Monday, September 12, 2011

Monkey in your soul?

Before we get to part II of my series on modern biology and original sin, I want briefly to reply to some of the responses made to part I.  Recall that my remarks overlapped with points recently made by Mike Flynn and by Kenneth Kemp in his American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly article “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis” (which, I have since discovered, is available online).  If you haven’t yet read Flynn and Kemp, you should do so before reading anything else on this subject.  As they argue, there is no conflict between the genetic evidence that modern humans descended from a population of at least several thousand individuals, and the theological claim that modern humans share a common pair of ancestors.  For suppose we regard the pair in question as two members of this larger group who, though genetically related to the others, are distinct from them in having immaterial souls, which (from the point of view of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy and Catholic theology) are a necessary condition for the possession of genuine intellectual powers and can be only be imparted directly by God.  Only this pair and their descendents, to whom God also imparts souls and thus intellects, would count as human in the metaphysical and theologically relevant sense, even if the other members of the original larger group are human in the purely biological sense.  As Kemp writes:

These first true human beings also have descendants, which continue, to some extent, to interbreed with the non-intellectual hominids among whom they live.  If God endows each individual that has even a single [metaphysically] human ancestor with an intellect of its own, a reasonable rate of reproductive success and a reasonable selective advantage would easily replace a non-intellectual hominid population of 5,000 individuals with a philosophically (and, if the two concepts are extensionally equivalent, theologically) human population within three centuries.  Throughout this process, all theologically human beings would be descended from a single original human couple (in the sense of having that human couple among their ancestors) without there ever having been a population bottleneck in the human species. 

So there is no problem of reconciling the claims in question.  On the scenario proposed, the modern human population has the genes it has because it is descended from a group of several thousand individuals, only two of whom had immaterial souls.  But only those later individuals who had this pair among their ancestors (even if they also had as ancestors members of the original group which did not have immaterial souls) have descendents living today.  In that sense, every modern human is both descended from an original population of several thousand and from an original pair.  There is no contradiction because the claim that modern humans are descended from an original pair does not entail that they received all their genes from that pair alone.  As Flynn points out, critics like Jerry Coyne confuse the claim that there is one man from whom all modern humans are descended -- a claim that is part of the doctrine of original sin -- with the claim that all modern humans are descended from only one man -- a claim which need not be understood as part of the doctrine.  And as Flynn also points out, it is arguably only the male of the pair, and not the couple, that the doctrine requires all modern humans to be descended from. 

Now, recall that this whole blogospheric debate got started because Coyne boldly proclaimed that “we can dismiss a physical Adam and Eve with near scientific certainty” but also professed interest in hearing “the best way to reconcile the Biblical story of Adam and Eve with the genetic facts” (even offering as a prize for the best answer an autographed copy of his book Why Evolution is True).  So, now that he’s got his answer, what does Coyne do?  He completely misses the point.  In response to my recent post, Coyne writes:

If souls and sin are transmitted vertically, from parents to offspring—as suggested by [Feser’s]  hypothesis… —then we should still see a two-person genetic bottleneck some time in the past, tracing back to those two lucky individuals who won the soul lottery.  We don’t see that.

Moreover, all the genes of every living human should “coalesce” back to the same time and the same two people.  But we don’t see that either: each gene segment had its ancestor at a different time (and often at a different place) in the past: the Y chromosome, for instance, coalesces back to an ancestor who lived about 60,000 years more recently than the female ancestor who bequeathed us the genes in our mitochondria.  So this solution is also untenable.

How can Coyne say such things, given that one of Flynn’s and Kemp’s main points is that the doctrine of original sin does not in fact entail a bottleneck; given Flynn’s argument that it does not even require that all modern humans descend from the female of the original pair, but need regard only the male as their common ancestor; and given Flynn’s further point that the scenario proposed does not require identifying Adam and Eve with “Y-chromosomal Adam” and “Mitochondrial Eve,” respectively?  

He can say them because Coyne obviously didn’t bother reading Flynn or Kemp, that’s how, even though I cited them.  True, I didn’t say much about the details of Flynn’s and Kemp’s arguments myself in my own original post (for I didn’t have anything to add to what they said about the genetic considerations, but wanted to emphasize instead the crucial difference between a metaphysical account of human nature and a purely biological one).  But then, I doubt that Coyne read even my post.  It seems pretty clear that he was relying on Jason Rosenhouse’s summary of what I wrote.  Yet Rosenhouse did apparently read at least Kemp, and does not say the point-missing things Coyne does.  (Coyne says that Rosenhouse “overlooked” the “flaw” Coyne claims to identify.  But Rosenhouse didn’t “overlook” it; rather, he actually did some homework, and perhaps concluded that Coyne’s original objection had been effectively answered by Kemp and decided to drop the subject.)

So, Coyne has no excuse.  Had he bothered to do his own homework he would have known that his reply completely misses the point, and had already been answered by Flynn and Kemp.  But reading a blog post summary of another blog post’s allusion to what a third blog post and a journal article had to say is evidently Coyne’s idea of research, at least when he pontificates on the subject of religion.  The results are predictably embarrassing, or would be if Coyne were capable of embarrassment.  And so the real mystery here is not the doctrine of original sin.  The real mystery is why anyone still takes seriously anything Jerry Coyne has to say about religion.   Anyway, Prof. Coyne, Mike Flynn and Kenneth Kemp are waiting for their signed copies of your book.  (I’ve already got a copy, so no need to send me one.)

Rosenhouse has criticisms of his own.  But though he does not miss the point the way Coyne does, his objections have no more force than Coyne’s.  Rosenhouse says, first of all, that:

The first piece of evidence against [the scenario summarized above] is that the Bible does not teach anything remotely like what Feser is describing… Where in the Genesis story does he find a preexisting population of physically human but unensouled creatures?  And how does he account for the Genesis language, which explicitly tries to account for physical bodies and not just for mental endowments?

In other words: “Wait, you’re not a fundamentalist!  That’s not fair!”   

As I noted in my previous post, what Catholic theology requires is that all humans living today have Adam as an ancestor, and that Adam’s soul was infused directly by God.  It does not require that Adam was literally made directly from dust or clay.  And though Rosenhouse is correct that Genesis is interested in the formation of Adam’s body and not merely the origin of his soul, that too is consistent with the Flynn/Kemp account if we think of the matter God used to form that body as derived from pre-existing hominids rather than straight from the earth.  I know Rosenhouse, Coyne, and Co. would like it to be the case that all Christians are crude literalists --after all, that would facilitate atheist combox smart-assery and other forms of Serious Thinking.  But it just isn’t so.  As a matter of fact, the most traditional Christians are not crude literalists.  As Mike Flynn emphasizes in his post, that the literal and figurative senses of statements in the book of Genesis must be carefully distinguished is a long-standing theme in traditional biblical exegesis, and was famously explored by St. Augustine.  Flynn writes:

If I want to know "what Christianity teaches," I would be inclined to ask the Orthodox or Catholic churches, as they have near 2000 years of noodling over it.  Yet when the Coynes of the world want to tell us 'what Christians believe,' they agitate over the idiosyncratic beliefs of Bill and Ted's Excellent Bible Shack, whose teachings go back to last Tuesday.  Go figure.

To be sure, this does not mean that Catholic theology allows us to reinterpret just any old passage of Genesis as we see fit.  The point is just that the situation is far more complicated than claiming either that it all must be taken literally or that none of it need be taken literally.  A reader calls attention to some articles by Fr. Brian Harrison -- here, here, and here -- which detail the history of the Church’s doctrinal statements concerning human origins and evolution, and argue that Catholic teaching on the subject is more conservative than many realize.  In particular, Fr. Harrison argues that the miraculous formation of Eve from Adam’s side is binding Catholic doctrine.  At the same time, Fr. Harrison acknowledges that the Church does not condemn either “special transformism” -- the view (which Pius XII evidently had in mind in Humani Generis) that in forming Adam, God conjoined a human soul to matter derived from pre-existing hominids and “upgraded” so as to make it suitable for such infusion -- or evolutionary accounts of sub-human species.  And special transformism is all that is essential to the point that Flynn, Kemp, and I have been making about the compatibility of the doctrine of original sin with the genetic evidence.  In any event, as I say, the situation is more complicated than fundamentalists, theological liberals, and New Atheists suppose.

Even given a completely literal reading of the relevant passages in Genesis, there is less conflict with Flynn’s and Kemp’s proposal than Rosenhouse suggests.  We are told that Cain feared that others might kill him.  Who were these others?  That we are not told, and thus have to speculate.  Perhaps they were further progeny of Adam.  But Flynn’s and Kemp’s account provides another possibility -- that they were (to use Rosenhouse’s words) members of “a preexisting population of physically human but unensouled creatures.”

Rosenhouse’s other response to what I wrote is (again, perhaps because he could see that Kemp had in effect answered Coyne’s original objection) to change the subject.  The subject, you’ll recall, was whether the doctrine of original sin is compatible with the genetic evidence.  The subject was not whether the doctrine is true.  Obviously I think it is true, but that is a separate issue requiring a separate discussion.  Flynn, Kemp, and I were not trying to convince skeptics to accept the doctrine of original sin, but only to show that rightly understood, the doctrine is compatible with the claim that modern humans descended from a population well above two individuals.  Rosenhouse, however, complains that we have not established the truth of a key presupposition of our defense of the doctrine, viz. the immateriality of the human soul -- even though I explicitly said that I was not claiming to have done that in the post he’s responding to (since doing so was not necessary to answering the specific objection at hand and the post was already long enough).

I also noted that the immateriality of the human soul is something I have argued for elsewhere.  For example, I treat the subject at length in my books Philosophy of Mind, The Last Superstition, and Aquinas.  I address it in numerous previous blog posts.  Yet Rosenhouse assures us that:

Catholic theologians have not the slightest basis for saying that our nature is simply not exhausted by our physical attributes.

Hear that?  Not “a highly controversial basis.”  Not “a basis that I, Jason Rosenhouse, find unconvincing.”  No, not the slightest basis.  Now, forget about my own arguments for the intellect’s immateriality (though Rosenhouse says nothing in response to them).  A great many more important Catholic philosophers and theologians have also presented serious arguments for it, as have non-Catholic Christians and pagan thinkers in the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions.  Secular writers like Karl Popper and David Chalmers have endorsed forms of dualism.  Secular writers like Bertrand Russell, A. J. Ayer, and Galen Strawson, while they do not embrace dualism, nevertheless reject physicalism.  Yet others, like Thomas Nagel, Jerry Fodor, and Joseph Levine, have argued that there are at least serious difficulties facing physicalism which have yet to be answered.  And many materialists who think these difficulties can be answered at least acknowledge that the difficulties are indeed serious ones raised by critics in good faith.  Then there are secular non-dualists like Tyler Burge, John Searle, and William Lycan, who (as I have noted before) have expressed the opinion that the dominance of materialism in contemporary philosophy of mind owes less to the quality of the arguments in its favor than to ideological thinking.  

