what does Finnaly mean??
The original post was answered repeatedly the first page...including by Q on second post, Thomas on third post and a quote from a contemporary anglican preacher 1 year after publication....
finally what??
Can belief in a higher power be combined with Evolution
- Thread starter keithzworld
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The original post was answered repeatedly the first page...including by Q on second post, Thomas on third post and a quote from a contemporary anglican preacher 1 year after publication....
finally what??
taijasi
Gnōthi seauton
Ohhh, interesting, I didn't realize that the Brits had such a breakfast dish as this. I knew about kippers and such.Thomas said:
You see, we Americans have a similar liking ... except that we just go ahead and call it a WAFFLE.
Yes, and I would emphasize that Saladin did this, too, nearly 1000 years ago ... opening Jerusalem to the conquered Christians because he knew well that this was a site sacred to more than just Islam. The Jews, too, were allowed to worship at Al-Aqsa, and before long there were numerous sects, all recognized as having their focus in [now once-Holy] Jerusalem.
The question is, can those who assail modern science and see only secularism, realize that there is so much more ... and respect the current methodology as the best we have at present, while a new, improved `version' of science is being rolled out?
And likewise, can scientists, who have often ridiculed those with religious beliefs and attributed anything non-empirical to hallucination, learn to similarly respect the Faith communities of every religious tradition as having something to add and even a crucial role to play as the New World emerges?
Most importantly, can those who enjoy talking about the Old World, realize and agree that there not only IS a New Era trying to emerge, but learn to work TOGETHER for our collective betterment?
Or will the old lines of separation continue to characterize the lives and mindsets of even some of the most otherwise `elect' among us?
I know this seems counter-intuitive, but those who believe in Free Will must one day realize, it is sometimes only in sacrificing certain of our most cherished and well-guarded pet notions, behavioral patterns or lifestyle choices ... that we can "come into God's Kingdom." Otherwise, we may talk tall, but deep down inside we're really only whistling Dixie.
Personally, I like to ask the hardcore empiricist to tell me a little about the variety of conifers or the magnolia blossom, then listen to the reply. I may or may not understand it all, but I do have a genuine interest. My response will be to ask them, "Now do you not suppose that maybe, just maybe, there is a literal, Intelligent Design responsible for both the year-round nature and role of these evergreens on our planet, as well as for the beautiful, sweet fragrance of the magnolia?"
And if they cannot see or believe it, or make room for this in their system of classifications, I can only then ask, "REALLY?"
Thomas, you rail on against the wrong opponents, you confuse me - and Theosophy - with modern empirical and reductionist science, which you so disdain ... and in so doing you do everyone a great disservice, including the scientists, with whom you should really be discussing these issues.
Thus I will equally challenge the man of the cloth, or his token spokesperson here in the laity, to get down out of his ivory tower and stop acting like he is the only one who can see, sense, recognize and otherwise appreciate the Natural BEAUTY in all the world around us, which some of us can equally, or at least similarly, recognize and appreciate within our neighbor's heart.
I affirm it in the Universal, and ask for you ASSISTANCE if I may fall short of affirming it and diplomatically regarding it in the *particular*. But deny your neighbor that Christ within [whatever your personal tradition may be], and you are no better than two scientists, bickering over the fact that life most certainly exists, evolves and comes to PERFECTION on other globes in Cosmos.
Yes indeed, friends, if you can't see the Christ in your neighbor's heart, the Buddha Nature, it's because you can't see past the nose on your own face. And whether it's a head full of esoteric mumbo jumbo or someone or other's diet of worms, remember that you heard it here FIRST [or at least, before I agreed with him today] from THOMAS.
You see, matters not who makes a point, he's right on this one. But he'll shoot himself - and us too - in the foot if we don't watch him. And I'll do the same darn thing. We just don't know when to quit, some of us, and the rest of the time we just seem to like to stand in one place, whistling dixie, chasing our proverbial tales [sic] ... and forgetting that it's not so much what you believe, but what you do with what you believe. Hmmm ...
