Lad. Geocentrism and the idea of a young Earth are no longer scientifically tenable. You embarrass Christians by holding these views
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No, this quote from Augustine applies perfectly to flat-earthers, not to Pax Vobis and Ladislaus. Geocentrism and a young earth are absolutely in complete accord with historical fact, observed reality and all physical evidence honestly investigated. No problem.
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He was the head of the Human Genome Project and is now the Director of the National Institute of Health. He accepts evolution and yet he’s a devout Christian. Why assume someone like him has a wicked agenda?
You don't get to be the Director of such a place unless you "play the game" and worship the god of science. All truly christian scientists are ignored, demoted or given no grant $, hence they have no status in the scientific community and so their views are marginalized.
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The P-38s crashed in south Greenland near the shore, which accuмulates a lot of snow and has and had many melt cycles every year. An ice core was not taken and tested by standard methods.
The GISP2 ice core was taken at a different location in central Greenland with different conditions. Melt cycles are rare there, and the layers would not look the same.
https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Seely.pdf (https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Seely.pdf) discusses this.
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Of course, the glaring contradiction of observed fact with the golden calf false god of evolution and vast ages was utterly untenable for Modernist science so they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for explanations. The fact remains, that WHEREVER cross sections are taken of snowfall in ice packs the same patterns (of varying details, obviously) are found. Wherever the sections are examined honestly, they are seen for what they are. They form quickly. End of story.
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The P-38 did not "crash." So you're wrong, again. Wrong, wrong, wrong. HAHAHA
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It landed quite safely, thank you very much, and all the crew survived. In fact, it was one of several such planes in a squadron, ALL of which landed safely and ALL the crew members survived. They picked the plane in the best condition, but there has been talk of going back there to get another one. They were amazed to see how well-preserved and intact the planes were, with no major structural damage. Historical facts have a way of getting in the way, eh? The P-38 was DISASSEMBLED and brought up in pieces, to be restored and re-assembled *NOT REBUILT* (except for the engines obviously), and took to the air again, a fully functional fighter plane from WWII. They even used the original propellers (but the tires needed to be replaced). Not only that, it remains to this day an air-worthy plane and is flown on rare occasions, by very qualified and honored pilots only, of course.
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Crashed planes cannot be disassembled and re-assembled and brought back to flying condition unless they are rebuilt. So you're wrong again. Wrong, wrong, wrong. HAHAHA
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They did not take any core samples but they didn't have to. They had to bore a huge well, so to speak, through the ice pack, large enough to pull up the sections of the P-38 they had come to retrieve. The well they bored took the place of a core sample. As the well was bored, there were observers who went down into the hole, who had the opportunity to look closely at the patterns of strata right there in front of their faces on the ice wall all around them, and they reported that the strata they saw was indistinguishable from the strata of snowpack core samples taken all over the arctic, not only in Greenland. So you're wrong again. Wrong, wrong, wrong. HAHAHA
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I can't wait for StanleyN's response, like, Standard practice for a core sample is to examine the core REMOVED from the hole. What they did with the P-38 was to look at the hole that was left. The hole walls are not the same thing as the core sample so the two can't be compared. Prove me wrong.
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As the well was bored, there were observers who went down into the hole, who had the opportunity to look closely at the patterns of strata right there in front of their faces on the ice wall all around them, and they reported that the strata they saw was indistinguishable from the strata of snowpack core samples taken all over the arctic, not only in Greenland. So you're wrong again. Wrong, wrong, wrong. HAHAHA
You claim "they reported that the strata they saw was indistinguishable from the strata of snowpack core samples taken" elsewhere. What exactly did they report? Where did they report this?
One of the ways layers are distinguished in these ice cores is the relative concentrations of different oxygen isotopes. Another is variation in electrical conductivity. Something beyond visual inspection is probably involved, no?
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You don't get to be the Director of such a place unless you "play the game" and worship the god of science. All truly christian scientists are ignored, demoted or given no grant $, hence they have no status in the scientific community and so their views are marginalized.
I think there is some circular reasoning here. What is a "truly christian scientist", do you think?
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I’m very science illiterate but it’s astouding to me that so many trust the scientific community to have integrity and to be unbiased. But why should I be surprised? Most people still think that V2 was “accidentally” heretical. And most still think that 9/11 was a Saudi attack.
WAKE UP PEOPLE! The world is run by satanists who hate God, the Church, the Bible, the Family, sovereignty of countries, the rule of law, individualism and all things which have their origin in European Christian culture.
The subversion of science to attack the Church is just the tip of the iceberg. Speaking of icebergs, the story of the Titanic wreck is a totally lie as well... WAKE UP PEOPLE!
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I'm not sure what you're getting at. Scientists are people like everyone else: complex and motivated by various things. And like other people, they make mistakes. But other scientists review and criticize them. Cases of intentionally falsified results are rare, because even in a tenure system it has consequences including ending careers.
I'm not sure why you're not sure what I'm getting at. I don't speak in riddles and steer away from trade jargon.
That's right, "other scientists review and criticize them." Indeed, and thanks for reminding me of just one more thing that has a significant influence on our secular priests -- peer pressure which can easily make the peer pressure that a bullied fifth grader experiences feel like child's play be comparison!
Don't for a moment think that review and criticism by fellow scientists (not to mention private or government administrators) is impartial more often than not. In the real world of scientists, much like the real world for the rest of us mere mortals, pure impartiality in judgement of others and their work is a myth. It is the rare exception, not the general rule.
Conformity to a whole host of things for better or for worse and often for the worse is the rule. Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in a dream world.
No way that scientific review and criticism exists in some sort of a beautiful vacuum! Full size articles and even entire books have been written on this well docuмented subject by honest scientists (who are often and immediately branded as axe to grind malcontents simply because they dare to jump outside the pc corral or one or more of the reigning status quo scientific paradigms.