But for Rosenhouse, it seems, none of these thinkers has the slightest basis for his views.  It’s all just transparently feeble religious apologetics, apparently even with the many secularists among them.  No doubt that’s because Rosenhouse read a materialist philosophy of mind book once back in college which he thinks “refuted” all the objections to materialism once and for all.   (As we know from his dismissiveness towards the cosmological argument, once Prof. Dr. Jason Rosenhouse has found some particular book on a philosophical subject convincing, causa finita est and philosophers need wrestle over it no further.)  

Such preposterous overstatement would be inexcusable even if Rosenhouse had shown any evidence that he understands the issues.  But he quite obviously does not understand them.  He continues:

Intelligence and rationality appear to be things that come in degrees.  Dogs already have the ability to learn hundreds of commands.  They can form complex emotional relationships with people.  They can understand their place in a pack.  All of this requires considerable mental processing ability.  What basis is there for saying that purely physical processes in the brain can account for these, fairly sophisticated, mental accomplishments, but cannot account for abstract reasoning or rationality as well?

Even the brief comments I made in my previous post should make it obvious what is wrong with this argument from an Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) point of view.  None of the examples Rosenhouse gives requires a grasp of abstract concepts, as opposed to mere sensation, mental imagery, or the processing of material symbols.  And it is abstract concepts -- for instance, the concept man as opposed to a sensation of a particular man or a mental image of a certain man’s appearance or voice,  or a neural structure that is causally correlated with particular men encountered in the past -- that A-T philosophers (and by no means only A-T philosophers) argue cannot be material.  For conceptual thought can have a determinate, unambiguous content and a universality of reference that sensations, mental imagery, and material symbols cannot have even in principle.  Rosenhouse is free to argue against this claim if he wishes, but he really ought at least to try to understand it, and the reasons A-T philosophers would give for it, before doing so.  As I often do, I would recommend James Ross’s article “Immaterial Aspects of Thought” for a fine contemporary statement of those reasons.  (That the resulting position is in no way at odds with what we know from modern neuroscience is something I have argued for here.)

Rosenhouse continues:

And that's just dogs.  Once we start contemplating apes the basis for Feser's arguments gets very rickety indeed.  Apes have sophisticated tool-making and tool-using capabilities.  They can learn sign language and have shown an ability to combine signs in logical ways to express concepts beyond what they were specifically taught.  Are you really confident they have no ability for abstraction or the use of logic?

The answer is Yes, I am confident of that, for the same sorts of reasons Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker are confident that the “evidence” for ape sign language is completely bogus.  (Last time I checked, Chomsky and Pinker weren’t religious apologists.)  But even if Chomsky, Pinker, and I are all wrong, that wouldn’t show that the intellect is material.  For if it turned out that apes really did have genuine intellectual powers, what would follow instead is that they too had immaterial souls -- and indeed, that they were arguably therefore “human” in the metaphysical sense even if not in the genetic sense, for they would in that case be rational animals.  

Until there’s real evidence for that, though -- and I won’t hold my breath -- it looks like there ain’t no monkey in any (metaphysically) human soul.  In our bodies maybe, but souls, no.  But don’t let that stop you from enjoying the classic Steely Dan tune:

299 comments:

  1. That was me Alan.

    I must warn you. This stupid thread sometimes eats your comments.

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  2. DNW,

    You ask, "How is it that Mr. Homo erectus knows that his sister has no soul?"

    He and a few others can talk and share stories about what they did recently. She can't. All she does is use a few monosyllabic barks to call people's attention to things.

    You ask: "Why do you say decisive? What principle are you assuming that makes the choice to kill your biologically human but non rational sister, decisive?"

    My point was simply that if I had a starving baby, and there was an animal nearby that I could kill to feed my baby, I would need a very strong reason NOT to kill it, such as: "That animal has a soul like yours, and the same right to life as you have." Nothing else would stop me.

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  3. Hi Ed,

    Thanks very much for your comments on James Ross's article. To put myself in the picture: I agree with Ross (and with Quine) that physicalistic properties as such cannot fix determinate meanings. What I hold, however, is that they can determine functions. Function is a property of physical systems, by virtue of (i) their form and (ii) their finality, which may be either intrinsic (as in organisms) or extrinsic (as in machines). Form is not the same as finality; the directedness of an entity is an irreducible feature of it. However, an understanding of a thing's form can tell us what it is directed at: we can read finality from form.

    Thus by inspecting the circuitry of a machine, and trying out various inputs, we can often determine its function. We don't need to ask the designers, who may have died long ago. Thus even if an adding machine were found on another planet whose inhabitants had long perished, scientists on Earth could soon figure out what it was for, simply by examining its logic circuits and trying out various inputs. Likewise, if I found a stainless steel blade on another planet, I'd have no doubt its function was for cutting.

    What about living things? Here the teleology is intrinsic; it speaks for itself. Thus by carefully inspecting the organs of a living thing, and looking at its environment, scientists can tell what its organs are for.

    Thus I would say that it is only intentionality that has a meaning (as opposed to a mere function) that implies immateriality. Living organisms, whose teleology is intrinsic, can embody function, but not meaning as such. DNA certainly has many functions, but the DNA molecule doesn't mean anything.

    I hope that clears up my position. Thanks again, Ed.

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  4. George R,

    Let me get this straight. In Humani Generis, Pius XII addresses two issues vis-a-vis evolution: (1) whether the human body came from pre-existing living matter, and (2) whether there have been true men after Adam who did not descend from him. He explicitly says that Catholics with the relevant knowledge are at liberty to "research and discuss" (1), but not (2). And the reason he does not allow such liberty with respect to (2) is that it is "in no way apparent" how (2) can be reconciled with binding Catholic teaching. Notice that he doesn't even say flatly that it cannot be -- he just says that it is not apparent how it can be, but that that alone suffices to prevent Catholics from being at liberty to discuss it. And the point of these passages in Humani Generis was, of course, to put a stop to heterodox speculation vis-a-vis evolution.

    Now, according to you, it seems, (1) is just as incompatible with Catholic teaching as (2) is. And yet though Pius XII forbids discussion and research vis-a-vis (2), he does not forbid it with respect to (1). The implication is obvious: Pius himself did not think (1) is incompatible with Catholic doctrine. That doesn't mean he accepted it, of course. But it does mean that he did not condemn it as heterodox.

    According to you, though, all he meant is that Catholics can "research and discuss" it -- but not actually entertain it as a possibility, as something compatible with Catholic teaching. Even though he explicitly ruled out such research and discussion with respect to (2) one paragraph later, because it was not apparent how to reconcile (2) with Catholic teaching. And even though it is not obvious what the point of "research and discussion" could be if it were not to consider (1) as a live option. (Why couldn't Catholics in that case also "research and discuss" (2) in the sense you think it is OK to research and discuss (1), since the relevant sort of "research and discussion" would not -- you claim -- involve actually entertaining it as a live option?)

    This doesn't even pass the laugh test, George. Give it up. You haven't got a leg to stand on.

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  5. In other words "Wait, you’re not a fundamentalist! That’s not fair!”

    Nope... it's more "in trying to shore-horn what you believe into something consistent with modern science you are making irrational and illogical arguments".

    Animals are brought forth from the Earth via Genesis thus according to the transitive property of logic a=b, b=c then a=c. Creating from pre-existing living matter is no different then being brought forth from the Earth.

    Err nope... that doesn't make any sense. As "being brought forth from the Earth" is then similarly no different from digging up out of the ground.

    It doesn’t matter what the Pope personally believed. It is what he formally and clearly taught that matters.

    You mean like where he formally and clearly taught that "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."

    Yes, he may have been talking about marriage... but he is grounding his argument on marriage on your deity's creation of Adam from "the slime of the earth" and Eve was "miraculously" taken from Adam's side while he slept.

    So President Clinton believed gays should be in the military?

    And? Your continued comparison of Catholic Doctrine to the actions of government is quite entertaining. There is a vast difference between the president believing something should happen, and it being legal for something to happen... and a matter something occurring.

    Even though we are only days from the repeal of DADT that repeal cannot dictate what people believe... those who oppose allowing homosexuals to openly serve in the military are still free to believe that homosexuals should not serve in the military... more importantly, even though it will soon be military policy that homosexuals can serve openly people can still believe that homosexuals cannot serve in the military and serve in the military.

    Can the same be said for religious dogma? Is someone who does not believe the "Jesus is the son of god" bit still a Catholic?

    This view is consistent with Catholic teaching not against it so how can it be private interpretation?

    So it that humans are the descendants of daemons is consistent with Catholic Dogma? Interesting... where else, aside from you, can I read about that particular bit?

    I don’t see how Pope Leo is at odds with this theory?

    Sure, if you are also willing to agree that "the first two humans were created in a lab by aliens" is also consistent with Pope Leo's statement.

    Yes Catholics can hold to it or some other theory till the church rules on the matter if ever.

    And if the Church ruled that Adam/Eve were literally created out of slime/rib you'd then follow suit and believe as such?

    They simply are matter of fact citations.

    So it is a fact that Adam was created from slime, then Eve from one of his ribs... but you don't have to believe it?

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  6. He and a few others can talk and share stories about what they did recently. She can't. All she does is use a few monosyllabic barks to call people's attention to things.

    Why not? She would be neurologically identical to her ensouled bretherin, and thus would be able to both remember things that had occurred and synthesize new ideas based on what had occurred.

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  7. Yes this is all very nice and don't you feel proud of yourselves. Good debate on both ends. But none of this begs the question why ANYONE IS COMFORTABLE WITH THE CONCEPT OF ORIGINAL SIN? Seriously, no one would accept going to prison if their father or mother committed murder. You can do the theological two step around that all you want and make your excuses so full of sound philosophical arguments to bamboozle most any layman, but it doesn't changed how fucked up (pardon me but its warranted) the concept is at the most fundamental level.

    One other bone I would like to pick is everyone bashing Coyne's venture into philosophy as ill equipped and uninformed. To debate the biological function of say the VEGF gene, just for example, with someone who has a doctorate on the subject would indeed be foolish. But philosophy is a quite different matter.

    You in no way have to be a professional philosopher to make sound philosophical arguments and present cohesive lines of thought. Philosophy of this importance is open to every human being on the planet. Not just professionals. Dr. Feser is obviously a seasoned philosopher but still can't see the writing on the wall that there is no God and we should all just get used to it. Instead, he is fantasizing about God coming into evolution after waiting 13.9 billion years and just saying, "mmm now this group of humans, you get souls. Now, run along and enjoy being a part of my egotistical experiment."

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  8. "Animals are brought forth from the Earth via Genesis thus according to the transitive property of logic a=b, b=c then a=c. Creating from pre-existing living matter is no different then being brought forth from the Earth."

    Err nope... that doesn't make any sense. As "being brought forth from the Earth" is then similarly no different from digging up out of the ground.

    Here is how Augustine considered the matter some 1500 years ago:
    It is therefore, causally that Scripture has said that earth brought forth the crops and trees, in the sense that it received the power of bringing them forth. In the earth from the beginning, in what I might call the roots of time, God created what was to be in times to come. (On the literal meanings of Genesis, Book V Ch. 4:11).
    IOW, things emerged from matter according to natural powers given to matter. So, actually, that does make sense.
    + + +
    Seriously, no one would accept going to prison if their father or mother committed murder. You can do the theological two step around that all you want and make your excuses so full of sound philosophical arguments to bamboozle most any layman, but it doesn't changed how fucked up (pardon me but its warranted) the concept is at the most fundamental level.