On that note, aren't I supposed to be at work right now?
TGIF, and Cheers!
Ahanu
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Let me explain.
Actually, the question was more vague on a certain point I'm making than the question I just asked, for the orginal question, as you will recall Wil, was this: Can belief in a higher power be combined with evolution?
We never clarified if that "higher power" is "the Creator," Wil, nor if this higher power even created evolution and the universe itself. In the second post Quahom wrote: "Why not? He invented the thing [evolution]". How did God invent the thing? Is this self-organizing universe like a cd in which God invented and simply pressed play in a DVD player, or is God continually in the process of creating?
As for Thomas, he replied with a "yes".
Richard Dawkins once said, "I could not imagine being an atheist anytime before 1859," which, of course, is the date Charles Darwin published his world-renowned Origin of Species. Neo-Darwinists explain evolution as creating the world from the bottom-up, not as a "Creator" creating the world from the top-down--as many people during the time believed (and sometimes still do today), especially with a strongly held belief in a fixed species.
I want to know what kind of higher power is compatible with evolution. Seattlegal, writing about evolution and a Creator God during the first page, wrote: "It is said that pure Samkyha cannot readily admit to the existance of a creator God." So is there a good argument for a Creator God now that we know natural selection does the creating? We can say that God created a self-organizing system, and that leads to deism. In Tychomorpheus' first post, we are encourged to "combined" belief in a higher power and evolution, but, again, this higher power isn't clarified as to exactly what It is. This higher power remains very, very vague.
So it is I don't see how the original post has been answered, Wil; we have not clarified the type of higher power or deity that can be combined with evolution, and so it has not been answered.
On the second page Salty jumps in, writing: "I have been told that Evolution Theory has changed a number of times, so Quahom has a point there." True; however, natural selection has pretty much remained unchanged. The only thing that has changed is that Darwin didn't know about genes and the other intricacies of natural selection. I highly doubt natural selection will be thrown out of evolutionary theory. It will remain. Again, since natural selection creates, how does this change our view of the Creator? Obviously the fixed species idea has been disproved. Wil, your beliefs are non-theistic, so did you give up a Creator God because of evolutionary theory?
I said "finally" because people were starting to talk about Catholicism--with no reference to evolution whatsoever. At least that is the way it appears to me.
oh your good......
great answer and contemplation....
I never bought the whole six day thing...
I never bought the wishy washy lightning, blessing, plague, bumper crop, flood, kiss my ring thing....
Nor the santa god keeping a spreadsheet on the good and bad (anyone woneder whether G!d is mac or IBM?)
I believe G!d is evolution, inherent in every moment, in the ether of every creation (mutation?)....
I now understand your consternation.
great answer and contemplation....
I never bought the whole six day thing...
I never bought the wishy washy lightning, blessing, plague, bumper crop, flood, kiss my ring thing....
Nor the santa god keeping a spreadsheet on the good and bad (anyone woneder whether G!d is mac or IBM?)
I believe G!d is evolution, inherent in every moment, in the ether of every creation (mutation?)....
I now understand your consternation.
yup, I'm pretty much a nontheistic panentheist Christian....I'll go for that but your brother Thomas won't.
The Undecided
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Even if you believe that the universe is self creating and sustaining, could not a God have created it in such a way. If we are created with free will why not a universe than can evolve itself. Evolution is a simple feedback system that allows for positive mutations to flurish. If this is so then could not the universe have been designed this way. This is all speculation. I am still learning, and have not reached any kind of enlightenment, though I feel that I am on the right path to understanding such things. TU
Hi Ahaun —
It is axiomatic, I think, to say that God does not replicate Himself — there cannot be two Gods, therefore the point of creation is not to replicate God (pantheism), because creation is not what God is — in the Christian tradition it is a theophany, a manifestation of the Divine; nor even is creation some aspect or mode of existence of God (panentheism) for the same reason ... God is God whether or not creation exists — creation is an act of God, not God.