Stan, reading your last sentence here has me thinking more and more that you may just be a professional or amateur apologist for the supposed "scientific sanctity" of the scientific establishment. It is the typical high sounding claim of the scientific establishment that simply doesn't hold up under close scrutiny. Nevertheless, you can be assured of having the majority of the scientific community back you up on it (at least in public) because to do otherwise brings down "consequences including ending careers."
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I'm not sure why you're not sure what I'm getting at. I don't speak in riddles and steer away from trade jargon.
That's right, "other scientists review and criticize them." Indeed, and thanks for reminding me of just one more thing that has a significant influence on our secular priests -- peer pressure which can easily make the peer pressure that a bullied fifth grader experiences feel like child's play be comparison!
The difficulty I'm having is that you speak in such vague generalities that I find myself guessing what you're actually referring to. Is this about geocentrism?
That said, I don't see "peer pressure" being the limiting factor you do. There are plenty of disputes in all fields of science.
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I thought a new thread had been created since my vision was kind of blurry:
Modern Silence and the SSPX.
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Absolutely right. Take Dr. Francis Collins as an example. He was the head of the Human Genome Project and is now the Director of the National Institute of Health. He accepts evolution and yet he’s a devout Christian. Why assume someone like him has a wicked agenda?
You're calling a Protestant a devout Christian?
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Time out everyone - :'(
Banezian is a priest. He told us so around the time he first joined Cath Info. Just wanted to remind everyone.
OK - time in! :boxer:
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Being a priest and discerning a vocation to the priesthood are two different things.
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The difficulty I'm having is that you speak in such vague generalities that I find myself guessing what you're actually referring to. Is this about geocentrism?
That said, I don't see "peer pressure" being the limiting factor you do. There are plenty of disputes in all fields of science.
Vague generalities? That's a new one! Over 1,500 posts on CathInfo ane you are the first one to ever accuse me of "vague generalities." I'm not sure what to tell you if you have to guess whereas apparently others don't. Geocentrism has come up in the discussion, but it's not what the thread nor my remarks are centered on.
As for peer pressure, it is definitely a factor in the conformity equation which scientists are subject to whether they want to admit it or not. You say, "There are plenty of disputes in all fields of science." Hmmm? Would that quality as a vague generality?
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Time out everyone - :'(
Banezian is a priest. He told us so around the time he first joined Cath Info. Just wanted to remind everyone.
OK - time in! :boxer:
All the worse that he's spreading such errors.
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Banezian is a priest. He told us so around the time he first joined Cath Info. Just wanted to remind everyone.
No, Banezian told us in his first post:
I'm a freshman studying Classics at a small Catholic college, and I'm discerning a vocation to the priesthood.
He's spreading errors because he is arrogant and still wet behind the ears, but sadly seems unwilling to listen and learn.
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... Geocentrism has come up in the discussion, but it's not what the thread nor my remarks are centered on.
As for peer pressure, it is definitely a factor in the conformity equation which scientists are subject to whether they want to admit it or not. You say, "There are plenty of disputes in all fields of science." Hmmm? Would that quality as a vague generality?
Yes, that's vague; that's me trying to figure out what exactly you think "peer pressure" does in science?
Do you think it inhibits new ideas? To some extent, but that means those proposing a new idea may need to do more testing or provide more data to convince people, and it may take some time for acceptance, even decades.
Recently (Feb 2018) Sarah Stewart and a grad student proposed a new model for the origin of the moon. It explains the key data about composition as well as the old model and also says something about angular momentum. It's new, so those skeptical are testing it. The current "best theory" is 40 years old but that didn't seem to stop them.
I also have experience with another paradigm shift. Someone had an idea for a new analysis technique, and presented it. Some thought "that should work" and about half a dozen people were in a position to apply the new technique quickly. As papers came out, the majority in the field were skeptical. There was a significant setback when one person using the new technique presented an analysis that was quite different than results using standard techniques. (Turned out he had done something wrong separate from the new technique.) Especially after that setback, those using the new technique did comparison analyses with other techniques and came prepared for questions at presentations, and eventually won people over. It took about 10 years to get general acceptance of the new technique coupled with a good understanding of when it shouldn't be used. There are still a couple people in the field who refuse to use this new technique in any circuмstances, and one still says something negative about it in practically every paper he writes.
So what effect does "peer pressure" have?
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No, Banezian told us in his first post:
He's spreading errors because he is arrogant and still wet behind the ears, but sadly seems unwilling to listen and learn.
Oooo… my bad.
Well have at him then! :boxer:
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Yes, that's vague; that's me trying to figure out what exactly you think "peer pressure" does in science?
Do you think it inhibits new ideas? To some extent, but that means those proposing a new idea may need to do more testing or provide more data to convince people, and in extreme cases may take a couple decades for acceptance.
Recently (Feb 2018) Sarah Stewart and a grad student proposed a new model for the origin of the moon. It explains the key data about composition as well as the old model and also says something about angular momentum. It's new, so those skeptical are testing it. The current "best theory" is 40 years old but that didn't seem to stop them.
I also have experience with another paradigm shift. Someone had an idea for a new analysis technique, and presented it. Some thought "that should work" and about half a dozen people were in a position to apply the new technique quickly. As papers came out, the majority in the field were skeptical. There was a significant setback when one person using the new technique presented an analysis that was quite different than results using standard techniques. (Turned out he had done something wrong separate from the new technique.) Especially after that setback, those using the new technique did comparison analyses with other techniques and came prepared for questions at presentations, and eventually won people over. It took about 10 years to get general acceptance of the new technique coupled with a good understanding of when it shouldn't be used. There are still a couple people in the field who refuse to use this new technique in any circuмstances, and one still says something negative about it in practically every paper he writes.
So what effect does "peer pressure" have?
