Creation, Early Man, and Evolution | According to Modern Holy Fathers (Video)

Jude1:3Contendforthefaith

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Creation, Early Man, and Evolution | According to Modern Holy Fathers


Introduction

0:38 Fr. Seraphim Rose, Hieromonk of Platina, California (+1982) – Basic presuppositions for knowledge of creation and early man.

4:33 St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, Bishop of the Caucasus and Stavropol (+1867) – The state of creation before the Fall of Adam.

6:55 St. Hilarion (Troitsky), Hieromartyr and Archbishop of Verey (+1929) – The Church’s view leads to humility, the secular view leads to pride.

10:38 St. Nikolai (Velimirovic), Bishop of Zica (+1956) – “Death is Unnatural”

13:32 St. Justin (Popovic) of Celije (+1979) – How man and the rest of creation are inseparable. When man fell, all of creation fell.

15:22 St. Ambrose of Optina (+1891) – “Don’t believe at face value all kinds of nonsense…”

15:46 St. John of Kronstadt (+1908) – True knowledge and the over-educated.

16:49 St. Vladimir, Hieromartyr and Metropolitan of Kiev and Gallich (+1918) – Do not listen to teachings of unbelief for they “promise you nothing but despair and an inconsolable life.”

18:44 St. Theophan the Recluse, Bishop of Tambov (+1894) – Evolution is anathema, along with other secular Western philosophies, and only a pure nous can accurately contemplate divine reality.

29:19 St. Barsanuphius of Optina (+1913) – The moral ramifications of evolutionist philosophy.

30:05 St. Nectarios, Metropolitan of Pentapolis and Wonderworker of Aegina (+1920) – “Without the acceptance of revealed truth, man will remain an insoluble problem.”

31:42 Fr. Seraphim Rose (+1982) – Knowledge of creation and early man can only be obtained by divine illumination. (Editor’s Note: This essentially repeats his teaching from the beginning, but it is kept here since it is so key to our understanding.)

34:26 St. Luke the Surgeon, Archbishop of Simferopol (+1961) – Evolutionary theory is not only contradictory to the Scripture, but to nature itself.

35:54 St. Sophrony (Sakharov) the Athonite (+1993) – The absurdity of evolutionary theory.

36:57 St. Paisios of Mount Athos (+1994) – Monkeys are far from humans; evolutionary theory is blasphemy.

41:31 St. Justin (Popovic) of Celije (+1979) – His letter to a theology student asking about evolution in which he focuses on the impact of evolution on the Orthodoxy doctrine of salvation.

46:35 Fr. Seraphim Rose (+1982) – Brief overview of the keys to the Patristic understanding.

52:44 Hymns from Vigil of the Sunday of Forgiveness, The Casting Out of Adam from Paradise

54:33 Hymn from the Feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross

The majority of these texts can be found in “Genesis, Creation, and Early Man” by Fr. Seraphim Rose, published by St. Herman’s Press.

This channel is dedicated to sharing the prayers, hymns, teachings, and service texts of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Glory to Jesus Christ!




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Hermit76

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Evolutionary teaching is a plague in the modern Church. Many priests and bishops in the US hold to it with some level of condescension to those who believe in literal creation. Sad
 
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rusmeister

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Evolutionary teaching is a plague in the modern Church. Many priests and bishops in the US hold to it with some level of condescension to those who believe in literal creation. Sad
The real problem is the absolute religious faith in modern education. People are ignorant of both the history of the system and the philosophy taught therein, nor do they know the governing philosophy of even the early Darwinists. They take obvious success from such learning in the results we see in things like medicine and technology, in which errors can be corrected by observation and experimentation, and apply the assumption of certainty equally to a prehistoric past that can never be so observed or experimented on, that all conception of knowledge is based on assumption and calculation, uncorrected by observation and experiment. Having been denied genuine philosophy and theology in their education, they think such things irrelevant to truth. Scientific rationalism, increasingly broken down by relativism, is all they have. The best of them try to synthesize the ideas formed in such an atheistic atmosphere with teachings of the Church, perceiving conflict between the two and desiring to rationalize it as harmonious, but wind up creating other conflicts within the resulting contradictions of the theology of the fathers. As a result, they essentially deny the authority of the fathers on the issue, assuming they have no authority on it because they “did not know what we know today”, failing to see that divine revelation always confounds the wisdom of this world. Thus, the heresy I think we can call “Meliorism” - the idea that we know better than the saints and fathers of the past, that Holy Tradition is a thing unfinished and changes over time, and that we can deny and correct the consensus of the fathers where we will, spreads throughout the Church.
 
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ArmyMatt

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Thus, the heresy I think we can call “Meliorism” - the idea that we know better than the saints and fathers of the past, that Holy Tradition is a thing unfinished and changes over time, and that we can deny and correct the consensus of the fathers where we will, spreads throughout the Church.

chronological snobbery according to Lewis
 
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rusmeister

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chronological snobbery according to Lewis
Absolutely. But taken as an attitude into the Church, and the teachings of the Church becoming the objects of the snobbery raise it to the level of heresy. Thus, a name that accurately describes it is called for. I propose Meliorism, as "We-Know-Betterism" doesn't exactly fly off the tongue - though my term is not meant to obscure the meaning. If anyone has a better term, I'm open to suggestions. "Arianism" was probably not called that for quite some time, but it was the greatest heresy of the first millennium.

I think Meliorism the number one heresy threatening the Church in our time. It disses the consensus of the fathers and the united witness of the Church in history on any teaching or practice that the believer desires to dismiss.
 
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ArmyMatt

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Absolutely. But taken as an attitude into the Church, and the teachings of the Church becoming the objects of the snobbery raise it to the level of heresy. Thus, a name that accurately describes it is called for. I propose Meliorism, as "We-Know-Betterism" doesn't exactly fly off the tongue - though my term is not meant to obscure the meaning. If anyone has a better term, I'm open to suggestions. "Arianism" was probably not called that for quite some time, but it was the greatest heresy of the first millennium.

I think Meliorism the number one heresy threatening the Church in our time. It disses the consensus of the fathers and the united witness of the Church in history on any teaching or practice that the believer desires to dismiss.

and it often files anything uncomfortable as theologumena
 
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Jude1:3Contendforthefaith

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The Theory of Evolution Emits a Foul Stench
(From the book: My Elder Joseph the Hesychast by Elder Ephraim)




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rusmeister

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When I want to blast evolution, I go for the throat: the extremely poor education of the scientists. I can blast the schools. I can blast them for teaching zero philosophy, logic, dialectic, and rhetoric. For failing to teach that assumption and calculation is not at all the same as observed fact. That evidence can be read in ways that the reader desires or expects contrary to truth.

A million scientists CAN be wrong if they were all taught in a uniformly wrong way with a uniformly wrong unspoken and unexamined philosophy. They are too used to equating what they can observe and experiment on with what they can't.
 
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