The greatest gift God can bestow is the act of being — now if that act of being is a mode of God, if that act is just God in some self-determined and self-delineating manner, then that which exists still does not possess it's own being, but is purely provisional being. Better for a thing to be something in and of itself, rather than something in and of something else ... God is not of something else, so to create something other than God, which is not God, but itself other than God, is to share, albeit in a provisional manner, in the selfhood that God possesses.
So I would say the first step is to create that which is not me, but possesses as much of what it means to be me that I can give it.
The second point is that anything that is, like me, that is exists for itself, can never be me because it is not me, nor a replica nor reproduction nor a dulplication of me. So all that exists is lesser than me, in this instance God, because although it possesses selfhood, it does not possess that which the divine selfhood possesses.
So one creates something that is itself, but that can, by participation, unite itself to the Divine self, and participate in the Divine Life. That is its evolution, its impetus top attain to its own good, and to attain to the good as such.
To do so would require the existential being to not only possess selfhood, but conscious and self-reflective selfhood. To be itself, and to know itself.
But again, the same issue, the selfhood of things is not equal to the selfhood of God, nor does the self-knowledge of the thing equate to the self-knowledge of God.
So we're back to participation.
So creation, and evolution, is the appearance of life where there was no life before, life out of nothing, life ex nihilo, and its good is then not only to enjoy the fruit of its own life and existence, but the fruit of life itself, which is in all things.
Neverthless in Christian theology, for example, we have the works of the Patristic Fathers who question this idea, and who interrogate the ideas of 'being', 'movement', 'space, 'time' and 'becoming' ...
A simple but profound overview of this question can be considered in terms of the revised Platonism of St Maximus the Confessor.
The Platonic model has the soul as eternal (stasis), but for some reason turned its gaze from God, and fell, initiating movement (kinesis), and to arrest this infinite fall away from the Real, the True, the Good into what can only be less real, less true, less good, and so on, the material world was created (genesis) to catch and contain the falling soul or spark, and establish it in such manner as it can begin to reverse the process and begin its ascent back to its primordial perfection.
The stasis-kinesis-genesis model underpins all Platonic thinking.
St Maximus revised the argument. The soul is itself created (according to Scripture). This creation (genesis) is the emergence of something out of nothing, which is itself a movement, so for him genesis-kinesis are not synonymous, but they are simultaneous. This was later put forward by the Scholastic understanding of a thing exists in itself (genesis) and its existence is its act (kinesis). The created soul moves towards itd fulfillment, its perfection,m which is its good, and its rest.
This revised model of genesis-kinesis-stasis, which is found everywhere in Scripture (notably Genesis 1:26 and 2:7) solves the problem of evolution. Evolution is the movement of a created nature towards its perfection. Darwin's theory, and other theories, are in fact contingent and accidental with regard to the principle of life.
Evolution shows how living things got from A to B, but not from nothing to A. That was the act of the Creator.
We now have a singular question. Does our acceptance of evolution as a process necessirily mean we are obliged to deny, or dump, the biblical account of creation, which would seem to by-pass evolution by having God establish the species as species from day one, as it were?
No, I don't think it does. Genesis is no more a work of history than it is cosmology or biology. It is a metaphysical tract. It is not concerned with the material, but the formal, it is concerned with the principle of being, not the empirical processes of manifestation.
The big question to be answered is not, I think, the question of evolution, but the question of suffering. Not of Theos as such, but theodicy. Is God good, and if God is good, why is there suffering in the world?
This, I think, is tackled in Genesis with more insight and intuition than has yet been unravelled.
It seems to me that Samkhya is a dualism, with two realities of Purusha (consciousness) and Prakriti (phenomenal realm of matter). This corresponds roughly to the Hellenic dualist model of ideas and forms.