I'm not going to spend my time trying to educate you on what effect peer pressure may have and often does have in the everyday world of the scientific establishment. You appear fairly intelligent so if you are honest and sincere (and I'm not trying to imply that you are not) about your inquiry the docuмented material is there for the viewing -- on something called the Internet and in something called libraries.
As for your anecdotes and anecdotes in general -- they may be interesting, or they may be boring, but very rarely are they ever a good source from which to extrapolate to some generalized contention, whether it be pro or con. That's why it is not uncommon for people who are short on facts or solid proof to use them as they see fit in debate and some other discussions.
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Ok klasG4e, I tried, but if you won't make your point, then there is nothing to discuss.
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Ok klasG4e, I tried, but if you won't make your point, then there is nothing to discuss.
Go back to p. 10 where I state: "Still waiting for your best shot or give it your best 3 or whatever how many best shots you want -- best shots at proving (beyond a reasonable doubt) long-ages that is." I'm still waiting.
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I'm still waiting.
I'm still waiting for someone to answer the question that I asked in reply #108:
I have been looking at the PBC docuмent in question: Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis June 30, 1909, using the translation at http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm (http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm)
I cannot see where it is saying what the Kolbe Center article claims it is saying. I cannot find where the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way” or that we have to choose between 24 hour days or instantaneous creation.
This was your position as well. Perhaps you could explain it.
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Go back to p. 10 where I state: "Still waiting for your best shot or give it your best 3 or whatever how many best shots you want -- best shots at proving (beyond a reasonable doubt) long-ages that is." I'm still waiting.
Fine. Radiometric dating based on radioactive decay are established methods. These methods put the oldest datable earth rocks at 3+ billion years, and the oldest datable meteorites at 4+ billion years. Contamination can be detected with isochron approaches, which also do not assume particular initial conditions. At least for alpha and beta decay, decay rates have been found to vary little with environmental conditions.
I'm expecting you don't accept radiometric or isochron dating. Why? (Please don't tell me about a method giving spurious dates for things that shouldn't be dated with that method.)
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I'm still waiting for someone to answer the question that I asked in reply #108:
I have been looking at the PBC docuмent in question: Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis June 30, 1909, using the translation at http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm (http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm)
I cannot see where it is saying what the Kolbe Center article claims it is saying. I cannot find where the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way” or that we have to choose between 24 hour days or instantaneous creation.
This was your position as well. Perhaps you could explain it.
Perhaps, it would be best to just give them a call. Their contact page at http://kolbecenter.org/contact-us/ (http://kolbecenter.org/contact-us/)
reads as follows: Please direct all inquiries to Hugh Owen, Director, The Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, 952 Kelly Rd., Mt. Jackson, VA 22842, Phone: 540-856-8453. Or you may use the contact form below:
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Jayne, I should have answered your question. In fact I just did a copy and paste job and did not examine it meticulously as you have done.
Only the author could answer you or as klas has advised Hugh Owen.
As a note of interest Owen had his conversion to the Catholic faith through studying the questions surrounding Origins. His conversion from the dark side of life, as his father was deeply involved in the eugenics movement and the United Nations.
See http://www.daylightorigins.com/hugh-owen-evolution-and-the-catholic-creation-story/
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You claim "they reported that the strata they saw was indistinguishable from the strata of snowpack core samples taken" elsewhere. What exactly did they report? Where did they report this?
One of the ways layers are distinguished in these ice cores is the relative concentrations of different oxygen isotopes. Another is variation in electrical conductivity. Something beyond visual inspection is probably involved, no?
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The .pdf file you linked is in-your-face biased and proud of it. The whole purpose of the article is to ridicule Scripture and anyone who believes in it.
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The author sought out everything he could find to build a case against the Flood of Noah having occurred when it did.
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He presumes the wildly speculative large numbers of tens of thousands of years are all unquestionable, so that therefore Noah becomes a fairy tale.
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He destroys his own credibility with his a-priori foregone conclusions, which are quite obvious, IMHO.
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Evolutionists get all bent out of shape when creationists use these same tactics, but I say, turnabout is fair play.
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All the worse that he's spreading such errors.
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But apparently it's getting to be quite popular for priests to spread errors.
Look at all the errors Paul VI spread and now he's canonized, for crying out loud.
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Time out everyone - :'(
Banezian is a priest. He told us so around the time he first joined Cath Info. Just wanted to remind everyone.
OK - time in! :boxer:
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Now all we need is an outspoken traditional priest to join up and take on a debate. That would be pretty interesting to see.
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Fine. Radiometric dating based on radioactive decay are established methods. These methods put the oldest datable earth rocks at 3+ billion years, and the oldest datable meteorites at 4+ billion years. Contamination can be detected with isochron approaches, which also do not assume particular initial conditions. At least for alpha and beta decay, decay rates have been found to vary little with environmental conditions.
I'm expecting you don't accept radiometric or isochron dating. Why? (Please don't tell me about a method giving spurious dates for things that shouldn't be dated with that method.)
Actually, SSPX Science Poster Boy Fr. Robinson (and who knows how many other scientific "sages"), puts the oldest datable earth rocks at 4 plus billion years. He asserts that, "certain Earth rocks as well as meteorites landing on earth from space [where else do they land from?!] have been dated to 4.55 billion years old."
Anyway, I hope you are aware that modern radiometry is far from so called "settled science." In fact it is a hotly contested and uncertain field of science. It would not be an overestimate to conclude that it is about 50% assumptions; about 40% wishful thinking, and only 10% scientific evidence. I'll let you chew on that for a while before proceeding to isochron dating.
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Actually, SSPX Science Poster Boy Fr. Robinson (and who knows how many other scientific "sages"), puts the oldest datable earth rocks at 4 plus billion years. He asserts that, "certain Earth rocks as well as meteorites landing on earth from space [where else do they land from?!] have been dated to 4.55 billion years old."