    OTOH, children might well fall ill from a disease inherited from the parent.

    Part of the problem is the way "sin" is almost universally misunderstood in the wreckage of the Modern Ages. It means a "turning away" from the good. Positive sin is a deliberate personal act of turning away. Original sin is an inherited condition of nature by which we are born turned a little away and must learn to turn toward the good.

    Origin-al sin is the origin of sin. Thomas Aquinas says that it is not an offense like committing murder, and you agree with him (and with church teaching) that no one is punished for particular acts that another does. The original sin, he says is a "sin of nature," not a "sin of man," meaning it is a lacking in human nature, rather than a positive act by an individual. It is the weakness toward selfishness that all humans suffer from. (As Chesterton wryly commented, original sin is the one belief of Christianity that is utterly empirical.) That's why we have to learn to love the poor and weak - and our enemy. Call it "the selfish gene" if you like.

    As to how this might be inherited from Adam, Thomas suggested genetics. Well, he said "semen" rather than "genes," but his argument is essentially genetic. He finds this a partial answer and supplements it with a second argument regarding the organic unity of the human form in which we all partake.

    Details here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2081.htm In particular, Art. 1 and 3.
    + + +
    To debate the biological function of say the VEGF gene, just for example, with someone who has a doctorate on the subject would indeed be foolish. But philosophy is a quite different matter. You in no way have to be a professional philosopher to make sound philosophical arguments and present cohesive lines of thought.

    I sorta wish you would have demonstrated this argument instead of self-refuting it. This is the Other Guy's Job fallacy. Nothing is so easy as another person's job. I've had people in a can plant say that making glass bottles is easy, but making aluminum cans is hard, while a supervisor in the bottle shop confidently told me that making glass bottles is a black art fraught with difficulties while making aluminum cans is simple mechanics. Proceding with the belief that the other guy's job is easy, one ventures into it and makes a royal muck of things.

    "He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him." -- George Orwell

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  9. TheOFloinn,

    "To excite in us tastes, odors, and sounds I believe that nothing is required in external bodies except shapes, numbers, and slow or rapid movements. I think that if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, shapes and numbers and motions would remain, but not odors or tastes or sounds." -- Galileo, The Assayer

    The more I read Galileo the more impressed I am. He doesn't seem to deny yellow exits, he just denies it's a distinct, objectively measurable quality. What we call yellow is a subjective appearance of other measurable qualities like motion. Of course he's correct. And even Feser makes a similar sort of argument about qualia -- it's just that he wants to explain it by other subjective rather than objective means. To Feser Galileo is probably an eliminative materialist. But Galileo is not trying to eliminate yellow. He's trying to eliminate the vague definition we have of it.

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  10. >Nope... it's more "in trying to shore-horn what you believe into something consistent with modern science you are making irrational and illogical arguments".

    Which follows the rules of St Augustine rather neatly and of course is not a fundamentalist approach.
    You really have to accept we are Catholics here not Fundamentalist Protestants. Reading truth into a text is part of Catholic tradition. We don’t believe in Sola Scriptura remember.

    >Err nope... that doesn't make any sense. As "being brought forth from the Earth" is then similarly no different from digging up out of the ground.

    You complain about shoe-horning stuff into the text so let’s use that against you….where does the text mention digging? Thus how are we to know "being brought forth from the Earth" means dirt was dug up to directly make Adam or Animals? No it simple means life on this Planet is made from the material of this planet. Or do you imagine abiogenesis took place on the Moon?

    >You mean like where he formally and clearly taught that "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."

    Well we cannot doubt God gave Adam a companion and thus showing Marriage was of Divine institution and not a mere man made social convention. The encyclical after is titled in English ON MARRIAGE. It is not entitled “On Human Origin” (that would be Pius XII). So if Pope Leo said “We cannot doubt that during the End of Days a beast with 7 heads and 10 horns will rise from the sea” as recorded by St John in the Book of Revelations I am expected to believe the Anti-Christ will literally have 7 head? When the OT talks about God enfolding us in his wings if the Pope cites that verse in an Encyclical I’m suppose to believe the Holy Father actually believes the Almighty is a giant chicken or something.

    Seriously?

    >Yes, he may have been talking about marriage... but he is grounding his argument on marriage on your deity's creation of Adam from "the slime of the earth" and Eve was "miraculously" taken from Adam's side while he slept.

    Pure nonsense from someone who has never read the writings of Pope Leo. He was citing the text as the ground for his teachings on the divine origin of marriage. He certainly doesn’t say anything about interpreting the creation narratives literalistic-ally.
    You are shoe horning this into the text.
    Besides Pope Leo does hand down teaching regarding science and Biblical interpretation of Genesis if I may quote “"no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement . . . it should be remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly ‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not help anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason, rather than trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative language> or as the common manner of speech those times required, and indeed still requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst most learned people" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus 18).

    Thus Pope Leo with his own words shows you need not take his citation of Genesis to prove the Divine origin of marriage to be a literalistic description of creation since the Bible here is not providing a scientific exposition and uses somewhat figurative language.

    That is pretty clear. So can you produce a clear statement from Pope Leo binding Catholics to believe in a fundamentalist interpretation of these verses? I think not.

    Sorry but you are totally wrong here.

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  11. Tops

    >And? Your continued comparison of Catholic Doctrine to the actions of government is quite entertaining.

    You are not as entertained as I am a person who has studied Catholic teaching for 20 years listening you prattle on about stuff you only found out about this week and getting it completely wrong.

    >There is a vast difference between the president believing something should happen, and it being legal for something to happen... and a matter something occurring.

    The analogy is valid. What the President thinks privately or says has little to do with his formal legal actions as the President. The same with the Pope. The Pope is not an oracle who randomly hands down mystical prattle of divine inspiration. Indeed sans Peter no Pope is divinely inspired. You really need to do some learning. Your objection now is “No fair! Everything the Pope says is suppose to be from God 24/7 now you are telling me that is not true! No fair!”

    It would help Stone Tops if you didn’t get your info on Catholicism from CHICK COMICS.

    Seriously!

    >Sure, if you are also willing to agree that "the first two humans were created in a lab by aliens" is also consistent with Pope Leo's statement.

    I don’t get this argument? There is no scientific evidence of the existence of Aliens so why bring them into the equation? I personally believe we are alone in the universe and I would believe this if I denied God.

    >And if the Church ruled that Adam/Eve were literally created out of slime/rib you'd then follow suit and believe as such?

    Then I would become an Old Earth Creationist at least in regards to the creation of man but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. I don’t see the Church doing that. She would need a compelling scientific reason to do so like during the late 18th and early 19th century when science conclusively proved the Earth really moved so unless the ID people can come up with something to overthrow Evolution it is likely she will never rule on the matter in that fashion.

    BTW what the heck is a daemon? A creature that inhabits the Planes of Hades in AD&D? What? What’s it’s Armor Class and how many hit dice?

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  12. >This doesn't even pass the laugh test, George. Give it up. You haven't got a leg to stand on.

    That is what you get when you don't stand on the Rock of Peter. When you try to pull a Martin Luther running around saying the Pope is no longer the Pope you come up with all sorts of contradictory nonsense.


    George buddy return to the True Church.

    Please for the sake of you soul return.

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  13. The implication is obvious: Pius himself did not think (1) is incompatible with Catholic doctrine. That doesn't mean he accepted it, of course. But it does mean that he did not condemn it as heterodox.

    Ed, just because the Church has not condemned the thesis that the body of the first man came about through evolution, that does not mean it is compatible with Catholic doctrine. You should read his encyclical more carefully. For example, he writes:

    . . .but caution must be used when there is rather question of hypotheses, having some sort of scientific foundation, in which the doctrine contained in Sacred Scripture or in Tradition is involved. If such conjectural opinions are directly or indirectly opposed to the doctrine revealed by God, then the demand that they be recognized can in no way be admitted.

    Obviously all the various theories of evolution are to be included among such “hypotheses.” And, therefore, all of them are subject to scrutiny according to Sacred Scripture and Tradition. Only some of them, however, are self-evidently opposed to the doctrine revealed by God and, therefore, must be rejected a priori. The others are not self-evidently opposed to the faith. Therefore, he allows men some liberty with respect to them. However, this in no way means that such theories do not face perhaps insuperable difficulties arising from their conflicts with Sacred Scripture and Tradition. Nor does it mean that the liberty with respect to the consideration of these opinions will not be withdrawn in the future, for which reason Pius adds that all parties must be “prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of faithful.”

    One thing Pius XII is definitely not doing in this encyclical is saying that the sense in which the Church has traditionally interpreted certain parts of Scripture must be altered in order to accommodate the theory of evolution.

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  14. >Ed, just because the Church has not condemned the thesis that the body of the first man came about through evolution, that does not mean it is compatible with Catholic doctrine.

    It clearly is compatible with Catholic doctrine. You are confusing that with wither or not it's true which you are free to argue.

    It's that simple Sede boy!

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  15. We don’t believe in Sola Scriptura remember.

    Right... you don't believe that the scripture is infallible, except for the parts that you believe are infallible?

    The Pope is not an oracle who randomly hands down mystical prattle of divine inspiration. Indeed sans Peter no Pope is divinely inspired.

    So then when the Pope is saying that Evolution is compatible with Catholic Dogma then he is just stating his opinion?

    There is no scientific evidence of the existence of Aliens so why bring them into the equation?

    And? There is no scientific evidence for the existence of angels or daemons... yet you believe they exist for some reason.

    Would it help if I said that the Aliens were immaterial entities that possessed living things hear on earth and used those bodies to build the machines with which they engineered humans?

    Then I would become an Old Earth Creationist at least in regards to the creation of man but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. I don’t see the Church doing that.

    I am entertained by your willingness to slide your beliefs around on the say-so of some random dude in Italy.

    And why wouldn't your Church do so? It eagerly ignores science when doing so is in its interest.

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  16. The difference between my position on this issue and Ed’s is that I believe that Pius XII made these statements with the understanding that Scripture and Tradition may well be held up as evidence against the thesis that the body of the first man was the result of evolution, whereas Ed is arguing, if I understand him correctly, that Pius XII has affirmed in this encyclical that Scripture and Tradition are definitely not opposed to evolution.

    If that is in fact Ed's position, I think he's reading too much into the pope's words.

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  17. @Stone Tops
    >Right... you don't believe that the scripture is infallible, except for the parts that you believe are infallible?

    You are just so ignorant of even basic terminology. Scripture in fact is not infallible since it is only a static text. It’s inerrant but it can’t be infallible. Only an active entity can be infallible like a Church, Apostle, Pope or Prophet or even God. But no text can be infallible. The written word is static.

    >So then when the Pope is saying that Evolution is compatible with Catholic Dogma then he is just stating his opinion?