Prakriti further bifurcates into animate and inanimate realms. I see this as one realm moving towards animation, and from animation to consciousness, and from consciousness to knowing.
On the other hand, Purusha separates out into countless Jivas or individual units of consciousness as souls which fuse into the mind and body of the animate branch of Prakriti.
This again I would suggest is an holistic process, not dualist. The body and the brain are necessary to realise mind in the material. Prakriti is how purusha manifests itself.
God bless,
Thomas
If God (or 'higher power') is not the creator, then who is? Who, or what, is the origin and cause of all things?
It is axiomatic, I think, to say that God does not replicate Himself — there cannot be two Gods, therefore the point of creation is not to replicate God (pantheism), because creation is not what God is — in the Christian tradition it is a theophany, a manifestation of the Divine; nor even is creation some aspect or mode of existence of God (panentheism) for the same reason ... God is God whether or not creation exists — creation is an act of God, not God.
I would say that in God the process of creation is continuous, because the act of God's being is what it is.
The greatest gift God can bestow is the act of being — now if that act of being is a mode of God, if that act is just God in some self-determined and self-delineating manner, then that which exists still does not possess it's own being, but is purely provisional being. Better for a thing to be something in and of itself, rather than something in and of something else ... God is not of something else, so to create something other than God, which is not God, but itself other than God, is to share, albeit in a provisional manner, in the selfhood that God possesses.
So I would say the first step is to create that which is not me, but possesses as much of what it means to be me that I can give it.
The second point is that anything that is, like me, that is exists for itself, can never be me because it is not me, nor a replica nor reproduction nor a dulplication of me. So all that exists is lesser than me, in this instance God, because although it possesses selfhood, it does not possess that which the divine selfhood possesses.
So one creates something that is itself, but that can, by participation, unite itself to the Divine self, and participate in the Divine Life. That is its evolution, its impetus top attain to its own good, and to attain to the good as such.
To do so would require the existential being to not only possess selfhood, but conscious and self-reflective selfhood. To be itself, and to know itself.
But again, the same issue, the selfhood of things is not equal to the selfhood of God, nor does the self-knowledge of the thing equate to the self-knowledge of God.
So we're back to participation.
So creation, and evolution, is the appearance of life where there was no life before, life out of nothing, life ex nihilo, and its good is then not only to enjoy the fruit of its own life and existence, but the fruit of life itself, which is in all things.
That to me highlights his fundamental error. Evolution is an effect, or rather a process, but it is not the cause.
Agreed ... but one can accommodate the scientific view without abandoning the whole idea of God or a Creator. The traditional view sees everything created in its perfection, from which it falls, and to which it seeks to return. This, actually, survives in both the common Biblical view of creation, and the gnostic idea of eternal souls falling and being captuured and contained in matter.
Neverthless in Christian theology, for example, we have the works of the Patristic Fathers who question this idea, and who interrogate the ideas of 'being', 'movement', 'space, 'time' and 'becoming' ...
A simple but profound overview of this question can be considered in terms of the revised Platonism of St Maximus the Confessor.
The Platonic model has the soul as eternal (stasis), but for some reason turned its gaze from God, and fell, initiating movement (kinesis), and to arrest this infinite fall away from the Real, the True, the Good into what can only be less real, less true, less good, and so on, the material world was created (genesis) to catch and contain the falling soul or spark, and establish it in such manner as it can begin to reverse the process and begin its ascent back to its primordial perfection.
The stasis-kinesis-genesis model underpins all Platonic thinking.
St Maximus revised the argument. The soul is itself created (according to Scripture). This creation (genesis) is the emergence of something out of nothing, which is itself a movement, so for him genesis-kinesis are not synonymous, but they are simultaneous. This was later put forward by the Scholastic understanding of a thing exists in itself (genesis) and its existence is its act (kinesis). The created soul moves towards itd fulfillment, its perfection,m which is its good, and its rest.