Anyway, I hope you are aware that modern radiometry is far from so called "settled science." In fact it is a hotly contested and uncertain field of science. It would not be an overestimate to conclude that it is about 50% assumptions; about 40% wishful thinking, and only 10% scientific evidence. I'll let you chew on that for a while before proceeding to isochron dating.
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Go to any natural history museum and hear what the docents have to say about dating rocks.
They'll assure you that they rely on the ages established for the fossils contained in the rocks nearby.
Then go around the corner to the fossils department and hear a different story.
The docents leading tours among fossils say they establish the age of fossils by the age of the rocks in which they're found.
IOW circular reasoning.
Bottom line is, neither one is certain, and there is no way of dating rocks reliably.
Radiometric dating has been shown to claim vastly different ages for the same specimens.
So it's all conjecture, and far too often found to be entirely based on a desire to make rocks far older, in order to support evolution.
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Go to any natural history museum and hear what the docents have to say about dating rocks.
They'll assure you that they rely on the ages established for the fossils contained in the rocks nearby.
Then go around the corner to the fossils department and hear a different story.
The docents leading tours among fossils say they establish the age of fossils by the age of the rocks in which they're found.
IOW circular reasoning.
Bottom line is, neither one is certain, and there is no way of dating rocks reliably.
Radiometric dating has been shown to claim vastly different ages for the same specimens.
So it's all conjecture, and far too often found to be entirely based on a desire to make rocks far older, in order to support evolution.
Correct Neil.
There are two studies on rock dating all should be aware of, The French geologist Guy Berthault
http://www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm (http://www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm)
and Robert Gentry (Google Robert Gentry Halos) or watch one of his three videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toh61DVDhZ8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toh61DVDhZ8)
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Jayne, I should have answered your question. In fact I just did a copy and paste job and did not examine it meticulously as you have done.
A couple of posters in the thread seem to have taken the position presented in the Kolbe Center article. May I assume that this was due to trusting the source and that nobody is prepared to defend it now that there is reason to question it?
The reason that I examined it so carefully is because I had read the PBC docuмent in the past and did not recall it saying what the article claimed. I probably would have taken the article at face value otherwise.
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I'm still waiting for someone to answer the question that I asked in reply #108:
I have been looking at the PBC docuмent in question: Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis June 30, 1909, using the translation at http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm (http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm)
I cannot see where it is saying what the Kolbe Center article claims it is saying. I cannot find where the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way” or that we have to choose between 24 hour days or instantaneous creation.
This was your position as well. Perhaps you could explain it.
Not to mention that this would contradict that other statement of the PBC that the term "day" can be interpreted improperly as some period of time, not necessarily coinciding with a natural day as presently understood.
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and Robert Gentry (Google Robert Gentry Halos) or watch one of his three videos.
Polonium halos? And you talk about conjecture?
Gentry claims that discolorations in certain minerals are caused by alpha decay of polonium. But polonium has a very short half life, so Gentry claims this shows the rocks were formed rapidly (on the order of minutes).
However, other common elements are radioactive. Uranium and thorium even include polonium isotopes in their decay sequences. And it's not even clear these discolorations are caused specifically by alpha decay from a central element. Part of the uranium decay sequence is a radon isotope with a half life of a few days; radon, being a gas, could migrating through crystal fractures and produce spherical discolorations.
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Not to mention that this would contradict that other statement of the PBC that the term "day" can be interpreted improperly as some period of time, not necessarily coinciding with a natural day as presently understood.
I said this back on the 3rd page of this thread: 'According to the Kolbe Center interpretation, the PBC decision to permit "day" to be considered a certain space of time, actually meant that it couldn't be considered a certain space of time'.
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Polonium halos? And you talk about conjecture?
Gentry claims that discolorations in certain minerals are caused by alpha decay of polonium. But polonium has a very short half life, so Gentry claims this shows the rocks were formed rapidly (on the order of minutes).
However, other common elements are radioactive. Uranium and thorium even include polonium isotopes in their decay sequences. And it's not even clear these discolorations are caused specifically by alpha decay from a central element. Part of the uranium decay sequence is a radon isotope with a half life of a few days; radon, being a gas, could migrating through crystal fractures and produce spherical discolorations.
Sorry stanley, I am not a trained uniformitarian so if you say so then Gentry is wrong.
Now, tell us where all the dirt from the Grand Canyon went to?
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Everyone should read Fernand Crombette's "If the World Only Knew."
That will set you straight and it has the timeline from Adam to present.
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https://www.amazon.com/World-Knew-Fernand-Crombette-Works/dp/B000M8QI5Q
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Actually, SSPX Science Poster Boy Fr. Robinson (and who knows how many other scientific "sages"), puts the oldest datable earth rocks at 4 plus billion years. He asserts that, "certain Earth rocks as well as meteorites landing on earth from space [where else do they land from?!] have been dated to 4.55 billion years old."
Anyway, I hope you are aware that modern radiometry is far from so called "settled science." In fact it is a hotly contested and uncertain field of science. It would not be an overestimate to conclude that it is about 50% assumptions; about 40% wishful thinking, and only 10% scientific evidence. I'll let you chew on that for a while before proceeding to isochron dating.
Not even a nibble from you Stan so I thought I'd better put some meat on the bones.
I don't want to be accused of plagiarizing so I will happily let Robert Sungenis take over here. From pp. 434-5 of his latest book Scientific Heresies and Their Effect on the Church -- A Critical Analysis of: "The Realist Guide to Religion and Science" we read the following:
* The scientific evidence, of course, is the fact that radioactive isotopes decay.
* The wishful thinking comes from the secularists doing the analysis on the isotopes who are motivated to find evidence that agrees with their godless view of the world and ignore (or actually throw away) any contrary scientific evidence or any commentary on the evidence afforded by the Bible.
* The assumptions concerning radiometry come from the fact that since no one was there when the evolutionist or long-ager purports the universe or Earth came into being, we cannot know certain vital things needed in determining the age of a rock, and thus if one is going to come to an age of 4.5 billions years for the Earth, he must make assumptions concerning isotope decay that agree with the presupposed dating method, but of which he has no way to provide evidence, much less proof.
