What is the Church's position on Creation/Evolution

[ArmyMatt]

Exactly - if you believe God created the universe to look like that, you would have to come to the conclusion that God is being purposely malicious and deceptive, something that can't be True if God is omnibenevolent.

incorrect, see what Platina posted. we deceive ourselves thinking we can figure it out without listening to Him, especially since He was the only One Who was there.

reminds me of Aslan to Jadis, reminding her not to lecture him on the Deep Magic, as he was there when it was written.

 

[gzt]

Exactly - if you believe God created the universe to look like that, you would have to come to the conclusion that God is being purposely malicious and deceptive, something that can't be True if God is omnibenevolent.

Precisely correct.

 

[gzt]

It's not deceptive because God has told us through His Church that He created a mature creation.

People deceive themselves by ignoring what God has said, and then they say God has deceived them ...

This is of course begging the question.

 

[gzt]

If Fr. Farley is advocating for evolution, then, unfortunately, he is outside the consensus.

Well, yes, that's what you're claiming, but the teaching of the Church seems to be broader than the narrow limits you're making.

 

[SingularityOne]

Well, yes, that's what you're claiming, but the teaching of the Church seems to be broader than the narrow limits you're making.

As I have said time and time again... The Tradition of the Church, the saints and the Holy Fathers, have maintained a consensus (in The Holy Spirit) that would advocate against evolution. I don’t understand what is being misunderstood by this. I have provided various links to support my argument and it seems there is still some misunderstanding. Can I make this any more clear for you? I’m just passing the Church’s Tradition on to you after all.

 

[rusmeister]

It doesn't matter whether or not it clearly has origins from an Anglo-supremacist and naturalistic worldview, or whether such a worldview has such a malicious agenda what you described, or even if such a worldview has created international peer pressure to hold fast on to this view otherwise be socially ridiculed by the scientific community - when it doesn't help to explain the data of the multiple radiocarbon dating systems which are consistent with each other, geological strata, the fossils of primates that slowly look more and more like men over time

and if we are going by the 6000 year old worldview, and the massive lack of evidence that something like Noah's flood occurred on a global scale (i.e., the lack of a gap or cultural divide in cultures, languages, art, calendars, etc., in cultures that are older than this).

A lot of the attempts to do so are by uneducated individuals who spend their time misrepresenting the other person's position rather than actually interpreting the data that's found in a logical, classical philosophical manner - like Dr. Dino for example.

Educated is as educated does.
My thesis is that most people have been educated very badly, whether in the public system, or in the private schools that mirror the public obnes and pretty much do,what they do. I find that hardly one supposedly “educated” person in twenty is capable of reading and understanding GK Chesterton, to take the example I find most pertinent. Even my mother, who taught me to read, put him down, saying that she just didn’t understand him. Probably only four or five readers here (and that would be a high percentage) have read and understood “The Everlasting Man”, the book which converted CS Lewis from atheism. So why am I saying that? Because I have had just about enough of the supercilious assumption that the education system, which belongs to the devil, teaches truth. I have degrees from “higher institutions” myself. They just don’t impress me. I KNOW about the claims of radiocarbon dating, of geological strata, and of fossils (the latter being decidely the most purely imaginative, drawing assumptions from the specimens that they happen to have found). I also know of the fallacies BEHIND the conclusions drawn - and agreed on - from that imaginative interpretation of data, of the fallacious assumptions held on which things like radiocarbon dating stand. And yes, if all hold the same fallacious assumptions, then all will come to the same fallacious conclusions, the fallacies not being mitigated by the fact that they are held by all.
Not all who disagree with you are country yokel fundamentalists. Though a fundament, that is, a foundation, is a very necessary thing if you want a structure that will stand.

 

[gzt]

As I have said time and time again... The Tradition of the Church, the saints and the Holy Fathers, have maintained a consensus (in The Holy Spirit) that would advocate against evolution. I don’t understand what is being misunderstood by this. I have provided various links to support my argument and it seems there is still some misunderstanding. Can I make this any more clear for you? I’m just passing the Church’s Tradition on to you after all.

And as I have said time and time again, you're overdetermining this.

 

[SingularityOne]

And as I have said time and time again, you're overdetermining this.

So if I'm understanding you correctly here, you are saying that Church Tradition is "overdetermining"? I hear you saying that Church Tradition is not the foundation of your argument. If that happens to be the case, as it seems, then science and the education that society has generated seems to be the foundation that you are setting forth for your argument.

What is the foundation of your argument?

 

[gzt]

No, your notion of what the Tradition is is stronger than what the Tradition in fact is.

 

[gzt]

incorrect, see what Platina posted. we deceive ourselves thinking we can figure it out without listening to Him, especially since He was the only One Who was there.

reminds me of Aslan to Jadis, reminding her not to lecture him on the Deep Magic, as he was there when it was written.