This revised model of genesis-kinesis-stasis, which is found everywhere in Scripture (notably Genesis 1:26 and 2:7) solves the problem of evolution. Evolution is the movement of a created nature towards its perfection. Darwin's theory, and other theories, are in fact contingent and accidental with regard to the principle of life.
Evolution shows how living things got from A to B, but not from nothing to A. That was the act of the Creator.
We now have a singular question. Does our acceptance of evolution as a process necessirily mean we are obliged to deny, or dump, the biblical account of creation, which would seem to by-pass evolution by having God establish the species as species from day one, as it were?
No, I don't think it does. Genesis is no more a work of history than it is cosmology or biology. It is a metaphysical tract. It is not concerned with the material, but the formal, it is concerned with the principle of being, not the empirical processes of manifestation.
The big question to be answered is not, I think, the question of evolution, but the question of suffering. Not of Theos as such, but theodicy. Is God good, and if God is good, why is there suffering in the world?
This, I think, is tackled in Genesis with more insight and intuition than has yet been unravelled.
I don't think we do know it that way. natural selection in its secular expression is a rather utilitarian theory. It is evident in the process, but is not the source nor cause at its outset.
It seems to me that Samkhya is a dualism, with two realities of Purusha (consciousness) and Prakriti (phenomenal realm of matter). This corresponds roughly to the Hellenic dualist model of ideas and forms.
Prakriti further bifurcates into animate and inanimate realms. I see this as one realm moving towards animation, and from animation to consciousness, and from consciousness to knowing.
On the other hand, Purusha separates out into countless Jivas or individual units of consciousness as souls which fuse into the mind and body of the animate branch of Prakriti.
This again I would suggest is an holistic process, not dualist. The body and the brain are necessary to realise mind in the material. Prakriti is how purusha manifests itself.
Because evolution, the natural process, is directed towards its supernatural end.
God bless,
Thomas
Ahanu
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It was self-caused?
Or is that impossible?
Agreed.
Good point. I think this is why reductionists get caught in endless regressions, eh? Here's a classic example: an advanced alien civilization creates our universe, but who created the alien?
Why, in a state of perfection, would the soul turn its gaze from God?
I gotcha.
Ah, so he simply drops stasis from the picture.
What if the universe has no beginning or end?
Hi Ahanu —
Stasis — rest — comes at the end, not the beginning. So things come into being, and as they do so they are moving, and the movement is towards their fulfilment and perfection, which is their rest.
The big distinction here is that the soul is not eternal, but created.
But for the spiritual life of man, this is an abstraction. Life, and all that the idea entails, is focussed on this universe.
Then there's the Kalaam Argument, within which is the premise that the universe cannot exist ad infinitum because of the impossibility of an actual infinite (a concept borrowed from Aristotle).
The physical world cannot be eternal, because of the impossibility of an infinite duration of time, since the existence of time is contingent upon the existence of bodies and motion, which have been shown to be finite.
Not that the argument is conclusive ... just that it is compelling.
God bless,
Thomas
well it would seem that everything has a cause ... except God.
Exactly!
Something the Platonists and gnostics have never been able to adequately answer.
Oops, no ... that was my error.
Stasis — rest — comes at the end, not the beginning. So things come into being, and as they do so they are moving, and the movement is towards their fulfilment and perfection, which is their rest.
The big distinction here is that the soul is not eternal, but created.
Well, Christians believe it has ... and contemporary scientific theory has rejected Fred Hoyle's 'solid state universe', but I can see that modern ideas also suppose that the Big Bank emerges from a prior state, and that this universe will end, and then another begin ... so in that sense the universe might be said to have no end.
But for the spiritual life of man, this is an abstraction. Life, and all that the idea entails, is focussed on this universe.
Then there's the Kalaam Argument, within which is the premise that the universe cannot exist ad infinitum because of the impossibility of an actual infinite (a concept borrowed from Aristotle).