There are at least five basic assumptions the secular scientist uses when dating a rock:
1) He must assume a ratio between the isotope's parent element and its decayed daughte element. Essentially, this is just a guess, but rather than call it a guess (which sounds unscientific) they call it a "model age."
2) They must assume the rock, over billions of years, has not been appreciably disturbed by heat or cold or any other physical disturbance.
3) They must assume they can interpret the general date of the rock. Scientists do not send rock samples off to be dated without including what the discoverer of the rock "interprets" the age to be depending on where he found the rock. But where he found the rock has already been dated by someone previous to him who used the same assumptions (e.g., long-ages, evolution). When the lab sends back the various estimates of the age, the scientist can then decide what he prefers for the rock depending on whether he wants the date to coincide with when the rock crystallized or when it cooled; or perhaps when the rock was heated, deformed or altered; or perhaps when the mama melted before the rock formed.
4) He must assume the decay rate has never changed, but he has no absolute certainty, only approximate certainty in the face of evidence that certain decay rates have changed slightly or can be slightly changed artificially.
5) He must assume there was no cataclysmic event during the formation or life of the rock or its surroundings, which is usually understood as the concept of "uniformitarianism."
As we can surmise, if any one of these five assumptions is incorrect, then radiometry can tell us nothing about the age of the Earth, much less the universe.
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There are at least five basic assumptions the secular scientist uses when dating a rock:
1) He must assume a ratio between the isotope's parent element and its decayed daughte element. Essentially, this is just a guess, but rather than call it a guess (which sounds unscientific) they call it a "model age."
2) They must assume the rock, over billions of years, has not been appreciably disturbed by heat or cold or any other physical disturbance.
3) They must assume they can interpret the general date of the rock. Scientists do not send rock samples off to be dated without including what the discoverer of the rock "interprets" the age to be depending on where he found the rock. But where he found the rock has already been dated by someone previous to him who used the same assumptions (e.g., long-ages, evolution). When the lab sends back the various estimates of the age, the scientist can then decide what he prefers for the rock depending on whether he wants the date to coincide with when the rock crystallized or when it cooled; or perhaps when the rock was heated, deformed or altered; or perhaps when the mama melted before the rock formed.
4) He must assume the decay rate has never changed, but he has no absolute certainty, only approximate certainty in the face of evidence that certain decay rates have changed slightly or can be slightly changed artificially.
5) He must assume there was no cataclysmic event during the formation or life of the rock or its surroundings, which is usually understood as the concept of "uniformitarianism."
As we can surmise, if any one of these five assumptions is incorrect, then radiometry can tell us nothing about the age of the Earth, much less the universe.
1) Not sure what this means. The current ratio is tested. Isochron methods do not require an assumption of starting ratio. (Although C14 dating is not relevant to old rocks, even C14 does not assume the starting ratio was constant throughout history.)
2) Some approaches assume closed systems, but some do not, so disturbances are not necessarily ruled out. And in some cases rocks can approximate a closed system.
3) Some disturbances reset the clock, some could partially reset it. So the dating gives a minimum age. That would mean rocks could be older than radiometric dating says, which doesn't help young earth.
4) Yes, it's assumed the decay rate has not changed within a few percent, and experiments seem to support that. But even if they didn't, you would need thousands of times higher decay rates in the past to get 4.5b year dates down to the 10,000 year range. And that would have observable consequences.
5) "Uniformitarianism" certainly doesn't exclude cataclysmic events like volcanoes and floods (including release of glacial lakes). A standard explanation for extinction of dinosaurs is a meteor strike.
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Here we find Fr. Robinson's answer as to why he published his book with a non-SSPX publishling house. It is a stark reminder of how the SSPX has sunk to an everer lower grade in the "modern science" department.
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-your-book-published-by-a-non-SSPX-publishing-house/answer/Paul-Robinson-410?__nsrc__=4&__snid3__=3392257316 (https://www.quora.com/Why-was-your-book-published-by-a-non-SSPX-publishing-house/answer/Paul-Robinson-410?__nsrc__=4&__snid3__=3392257316)
Why was your book published by a non-SSPX publishing house? (https://www.quora.com/Why-was-your-book-published-by-a-non-SSPX-publishing-house)
(https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-thumb-486820927-50-mmxeshkmygvklpqjudpdcasahawqocsh.jpeg) (https://www.quora.com/profile/Paul-Robinson-410)
Paul Robinson (https://www.quora.com/profile/Paul-Robinson-410), Author of The Realist Guide to Religion and Science
Answered 8h ago (https://www.quora.com/Why-was-your-book-published-by-a-non-SSPX-publishing-house/answer/Paul-Robinson-410)
For two reasons. The first reason is audience. It is the desire of every author that as many people as possible read his book. This is especially true if you feel, as I did, that you were making a new contribution to an old topic.
Now, the likelihood of people reading my book, or at least purchasing it, would go up in proportion to the distribution of the publisher. At first, I was thinking (dreaming?) of having a press like Regnery, with its global market, publish the book. After some investigation, I realized that I would need much better connections than I do to make that happen.
The next best thing would be to have a publisher that could market to the mainstream Catholic world. I thought this would be at least a possibility, despite my membership in the SSPX, because of the fact that my book is not about the crisis in the Church, but rather is about the intersection of religion and science.
Thus, with the approval of my superiors, I submitted the manuscript to Gracewing. The rest, as they say, is history.
It turned out that Gracewing (http://www.gracewing.co.uk/) was a particularly apt choice, at least from one point of view, and this is the second reason. The priest who runs Gracewing, Fr Paul Haffner, is, in a sense, the intellectual heir of Fr Stanley Jaki (1924-2009), the late, great physicist theologian. Fr Haffner did his dissertation on the work of Fr Jaki, “the only book on Father Jaki approved by him during his lifetime”. He is also the founder of the Stanley Jaki Foundation (http://paulhaffner.org/).
