Saturday, July 30, 2022

Fr. Gregory Pine OP attempts to talk about evolution - part 1


Fr. Gregory Pine OP attempts to talk about evolution: part 1, part 2

I'm breaking off at 11:45 when he starts to bring on "sin of Adam" connexion. It can be mentioned, under my comment at 10:40 (not the first one) someone was commenting "Graphic language, please avoid reading if you're prone to scandal." Possibly good advice.

Let's Talk About Evolution...
30th July 2022 | Pints With Aquinas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYeu7wtO-0o


1:19 I think the double truth theory was indeed condemned in a very early syllabus of errors - that of Bishop Tempier of Paris (Archbishops only came in the time of Lewis XIV, between two Gondi's). Letare Iherusalem Sunday of late 1276 (what we would now refer to as early 1277).

1:25 St. Thomas Aquinas fought Sorbonne Averroism with argument, Bishop Tempier with condemnations.

4:23 I think you have some reviewing to do on St. Thomas' actual words.

How about this (from New Advent's translation), Prima Pars, Q 74, A 1, Corpus:

I answer that, The reason of the distinction of these days is made clear by what has been said above (I:70:1), namely, that the parts of the world had first to be distinguished, and then each part adorned and filled, as it were, by the beings that inhabit it. Now the parts into which the corporeal creation is divided are three, according to some holy writers, these parts being the heaven, or highest part, the water, or middle part, and the earth, or the lowest part. Thus the Pythagoreans teach that perfection consists in three things, the beginning, the middle, and the end. The first part, then, is distinguished on the first day, and adorned on the fourth, the middle part distinguished on the middle day, and adorned on the fifth, and the third part distinguished on the third day, and adorned on the sixth. But Augustine, while agreeing with the above writers as to the last three days, differs as to the first three, for, according to him, spiritual creatures are formed on the first day, and corporeal on the two others, the higher bodies being formed on the first these two days, and the lower on the second. Thus, then, the perfection of the Divine works corresponds to the perfection of the number six, which is the sum of its aliquot parts, one, two, three; since one day is assigned to the forming of spiritual creatures, two to that of corporeal creatures, and three to the work of adornment.

Yup, St. Thomas actually is stating that there was a (fairly short) point in time when world was half made and a few days later a time when it was fully functional as we observe it now. Heaven and Earth, Day and Night, Water, Dry Land, Plants, Seasons and Heavenly Bodies, Birds and Fish, Land Animals and Man, Adam and Eve, first marriage.

He had also sworn an oath to uphold three previous writings. Sentences by Peter Lombard, Decree of Gratian, and, most properly to this question here, Historia Scholastica. It's from there that the Roman martyrology has (Dec 25, obviously) Christ born 5199 after Creation, 2957 after Noah's Flood, 2015 after Abraham's birth and so on.

YAJUN YUAN
You make as many timestamps as I do lol

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@YAJUN YUAN Perhaps because we comment same way.


5:19 Actually, I think you need to review the doctrine of providence as well.

God certainly does control each thing, and does so according to His plan. He usually uses the mode inherent in the beings, plus what one could term, for lack of better words "chaos control" and on some rather rare occasions uses His power or the power of angels obeying Him outside this scheme (like when the angel of the Sun, the angel of the Moon, and Himself ceased to move Sun, Moon and stars for 12 or 24 hours on behalf of Joshua).

So, "inherent principles" or "puppet master" is not an "either or" but a "both and" ...

Kevin Kelly
Now you are just being silly.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Kevin Kelly No, you are being dense.

Perhaps on purpose.

tiago guinhos
Wait, what happened to Free Will if he controls everything? Or does he control us so but so well we only think we have Free Will? That would be smart from his part, uh..

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@tiago guinhos God controlling each thing does not mean He overrides each thing. See the words I already said:

// He usually uses the mode inherent in the beings, plus what one could term, for lack of better words "chaos control" //

Now, the mode inherent in man is to have, if not 24/24 each day, at least on sufficient occasions to be responsible, precisely free will.

His control therefore takes the form of giving us freedom.