    No he is formally and authoritatively teaching as Pope it is a valid opinion for Catholics in general. Pius XII teaching is clear and so are Pope Leo’s when they talk about the relation of science to Scripture. A text without a context is a pretext. Trying to prove fundamentalist views on creation by proof texting an Encyclical on Marriage while ignoring Encyclicals whose subject matter is the creation of man and the proper interpretation of Genesis is amusing but not convincing.
    The only thing I take from the quote from the Encyclical on Marriage is that Marriage is of Divine Institution and not a man made social convention as the modernist heretics of the time where claiming.

    >And? There is no scientific evidence for the existence of angels or daemons... yet you believe they exist for some reason.

    Category mistake. Aliens if they existed would be creatures of matter and form. They would be beings made of matter and if they where intelligent they would have rational powers and thus souls in the Divine Image. We prove them by science like any other physically living thing. Angels and Demons are substantive forms without matter we prove them by philosophy and religious apologetics. They can’t be known by science anymore than I can observe a Galaxy with a microscope. We know Angels and Demons exist if we believe the authority of Scripture, tradition and Church. We believe in those authorities by philosophy and religious apologetics.

    BTW stop making references to daemons till you define what they are.

    >Would it help if I said that the Aliens were immaterial entities that possessed living things hear on earth and used those bodies to build the machines with which they engineered humans?

    So are we talking about Aliens or Angels and Demons? There is no reason to conflate the two. There is nothing in Scripture or Tradition to suggest Angels and Demons created man. Indeed that is likely condemned heresy.

    >I am entertained by your willingness to slide your beliefs around on the say-so of some random dude in Italy.

    I believe I have got rational reasons to believe God exists, Jesus rose from the Dead and founded the Catholic Church and I should therefore trust that Church to be a correct guide on Faith and Morals. I also have good reasons to believe Materialism and Metaphysical Naturalism are logically incoherent and thus false.

    >And why wouldn't your Church do so? It eagerly ignores science when doing so is in its interest.

    The Church is infallible not Inspired. God the Holy Spirit will protect Her from teaching formal error on matters of Faith and Morals under the usual conditions(see Vatican One) but The Lord doesn’t formally inspire her to solve every problem. At best God in His Providence foresees and provides the Church will solve the theological problems He wants solved in His own Time according to His Will. But if the Church hypothetically where infallible in let us say Math & you gave The Church Authority a Math Test the lowest she could score would not be 100 but zero. Why zero if she where infallible on Math? Because she couldn’t put down an incorrect answer but she could leave the question blank if she doesn’t know the answer.

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  18. George,

    You're evading the point. Pius XII explicitly denied that Catholics are at liberty to "research and discuss" whether there have been true men since Adam's time who did not descend from him. And his reason was that it is not even "apparent" how such a view could be reconciled with Catholic teaching. And yet in the same breath he explicitly affirms that Catholics can "research and discuss" evolutionary explanations that regard Adam's body as having been made from pre-existing living matter. Obviously he does not think that it is "not apparent" how the latter thesis can be reconciled with Catholic doctrine. If he had, then by parity of reasoning he would have said that the latter thesis too is one that Catholics are not at liberty to research and discuss.

    Of course he does not flatly assert either that special transformism is either true or ultimately reconcilable with Catholic doctrine. But I never said he did. By contrast, you were the one who came in here, guns blazing, accusing Flynn and Kemp of taking a "blatantly heterodox" position. Pius's words show that you are wrong. for the Flynn/Kemp position is just a working out of some possible consequences of special transformism. It may turn out to be mistaken, but given Pius's teaching, it is not obviously out of the bounds of orthodoxy.

    Pius's words also show that you are wrong to insist that a Catholic has to take the creation of Adam's body directly from "the earth" literally. For there is no way to insist on taking that literally while at the same time holding -- as Pius clearly does -- that it is permissible to speculate about whether Adam's body was made from "pre-existing living matter."

    Your latest gambit seems to be to suggest that Pius allowed "research and discussion" on this latter issue only because it might provide a useful means of refuting evolution. One obvious problem with that suggestion is that if that were all he had in mind, he could have said the same thing about "research and discussion" of whether some men after Adam were not descended from him, yet he doesn't.

    Another problem, of course, is that it simply goes against the plain sense of his text. Yes, he gives all the warnings you cite. Yes, he does not actually endorse special transformism. Yes, his words even leave it open that special transformism could turn out not to be reconcilable with Catholic doctrine after all. But he still clearly allows Catholics to entertain it, and clearly does not think it is "not apparent" that it can be reconciled with Catholic doctrine. Which is another way of saying that he thinks it is apparent that it might be reconciled. Which he could not have thought if he thought us bound to take "from the earth" literally.

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  19. It’s inerrant but it can’t be infallible.

    Well then you don't believe that the text is inerrant except where it is inerrant? Or that the text is inerrant and one just has to find the interpretation of the text that has the conflicts the least with modern scientific knowledge? Except in the few cases where it is more dogmatically important for something to be viewed as actually happening then for it to be consistent with modern scientific knowledge (like how the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus is dogmatically true, and thus gets 'miracle' hand waved to pass that it does not match up with modern scientific knowledge)?

    The only thing I take from the quote from the Encyclical on Marriage is that Marriage is of Divine Institution and not a man made social convention as the modernist heretics of the time where claiming.

    Your interpretation perhaps... but you have yet to demonstrate that the opposite interpretation is not consistent with what the Pope was saying... So you seem to be freely admitting that Catholic teachings are logically inconsistent (two contradictory events being permitted under its teachings... both the literal, and an arbitrarily large number of metaphorical interpretations being equally consistent within the teachings of the Catholic Church).

    They would be beings made of matter and if they where intelligent they would have rational powers and thus souls in the Divine Image.

    Err, why? You allow for the existence of angels and daemons as immaterial entities, so I'm allowing for the existence of immaterial entities called aliens.

    We know Angels and Demons exist if we believe the authority of Scripture, tradition and Church. We believe in those authorities by philosophy and religious apologetics.

    Actually... you 'know' that angels and daemons exist because your believe the authority of yada, yada, yada. Just like a follower of Shinto 'knows' that the Kami exist base on the authority of their scriptures and kannushi.

    BTW stop making references to daemons till you define what they are.

    I'm spelling it properly.

    So are we talking about Aliens or Angels and Demons? There is no reason to conflate the two. There is nothing in Scripture or Tradition to suggest Angels and Demons created man. Indeed that is likely condemned heresy.

    Nope, I'm talking about immaterial aliens, who created the biological form of humans by possessing physical bodies here on earth.

    I believe I have got rational reasons to believe God exists, Jesus rose from the Dead and founded the Catholic Church and I should therefore trust that Church to be a correct guide on Faith and Morals.

    Right, because the Pope says that it happened... I ask you why you believe that a metaphorical interpretation of the Genesis account is valid, and you point to what popes... and I ask you why then a metaphorical reading of the resurection isn't consistent and you again point to what popes have said.

    The Church is infallible not Inspired. God the Holy Spirit will protect Her from teaching formal error on matters of Faith and Morals under the usual conditions(see Vatican One) but The Lord doesn’t formally inspire her to solve every problem.

    Isn't it more "I believe the Church is infallible" and "I believe that God the Holy Spirit will protect Her from formal errors on matters of Faith..."? Or would "The Church says it is infallible" and "the Church says that God the Holy Sprit will yada, yada yada" be more accurate?

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  20. >Well then you don't believe that the text is inerrant except where it is inerrant?

    It is completely inerrant in any subject that it clearly teaches. If it teaches modern science in a modern fashion then it does so without error. The problem is you have not clearly identified where the Bible is teaching modern science in a modern fashion. So you are begging the question.

    >Your interpretation perhaps...

    Which I believe comes from a Church with authority from God. Even if I take God out of the equation I am still on the Catholic team so I should listen to my team Captain. Thus what you say I’m afraid still has no consequence to me.

    >but you have yet to demonstrate that the opposite interpretation is not consistent with what the Pope was saying...

    I never said it was indeed I would readily agree a Fiat Creationist view is completely consistent with what Pope Leo and Pius XII taught. But my point is neither is teaching or binding Catholics to believe in fiat creationism. They are allowing a belief in Evolution to be compatible. I call George R a heretic not because he is a Young Earth Creationist. He is allowed to be as a Catholic. I call him a heretic because he is a Sedevicantist one who claims the Papal throne is empty and that Benedict is not the True Pope which is a belief that contradicts Vatican One.

    There is no contradiction here since there is no dogma commanding Catholics to be YEC, OEC or Theistic Evolutionists. Not every doctrinal view has been defined dogmatically by the Church. Except it.

    >Err, why? You allow for the existence of angels and daemons as immaterial entities, so I'm allowing for the existence of immaterial entities called aliens.

    I’m sorry I reject Nominalism. Merely changing the name of a thing does not change it’s reality or essence. For example you really can’t make 2+2=5 by merely saying the symbol “5” now means this many objects (****). It’s still 2+2=4. You are talking about Angels and Demons in essence but you hold the Nominalists false belief merely changing the name changes what it is. Feser dismantles that error in the second chapter of TSL.

    >Actually... you 'know' that angels and daemons exist because your believe the authority of yada, yada, yada. Just like a follower of Shinto 'knows' that the Kami exist base on the authority of their scriptures and kannushi.

    I am talking many short cuts since I don’t wish to write 500 pages of apologetics like Craig or others. If you really have apologetics on Shinto or kannushi then produce it. Hypothetically claiming you could come up with equivalent arguments to justify those beliefs are meaningless unless I see them. Show me the money.

    >I'm spelling it properly.

    I am bad at spelling and grammar.

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  21. >Right, because the Pope says that it happened... I ask you why you believe that a metaphorical interpretation of the Genesis account is valid, and you point to what popes... and I ask you why then a metaphorical reading of the resurection isn't consistent and you again point to what popes have said.

    I don’t believe in a perspicuous scripture without a Church to interpret it just as I don’t believe in a US Constitution without a US Government. I am Catholic not Protestant why is that so hard? You Gnu’s just have to accept the brute fact that many of the polemics you use against Fundie Prots have no meaning to us. The resurrection has always been interpreted literally. Always. Genesis OTOH on certain particulars has historically had many interpretations. Heck the Firmament in Genesis has no consistent interpretation among the Fathers. No two Fathers have the same interpretation as far as I can tell.

    The Bible is not clear. Get over it! It is futile to debate the Bible with a Catholic especially while assuming a default Protestant mentality. You are doing twice the work you need to do. You are arguing for Protestantism(a religion you don’t even believe) & then trying to show Protestantism is false(which I already believe it is) compared to Atheism. Why not simply argue Atheism? Prove to me philosophically God does not exist or show the flaws in Philosophical arguments for the Existence of God or give me good philosophical arguments for Materialism and or Metaphysical Naturalism.

    We are going to have to stop since we are going in circles and I can’t indulge you forever.

    Having the nature of being a Catholic no argument you make from Scripture will ever move me. I could be moved theoretically by the former arguments I cited in my former outline of how an Atheist should argue with a Catholic. It is not a self serving outline. It really is your best chance.

    This line of argument is futile.