My own book seeks to deepen one of the important insights of Fr Jaki, namely, that both science and natural theology have the same basic epistemological structure. He gave the greatest elaboration to this insight in his Gifford Lectures of 1974-75 and 1975-76, published as The Road of Science and the Ways to God (http://www.realviewbooks.com/catalog8.html). Because of Gracewing’s connection to Fr Jaki through Fr Haffner, it was particularly appropriate that, of all the mainstream Catholic publishers, it be the one that publish my book.
The result has been that my book has a much easier entry into parish book shops that it would have otherwise. The diocese of Armidale here in Australia, for instance, kindly put a notice in all of their bulletins about my book, and placed flyers in the churches. Besides this, certain Catholic publications have offered to print reviews. Other Catholic media outlets have offered to do interviews.
Some people have been critical of the fact that I have attempted to popularize an idea of Fr Jaki, because they accuse him of being a Modernist. This accusation is certainly false, as anyone who has read his writings would realize. He was attached to his Catholic faith, and even belligerently attached to it, in his feisty Hungarian way.
The main beef against Fr Jaki is that he was a theistic evolutionist. This is true. However, I explicitly differ from Fr Jaki on that question in my book, and besides, theistic evolution is a position allowed to orthodox Catholics. If Catholics want to argue against theistic evolution, the Church has them do so on scientific grounds, not theological ones. Catholics are free to be strict creationists, progressive creationists or theistic evolutionists.
I could go on about why Fr Jaki favored theistic evolution, but that is really for another question. It was mainly because of his desire to reduce all science to physics, and his favoring of theistic evolution did not at all prevent him from leveling some very sharp criticisms against Darwinism.
In the end, the main thing is the salvation of souls. If a person is able to assist the salvation of souls better by one means than another, without committing sin or compromising his faith, then it is prudent to do so. This was my ultimate consideration in seeking to find a publisher with a wider distribution.
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Now, tell us where all the dirt from the Grand Canyon went to?
Downriver into flood plains, the Colorado delta, and the ocean?
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This question was submitted to Fr. Robinson today via https://www.quora.com/profile/Paul-Robinson-410 (https://www.quora.com/profile/Paul-Robinson-410) : "Would you be willing to accept a public debate on geocentrism with Robert Sungenis, a devout and long time Catholic apologist who is widely recognized to be the world's most preeminent geocentrist?"
(https://www.quora.com/Would-you-be-willing-to-accept-a-public-debate-on-geocentrism-with-Robert-Sungenis-a-devout-and-long-time-Catholic-apologist-who-is-widely-recognized-to-be-the-worlds-most-preeminent-geocentrist)
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Everyone should read Fernand Crombette's "If the World Only Knew."
That will set you straight and it has the timeline from Adam to present.
Is there an English edition? Looks like a great book.
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[Father Robinson]
If Catholics want to argue against theistic evolution, the Church has them do so on scientific grounds, not theological ones.
Uhm, no. One is free to argue against theistic evolution on theological grounds as well. See again the false dichotomy between faith and science which is the hallmark of all Modernists.
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Thanks Lad!
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Modernist science (i.e. which was started by anti-catholic Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ (i.e. the "modernists) to attack the Church) is opposed to the Church Fathers' teachings and also the Magisteriums of the Middle Ages (when the Church was at the HEIGHT of orthodoxy).
And yet, you probably have no dispute with "modernist science" when it comes to chemistry, material science, internal combustion engines, airplanes, electricity, and computers.
I was willing to discuss radiometric dating, but I guess nobody wants to.
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I was willing to discuss radiometric dating, but I guess nobody wants to.
I responded to it in an earlier post in this thread and you responded to my response. I hope you can get Sungenis' book Scientific Heresies and Their Effect on the Church. He spends many pages on the topic as well as addressing various other very problematic methods of dating the age of the Earth. If you don't like Sungenis you can find much of the same material refuting these dating methods on the Internet.
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I responded to it in an earlier post in this thread and you responded to my response. I hope you can get Sungenis' book Scientific Heresies and Their Effect on the Church. He spends many pages on the topic as well as addressing various other very problematic methods of dating the age of the Earth. If you don't like Sungenis you can find much of the same material refuting these dating methods on the Internet.
I am sure you could find material on the internet debunking whatever so-called "refutations" you are thinking of, but since you don't bother to specify any, there is little to say here.
I do hope you don't just just brush aside those who do not agree with you with insufficient arguments, and fail to consider all the evidence.
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I do hope you don't just just brush aside those who do not agree with you with insufficient arguments, and fail to consider all the evidence.
And, of course, visa versa!
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Dr Walter Libby, who won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the Carbon-14 dating method, and who thought his discovery would reveal ‘prehistoric’ times, never found any human artefact older than 5,000 years.
‘“You read statements in books that such or such a society or archaeological site is 20,000 years old,” he commented, “but we learn rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages, are not known accurately; in fact, it is about the first dynasty of Egypt that the first historical date of any real certainty has been established.”’ ---- A. J. White, Radio-Carbon Dating, Cardiff, Wales, 1955, p.10.
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Good article here: http://kolbecenter.org/question-of-time/ (http://kolbecenter.org/question-of-time/)
I have pasted only the last part of it since it is rather lengthy.
The Verdict
The evidence can be summarized as follows:
- Radiometric dating, while supportive of old age, is contradicted by other age evidences such as preservation of soft tissue and the presence of Carbon-14, and is regarded by its own proponents as subordinate to fossil assemblages for marking the divisions of the Geologic Time Scale.
- Evidence of geologic catastrophism rebuts gradualism and reduces the ability of geologists to extrapolate currently observed processes into the past.
- The quantity and preservation of fossils are difficult to explain in a gradualistic scenario.