The physical world cannot be eternal, because of the impossibility of an infinite duration of time, since the existence of time is contingent upon the existence of bodies and motion, which have been shown to be finite.
Not that the argument is conclusive ... just that it is compelling.
God bless,
Thomas
bob x
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This amounts to the "argument from personal incredulity": the premise that something that is hard for ME to understand cannot exist. The universe is under no obligation to be readily comprehensible.
Ahanu
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The Blind Watchmaker ring a bell? Not that I've read it, but the title does imply evolution is a blind process. While evolution is blind, it does go groping its way along a changing landscape, as Teilhard de Chardin believed. Theodosius Dobzhansky, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist, also backed the groping metaphor.
I think natural selection senses the environment sort of like a radar-guided gun, which tracks and fires at its targets . . . but evolution, throughout history, has independently tracked and fired at new technologies like eyesight over a dozen occasions. Human-like intelligence would perhaps become a target--eventually.
taijasi
Gnōthi seauton
Well, even Teilhard believed in an Omega Point toward which human evolution was tending. I was so impressed by this diamond amidst the rough (of otherwise boring, uninspired theological wrangling) that I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Teilhard de Chardin's Vision of the Future of Humanity.
It does seem to be a bit of a puzzle, why any truly celestial [Divine] entity, let alone entire groups or hierarchies (Orders) thereof would apparently turn their back on God (if not God in THE Highest, then certainly a Higher Order than themselves). To understand that, however, one must move beyond theory and come to accept certain things as a simple matter of fact. We must be able to at least hypothesize, but some cannot put aside the rapier and step off of the fencing mat long enough to do this.
This is why those who forsake the doctrine of Rebirth are handicapped from the very outset of the discussion. When we cannot grasp that every ATOM of Cosmos is literally evolving, we will not be able to understand what matter is evolving into! When we reject out of hand the whence, how and whither, what good is further speculation?
To say more, we would need to understand something of the nature of SACRIFICE ... yet those who often think they should be most qualified to speak on the subject, turn out to be the *least* familiar with what this is all about. That being said, most people also tend to think of sacrifice as something undesirable or unpleasant ... and instead of considering what may be gained, they only focus on what is being *lost*. So it's like double jeopardy.
Anyway, material evolution is regarded by some as being perfectly the parallel of a Spiritual evolution, because any other take on it is purely absurd. These are the outer and the Inner means of growth & progression, respectively: the modus operandi of the ONE Divinity. God, too, INCARNATES.
COSMOS is the vehicle [Sanskrit vahan] of the One God. Matter, then, is the vehicle for Spirit. And there is nowhere in Cosmos where one of these exists without the other, since they are really opposite poles of the same `thing,' and wherever the two meet, Consciousness is formed.
So, instead of putting the cart before the horse, and thinking we understand what's so important about this horse here, whose sole task has been whitewashed into pushing this cart down the road, in front of us ... I think we should be a little more interested in returning to the ABC of chariot-driving.
Once upon a time, there was a guy who talked about that, and as I recall, good ol' Arjuna listened. Nowadays, when many a fool cannot be parted from his pet notions on things, we seem to have horses at the proverbial watering-hole ... but I'll be damned ~ they're dying of thirst!!!
Nick the Pilot
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“To say that there is no order in the universe is tantamount to saying that the unabridged dictionary is the result of an explosion in a printing factory.”
bob x
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shadowofwind
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In my view, belief in a benevolent higher power can be combined with evolution, but it requires a paradigm shift to make it work without contradictions.
Evolution is a brutal process. (If you don't see it that way, consider the case of a mother duck and duckings. Very cute, very beautiful. On average, in the life of the mother duck, only two offspring will survive to reproduce. But there is a litter of a half dozen, and that is only one season. The mother will try her best to care for her young, and they will try to survive, but most of them will starve, die of disease, or otherwise meet an unpleasant end. Evolution depends on this trying and failing for the selection of beautiful traits in ducks. Furthermore suffering is inherent to the process, not projected from the mind of one witnessing it. For the process to work, the duck must want her offspring to be cared for and to survive. So when they die, she feels that loss and failure.)