Things that are purely physical do not need this degree of respect on his part : my genes are not going to get judged (except as along with me) and I am not getting judged for my genes, but for what (having those genes) I chose to do.

Occasionalism is not what I am saying, since I already said - once again:

// He usually uses the mode inherent in the beings, plus what one could term, for lack of better words "chaos control" //

but the one item where occasionalism would be actually forbidden by the magisterium is when free will becomes non-autonomous to the point of doing only what God directly wills it to do.

Malebranche and Guélinckx differed on this point, and of these it is the one who denied freewill who got on the index.

tiago guinhos
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Thanks for the in depth response, but sorry my lack of understanding:
I still don't get how you can control everything and still allow for freedom: if God made us, then he knew with his omniscience what we would do in our lives, right? And if that's the case, why would he create humans in an environment or with genes that would have that future?

Am I making myself clear on this confusion I'm having? If I were a God that wanted everyone to go to Heaven, why would I put people in a situation where I knew they wouldn't?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@tiago guinhos 1) No created circumstance is determining our free will beyond freedom remaining (well, when we are asleep and so, that's another matter);
2) God controls both when He exercises direct control imposing what He wants and when He so to speak "steps aside" to let a created thing follow its own inclination;
3) The own inclination of a stone is getting down, of a flame is getting up and of man is his free will;
4) What God knows by omniscience doesn't make His gift of freedom any less real;
5) However, also does not oblige God to change things so those He foreknows as going to Hell go to Heaven instead.

You see, since Adam sinned, we are born in sin and deserving of damnation (Limbo for those not reaching maturity of freewilled actions, Hell for those who do, when own mortal sins are added).

This means salvation is an extra to everyone who gets a chance to have first grace and then a death in the state of grace. It's what we are made for, what we are obliged on our part to strive for, but it is not what God is obliged to give each of us.

tiago guinhos
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Firstly, I do believe that, no matter one's Free Will, you are incapable of choosing certain actions.. either because of how you were born, how you were raised, or any combination of those (and I believe this because I have studied psychology a bit, so it's not a baseless belief). So I do hold God accountable for that.

Anyways, if God is all good and all loving, I actually think it's his obligation to let everyone into Heaven, eventually.
You probably heard about this before, but "No finite crime deserves an infinite punishment" and that's the same for everyone; it's innately unfair and unreasonable.

Given my stance on this topic, I don't see why God would borderline prevent people from reaching him.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@tiago guinhos "no matter one's Free Will, you are incapable of choosing certain actions.. either because of how you were born, how you were raised, or any combination of those"

Possible. Most people are very fortunately incapable of suicide or of agreeing to a sex change operation.

This does not mean the actions (or sometimes non-actions) and inner acts one has to chose to stay in a state of grace are among those one is incapable of choosing. Or if they are, for someone, this is what God would have removed, unless the person had deserved for other reasons too to get damned.

"(and I believe this because I have studied psychology a bit, so it's not a baseless belief)."

Non sequitur. The superstition taught as psychology is not a source of well based beliefs.

"So I do hold God accountable for that."

God certainly knows what He is doing - but it cannot be an accountability of guilt on His part, since, as said, salvation is not owed anyone in particular.

"Anyways, if God is all good and all loving, I actually think it's his obligation to let everyone into Heaven, eventually."

No. God is not obliged to override someone's free will who choses to reject Him (it can be the rejection of the full plan needed to get saved, or it can be the rejection of a preliminary).

"You probably heard about this before, but 'No finite crime deserves an infinite punishment' and that's the same for everyone; it's innately unfair and unreasonable."

A mortal sin may be finite in time and Hell may be infinite in time, but the mortal sin is infinite in a more important respect, namely as against the dignity against Whom it is a crime.

"Given my stance on this topic, I don't see why God would borderline prevent people from reaching him."

He doesn't, He's just not helping some all of the way, and your take on what one is accountable for or not owes something to your studies in the superstition known as psychology, I wouldn't be surprised.

tiago guinhos
@Hans-Georg Lundahl I think we should agree to disagree in most of those points, then. Thank you for your time, though!

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Noted.