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  22. Pius XII explicitly denied that Catholics are at liberty to "research and discuss" whether there have been true men since Adam's time who did not descend from him. And his reason was that it is not even "apparent" how such a view could be reconciled with Catholic teaching

    I find this quite Orwellian... Catholics are not allowed to "research and discuss" views that cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church?

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  23. I find this quite Orwellian... Catholics are not allowed to "research and discuss" views that cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church?

    He didn't mean "Don't even talk about such views (e.g. polygenism) in any way." He meant "Don't carry on your theological research under the assumption that such views can be reconciled with Catholic doctrine."

    You know, kind of like the way a Darwinian might say "Talk about ID theory all you want, but don't pretend that you can reconcile it with Darwinism." Where the consequences of not following this advice would be to lose one's standing in the Darwinian community.

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  24. You know, kind of like the way a Darwinian might say "Talk about ID theory all you want, but don't pretend that you can reconcile it with Darwinism." Where the consequences of not following this advice would be to lose one's standing in the Darwinian community.

    And which 'Darwinian' has ever said that one cannot try and reconcile the two? Publishing that you have reconciled the two without very strong evidence supporting that assertion will certainly cause a 'Darwinian' (whoever that may be... I've never met any self-described 'Darwinians') to lose standing in the field of Evolutionary Biology.

    Indeed were a 'Darwinian' to come up with a reconciliation of ID with the Modern Synthesis Theory of Evolution a new Theory of Evolution would probably arise, and that 'Darwinian' would probably be regarded as one of the greatest biologists of this century.

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  25. >And which 'Darwinian' has ever said that one cannot try and reconcile the two?

    Say that matter of factually over at P.Z. Myers blog or even Theistic Evolutionist extremist Steve Matherson's blog and brace yourself for the verbal abuse.

    They make me look civilized.

    Mind you I reject ID on Thomistic grounds.

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  26. P1ius XII said you can't have any True Men (ratinal animals, animals with Spiritual souls) living then who did not have Adam as their ancestor.

    Adam had no True Men contemporaries (except maybe Eve) Since the hypothetical existence of multi-True Men ancestors cannot be reconcilable with the dogma of Original Sin.

    It's not hard.

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  27. I don’t think an even more literal reading of the bible is threatened by modern genetics.

    Let us suppose that what the bible says (and some private revelations such as those of Mary of Agreda) regarding the formation of Adam and Eve is true.

    1-Adam was formed by dust and Eve from his rib.

    2- There were other people besides Adam and eve (as Cain implies in Genesis) and they were shaped by evolution and lacked the ability to reason.

    3-Adam children mated with these non-rational humans and they passed their ability to reason to their off-spring.

    4-These children by virtue of their power to reason outlived and supplanted eventually all other non-rational humans. So we’re all descendants from Adam.

    So we have a more literal reading of the bible that is compatible with what we know about evolution…thoughts?

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  28. Adam was made *by* dust...

    ugh.

    From dust.

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  29. My Gramer & Spellling sucks too.

    1-Adam was formed from dust and Eve from his rib.

    Of course some translations mean slime and there is nothing in the sentence to exclude the idea he wasn't formed from dust/slime/Earth/Clay indirectly such as after abiogenesis primitive life evolved over time till hominids came on the scene.

    So taking it literally isn't the problem. Taking it literistically is which we can theologically but don't have too.

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  30. Say that matter of factually over at P.Z. Myers blog or even Theistic Evolutionist extremist Steve Matherson's blog and brace yourself for the verbal abuse.

    So you rank the authority of the Pope on par with random posters on someones blog? Or the way in which an "evolutionist extremist" may respond to the question of "can you reconcile ID and MSToE?"

    Indeed if one were to ask the question "Can you start with the assumption that ID and MSToE can be reconciled and then try to find evidence to support/disprove that?" Then I'd comfortably wager that the answer from Dr. Myers, Dr. Dawkins, or Dr. Matheson would be that "yes you can".

    Now they might not be interested in exploring that line of research themselves, and may even scoff at the notion that such research could prove fruitful... but the question isn't "what do you think of such research" but "can such research be done"

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  31. Adam had no True Men contemporaries (except maybe Eve) Since the hypothetical existence of multi-True Men ancestors cannot be reconcilable with the dogma of Original Sin.

    That isn't exactly how that whole logic thing works...

    Now if you said "If Adam/Eve had no True Men contemporaries then the dogma of Original Sin is valid." then that would be reasonable.

    However, instead you seem to be saying "For the dogma of OS to be sound Adam/Eve could not have had True Men contemporaries, therefore Adam/Eve had no True Men contemporaries."

    Which is similar to saying "Phrenology is sound, therefore the shape of peoples skulls must impact their personality/behavior.

    Which completely ignores the other possibility... that the dogma of Original Sin is unsound.

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  32. I don’t believe in a perspicuous scripture without a Church to interpret it just as I don’t believe in a US Constitution without a US Government.

    As before... those are rather different subjects. After all the US Constitution could easily continue to exist without the US Government (indeed even if the US Government collapsed tomorrow then the US Constitution would quite likely exist in some for or another for centuries after).

    Further, does your 'belief' in the US Constitution and the SC mean that you accept every interpretation the SC makes as the only 'true' interpretation? It is only the legally binding interpretation and you, or anyone else, are free to disagree completely.

    The resurrection has always been interpreted literally.

    And? Just because something has always been interpreted in a certain way does not mean that that interpretation is the 'correct' one.

    Genesis OTOH on certain particulars has historically had many interpretations. Heck the Firmament in Genesis has no consistent interpretation among the Fathers. No two Fathers have the same interpretation as far as I can tell.

    But how about the interpretation where A/E are literally the first two humans? Can you cite any of those "Fathers" who believed that A/E were just two hominids among a population of thousands?

    Prove to me philosophically God does not exist

    Sure, once you prove that Allah does not exist.

    show the flaws in Philosophical arguments for the Existence of God

    Which one would you like me to start with?

    Having the nature of being a Catholic no argument you make from Scripture will ever move me.

    Exactly... you dogmatically reject any arguments that counter the interpretation that the Pope has handed you. You have no need to examine any arguments that counter your beliefs because doing so would counter Catholic Dogma, and thus you can 'safely' ignore them.

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  33. "Sure, once you prove that Allah does not exist."

    this is how one knows you aren't serious. 'Allah' is simply the Arabic term for God.

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  34. It was the best science of the age. Why not believe it?

    If that is the case... then it is worth pointing out that 'best science' of just about every age is that someone who has been tortured to death then buried for a few days isn't getting back up and walking around.

    Once the science was corrected to a new and less-wrong mythos, matters could be understood with greater clarity.

    So abandon the old superstitions as science shows that they don't hold water?

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  35. Sure, once you prove that Allah does not exist.

    allah is the Arabic word for God. It is used by Arabic/Syriac Christians, as well as by muslims and others. It is cognate with the sister-language Hebrew word Eloh(im).
    + + +
    show the flaws in Philosophical arguments for the Existence of God

    Which one would you like me to start with?

    Any one at all. That would at least show that you know of them.
    + + +
    Having the nature of being a Catholic no argument you make from Scripture will ever move me.

    Exactly... you dogmatically reject any arguments that counter the interpretation that the Pope has handed you.

    Just once I would like to see one of these folks actually get Catholic doctrine straight.

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  36. this is how one knows you aren't serious. 'Allah' is simply the Arabic term for God.

    Though Allah may be translated into English as "God" the entity described by Muslims as "God" is rather different from the entity described by Christians as "God".

    Or mayhaps you'd be more comfortable if I had asked about experiencing Vishnu? Or the enlightenment sought by Buddhists?

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  37. It was the best science of the age. Why not believe it?

    If that is the case... then it is worth pointing out that 'best science' of just about every age is that someone who has been tortured to death then buried for a few days isn't getting back up and walking around.

    Well, not unless he is like the Author of the Universe or something like that. Shakespeare could do things that Hamlet could not.

    Besides, I know a guy who was dead for a while and is now walking around. Granted it wasn't from Friday afternoon until sometime early Sunday, about a day and a half; but we can surely doubt the ability of first century folks to determine brain death. IIRC, there was surprise that Jesus had died so soon.
    + + +
    Once the science was corrected to a new and less-wrong mythos, matters could be understood with greater clarity.

    So abandon the old superstitions as science shows that they don't hold water?

    No, science can only tell us of the metrical properties of physical bodies. That can affect the tropes in which a parable is couched, but it doesn't change the thrust of the teaching. Imagine if something were written in the 19th century and illustrated a point by couching it in the genes-are-like-atoms metaphor of biology, or the atoms-are-mini-solar-systems of physics! If the text is not about genes or atoms, it only means the author was using a figure of speech - like we would say "sunrise" or "the four corners of the world" - even if the author believed the scientists of his day.

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  38. if I had asked about experiencing Vishnu? Or the enlightenment sought by Buddhists?

    Satori is not a god, let alone God.

    Vishnu is one person in a trinity often conceptualized as a single being. (The other two are Siva and Brahma.) If a thing is true, would it be surprising if different people caught glimpses of it?

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  39. Dr Coyne's position rests on this supposedly scientifically-ascertained discrepancy:

    "Mitochondrial DNA points to the genes in that organelle tracing back to a single female ancestor who lived about 140,000 years ago, but that genes on the Y chromosome trace back to one male who lived about 60,000-90,000 years ago."

    But plain fact is, recent scientific findings show not only that there is no such discrepancy, but also that there is a remarkable coincidence:

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929711001649

    The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 88, Issue 6, 10 June 2011, Pages 814-818

    doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2011.05.002

    A Revised Root for the Human Y Chromosomal Phylogenetic Tree: The Origin of Patrilineal Diversity in Africa

    Fulvio Cruciani, Beniamino Trombetta, Andrea Massaia, Giovanni Destro-Bisol, Daniele Sellitto, Rosaria Scozzari

    Abstract: To shed light on the structure of the basal backbone of the human Y chromosome phylogeny, we sequenced about 200 kb of the male-specific region of the human Y chromosome (MSY) from each of seven Y chromosomes belonging to clades A1, A2, A3, and BT. ... An estimate of 142 KY was obtained for the coalescence time of the revised MSY tree, which is earlier than that obtained in previous studies and easier to reconcile with plausible scenarios of modern human origin.

    To note, the researchers were not from a Pontifical University but from Sapienza Università di Roma, a place where the Pope has not been exactly welcome lately.

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  40. Well, not unless he is like the Author of the Universe or something like that. Shakespeare could do things that Hamlet could not.

    If you are going to go that route then any claim can be considered true ...

    if something were written in the 19th century and illustrated a point by couching it in the genes-are-like-atoms metaphor of biology, or the atoms-are-mini-solar-systems of physics! If the text is not about genes or atoms, it only means the author was using a figure of speech - like we would say "sunrise" or "the four corners of the world" - even if the author believed the scientists of his day.

    Which lends weight to the "Jesus died and was resurrected is only a metaphor" hypothesis.

    Satori is not a god, let alone God.

    And? It can still be experienced if it exists.