There are two ways to suppose that this is the work of a benevolent power. One is to degrade our vision of benevolence, so that it includes cruelty. The other way is to suppose that there is no other way, that brutality is inherently essential to life. In both cases, you give up on the idea of redemption.
People who are unwilling to give up that hope either deny the reality of evolution, or they just allow the ideal to coexist with apparently contrary facts, without resolving the contradiction. One is the American fundamentalist approach (very broadly speaking), and the other is the Catholic approach (very broadly speaking).
The other alternative is to accept that evolution works the way it appears to work, and to reject the idea that it is the work of a benevolent creator. One branch of this is to abandon the idea of a benevolent higher power. The other branch is to assume that there was some kind of 'Fall' and that evolution by natural selection, in its current form, is symptomatic of some kind of mistake, and is not how things have to work.
The problem with giving up on the idea of divine benevolence, is that you throw away something that you might discover and know in your own life. The problem with believing in a 'fall', is that when you look at natural history, you can see that the current natural order extends all the way back to the beginning of life on earth. Dinosaurs had sharp teeth. Ants fight genocidal wars every time they encounter another colony. So for brutality to be a result of a 'fall', that fall had to occur outside of what we think of as the history of the world.
As we consider this possibility, we are radically relaxing the assumption that reality, as we perceive it, is something concrete and immutable, the only way for a world to be. We extend our ideas of God to allow God to be something greater than or other than the creator of this natural order. And our thoughts of our own identities shift to beyond the roles we were born into, if we presume to have some fundamental choice in matters of right and wrong. We are thinking 'outside the box'.
As we do that, we gain freedom, and more power to change our relationships and destinies than we had before. As our assumptions about what was possible relax, things become possible that we would formerly have thought of as magical. And yet, our desires are still very significantly what they had been 'inside the box'. We are still selfish, greedy, and aggressive. But having expanded our mental horizons we're an order of magnitude more dangerous to ourselves and to other people, because of the power and imagination that we have gained.
To summarize, my argument is that there is a price to not being able to reconcile divine benevolence with evolution. It amounts to a specific instance of not being able to reconcile love with objective reason, and we suffer without both. But as we reach for the answer that marries them, then we've got to be ready to work hard on honesty, humility, and deep personal transformation, because we're opening up a whole Pandora's box of new challenges.
My other point, as a kind of corollary, is that its not necessarily wrong for individuals to disbelieve in evolution, or to accept apparent contradictions without challenging them, or to disbelieve in God. We live in a difficult state of affairs, and different people have to accommodate themselves to it in different ways. There isn't a Right Way of Thinking that makes sense from our limited and distorted human standpoint and which will work for everyone if we can just convince them of it. We've got to give other people freedom to be wrong in different ways, and understand that our own way isn't going to work for everyone else.
foutsie
New Member
Why not? The "Theory" of Evolution does not provide an answer to creation. It stops at "something from nothing" (The Big Bang). At that point you accept that something from nothing is possible if you want to call it a "belief", or you accept that a motive force (creator) is involved, or you accept that you just can't know. I think that what causes so much confusion is the feeling that one contradicts the other. They each have different applications for our lives.
foutsie
New Member
You confuse spiritual with material. One is accepted by faith, the other is based on scientific demonstration. Too much literalism in matters of faith make it become a dogma that can be corrupted. I believe that spiritual writings are to be spiritually discerned. and physical matters scientifically discerned. If you need scientific proof of a spiritual matter I believe you need a better understanding of faith and it's value.
vizenos
Well-Known Member
IMO, this is entirely true, and it confirms the validity of the late Stephen
Jay Gould's "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" hypothesis
<http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html>.