- The existence of biologic discontinuities and deleterious mutations are problematic for Darwinian hypotheses of descent through genetic mutation.
I conclude that the age claims of conventional geology do not pass the burden of proof of reasonable doubt. If it were a crime to be as old as geologists claim, then the earth should be declared, “Not guilty.”
However, the failure of the old age hypothesis to meet the reasonable doubt standard does not automatically translate into proof that the earth is young. Both old age and young age proponents have marshaled many arguments for their positions using the evidences of geology, and those who wish to investigate the technical aspects of the issue are encouraged to consult the resources given at the end of this paper. What can be safely stated, however, is that that reason alone cannot give a conclusive age for the earth.
The Witness of Faith
The failure of old age evidences to meet the reasonable doubt standard does show that the standard of proof has not been met by those who would challenge the literal and obvious sense of Genesis 1-11 as interpreted by all of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and by the Popes and Councils in their authoritative teaching. (http://kolbecenter.org/question-of-time/#_ftn1)[1]
In addition, while geology cannot conclusively establish the earth’s age, evidences of geologic catastrophism appear to corroborate the worldwide flood described in Genesis. Furthermore, the existence of genetic discontinuities between species and the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record support the Genesis account of a one-time creation of biologic kinds, with built-in but limited potential for variation.
Apart from any evidence from the natural sciences, there are sound theological reasons to uphold the traditional interpretation of Genesis as true history:
1. The historical character of Genesis testifies against an old age for the earth. The whole Genesis account from Adam to Abraham is a coherent historical narrative, which is taken up in the New Testament when Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam. If we reject the historicity of Genesis before Abraham, then we are put in the position of having real people be the descendants of metaphorical ones. Most importantly of all, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself always referred to the accounts of persons and events in Genesis 1-11 as true history.
2. A strictly metaphorical understanding of Genesis did not exist before the development of the theories of evolution over long geological ages. As Father Victor Warkulwiz docuмents in his book, The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11, the Magisterium of the Catholic Church interpreted Genesis as authentic history up until the 19th century, and it was not new theological insight that produced the modern allegorical interpretation, but rather the desire of theologians to accommodate Scripture to the emerging theories of old age and evolution. (http://kolbecenter.org/question-of-time/#_edn59)[59]
3. Even taken strictly metaphorically, Genesis does not adapt well to theories of evolution over long ages of geological time. While Genesis does reflect the sophisticated concept that light existed before the sun and the moon, the rest of the order of creation does not match the uniformitarian scenario. Vegetation preceded the creation of the sun and moon, sea creatures and birds were created before animals and men, and all creatures were initially vegetarian, since animal death was the result of the fall. (http://kolbecenter.org/question-of-time/#_ftn2)[2]
4. One cannot reject the supposedly unscientific events of the Old Testament without casting doubt upon the similarly unscientific events of the New Testament. Nothing could be less scientific than the idea that a man was born of a virgin and rose from the dead, yet that is what Christians are required to believe. If the supernatural events of the New Testament are true history, then it is not unreasonable to believe that the supernatural events of Genesis could be true history as well.
5. If the evolutionary interpretation of the geological column is correct, God allowed hundreds of millions of years of death, disease, genetic defects and deformities before the Original sin of Adam. But this is not the all-wise, all-loving and all-powerful God who is revealed in Jesus Christ and in the Bible, as understood by all of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. The God of the Bible and Catholic Tradition created a perfectly harmonious universe for mankind, devoid of any kind of defect or deformity. In this account, animal and human death, disease, and genetic defects and deformities are the consequence of sin-and the fossil record of death, disease, and deformity is primarily a testament to Noah’s Flood: God’s merciful judgment, which preserved a faithful remnant from a world that had become almost totally corrupt.
By His very nature, God was able to create the world in any manner He desired, including that described literally in Genesis. In addition, it would be consistent with His nature as a loving and caring Father to reveal a true account of creation, so that His children would be able to reconcile the existence of physical and moral evils with faith in His perfect wisdom, goodness, and love.
I conclude that the revelation of faith and the witness of reason both provide powerful support for the view that Genesis 1-11 should be interpreted not as allegory, but as true history.
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If we are believing Catholics then we must accept the Church's teaching on creation. If we are believing Catholics then, as with the 1616 decree guarantees geocentrism will never be proven wrong by true science, we can place our faith, our belief in immediate creation, and know no true science will ever falsify the word of God in Genesis. Six day creation or immediate creation and then put in place over six days. The Church's teaching of course is not decided at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, but at Council's approved as infallible by reigning popes.
‘God…creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, both of the spirit and the body.’ - - - Lateran Council IV, 1215.
‘All that exists outside God was, in its whole substance, produced out of nothing by God. (De fide.) --- Vatican I.
Surely it is obvious that evolutionism is not Catholic because it contradicts, rejects and ignores the dogma of immediate creation of all creatures set out in the Fourth Lateran Council and confirmed at Vatican I. If all things were created whole ‘at once’ how could the creation of all things have evolved over 13.5 billion years and keep evolving? One cannot say that God created things ‘in their whole substance’ if all evolved and continues to evolve. ‘Substance,’ we know from classic philosophy, means ‘what something is’ and not what something can become or is becoming.
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As we know, when popes were convinced science had proven biblical geocentrism false, they made this same science (which we now know to be pseudo-science) the new exegete of Genesis. This contradicted St Thomas who said theology was the queen of all sciences, the only science with autonomy over all others. Today, popes speak of the 'autonomy of science.'
The six days of creation are now 13.5 billions of years of evolution. Why then continue to celebrate the seventh day as literal, that is Sunday, a day that occurs every seventh day or week. How convenient, a day for Mass and alms collection, but not for Genesis when the Lord 'rested.'. When you think of it, it is a bit hypocritical.
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and all creatures were initially vegetarian, since animal death was the result of the fall.