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  41. The main objection that Professor Rosenhouse raises against Professor Feser's interpretation is that it plainly disagrees with the account in Genesis 2: 4-8. This objection has been extensively presented here:

    http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2011/09/one_more_round_on_original_sin_1.php

    I will show that Professor Feser's interpretation, or a modified version thereof, can perfectly agree with the Genesis text.

    I will use this notation:

    t-men = true men = theological men = metaphysical men = with an infused spiritual soul

    q-men = quasi men = without an infused spiritual soul

    where "men" above can be replaced by "women" or "people" as fit.

    We have two basic possibilities for the creation of Adam & Eve:

    1L. Spiritual-only Leap: they were biologically identical to the surrounding q-people, differing only by having been infused a spiritual soul.

    2L: Physical & Spiritual Leap: they underwent both a speciation event (DNA change) at conception (mainly affecting brain capabilities) AND the infusion of a spiritual soul.

    2L has a variation 2L+ involving more divine intervention, which was proposed by Drew in Professor Coyne's blog on June 2, 2011 at 9:07 am:

    http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/adam-and-eve-the-ultimate-standoff-between-science-and-faith-and-a-contest/#comment-107005

    Now, even though Professor Rosenhouse may think that all human intellectual capabilities reside purely at the biological level, I assume he is kind enough to allow theists to posit that the highest of those capabilities derive from the operation of a spiritual soul.

    With that assumption, both basic possibilities for the creation of Adam & Eve perfectly agree with Genesis 2: 4-8, as q-people were just not intellectually able "to till the ground" by themselves. Which is plain obvious, since t-people actually started agriculture only 10,000 years ago. And it is also plain obvious that, from a metaphysical viewpoint, q-people, like chimps or gorillas, were just "dust of the ground".

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  42. >Though Allah may be translated into English as "God" the entity described by Muslims as "God" is rather different from the entity described by Christians as "God".

    In terms of natural theology, philosophy and metaphysics they are virtually identical. They only differ on revelation. The Muslim Allah is the God of Philosophy plus what is added by the Koran and the Hadiths.

    The God of Christianity is the God of Philosophy plus what is added by the Bible and Apostolic Tradition.

    The God of Philosophy is what we can know about God by reason alone sans revelation.

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  43. >As before... those are rather different subjects. After all the US Constitution could easily continue to exist without the US Government...

    You really have to stop doing this. Just because I make an analogous comparison doesn't mean I am making an unequivocal comparison. The point is the Constitution and the Government are interdependent just as Scripture& church are interdependent. That doesn't mean they are unequivocally alike.

    It's not hard.

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  44. >Exactly... you dogmatically reject any arguments that counter the interpretation that the Pope has handed you.

    On the meaning of Scripture yes. Since I have no reason to believe the self-serving misinterpretations of an Atheist over the Vicar of Christ.

    >You have no need to examine any arguments that counter your beliefs.

    Then why would I give you an outline on how to do it? Disprove God then I have no more reason to care about the Pope's interpretation of a Scripture that is false anyway. Point out the flaw in philosophical arguments for the existence of God, refute the resurrection or that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. Prove materialism & metphysical naturalism are true.

    But don't waste my time telling me your fallible interpretation of scripture. Even if I deny God I have no reason to believe it.

    It's that simple. Do your homework or do something else.

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  45. Comment 1 of 2.

    I will now present a conceptual framework that, by imposing a most reasonable restriction on the possibility of inter-breeding between t-people and q-people, satisfies all of the following constraints:

    C1. Current scientific evidence for all living people being descended patrilineally from one most recent common ancestor or MRCA, "Y-chromosomal Adam", who lived approx. 142 KY ago.

    C2. Current scientific evidence for all living people being descended matrilineally from one MRCA, "Mitochondrial Eve", who lived approx. 174 KY ago.

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040580910000493

    Theoretical Population Biology, Volume 78, Issue 3, November 2010, Pages 165-172

    doi:10.1016/j.tpb.2010.06.001

    Alternatives to the Wright–Fisher model: The robustness of mitochondrial Eve dating

    Krzysztof A. Cyran, Marek Kimmel

    C3. Current scientific evidence for no human or pre-human population bottleneck ever that was smaller than a few thousand people. To note, we are not qualified to say whether that evidence is solid or provisional, and just take it at face value for the purpose of this work.

    C4. Genesis text.

    C5. Catholic teaching on original sin, which only cares about Adam and fatherly transmission of original sin, as stated in:

    - Trent: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct05.html

    - St Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2081.htm

    C6. Zoological and historical evidence on how groups of chimps or people deal with other groups competing for the same land.

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  46. Comment 2 of 2:

    The whole framework is as follows:

    Biblical Adam and Eve were created according to either case 1L or 2L (including 2L+), as mentioned above.

    Biblical Adam is Y-chromosomal Adam. Mitochondrial Eve could be either Biblical Eve or a matrilineal ancestor thereof, as explained below. (Clearly, in creation case 2L+ they are the same t-woman.)

    Adam and Eve themselves had intercourse only with each other.

    Starting with Adam's children, or perhaps grandchildren, t-people, and specifically t-men, had to start dealing with q-people competing for the same land, and they took care of them in the only way worthy of modern humans: by killing them all, with the possible exception here and there of some young attractive q-females, which were spared to be used as sexual slaves. Hey, they looked as good as t-women but did not talk! What else could a hard-working, hard-fighting t-man ask for? Thus, the restriction is simply that t-men mated with q-women as extensively as needed to satisfy C3 above, but t-women never mated with q-men. (Clearly, in creation case 2L+ no interbreeding with q-people is necessary to satisfy C3.)

    Here an objection could be raised about why a similar degree of interbreeding did not occur with Neanderthals or Denisovans in Eurasia after the Out-of-Africa event. The answer is quite simple: as the Neanderthal and Denisovan lineage had diverged from the lineage leading to t-men around 800 KY ago, Neanderthal and Denisovan females, in contrast with q-women, looked really awful from the perspective of t-men, so that very few t-men had such a terribly bad taste or were in such dire sexual need as to take them as sexual slaves.

    Regarding the offspring resulting from t-men having intercourse with q-women, there are two possibilities that satisfy C2:

    I1: Interbreeding resulted in t-men who were reproductively viable. Either there was no female offspring, or that female offspring was sterile. In this case Biblical Eve is Mitochondrial Eve.

    I2: Interbreeding resulted in both t-men and t-women who were reproductively viable. In this case Mitochondrial Eve was the matrilineal MRCA of BOTH Biblical Eve AND all the q-women that t-men mated with.

    This framework clearly satisfies C1, C2 and C3 by design. Satisfaction of C1 implies satisfaction of C5, as, in St. Thomas Aquinas words, "original sin is transmitted to the children, not by the mother, but by the father." C6, though a much more loose constraint than the others, is also satisfied. Whereby we can now focus on C4.

    Since we have already shown that this framework fully agrees with the account in Genesis 2: 4-8, we will now focus on another passage, Genesis 6: 1-4, where we add in parenthesis the elements of this framework:


    When human beings (q-people) began to grow numerous on the earth and daughters (q-women) were born to them,

    the sons of God (t-men) saw how beautiful the daughters of human beings (q-women) were, and so they took for their wives whomever they pleased.

    Then the LORD said: My spirit shall not remain in human beings forever, because they are only flesh. Their days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years. (Therefore the interbreeding was against divine will, as would be expected.)

    The Nephilim appeared on earth in those days, as well as later, (could "later" refer to the much less frequent intercourse with Neanderthals and Denisovans after Out-of-Africa?) after the sons of God (t-men) had intercourse with the daughters of human beings (q-women), who bore them sons. (is the last "sons" in the previous sentence actually "sons" or "children" in the Hebrew original text? Because in the former case it would support I1.) They were the heroes of old, the men of renown.

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  47. In terms of natural theology, philosophy and metaphysics they are virtually identical. They only differ on revelation. The Muslim Allah is the God of Philosophy plus what is added by the Koran and the Hadiths.

    So the differences between Islam and Christianity are just minor theological points?

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  48. ou really have to stop doing this. Just because I make an analogous comparison doesn't mean I am making an unequivocal comparison.

    Then you should stop trying to analogize things that are as vastly different as religious dogma and the legal interpretation of the US Constitution.

    On the meaning of Scripture yes. Since I have no reason to believe the self-serving misinterpretations of an Atheist over the Vicar of Christ.

    Right... because the "Vicar of Christ" says so, ignoring the 'self-serving misrepresentations' of the Pope.

    Point out the flaw in philosophical arguments for the existence of God

    sure, where would you like me to start?

    refute the resurrection or that Jesus founded the Catholic Church.

    Why don't you start by refuting the resurrection of Horus? Or that Muhammad was carried off to heaven? Of that Smith didn't read the Book of Mormon off of some gold plates?

    I could direct you to the nearest mortuary for evidence that humans don't get up after they die... but you'll just say "but my deity of choice used magic powers to come back from the dead". And once you allow "magic" then you validate every religions claims.

    Prove materialism & metphysical naturalism are true.

    Walked through any walls lately?

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  49. >So the differences between Islam and Christianity are just minor theological points?

    Where did say the differences are minor? I said the natural theology is near the same but the revealed theology is different. You have such an extemist either/or mentality. Either we believe all religions are completely alien to one another & have no points of contact or we believe all religions have "minor" points of difference.

    What a simplistic worldview!

    >Then you should stop trying to analogize things that are as vastly different as religious dogma and the legal interpretation of the US Constitution.

    The purpose to analogy is to take unlike things and compare them along the lines which they are similar to provide understanding. I'm sorry but everyone uses analogy to explain concepts it's not rational to ad hoc demand I not do so. Unless you are really not interested in understanding in which case bye have a nice life.

    Note I said "understanding" not belief or agreement.

    >Right... because the "Vicar of Christ" says so, ignoring the 'self-serving misrepresentations' of the Pope.

    Which still doesn't make the case your self-serving ones are any better. I could with ease imagine denying the existence of God and still conclude the Pope's interpretations are sound for a document I don't believe speaks for God (who does not exist) in the first place. It's not hard.

    >sure, where would you like me to start?

    Start with the TLS and we can go on from there.

    >I could direct you to the nearest mortuary for evidence that humans don't get up after they die... but you'll just say "but my deity of choice used magic powers to come back from the dead". And once you allow "magic" then you validate every religions claims.

    No if persons frequently rose from the dead as a regularity than we can only conclude resurrection is a mere natural phenomena not supernatural. Maybe brought on by a T Virus if you are a gamer & know the reference. So it really wouldn't do anything to validate or invalidate a religious claim if such things are a regularity.

    >Walked through any walls lately?

    So you equate materialism (the philosophy that says only matter and it's derivatives exist) with the reality of material things? Wow!

    You have a hec of a lot to learn my friend. Your understanding of philosophy and logic is appauling.

    So much work you need to do. So much.

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  50. I said the natural theology is near the same but the revealed theology is different.

    Exactly... the underlying philosophical arguments are nearly the same, the difference is in the set of prophets you chose.

    he purpose to analogy is to take unlike things and compare them along the lines which they are similar to provide understanding.