5:54 If you are talking of human genes being part of the reasons why we have blondes and blue eyes, black haired and brown eyed, redheads with green eyes and a few combinations other than these stereotypes, fine. God has imparted on human genome the dignity to be part of the cause of why the human genome looks like it does with its variations right now.

But recall that human beings are the most high of all bodily creatures (except according to those who consider angelic beings have a kind of corporality). It is absolutely not part of the dignity of man to have one celled creatures or lampreys among its ancestry and that instead of God directly as cause for its genome.

And before you say "but it adds dignity to lampreys and to one celled creatures" - that's absolutely not how St. Thomas views the cooperation of creatures with the creator, it's rather higher creatures that cooperate with God about lower ones. It's perfectly fine to say man cooperated in making Chihuahuas and Great Danes from an ancestor looking more or less like a wolf, for example. It's not perfectly fine to say lampreys cooperated with God in making us us.

And I am not making up lampreys. They are not one species, they are a class, and the actually "earliest" class of vertebrates "on the grand evolutionary scheme." I looked it up.

So, while micro-evolution clearly does give the proper type of dignity to creatures (human genes and mutations and recombinations contribute to make humans what they are, wolf genes and recombinations contribute, with human selection to make dogs what they are) the "grand evolutionary scheme" clearly does not, but puts the order of created hierarchies upside down. As I have already mentioned to a Dominican who gave no answer.

Thomas Bailey
Okay, but what makes us higher than the other animals? Is it our physical design, or is it our soul?

Melissa T
Very well put!

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Melissa T Thank you - unless you meant Thomas Bailey!

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Thomas Bailey Our physical design is made to suit our soul.

No animal without a rational soul would profit from the physical design with which we are made capable of speech.

Melissa T
@Hans-Georg Lundahl No, hahah I meant you! I don’t usually comment on videos so maybe my reply didn’t go through clearly. 🙃

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Melissa T No problem, and thank you again!

Melissa T
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Thank you for advocating for the truth!

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Melissa T I thank God for having the opportunity and so should you!

Thomas Bailey
(disappeared from thread?)
@Hans-Georg Lundahl right and ours is the ONLY possible physical design that would befit a soul? Cmon now, that's just ridiculous. Besides, our physical design would be pointless without one, we'd just be another animal. It's not our physical design that separates us from Chimps.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Thomas Bailey You forget that human language both is a sign of the soul and something requiring a physical apparatus very different from that of the chimps.

Another FOXP2 gene, a Broca's and Wernicke's area that the Chimps lack, a hyoid that has no hooks for airbags, an ear that is much less thick, ductus, malleus, incus and stapes. Of these, Wernicke's area cannot be verified on a fossil, but Broca's can, and the FOXP2 gene is verified if you take a palaeogenetic examination.

Neanderthal is on all accounts human, Australopithecus is, while not for ductus and malleus, but for all the rest, basically Chimp (and unlike Neanderthal has not undergone sampling and sequencing of the genome). And a human ductus and malleus with a chimp incus and stapes is definitely not enough to give anyone the human hearing necessary to hear certain consonants, that are too high pitched for such an ear.

I am not accepting a being with human apparatus was non-human or one clearly lacking such was human.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Thomas Bailey You said very correctly, our physical apparatus would be pointless without a human soul. But we would not be simply another animal, we would, without a soul but with the apparatus, be fairly misadapted for a state without a soul.

See also:
Creation vs. Evolution : Soul, Anatomy, Speech
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2022/08/soul-anatomy-speech.html


6:44 Actually, the only diachronical story you can prove (more or less) is that Meganeura and Dinosaurs have died out.

Meganeura being giant dragonflies. I'm happy to say the Flood wiped them out, I'd not like to live close to a dragon fly that's one meter from head to tail. Even if it ate only insects. The two fossils we have for that one are at a proper distance from any pre-Flood habitations, there is no proof Creswell Crag was inhabited by Neanderthals who were a pre-Flood race, and there is definitely no proof Grotte de Fées was (apart from its being 53 miles from the Meganeura in Commentry).