Curious that they omit that St. Thomas said otherwise.
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Dr Walter Libby, who won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the Carbon-14 dating method, and who thought his discovery would reveal ‘prehistoric’ times, never found any human artefact older than 5,000 years.
‘“You read statements in books that such or such a society or archaeological site is 20,000 years old,” he commented, “but we learn rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages, are not known accurately; in fact, it is about the first dynasty of Egypt that the first historical date of any real certainty has been established.”’ ---- A. J. White, Radio-Carbon Dating, Cardiff, Wales, 1955, p.10.
The second paragraph is a quote, which is reasonably well known. Is the first paragraph your interpretation of the quote?
Libby, a scientist and not a historian, thought he could calibrate the method with samples from historically established dates. But it turned out 1950s historians didn't agree on dates of things before the first dynasty of Egypt with enough precision for such samples to be of use. Radiocarbon dating ended up providing more precise dates, especially as the technique improved.
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Quote
and all creatures were initially vegetarian, since animal death was the result of the fall.
Curious that they omit that St. Thomas said otherwise.
Footnote 2 from the article where you take the quote says this regarding it: "Although the Magisterium has never ruled definitively on the question of animal death before the Fall, St. Augustine is the only Church Father whose writings on Genesis have been preserved who believed that animals practiced carnivory before the Fall. All of the other Fathers held that animal death did not begin until after the Original Sin."
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Curious that they omit that St. Thomas said otherwise.
Footnote 2 from the article where you take the quote says this regarding it: "Although the Magisterium has never ruled definitively on the question of animal death before the Fall, St. Augustine is the only Church Father whose writings on Genesis have been preserved who believed that animals practiced carnivory before the Fall. All of the other Fathers held that animal death did not begin until after the Original Sin."
Yes, I read the footnote. Don't you find it curious that they omit mentioning the Angelic Doctor here?
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Is there an English edition? Looks like a great book.
I didn't realize it was sold out from the Amazon link I posted.
Try this, it has a link at end of article. Guess I'm lucky to own the book.
www.jesusmariasite.org/crombette-if-the-world-only-knew/
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Yes, I read the footnote. Don't you find it curious that they omit mentioning the Angelic Doctor here?
Assuming that what you say is true, it does seem a bit curious, although it should be noted that Aquinas, of course, was so often in agreement with Augustine, citing him so frequently in the process. Can you tell me where exactly is your Aquinas reference on this particular issue? I would like to check it out.
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and all creatures were initially vegetarian, since animal death was the result of the fall.
Curious that they omit that St. Thomas said otherwise.
Where exactly is it that St. Thomas says otherwise?
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Where exactly is it that St. Thomas says otherwise?
Summa Theologica, 1, 96, 1 ad 2 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1096.htm)
In the opinion of some, those animals which now are fierce and kill others, would, in that state [of innocence], have been tame, not only in regard to man, but also in regard to other animals. But this is quite unreasonable. For the nature of animals was not changed by man's sin, as if those whose nature now it is to devour the flesh of others, would then have lived on herbs, as the lion and falcon. Nor does Bede's gloss on Genesis 1:30 say that trees and herbs were given as food to all animals and birds, but to some. Thus there would have been a natural antipathy between some animals. They would not, however, on this account have been excepted from the mastership of man: as neither at present are they for that reason excepted from the mastership of God, Whose Providence has ordained all this. Of this Providence man would have been the executor, as appears even now in regard to domestic animals, since fowls are given by men as food to the trained falcon.
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Summa Theologica, 1, 96, 1 ad 2 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1096.htm)
Thank you!
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Thank you!
I agree. God created all 'in their whole substance' in the beginning. How many creatures are 100% carnivores? Many, like certain whales, birds of prey, spiders, etc., are designed internally to consume only living creatures. The alternative is to have them evolve from vegitarians to carnivores after Original Sin. We don't need that theology, do we?
On the other hand, the law of thermodynamics is probably a result of Original Sin.
Saint Paul tells us ‘all creation groans and travails in pain until now.’ (Rom. 8:22)
Thus the sun and stars burn out and man made buildings decay over time.
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I agree.
So we agree the Kolbe center teaches contrary to St. Thomas, and does not say so.
This is not from some obscure work of St. Thomas, nor a comment in an unrelated part of the Summa. This is from the part of the Summa on creation. This is something any moderately informed Catholic should know before writing about creation.
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So we agree the Kolbe center teaches contrary to St. Thomas, and does not say so.
This is not from some obscure work of St. Thomas, nor a comment in an unrelated part of the Summa. This is from the part of the Summa on creation. This is something any moderately informed Catholic should know before writing about creation.
It appears that you are attempting to smear the Kolbe Center, but you do so by assuming a fact not in evidence, i.e., that KC did not know about St. Thomas' view before they wrote about what they did.
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It appears that you are attempting to smear the Kolbe Center, but you do so by assuming a fact not in evidence, i.e., that KC did not know about St. Thomas' view before they wrote about what they did.
Either they knew, or the didn't. If they didn't, they should have, as I argued above.
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Either they knew, or the didn't. If they didn't, they should have, as I argued above.
(https://s15-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http:%2F%2Fwww.threeoclockinthemorning.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F07%2FTEMPEST-IN-A-TEAPOT.jpg&sp=4eeb5201377380dd55d75e2f5ca2fce3)
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On the other hand, the law of thermodynamics is probably a result of Original Sin.
Saint Paul tells us ‘all creation groans and travails in pain until now.’ (Rom. 8:22)
Thus the sun and stars burn out and man made buildings decay over time.
The stars "burn out" by nuclear reactions. In what way would nuclear reactions be different without original sin?
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Pope Pius XII did a dangerous thing when he left open the door for Catholics to believe in evolution.
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The bottom line is that evolution always has as its primary goal, to undermine the dogma of original sin.
Not to believe it, but to discuss it, which, of course, was bad enough!