    Again, then you should chose better analogies. For example the dictates of an autocrat claiming to describe objective reality are not comparable to the interpretation of a legal document by a body chosen by a democratically elected body.

    Start with the TLS and we can go on from there.

    Sure... how about that his notion that so called "universals" exist outside of our mind has no foundation what so ever. Or that objects need an intelligence to provide them with "purpose" (why this is needed and how the intelligence gives objects their purpose being unanswered questions).

    So it really wouldn't do anything to validate or invalidate a religious claim if such things are a regularity.

    Once you 'allow' miracles then any time you doubt someones claim they can just say "it was a miracle".

    So you equate materialism (the philosophy that says only matter and it's derivatives exist) with the reality of material things?

    But you haven't tried? Why not? How about walking across a busy street?

    My point is that you agree with materialism that material things exist.

    Now you do add things beyond the physical, falling back on "they exist metaphysically" to get around the problem of those things existing only in our minds. Which is fine, except that you are also claiming that what exists metaphysically also objectively exists... except that metaphysics doesn't deal with what exists objectively, it just deals with how we view the world.

    TL;DR version: you cannot argue something into existence.

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  51. Two brief comments:

    (1) early modern humans did, in fact, interbreed to some extent with Neanderthals, as recent genetic evidence confirms. IMHO this renders various "yucky" interbreeding scenarios plausible.

    (2) the propagation of genetic mutations demonstrates that something can be transmitted vertically throughout an interbreeding population until populations gradually separate and a "new" population emerges. This is, in fact, a basic tenet of evolutionary theory, which provides a fruitful analogy for theological hominisation.

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  52. Regarding the creation cases 2L and 2L+ that I mentioned above, I need to make a correction pointed it out to me by "Iain Walker" on Professor Rosenhouse's blog. The corrected text is:

    2L: Physical & Spiritual Leap: they underwent BOTH a brain-enhancing mutation AND the infusion of a spiritual soul.

    Case 2L has a variation 2L+ involving more divine intervention, which was proposed by Drew in Professor Coyne's blog on June 2, 2011 at 9:07 am:

    http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/adam-and-eve-the-ultimate-standoff-between-science-and-faith-and-a-contest/#comment-107005

    and subsequently selected by Professor Coyne in this post:

    http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/winners-adam-and-eve-contest/

    as the best way to reconcile Genesis narrative and genetic data regarding overall theological and biological plausibility. We mention it for the sake of completeness of coverage, but personally do not endorse it as it is conceptually equivalent to the view that the universe was created 7500-7200 years ago looking as if it were much older, including scattered fossils on earth of animals that never actually existed. Besides, the conceptual framework for cases 1L and 2L that we propose below is, in our view, at least just as plausible both theologically and biologically, though it might seem somewhat shocking to some theists.

    (Clearly, in creation case 2L+, Adam & Eve could have undergone not just a mutation but a full speciation event involving a macro-mutation.)

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  53. >My point is that you agree with materialism that material things exist.

    Materialism is not the belief material things exist it is the belief only material things exist.

    If you can't figure that out I don't see any point to this conversation.

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  54. Materialism is not the belief material things exist it is the belief only material things exist.

    Yes... and for a materialist to have the belief that only material things exist then they have to first believe that material things exist. A belief that you likely share.

    Note that I then added that you, as a non-materialist, add extra bits into reality that are not materialistic.

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  55. >Note that I then added that you, as a non-materialist, add extra bits into reality that are not materialistic.

    You haven't shown that reality only consists of the material. Just as you can't show the Andromeda Galaxy doesn't exist just because you can't view it with your microscope.

    You can't prove materialism true via science or empiricism thus it is as much an addition from that narrow illogical standard as is God.

    God OTOH I can intellectually, philosophically and logically deduce His existence via philosophical argument.

    Materialism and Metaphysical Naturalism OTOH I can show not only can't they be proven true via Science and Empiricism but philosophically they are illogical and incoherent.

    I can be as certain of God as I could be certain using intellect, philosophy & ,logic that 2+2=4 even if I was only one of three objects in a hypothetical alternate universe & thus empirically couldn't count higher than 3.

    You may have the last word.

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  56. I have a late mini-inspiration
    that could only happen
    after seeing all these
    enjoyable learned comments.

    I hope that dear Dr. Feser
    and our esteemed Posters
    attend to this great thread awhile further, so you will consider this:

    In concurring with Vincent Torley's negative asessment,
    I foresee yet another disastrous philosophical consequence,
    in a few decades:

    Advanced genetic experimentation will result in animal specimens
    far surpassing parrots
    in linguistic competance.

    If an overgrown giant-brained macaw amiably participated full-time
    in an advanced philosphy-curriculum,
    graduating years later
    with an extremely insightful thesis
    typed by dancing on a keyboard,
    wouldn't we philosophers be obliged
    to grant it the status of rational being?

    If so, then God must have infused a soul into it somehow.

    More doctrinally disturbing yet:
    would it have Original Sin?
    If so, how?
    If not, would it automatically be a saint?

    Watch out with these
    prehistoric Original-Sin scenarios, since:
    they might come back to bite you
    (as in Randy Newman's song).
    [sarc never on -- truly]

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  57. Just as you can't show the Andromeda Galaxy doesn't exist just because you can't view it with your microscope.

    So where is the 'telescope' for metaphysics? Also, one can view Andromeda through a microscope, if you put the microscope up to a telescope.

    You can't prove materialism true via science or empiricism thus it is as much an addition from that narrow illogical standard as is God.

    Not hardly... all materialism presumes is that what we can show evidence for existing is what we can say exists, not that things only exist when we show that they exist. So far science has done a fairly good job of supporting the materialist philosophy...

    God OTOH I can intellectually, philosophically and logically deduce His existence via philosophical argument.

    The problem there is, first, that one can argue that a vast number of deities exist using philosophical arguments... and, more importantly, that one cannot argue something into existence.

    Materialism and Metaphysical Naturalism OTOH I can show not only can't they be proven true via Science and Empiricism but philosophically they are illogical and incoherent.

    You should probably try to do so then... seeing as you haven't done so yet.

    I can be as certain of God as I could be certain using intellect, philosophy & ,logic that 2+2=4 even if I was only one of three objects in a hypothetical alternate universe & thus empirically couldn't count higher than 3.

    That is hardly a special trick... we can show that the series of primes is infinite, even though there is not an infinite number of objects in the universe... because the sequence of primes (as well as 2+2=4) is just the result of some of the rules of mathematics. What they lack, like your god, is independence from human thought.

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  58. >The problem there is, first, that one can argue that a vast number of deities exist using philosophical arguments...

    **Chuckle** **Snort**:-)

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  59. **Chuckle** **Snort**:-)

    Aren't you the one who said that Allah was "the God of Philosophers" like the Christian god?

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  60. You still don't get the difference between Theistic Personalist Deities vs Classic view. Which is funny.

    You statement is like saying "With the methods & instruments I use to examine rocks on the surface of Pluto I could examine a Hartle/Hawking State. After all they are the same thing right?

    You have a lot to learn and you have even more to unlearn.

    And that is so you can at least be a rational Atheist much less a believer.

    Now let us end this nonsense. Go study.

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  61. The problem there is, first, that one can argue that a vast number of deities exist using philosophical arguments

    You're on. Go.

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  62. Aren't you the one who said that Allah was "the God of Philosophers" like the Christian god?

    There is a difference between two witnesses' description of the same man, and descriptions of different men.

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  63. You still don't get the difference between Theistic Personalist Deities vs Classic view. Which is funny.

    How don't I? Didn't you say that Allah was a "God of Philosophers"?

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  64. You're on. Go.

    Allah, Vishnu, Vāhigurū, Ahura Mazda...

    Indeed One could generate a vast set of "revelations" describing a vast number of deities using the same philosophical argument as the base.

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  65. There is a difference between two witnesses' description of the same man, and descriptions of different men.

    True... but we are still talking about an individual identified as a man. So are Christians / Muslims using different descriptions of the God of Philosophers, or are they describing two separate Gods of Philosophers?

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  66. The hypothesis is falsified by Genesis 3:20:

    [20] And Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was the mother of all the living.

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  67. ...Mother of all the living...

    Indeed, as my great-grandmother Matilda is the Mother of all the living Flynns in my area. Doesn't mean we don't have other great-grandmothers. That all the living are descended from one does not preclude them being descended from others, as well.

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  68. >So are Christians / Muslims using different descriptions of the God of Philosophers,

    Yes they are the God of the Philosophers is the only true God.

    >Vishnu, Vāhigurū, Ahura Mazda..

    Are not the God of the Philosophers. How are they like them? Vishnu is Pantheism, Vāhigurū is a mating of Allah and Brahman, Ahura Mazda is dualism thus he cannot be purely actual.

    Indeed none of these "gods" is purely actual thus they are not the God of the Philosophers.

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  69. >How don't I?

    The same way Richard Dawkins would know somebody has at best a 7th grader's understanding of evolution.

    If you know then explain the difference to us then tell us how all these "gods" are purely actual & how their essence is identical with their existence.

    Good luck faking that.

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  70. Ahura Mazda as God of the Philosophers? Seriously? Maybe Zervan....no I take that back not even Him.

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  71. Ahura Mazda as God of the Philosophers? Seriously? Maybe Zervan....no I take that back not even Him.

    How so? He is "uncreated", "benevolent and good", as well as "the creator of truth".

    Sure you may argue that he isn't really a deity, but then I'm sure the Zorastrians would disagree.

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  72. Indeed, as my great-grandmother Matilda is the Mother of all the living Flynns in my area.

    Why did you add "Flynns" to "living Flynns"?

    ReplyDelete
  73. >How so? He is "uncreated",

    Zervan created him. If if you drop Zervan well Ahura Mazda didn't create Angra Mainyu thus he is limited by the existence of Angra Mainyu.

    Logically he can't be Infinite or supreme & thus he cannot be Purely Actual.

    >Sure you may argue that he isn't really a deity, but then I'm sure the Zorastrians would disagree.

    He is a "deity" in the lose sense like Q from Star Trek is called "The god of lies" by some alien cultures.
    But he is clearly not the God of the Philosophers.

    So fail!

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  74. Of course Zervan is Time which by definition is change and thus not Purely Actual since that which is Purely Actual is an unchanged changer.

    Tops you don't know enough philosophy or comparative religion to fake it.

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  75. Zervan created him. If if you drop Zervan well Ahura Mazda didn't create Angra Mainyu thus he is limited by the existence of Angra Mainyu.

    Unless I invoke theology and simply chose a system where Angra Mainyu wasn't created by Zervan... Or I could go the Catholic route and build a trinity with Zervan, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu as its members. There, now all is resolved... the deity of Zoroastrianism is the God of Philosophers.

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  76. I could go the Catholic route and build a trinity with Zervan, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu as its members

    Arbitrary. There are reasons in philosophy why the being of pure act possesses three hypostases. Unless you can give such reasons as Plotinus or Thomas Aquinas did, you are simply making an arbitrary declaration.

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  77. Unless you can give such reasons as Plotinus or Thomas Aquinas did, you are simply making an arbitrary declaration.