Yes, but, like, that's begging the question again - we are listening to Him.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Yes, but, like, that's begging the question again - we are listening to Him.

if you were, why are you coming down on the opposite side than every saint who has spoken on this issue?

 

[gzt]

...Which is not really all that many saints.

 

[fat wee robin]

So we're back at an impasse - what then to make of the many faithful bishops, priests, deacons, monks, nuns, theologians, and lay persons who disagree with you despite this apparent chorus (which isn't as airtight as it's made)? That the few recent people that have been canonized and spoken on this disagree with them isn't really determinative and it's abusing the text to read the ancients in this way.

By 'evolution' are you saying, that God did not create us as persons , but somehow 'grew' us over a long time of millions of years , into what we are now ?

 

[prodromos]

Exactly - if you believe God created the universe to look like that, you would have to come to the conclusion that God is being purposely malicious and deceptive, something that can't be True if God is omnibenevolent.

Utter nonsense. If you are consistent with such a view then you must interpret every miracle which has occurred in the Church over the millenia as God being malicious and deceptive. Those poor doctors who have patients suddenly healed of untreatable diseases, what a dim view of God they must hold.

In a nutshell, you are saying that the supranatural must conform to the natural, because you expect to be able to examine supranatural events with the same tools and theories that man has developed through examining the natural world as it exists since the fall. Do you not see the foolishness of such a position?

 

[TheLostCoin]

I have another question about the consensus of Saints - is it impossible for the consensus on Scientific (theological) fact to change? One could argue there was a consensus of Geocentrism until Copernicus and Galileo kind of changed everything. I doubt even Saint Paisios was Geocentrist.

 

[TheLostCoin]

Utter nonsense. If you are consistent with such a view then you must interpret every miracle which has occurred in the Church over the millenia as God being malicious and deceptive. Those poor doctors who have patients suddenly healed of untreatable diseases, what a dim view of God they must hold.

What? How does that logic follow?

If we hold to a proposition of omnibenevolence - that is, it's impossible for God to do something evil knowingly, if he cures every single cancer patient at once, every aids patient at once, and brought to life every miscarried infant, if he murders a man unjustly ONCE, He isn't omnibenevolent. He may be a wonderful Guy, but He isn't omnibenevolent.

 

[fat wee robin]

replace evolution with Origenism, and you have the same thing for a few centuries.

just because an Ecumenical Council hasn't formally condemned something, that doesn't mean it's permissible. Arianism was just as much a heresy for St Ignatius of Antioch as it was for St Athanasius.

and just because people disagree with the saints, and remain in good standing, that also doesn't mean it's permissible. Arianism was still supported after Nicaea, with a lot of folks twisting the Creed to have an Arian understanding, and it was only at Constantinople where it was soundly defeated.

and to say only a handful of saints means the issue isn't done is a weak argument. there was only a handful of supporters of St Athanasius against Arius, and only a handful of supporters of St Maximos against the monothelites.

While I do not know exactly which part of Origen you refer to ,I would not have thought he would have believed in 'evolution' ?
I think that some of the rejection of Origen was wrong, as I think that the Church
wished to keep things simple ,and only to all that concerned knowing Christ, who He was, and the message of salvation .

It is clear that not all people ,even later, would understand all that Jesus taught , so keeping confusion at bay was neccessary .
However to prevent a pêrmanent discussion seems strange in this day and age of everything being discussed ? Here I speak of all dénominations .

 

[prodromos]

What? How does that logic follow?

If we hold to a preposition of omnibenevolence - that is, it's impossible for God to do something evil knowingly, if he cures every single cancer patient at once, every aids patient at once, and brought to life every miscarried infant, if he murders a man unjustly ONCE, He isn't omnibenevolent. He may be a wonderful Guy, but He isn't omnibenevolent.

I've edited my post. See if that makes things clearer for you.

 

[SingularityOne]

No, your notion of what the Tradition is is stronger than what the Tradition in fact is.

The consensus of the Saints and Holy Fathers, all rooted in the Holy Spirit, is what Tradition is. The Saints and Holy Fathers argue against evolution.

I would also like to point out that you avoided my question and evaded addressing it directly as you have done continually through this discussion.

 

[ArmyMatt]

While I do not know exactly which part of Origen you refer to ,I would not have thought he would have believed in 'evolution' ?
I think that some of the rejection of Origen was wrong, as I think that the Church
wished to keep things simple ,and only to all that concerned knowing Christ, who He was, and the message of salvation .

It is clear that not all people ,even later, would understand all that Jesus taught , so keeping confusion at bay was neccessary .
However to prevent a pêrmanent discussion seems strange in this day and age of everything being discussed ? Here I speak of all dénominations .

no, I didn't mean Origen believed in evolution, only that the reasons for justifying evolution could be used to justify Origenism.