Dinos or more properly pterosaurs and dimetrodontes (neither of which classify as dinosaurs, technically) may have died out somewhat later, if Gundicarius' brother in law and Chlochilaicus' nephew killed one of each.

xymi
Prove the flood.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@xymi Let's distinguish proof from defense. Proof means saying, why am I believing it. Defense means saying why this, that or sundry other consideration doesn't make me not believe it. You asked for proof, don't complain I didn't defend.

Because Noah recorded the Flood with his sons, in writing or orally, the textmass IS small enough to permit a very faithful oral transmission over the time from the event to 942 years later when Abraham was born (especially as lifespans were longer than ours) and the fifty years later date when his great-grandfather Sarug had to cease telling him about it.

Abraham had the physical means of keeping notes in written form in his caravans, and that's how the story was both preserved and reread up to the time when Moses included it in his magnum opus as researcher, the Genesis (the other four books are his works as autobiographer, campaign documenter and prophet).

The Genesis was then copied and recopied professionally - he had been instructed by Egyptian scribes - by his brother Aaron and his descendants, to our day, plus branch off translation versions from the Hebrew one, also to our day.

That's my likeliest text history for the relevant chapters of Genesis. A possible hypothesis is, the events were in fact documented by each of his sons, so that we have double accounts for that reason (the repetitions could be analysed otherwise, like recapitulations, if Noah himself were the author).

At each known stage, except lately through the enlightenment and possibly also through Sadducees at an earlier time, these events were taken as literal history, not as a fairy tale conveying symbolic truth.

Such a reception argues, it is historic truth, unless you can offer a good scenario for why a fairytale became tacked on to the national memories of a people involving them to be a small remainder of a stage of mankind that other peoples (and Abraham's father and grandfather) went away from.

It's not like "back to year X, we have historic memories, before that, we known nothing for an unknown number of centuries, then we believe that a few highly peculiar events, unlike what came since then had happened" - in that case those events could be tacked on.

Genesis through Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Four Books of Kings, this is a gap free history from Creation to Babylonian Capitvity. Some of it resumed in Two Books of Chronicles. That leaves very little place for tacking on fairy tales at the back end of a real history.

Compare the gap between Mahabharata times and Ashoka, Hinduism has lots less to say for Mahabharata and Ramayana, even so I believe in a rough historicity for these (notably due to parallels with Genesis) - but only rough, like obvious borrowings from Greek clearly pre-Indo-Greek times Homer, like bad theology, like displacing Flood and Rama's journey into pre-Mahabharata times (probably the most radical anachronism in orally preserved history I know of).

It's also notable (sorry, tired, forgot what I was saying, I'll get a coffee).

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Back.

It is also notable, and the chronologically displaced but extant Hindoo flood legend examplifies it, there are 100's of parallels to the Biblical Flood story all over the world in many cases clearly independent of Moses, and if you want to cavil about "na, so many differences there, so many differences those ones, and so many more at these ones" you are demanding the level of correspondence of independent eywitness accounts, not the level expected from independent retelling.

Imagine a geneticist saying "no, they aren't second cousins, I can't detect the similarity of homozygotic twins" ...


7:36 "to operate with its particular nature and operation"

Just mentioning, developing new functional genes and developing new cell types does, scientifically speaking, definitely not fall within the scope of the nature and operation created biological beings show off to scientists observing them.

Mutating an already functional gene so it functions somewhat differently, yes, eumelanin producing genes have on occasions mutated to pheomelanin producing genes, but they still produce some kind of melanin. You also have albinos who simply don't produce melanin. They were not the original genome of man on this point. Or you can have a gene allowing you to produce lactase up to age ... 5? puberty? whichever it was ... mutate into one that produces lactase and forgets to shut that production off. But you don't have lactase production mutating from a total lack of lactase production. (Lactase helps you to digest lactose, in milk).

See also:
Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Recall my Answers to Fr. Gregory Pine, OP?
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2022/08/recall-my-answers-to-fr-gregory-pine-op.html


8:31 And intellect is a capacity both needing and being needed for notionality.

Brutes have no notionality. They communicate on the basis of pure immediate practicality. Some evolution believers have pretended to find notionality in the communications of green monkeys.