    Well why not just copy their reasons and then past my own trinity into the names?

    ReplyDelete
  78. Because then you would not be talking about the entities you have named but simply giving new names to the One, the Intellect/Word and the Spirit. There are philosophical reasons why they are so called. If you wish to call them Manny, Moe, and Jack, have at it, but that is to obscure their roles.

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  79. TheOFloinn,

    "There are reasons in philosophy why the being of pure act possesses three hypostases."

    Arbitrary reasons. Rationalizations.

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  80. "There are reasons in philosophy why the being of pure act possesses three hypostases."

    Arbitrary reasons. Rationalizations.

    How would you know? Plotinus was a Neoplatonist pagan. What rationale was he driven by?

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  81. TheOFloinn,

    "Plotinus was a Neoplatonist pagan. What rationale was he driven by?"

    Probably Plato's Republic, Parmenides, and the ancient Greek idea of The Good.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Because then you would not be talking about the entities you have named but simply giving new names to the One, the Intellect/Word and the Spirit. There are philosophical reasons why they are so called. If you wish to call them Manny, Moe, and Jack, have at it, but that is to obscure their roles.


    So then aren't you doing the same thing... stamping your own names / belief system on top of something else?

    ReplyDelete
  83. [Plotinus rationalized a triune God because...] Probably Plato's Republic, Parmenides, and the ancient Greek idea of The Good.

    Plato and Parmenides? That's a good trick. Your contention was that he rationalized a trinity rather than reason his way to a trinity. You haven't supported that yet.

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  84. So then aren't you doing the same thing... stamping your own names / belief system on top of something else?

    Nope. The rest is left as an exercise to the reader. But if you start with the conclusion of a prior lemma, the existence of a being of pure act, you can deduce that such a being is the origin of all powers. Then from the empirical fact that human beings have the powers of intellect and volition, the rest follows.

    ReplyDelete
  85. TheOFloinn,

    "Plato and Parmenides? That's a good trick."

    If you notice, I italicized Parmenides, as in Plato's dialogue Parmenides. The One and the Many is a primary topic in that dialogue.

    "Your contention was that he rationalized a trinity rather than reason his way to a trinity. You haven't supported that yet."

    And you haven't shown he reasoned his way there.

    I've read enough Plato to know he rarely reasons his way to a conclusion. He manipulates by using the myths already accepted by the interlocutors or creates one for future use. I haven't read the neoplatonists but I doubt they bettered their master.

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  86. "Your contention was that he rationalized a trinity rather than reason his way to a trinity. You haven't supported that yet."

    djindra
    And you haven't shown he reasoned his way there.

    TOF
    But it was yourself that made the contention. Argument is to the affirmative.

    djindra
    I've read enough Plato to know he rarely reasons his way to a conclusion.

    TOF
    Since I cited Plotinus and Thomas Aquinas, this is an interesting opinion, but not germane. I know many people who contend correctly that the earth is a sphere, but are unable to reason their way to it. That does not mean there are no reasoned arguments.

    ReplyDelete
  87. But if you start with the conclusion of a prior lemma, the existence of a being of pure act, you can deduce that such a being is the origin of all powers. Then from the empirical fact that human beings have the powers of intellect and volition, the rest follows.

    Sure... but there is an incredibly large set of possible beings of pure act.

    Leaving aside the question of why one should even make the assumption of a "prior lemma" to begin with.

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  88. there is an incredibly large set of possible beings of pure act.

    No, that is logically impossible.

    Leaving aside the question of why one should even make the assumption of a "prior lemma" to begin with.

    A prior lemma is not something assumed, but something previously proven that is used as a jumping off point for additional theorems.
    + + +

    But, dudes, there are 287 comments here, and no one else is around. I'm taking it off my tickler.

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  89. TheOFloinn,

    This is also a contention: "There are reasons in philosophy why the being of pure act possesses three hypostases."

    ReplyDelete
  90. No, that is logically impossible.

    not at all... one can just stamp any stack of "revelations" on top of the description of "being of pure action" (the Christian God, the Jewish God, the Muslim God, ... , Azathoth).

    A prior lemma is not something assumed, but something previously proven that is used as a jumping off point for additional theorems

    Sorry, but it hasn't even been proven philosophically... let alone proven under anything approaching rigor.

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  91. >not at all... one can just stamp any stack of "revelations"..

    Accept the God of the Philosophers is known by reason before revelation.

    Reason dictates you can't have two pure actual beings. Just as you can't have two infinities in the same relation since one would be limited by not being the other and thus not truly infinite.

    BTW Your original claim was Vishnu, Vāhigurū, Ahura Mazda etc are also the God of the philosophers.

    The only way you can make them so is to change the Zoroastrian religion & or the other religions & make arguments outside of philosophy.

    Seriously?

    Like I said Tops you simply don't know enough logic, philosophy or comparative religion to fake it.


    Continuous Epic Fail!

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  92. Accept the God of the Philosophers is known by reason before revelation.

    Well no, I don't...

    But then the point I'm trying to get across is that the description of the "God of Philosophers" leaves itself open to a vast array of possible revelations.

    Even if I accept your claim that there can only be one "God of Philosophers" there is still no way to make that leap to a specific deity described by "revelation".

    BTW Your original claim was Vishnu, Vāhigurū, Ahura Mazda etc are also the God of the philosophers.

    I'm saying that many deities can, with the correct application of theological arguing, fit within the "God of Philosophers" description.

    The only way you can make them so is to change the Zoroastrian religion & or the other religions & make arguments outside of philosophy.

    Correct... I step outside of philosophy and into theology.

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  93. >Correct... I step outside of philosophy and into theology.

    Yes you changed the Theology of those religions to make them more like Judeo-Christianity since the "gods" of dualism & or Pantheism can't by definition be purely actual.

    Like I said you don't know enough philosophy or comparative religion to fake it.

    You are better suited to argue with YEC's or Fundies.

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  94. >Even if I accept your claim that there can only be one "God of Philosophers" there is still no way to make that leap to a specific deity described by "revelation".

    Why is that? Anyway talk to the guys over at Catholic Answers or ENVOY about that part. Which is the next step up after you prove God philosophically.

    Here we do philosophy and natural theology and you waste our time with your warmed over boiler plate anti-Protestant Fundamentalist polemics on the Bible that you no doubt learned from the jerks over at richardawkins.net or whatever.

    Catholics aren't fundamentalist Protestants Tops.

    Get over it.

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  95. >I'm saying that many deities can, with the correct application of theological arguing, fit within the "God of Philosophers" description.

    That is by a liberal use of the fallacy of equivocation you can radically redefine & change those religions, their historical doctrines, and their own perennial philosophies to make them resemble Judeo-Christianity.

    Yeh I can reinterpret/misinterpret the Koran(contrary to Muslim Hadiths) to make it appear to support the Deity of Jesus Christ.

    Yet for some reason no Muslim is moved to confess Christ by that tactic?

    No Hindu or Zoroastrian would buy your claim here.

    Like I said you don't know enough philosophy and or comparative religion to fake this.

    Give it up Tops.

    Fail!

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  96. Yes you changed the Theology of those religions to make them more like Judeo-Christianity since the "gods" of dualism & or Pantheism can't by definition be purely actual.

    Sure they can... as long as I interpret it "correctly". After all Catholics have three deities that they "interpret" into a single deity... so one can interpret two (dualism) or four+ (pantheism) the same way.

    Why is that? Anyway talk to the guys over at Catholic Answers or ENVOY about that part. Which is the next step up after you prove God philosophically.

    Because I can stamp any number of arbitrary belief sets on top of the "God of Philosophers".

    That is by a liberal use of the fallacy of equivocation you can radically redefine & change those religions, their historical doctrines, and their own perennial philosophies to make them resemble Judeo-Christianity.

    I don't need to make them resemble "Judeo-Christianity"... I just need to theologically manipulate them into the "God of Philosophers" just like you have done with Catholicism.

    Yet for some reason no Muslim is moved to confess Christ by that tactic?

    Nor have the Jews... which goes back to my point that the Christianity is just one of the many possible sets for revelations that can be set on top of your "God of Philosophers"

    No Hindu or Zoroastrian would buy your claim here.

    Really? Or maybe I'm the next great Zoroastrian/Hindu prophet who will raise the one true faith back to its rightful place in the world.

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  97. >Sure they can... as long as I interpret it "correctly".

    But you don't so that is your problem.

    >After all Catholics have three deities that they "interpret" into a single deity..

    The above being an example of your inability to interpret correctly.

    >so one can interpret two (dualism) or four+ (pantheism) the same way.

    Given such an absurd standard of nominalism and linguistic relativism on Crack cocaine(backed up with an extreme ignorance of the theologies, histories, philosophies and particulars of these religions) I could “redefine” your politics to the right of mine and I could “redefine” your Atheism into Theism and your skepticism into anti-Skepticism.

    You will have to do better than John Cleese styles of argument.

    >Nor have the Jews... which goes back to my point that the Christianity is just one of the many possible sets for revelations that can be set on top of your "God of Philosophers".

    Actually I personally know dozens and dozens of Jews who became believers in Jesus, of both the Messianic and Hebrew Catholic variety. They came to believe from comparing the OT to the NT and Jewish Tradition which is just proto-Catholic tradition. They all gave me my nickname BenYachov (aka Son of James).

    I’m sorry you haven’t made your case in regards to Hinduism or Zoroastrianism. By moving the goalposts back to Judaism you are conceding defeat since you are admitting only western monotheistic religions are compatible with the God of the Philosophers and not all religions as you originally implied.

    You don’t know enough to fake it Tops.

    Sorry but them’s the breaks.

    Fail.

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  98. But you don't so that is your problem.

    by "don't" you seem to mean "not as I do".

    The above being an example of your inability to interpret correctly.

    Again "inability to interpret correctly" just seems to mean "not as I do"

    Given such an absurd standard of nominalism and linguistic relativism

    Nothing absurd about it.... your "God of Philosophers" is so ill-defined that virtually any pantheon can be covered under it.

    Actually I personally know dozens and dozens of Jews who became believers in Jesus, of both the Messianic and Hebrew Catholic variety.

    And? Do you know any Jews that haven't converted to Catholicism? I've known quite a few myself.


    By moving the goalposts back to Judaism you are conceding defeat since you are admitting only western monotheistic religions are compatible with the God of the Philosophers and not all religions as you originally implied.

    No goalpost moving is needed... you have yet to show how religions not from the western monotheistic schools cannot be shoehorned into your "God of Philosophers"

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  99. >No goalpost moving is needed... you have yet to show how religions not from the western monotheistic schools cannot be shoehorned into your "God of Philosophers".

    Now you are shifting the burden of proof & challenging me to prove a negative which shows you are now implicitly conceding your claim Hindu & or Zoroastrian Deities can be shown to be the God of the Philosophers is bogus.

    Tops you clearly don't know enough philosophy or comparative religion to fake it.

    Epic fail.

    Hindu & Zoroastrian Deities can't be the God of the Philosophers.

    Live with it or have a good cry about it.

    Oh & yes I am very good friends with Jewish people who don't believe in Jesus too.

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