Of course, the degree of "suffering" inherent in this is directly proportional
to the degree of (A) self-awareness, and (B) memory retention, to be found
in the experiencing organism. In the overwhelming majority of biological
organisms, the degree to which both of these qualities are inherent varies,
in comparison with their inherence in hominins, from nonexistent to minimal,
with the result that the "suffering" involved in the process is entirely or
mostly to be found, not in the "suffering" organism, but in the human
individual witnessing it or considering it.
Actually, there is an entire range of other ways to suppose that evolution
is the work of a benevolent power, i.e. God. One, suggested by my previous
statement, is to recognize that "cruelty" is an anthropomorphic value
judgment rather than an objective fact. Consider: Would one regard the
cutting-open of a living human body to be "cruel"? Obviously so, and yet
our usual term for this process is "surgery", which is commonly used to
alleviate severe pain and/or to save a human life.
Now, when we examine the process of evolution, the reality of it, we must
swiftly conclude that concepts such as "cruel" or "kind" simply don't fit.
What is evolution, really? Evolution is a process inevitably resulting from
copying errors in the duplications of DNA sequences and/or the
transcription of a DNA sequences into RNA sequences, both processes
being essential to the continuation of biological life. These copying errors
are both minimal and inevitable under any normal circumstances, and result
in variations in the affected genes known as "alleles". The larger the
number and variation of alleles in the gene pool of any species, the greater
the degree of physical variation within that species, and, therefore, the
greater the extent to which that species can be capable of adapting,
surviving, and even thriving under changing environmental conditions.
Evolution is no more and no less than the observable fact that the
proportional variation in the expression of alleles within the gene pool of
a given species changes from one generation to the next. To be alive is
to experience change and, on the species level, that's what evolution is.
Die, and the changes stop. Live, and you will experience change. Some of
those changes will be wonderful, and some will be extremely unpleasant,
and the last change you will ever experience will be your own physical
death, which may be welcome or unwelcome to you when it occurs, but
which will occur anyway, with or without your approval.
Some people have suggested that evolution is all about defeat, loss,
tragedy, and death. This is patently incorrect, since evolution occurs,
and can occur, only among living organisms, not dead ones. Evolution
is a process that rewards adaptability to changing environmental
conditions; i.e., it rewards those that live, not those that die.
I agree with your description of the American fundamentalist approach,
i.e. creationism, "intelligent design", etc. However, although I am not a
Roman Catholic, I must disagree with your description of the Catholic
approach, because the Catholic approach is to affirm that truth does
not, and cannot, contradict itself. If the existence and goodness of
God is true, and the theory and observable instances of evolution are
true, then neither truth can contradict the other.
Of course, if true, the above statement would limit us to the following
selection of alternatives:
(A) to deny observable reality; or
(B) to deny the existence and/or goodness of God; or
(C) to insist that prelapsarian carnivores were herbivores with the wrong
kind of teeth.
None of the above appears even remotely probable or makes the least
bit of rational sense to me, so I choose none of the above.
Below is a link to the words of an eminent, and eminently sane,
scientist, recognized as one of the greatest geneticists and
evolutionary biologists of the 20th century, who was also a
convinced and devout Christian:
<http://people.delphiforums.com/lordorman/Dobzhansky_1973.pdf>.
This man did not mess around; he told it like it is: "Nothing in biology
makes sense except in the light of evolution"! Did this man know what
he was talking about? Judge for yourself:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius_Dobzhansky>
Precisely so! You've said it far better than I ever could, and I have
absolutely nothing to add.
IMO, this is true only if the box one started out with was far too small,
in which case anything resembling rational thinking *must* occur outside
that small and restrictive box.
To my way of thinking, there are two things we can do which truly are
wrong, both morally and spiritually. The first is to form one's opinions
in advance of, or in the absence of, any knowledge of the objective
facts as best they are known. The second is to blindly copy the errors
and mistakes of others, when it is our job, as rational humans, to make
our own mistakes.
Regards,
Jim