Originally Posted by
Papias
If you remember right we have talked about the Modern Synthesis, aka neodarwinism, before. I know what Darwinism is and so do you.
Sure we have, and that's irrelevant. Darwinism is defined, like most words, by the dictionary, not by mark:
Dar·win·ism
/ˈdɑr
wəˌnɪz
əm/ http://dictionary.reference.com/help/luna/IPA_pron_key.htmlShow Spelled [dahr-wuh-niz-uh
m] http://dictionary.reference.com/help/luna/Spell_pron_key.htmlShow IPA
noun the Darwinian theory that species originate by descent, with variation, from parent forms, through the natural selection of those individuals best adapted for the reproductive success of their kind.
I never said it was defined by me, I said it was by defined by Darwin. Your purple definition doesn't tell you what Darwin's theory is nor does it explain his grand fathers fascination with mythic naturalistic gradualism. Darwin's theory is natural selection and it's a categorical rejection of special creation and an a priori assumption that all cause is naturalistic, aka natural law.
You are not redefining Darwinism here, your rationalizing the term down. Having gutted it of it's essential meaning you pretend it's a correction but it's little more then a diversion.
While the term Darwinism had been used previously to refer to the work of Erasmus Darwin in the late 18th century, the term as understood today was introduced when Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species was reviewed by Thomas Henry Huxley in the April 1860 issue of the Westminster Review (
§ 4. Darwin's Bulldog)
(Darwinism, Wikipedia)
This is Darwinism from the Darwins themselves:
"ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom
New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing.
(The Temple of Nature, By Erasmus Darwin)
All change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition
(On the Origin of Species, By Charles Darwin)
The naturalistic assumptions of the Darwins and Darwinism is the essence of this worldview, they categorically rejected miracles which is something all modernists do.
Whether abiogenesis required a supernatural miracle is unknown, and irrelevant anyway.
Abiogenesis is impossible so how life came to be apart from God's work in creation is moot. You right that it's irrelevant but the clear testimony of Scripture and faith is that God is the Creator of life not the Guider of change.
As I asked on the other thread, do you have a quote where Darwin says "Darwinism is defined as...."? Not that it would matter anyway, since as explained before, we get definitions from dictionaries.
Darwin is not required to define his theory in your words, it's not a magical incantation that must include the words 'defined as'. Just as with miracles you don't want definitions, you want rationalizations that divert from the fact that theistic evolution is an antithetical view known only for it's criticism of Creationists. No matter where the conversation starts it always goes back to the same fallacious ad hominem attacks. No matter who participates in the discussion there will always be someone like you who makes it personal. I have found no exceptions.
OK, sounds like we have a different view of scripture. So be it.
That's putting it mildly.
The text is clear that we were made from pre-existing material, and the dust of the ground existed before apes.
It's also clear that Adam was not alive until God breathed life into him, making him a living soul. The Hebrew term for it is 'bara' and it excludes any inference of a living ape becoming a human being.
If you'd like to review the last time we talked about the possible details of Adam and Eve, I can do so. Remember? I laid out several possibilities.
You laid out none, you simply argue that they evolved from apes. It was unavoidable that they were two people and the parents of humanity because of the dogma of the Catholic Church who has never denied it nor made it permissible to believe anything else.
If you've heard Pope Benedict do so, then you've obviously heard a Theistic Evolutionist do so, since Benedict clearly supports Theistic Evolution.
Pope Benedict, like the RCC, reminds Catholics during every baptism and every Easter that Creation, the Incarnation and the Resurrection are inextricably linked and essential doctrine. No where does Pope Benedict use the term 'theistic evolution' but why would he, he supports an intelligent design worldview. What you are calling theistic evolution is really a part of a much bigger worldview. AKA Modernism, something he warns against in the strongest possible terms:
HUMANI GENERIS has never been an endorsement of theistic evolution but a warning of these dangers:
1. Christian culture being attacked on all sides
2. Men easily persuade themselves in such matters that what they do not wish to believe is false or at least doubtful
5. Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences, explains the origin of all things,
6. Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy
7. There is also a certain historicism, which attributing value only to the events of man's life, overthrows the foundation of all truth and absolute law, both on the level of philosophical speculations and especially to Christian dogmas.
10. Desirous of novelty, and fearing to be considered ignorant of recent scientific findings, try to withdraw themselves from the sacred Teaching Authority and are accordingly in danger of gradually departing from revealed truth and of drawing others along with them into error.
11. Some questioned whether the traditional apologetics of the Church did not constitute an obstacle rather than a help to the winning of souls for Christ
12 The removal of which would bring about the union of all, but only to their destruction.
17. Things (truths of the faith) may be replaced by conjectural notions and by some formless and unstable tenets of a new philosophy, tenets which, like the flowers of the field, are in existence today and die tomorrow;
22. For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council's definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.
28. These and like errors, it is clear, have crept in among certain of Our sons who are deceived by imprudent zeal for souls or by false science. To them We are compelled with grief to repeat once again truths already well known, and to point out with solicitude clear errors and dangers of error.
In other words, Humani Generis is warning against the dangers of theistic evolution.
And just for good measure, I'll do so too:
I warn against the dangers of modernism.
I'm a Theistic Evolution supporter, right?
Pointless...
As usual, you didn't answer the question. I asked what you thought of all those hundreds of saintly miracles. So, what do you think of them?
I think the RCC will exhaust naturalistic explanations before accepting them as miracles. Like all reasonable people they do not equivocate natural phenomenon with a miracle.
Have a nice day
Mark