The issue is, according to whether a danger is a snake, a land carnivore (typically lion) or a rapacious bird, they will give three different signals eliciting three different responses or types of flight. But the three signals don't refer with a disinterested curiosity to three types of non-monkey beasts, they are three types of practical response.

So, green monkeys have no notionality.

All men have. That is why all men have languages that have three layers of functioning, namely 1) phrase (sometimes just a single word), this being composed of 2) morphemes (notionalities and metanotionalities) and each of these being composed of 3) phonemes (lacking any meaning, either practical or notional, except self referential, in isolation). In a beast, basically "phrase = phoneme" (with some variations in rhythm and intensity and pitch).

This means, human and bestial communications function in so radically different ways that human communications cannot have evolved from bestial ones, any more than you can repair a trouser into a house or a house into a trouser.

Kevin Kelly
Off your meds?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Kevin Kelly I am not on meds in the first place.

Are you an Atheist and fanatic Evolutionist?

I was trying to conduct a civil discussion between (more or less) Catholics.


10:01 Yes, in the case of Adam, God infused biological life and rationality into a clay statue on day VI.

It has no conceivable good meaning to say God infused rationality into an ape. If one imagines Him going straight from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens in one second, that's not evolution. If one imagines something within genus Homo evolved, or even into Homo sapiens evolved, as a kind of ape, that's somehow "natural selection" promoting an apparatus only needed to communicate and in material memory master notionality. Broca's area, Wernicke's area, the human FOXP2 gene, a hyoid without air bags, an ear with human proportions, unlike ape ears able to hear consonants like "p, t, ch" or vowels like "ee" - all of this is highly functional for an "animal rationale" - a rational being expressing its rationality and immateriality in material biology - but fairly useless to an ape needing to master c. 500 different shades of "full phrase" for purely practical purposes.

But even more, if you suppose there ever was a "material but not formal man" (something not envisaged prior to Pius XII, and doing no credit to his capacity as Lord's watchdog) and that Adam either was born human of them or started out such, you give Adam a highly nightmareish prehistory to his communications with God when naming the animals. Something God would have done to the individual Adam, before he sinned.

10:40 Please note, the ontological difference can be proven and detected in ways that do not involve the supernatural destiny.

Some "Catholic" theologians may have looked at cannibalism in Atapuerca, in Homo Antecessor, and concluded "these fellows had no supernatural destiny" ... well, they had. They just were missing out on Heaven by practising cannibalism.

For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark,

Eating = cannibalism
Drinking = vampyrism
Marrying = gay marriage
Giving in marriage = forced marriage

The cannibalism part is evident in Antecessor, and the vampyrism part has been seen a bit more often than the cannibalism part in recent decays of society, and now we have gay marriage too.

AeternisPatris
Graphic language, please avoid reading if you're prone to scandal.

Wow, interesting interpretation of that passage. I had always interpreted eating as gluttony, drinking as drunkenness, and the other two as they are. As if they were just living without a care for God. But not to that evil of an extent - cannibalism, vampirism, etc.

But looking at the current state of society, I can see the interpretation you pose as viable.

Drinking blood - Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox have talked openly about cutting each other and drinking each other's blood.

Cannibalism - some people have begun openly speaking/writing of a fetish for eating humans as good and acceptable. I think it was Cosmopolitan. But also Zachary King a Satanist who converted to Catholicism in his conversion story talked about rituals where members would perform an abortion and eat the body of the murdered child. This by the way would be the baby of a 'mother' impregnated multiple times for this very end in separate sex rituals.

Marrying - Sodomy as a supposed form of marriage is self-evident as you stated.
Along those lines, the pushing of kids to be trans in schools by leftist indoctrinators which lead to them having surgeries where their bodies are mutilated. Have to take hormones for life and have astronomical suicide rates. And their parents potentially being arrested if they interfere with this supposed 'good' that is 'transitioning' (at least the case in Canada).

Forced marriage - child and adult sex trafficking?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@AeternisPatris Yeah, it seems Matthew 24 is coming to fulfilment as to prophecies.

No comments: