A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

Faith & Science Conversation
1364

Thanks Gregory for your comments. I feel too we are engaging in a very promising exchange.

Yes, with the remark that by “mixture of science and theology” I mean that Scripture and evolutionary science dovetail into one another:

Science prompt us to ask questions that bring Scripture to grow ( cum legentibus crescit ): The answers unveil contents that so far went unnoticed by us.

Scripture, since Genesis, highlights “human uniqueness” and thereby that “we should not live by Darwinian principles […] despise Darwinian natural selection as a motto for how we should live” (as Richard Dawkins magnificently states). Thus, Scripture gives a purpose to evolution while evolutionary science does not. Scripture has an explanation for how evolution turned out the way it did in terms of human evolution.

I think the idea I try to convey is rather a simple one:

  1. I endorse the (rather traditional) view (and I guess you too) that God created “Adam and Eve” by endowing a couple of adult Homo sapiens creatures with capability of freely loving God (which includes “knowledge of good and evil” and accountability toward God and humanity). This “supra-empirical” endowment was the beginning of “humankind in the image of God”. In the case of “Adam and Eve” this initial endowment included also the so called state of “original righteousness” with capability to master the Darwinian mechanisms (selfish tendencies, death, illness, etc.).

  2. In the light of evolutionary data, I accept that at the moment God creates “Adam and Eve” the overall population of Homo sapiens on earth is 5-10 million.

  3. From 1&2 above, I derive that by the end of the flood (at the moment referred to in Genesis 9:3-6) all the millions of adult Homo sapiens scattered through the planet received from God the same basic endowment as Adam and Eve received, although lacking the state of “original righteousness”, i.e.: the same endowment we get today at the very moment of our conception.

Right. However, if you acknowledge that “your right not to be killed” derives from the fact that you are in the image of God, then you have coherently to acknowledge that the embryo from whom you originate by cell division deserves the same right, and therefore is endowed with the image of God.

Your comments on Dunbar in this respect are extremely interesting and deserve a detailed discussion. To avoid going lengthy here, I will come back to them in a separate post.

Right. I consider the content of Genesis 9:3-6 the archetype of the morality and law God engraves into the collective conscious and unconscious mind of all human peoples (John 1:9), universal divine revelation echoing that written in Genesis 1-11 by divine inspiration. Thus I accept what you say: It is a result of “revelation” that Homo sapiens became “human kind in the image of God” in the form of “Garden-era and post-Garden-era human beings”. However, the light of the scientific data enable us to read more in depth into Genesis 9:3-6, and discover that this event may have happened between 12,000-5,300 BP.

And yet, there is a crucial difference between the view I am proposing and that of Ken Kemp: According to me, marriage happened ALWAYS between human beings in the image of God. People in the image of God never got married with creatures that were not in the image of God. This is not the case in Kemp’s explanation.

In the paper quoted by @gbrooks9 in the Original Post of this thread, I refer to Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) concerning the declaration of Pope Pius XII in the Encyclical Humani Generis .

As early as 1964, in his Münster-Lectures, Ratzinger comments that in this Encyclical the exclusion of “polygenism” is formulated very carefully under the condition that there is no way of reconciling “such an opinion” with the teaching of the Church regarding original sin. If this condition is not fulfilled, then doors remain open: “With this text a door is in principle quite clearly opened”; what is important for the Church is not the claim of the hominization in one couple but the claim that all human beings became guilty in their original state; “monogenism is assumed only in function of this theological statement”, Ratzinger says.

Notice also that the “Decree concerning original sin” of the Council of Trent (the only dogmatic declaration to date) does not state “that all humanity is descended from a single couple of genetic ancestors”.

Inspired by Ratzinger, in my paper (quoted by @gbrooks9 in the OP of this thread) I propose an explanation in accord with the teaching of St. Paul and the Council of Trent, without assuming genealogical descent from a single couple.

My interpretation of the Genesis episode of the “sons of God” (Genesis 6:2-4) fits in with this, and shows how evolutionary science help us to unravel one of the most enigmatic passages in the Bible!

1365

My point is the opposite in that knowledge of God comes through revelation and not human sources.

My understanding is base on comments on technology and its application - most of what I say may be read within Gregory of Nyssa the making of man.

You may elaborate.

I do not support ID notions. I have come across the three terms you mentioned and have not adopted any of these, mainly because I have been interested in seeking harmony between sound science and Christian doctrine. You may expand your comments on concurrentists for further discussion.

Laws of science debates seem to be ubiquitous while the Law of God as intrinsic to human spirituality and Christian life seems to be viewed within an evolutionary/sociological context, and I reject this, be it inferred or stated explicitly. I have formed this opinion from a wide range of sources and not specific papers.

Amen.

1366

According to your definition, you are invoking “magic” as well, when you claim that “God taught to A&E”, aren’t you?

Additionally, by claiming that “memes” did “spread throughout the species” by means of “a tangible causal connection” you are assuming that a mind can change another mind by using a connection between bodies. Is this not an even bigger “magic”?

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1367

No, not according to MY definition. I gave a direct causal connection. This is according to some definition of YOURS that magic is anything which God does. This is not even out of the range of usual human experiences, which includes religion – people all over the world claiming they are doing what God has instructed them to do. It is a phenomenon which some even try to study with science, whatever explanation they may resort to. The point is the question of HOW, which I give an answer to and you do not. Frankly, you would do better just to make this a dictation of divine law that God has declared that all these homo sapiens should be treated as human persons rather than expecting people to believe that God actually changed them all in an instant by magic – an explanation worthy and typical of creationists.

Yes by the usual means which memes/ideas spread over the world… by human communication – language and examples seen with their own eyes. In the same way people all of the world all use things like money, and devices, democracy, and share the same entertainments. There is no mysterious magic anywhere in this – not in MY explanation.

1368

But Jesus Christ is true God, so is his body the body of God.

Moreover: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14).
Are you claiming that Jesus’ flesh could not inherit the kingdom of God?

1369

It is all in 1 Cor 15, which I am quoting. Read the whole thing.

Jesus was the first of many brethren in being bodily resurrected to a spiritual body, which is not of dust or the earth bound by the laws of the Earth, but of heaven and outside such laws. This is where PAUL says at the end in verse 50, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” The resurrected Jesus is not flesh and blood. Nor is He a ghost. He has all the substance and realness of flesh and bone, for a living spirit is nothing like the pathetic shadowy character of ghosts (which are dead spirits) but having all the greater reality of God Himself, the spirit which is more real and substantial than anything else.

“The Word became flesh”

Indeed. God became a human being subject to all the laws of nature: born, growing up, and dying. And then He showed us the resurrection to a spiritual body which is possible also for us if we follow Him.

1370

“Inspired by Ratzinger, in my paper (quoted by gbrooks9 in the OP of this thread) I propose an explanation in accord with the teaching of St. Paul and the Council of Trent, without assuming genealogical descent from a single couple.”

Ok, I will take the twice hint in the message and read through your paper. I downloaded it in May, but time and priority have pushed it back. The fights and posturing among evangelical Protestants about YECism don’t interest me to participate in, and unfortunately they take up much of the energy in communication on the science, philosophy, theology discourse these days, at least in the N. American variant. You are promoting a European Roman Catholic approach to these major fields using what you call “quantum philosophy”. This is new to me, so I need to give it a closer look.

In the meantime I wonder if you would answer a simple two-part question which gives some cause for concern in your writing. Here’s the background below.

I did a quick search on a search engine and these were the results - # of hits:
“Evolutionary biology”: 9,130,000
“Evolutionary science”: 390,000

That first comparison is a concern for your chosen terminology. Following that, it shows a strange mixture of “evolutionary” fields:
“Evolutionary anthropology”: 836,000 (biological, not cultural, via N. American 4-part division?)
“Evolutionary geology”: 119,000
“Evolutionary cosmology”: 121,000
“Evolutionary philosophy”: 49,900
“Evolutionary mathematics”: 7,870
“Evolutionary economics”: 1,280,000

You repeatedly use the term “evolutionary science” as if it has wide familiar resonance, whereas I don’t think it does. That makes me curious: Which fields of study do you include in “evolutionary science”, and which fields do you exclude? Is what you call “evolutionary science” a strictly natural science, iow, such that you distinguish “evolutionary economics” as “non-evolutionary science” because it is not “natural science”? Or are you attempting to “universalize” the meaning of “evolution” into become a “general science”, that functions in an interdisciplinary way across … which “sciences”? It would be helpful for me in dialogue if you could please clarify your view on this, as I have not seen (please direct me to it if there is one) a Catholic teaching from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that shows the science/non-science way on this.

My concern is with evolutionary philosophy and ideological evolutionism, much more than with evolutionary biology, for example, if that helps you to frame the dialogue landscape.

Will respond after digesting your transmission & generation paper.

1371

My point is the opposite in that knowledge of God comes through revelation and not human sources.

Good.

My understanding is base on comments on technology and its application - most of what I say may be read within Gregory of Nyssa the making of man. You may elaborate.

Yes, that’s a good source to turn to for extension thinking. Nyssen though does not use the term “techn-” in that text.

I do not support ID notions. I have come across the three terms you mentioned and have not adopted any of these, mainly because I have been interested in seeking harmony between sound science and Christian doctrine. You may expand your comments on concurrentists for further discussion.

Good to know we’re both non-supporters of ID notions. Ok, will return to concurrentism later. It helps to shut down the ID theory noise coming from the IDM. But more importantly, it helps people to think, and better think towards living in world where “God’s not dead”.

Laws of science debates seem to be ubiquitous while the Law of God as intrinsic to human spirituality and Christian life seems to be viewed within an evolutionary/sociological context, and I reject this, be it inferred or stated explicitly. I have formed this opinion from a wide range of sources and not specific papers.

How about let’s not have a “laws of science” vs. “Law of God” debate? It would really be unfortunate if “Christian life seems to be viewed within an evolutionary/sociological context”. This is why I’ve been suggesting in recent years the need for discussion about “trans-evolutionary change” on the cultural (human) level.

We really need a buffer against “evolutionary religious studies” (ERS) that is not present in the “theistic evolution” or “evolutionary creation” conversation so far. ERS makes the “kingdom of heaven” into something “contrived” (man-made), not “revealed” (God-created). Defending evolutionary biology to religious believers at the same time by itself does nothing to defend religious belief from ideological evolutionism. The latter concerns me more than the former.

1372

Will leave it to the two physicists to sort this one out regarding “memetics”. I’m siding with Antoine’s version of the “memetics is magic” approach (c.f. “Dawkins’ magical, made-up theory” below), rather that with @mitchellmckain’s “coopting the ideas and terminology of…” atheist biologists.

This is one of the articles I wrote on memetics back in 2013, which offers a view from someone in the “cultural sciences” (if there counts such a thing), the fields in which “cultural replication” belongs and has been historically studied, under non-Dawkinsian meanings. Collective Vision - Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective

Call me crazy, but when I make use of peoples’ theories, I usually try to find the right, most qualified person for the task of constructing them. A biologist with little training in philosophy, and a disdain for theology, doing cultural studies, was bound to be a disaster in proposing a “cultural theory” to begin with. And thus, memetics failed.

At least it would be helpful if the proponent of “memes” in this thread would openly recognise the glaring mismatch in the case of Dawkins’ “cultural theory of mimetics”. Will he?

1373

I am not interested in cultural “sciences,” cultural theory, or memetics and I never said a single thing about them. This guy just read the word coined by Dawkins and jumped up on his own personal soap box. Nor am I interested in Gregory’s issues with the person of Dawkins and his ideology.

These are the facts that I am interested in.

  1. Language is the one demonstrable difference between man and animals. At least we have no good evidence that any of the animals on the Earth have anything of the sort – not that it would bother me in the slightest if we found out that some do.
  2. Human languages have at least the representational capabilities of DNA. This is demonstrable because we can use language to describe everything that DNA does and is capable of.
  3. This means that human language is just as capable of being a medium for the process of life as DNA.
  4. The human mind has much the same characteristics of a living organism - its own needs, and its own inheritance of information passed on to the next generation.

Is the human mind a living organism? This status is not unambiguous. The point is that the capabilities are there. To be sure we can ask whether the human mind does things for its own reasons as a living organism does, OR is the human mind is a slave to its environment, i.e. the body in which it resides. I think we can find examples of both of these in different people. The point is that there is no need for the dualism of Neoplatonism or Descartes, which cannot stand up to either philosophical scrutiny or the objective scientific evidence. But there is sufficient evidence for an effective dualism between mind and body as different (interdependent) physical living organisms. For this purpose the term “meme” coined by Dawkins is useful for contrasting the memetic life of the mind with the genetic life of the body. This is a philosophical metaphysical issue with some bearing on theology and does not have anything to do with any so called “cultural sciences” (not that I care in the slightest).

Gregory is of course free to believe whatever he likes. But the above is what I believe, and Gregory’s likes or dislikes doesn’t means squat when it comes to what I believe. He certainly hasn’t said a single thing with any significant consequence for them.

I reject this as equivalent to panentheism and God as a dreamer of the world, which is all you get if the universe is not an authentic creation which can stand on its own. In response to Mancha I support creation ex nihilo as no problem for the simple fact that modern science dissolves the distinction between thing and action in the concept of energy. God’s action of creation therefore is sufficient to provide the substance of what is created, which I think renders void Mancha’s argument that God’s creation cannot be a natural efficient causality and thus requiring the strong view of providence which again I would equate with panentheism.

1374

Entirely agreed!

And God showed us also what to do to get to a spiritual body:

John 6:

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

I wonder whether we may find common ground in the following points:

  1. Christ is true God.

  2. Thus, the body of Christ is the body of God.

  3. The body of Christ is a true human body.

  4. So is our human body in the image of Jesus’ (God’s) body.

  5. Thereby, our human body is a seed capable of becoming the imperishable resurrected body of Christ.

1375

No I disagree with two of those.

No I don’t buy into that logic any more than making Mary the mother of God. These imply a limitation which God does not have. Mary is the mother of the body of Jesus and this body is not God any more than our body is us. We are much more than the body. To say this was body of God is like pointing at fingernail clipping in the garbage and saying that people have been thrown in the garbage. I only agree that Mary was the mother of God in the sense that she was the mother of Jesus and Jesus was truly 100% God, not that Mary was the origin of God – because it is God who became a human being not a human being who became God.

Our mother is the origin of our body and our body is our origin (the seed from which we grew) but the body of Jesus is not the origin of Jesus and Mary is not the origin of God. God did not grow from the body of Jesus. There is a big difference here. We are finite beings with many limitations. God is not.

No. Our body is a product of evolution. And God became a human being in the person of Jesus to join with us. It is not the other way around that we joined with God by having such a physical form.

Created in the image of God is not about our physical form.

Nor do I agree with your claim that John 6 is “what to do to get a spiritual body.” Jesus said no such thing. I certainly do not think John 6 is about Jesus’ physical form and flesh. Jesus was intentionally shocking these people who were overly obsessed with physical reality – bodily needs like food, wanting to make Him a secular king because He fed crowd. He was trying to shake them out of this mentality and force them into thinking spiritually. When they failed to do so and took what He said literally and physically they abandoned Him.

1376

Thanks Gregory for these questions: Defining clearly the meaning of the terms one uses is always helpful, also for oneself.

For me, the term “evolutionary science” is motivated by the question I try to elucidate:

I accept Genesis 9:3-6 as a threefold principle for how we should live, that is:

  • Humans are not allowed to kill other humans for one’s own convenience or profit.

  • Humans are allowed to use animals for food.

  • Each human is accountable for killing another human toward God and humankind, because “God has made humankind in the image of God”.

This principle presupposes that humans can clearly distinguish between humans and animals.

As a matter of fact: We can today unambiguously distinguish which creature is human, and which is not. Anatomically there is today a clear difference between our species Homo sapiens and other animal species, even our “closest relatives”, chimps and bonobos. But this has not always been so: The more we go back into evolutionary history, the more the difference between Homo sapiens and other species fades away.

So, I am interested in knowing when this difference became as distinct as it is today.

The systematic study of observations and explanations that allow me to answer this question is what I call evolutionary biology. And the answer I obtain is:
Later than 12,000 BP; only at the end of the Pleistocene Homo sapiens reaches the full set of features we see in living people today, and thus also in people living at the time when Genesis was written (about 2,500 BP).

Further I am interested to know when there is evidence for the sense of moral and legal accountability (in line with Genesis 9:5-6). The systematic study of evidence that allow me to answer this question comprehends fields as evolution of morality, legal systems, money, religion. This fields of study, together with that of evolutionary biology, sum up to what I call evolutionary science. And the answer I obtain to my question is: Not later than 5,300 BP, since Cuneiform writing unquestionably evidences sense of accountability.

So, evolutionary science allows us to establish two relevant results:

  • The Declaration of Genesis 9:3-6, and in particular the creation of humankind in the image of God occurred between 12,000 BP and 5,300 BP.

  • As far as one accepts Genesis 9:3-6 as a principle “for how we should live”, one acknowledges (with Richard Dawkins) that “humans should not live by Darwinian principles, but rather despise Darwinian natural selection as a motto for how we should live”. And from this it follows that the ongoing development of humanity (Homo sapiens at the present moment) does NOT reduce to Darwinian evolution.

These two results are the reason why I claim that Scripture and evolutionary science dovetail into one another.

Now I come to your remarks concerning Robin Dunbar and more in general ERS:

Like you I reject the attempt to explain revealed religion, let alone the statement that God made humankind in the image of God, merely on the basis of any evolutionary mechanism. But this said, I would like to stress that Dunbar and other representatives of evolutionary religious and moral studies contribute significantly to answer the question I am interested in, that is, the time when the universal revelation referred to in Genesis 9:3-6 was done. Look at the following quotation by Dunbar:

“Religion has its origins as a mechanism to create a cohesive community in small scale hunter-gatherer societies. The shamanistic form of religion characteristic of these societies is a religion of experience rather than of doctrine: such religions rarely have gods, and certainly not moralising high gods that rule over men, and they rarely have anything resembling either a theology or a moral code. They are based around emotional experiences during trance states, often induced by dancing and music, which create a deeply bonded sense of belonging to the community. The doctrinal religions that we are more familiar with (the world religions as we have them now) developed during the Neolithic as a way of controlling the members of the ever-growing community: God (a moralising high god) now is responsible for punishing backsliders so as to keep the community cohesive, and to do this He needs a theology, some religious rituals and some priests who act on his behave.”

This means that burials, even as impressive as that of Sungir, or cave paintings, are rather evidence for shamanistic forms of religion (superstition), but not for the revealed religion of the Bible.

In summary, by reading Genesis in the light of evolutionary science we are led to conclude that:

  1. God made Homo sapiens wholly into humankind in the image of God at the time when man’s first civilization emerges.

  2. Since this very moment (but not before) the belonging to the biological species Homo sapiens is the distinct and observable sign of being in the image of God, children of God.

Evolutionary science allows us to read deeper into Scripture, and Scripture allows us to better explain how evolution worked the way it worked in terms of human evolution.

1377

correction. Humans are allowed to use SOME animals for food.

Humans are held accountable for killing other humans by other humans whether they believe in God or not. So this idea that God made us in the image of God is not required for such a purpose. Furthermore many see the image of God in nature and see too much loss of beauty and even the image of God in the destruction of nature, so they protect many animals from human consumption which threaten this.

I agree with both of these, clarifying that Darwinian evolution specifically refers to the principle of the evolution of individuals by competition for survival and not to the theory of evolution as a whole which may include the evolution of communities and the role of cooperation.

I am largely in agreement with the first of these but not with the second. I believe there is another inheritance involved quite apart from the genetic biological one which makes the species homo sapiens. Certainly the potential for humanity is in this species and that is a reason for some care and regard, but it is not necessarily either exclusive nor an absolute necessity. It is entirely possible for a different inheritance to supplant the one responsible for our humanity to make monsters of homo sapiens, and it is also conceivable for the inheritance responsible for our humanity to go to a different species or different form of life.

1378

In all candor: In what you say I cannot yet distinguish a clear answer to the question of “HOW did God create ADAM AND EVE in the image of God”.

You seem to claim that:

  • God selected a couple of adult Homo sapiens creatures at some time during the Neolithic;

  • God improved the mind of these two creatures with the capability to freely love God, including dictation of divine law (“knowledge of good and evil”), and awareness about the consequences of transgressing this law.

Am I interpreting you correctly?

1379

I insist on saying it my way according to Genesis 2:7 “God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” And according to the findings of science and the meaning of inspiration as the divine breath. God created the body of man according to the laws of nature in evolution then spoke to Adam giving him the inspiration which brought his mind to life. This way of thinking which is the essence of our humanity spread by human communication to the rest of the species beginning with Eve. This is the way God typically does things in the Bible, speaking to particular individuals to change their way of thinking and thus to change all mankind through them.

As for when this happened and what God was looking for, these are pure speculation. I do think this was most likely during the Neolithic period. And I would guess a capacity to grasp abstraction was a key part of what God was looking for. I do not think the tree of knowledge of good and evil was about dictation of divine law, but rather about authority to say was is good and what is evil (which comes with positions of authority like parenthood). And I do not think the fall was about transgressing law or obedience but about self-destructive habits like blaming others for your own mistakes.

The direct causal connection here are ideas communicated by personal communication from one person to another which can spread over the earth much faster than genetic descent or evolution.

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1380

Good day Antoine,

Let me report I’m now 1/5 of the way through your article yesterday and should finish it today or latest tomorrow. It’s more than 40 pages, after all. ; ) That said, since you replied in part to my question, let me pick that up in the meantime.

“the ongoing development of humanity (Homo sapiens at the present moment) does NOT reduce to Darwinian evolution. ”

Yes, we are agreed, though obviously 150+ years later, Darwin isn’t our main authority on this topic nowadays. “Human development does not reduce to evolution” is good advice to repeat.

It would seem that you are one step from being able to circumscribe “evolution” much more comprehensively than you do now. It seems from what I see here that “evolution” might be somehow "in control” of your philosophical palate, rather than being just one tool among many others, some of which are much more powerful even on the same “topics” that currently “evolution” is being used for. Forgive me for getting ahead of myself, as this isn’t a comment on your paper.

I’m not sure “homo sapiens” is the best term for who we are today. The classification has changed in the past. I find curious the alternative proposal of placing “human beings” under the taxonomic kingdom of “symbolia” (biosphere), but natural science classifications seem to have their own kind of force of inertia.

“We can today unambiguously distinguish which creature is human, and which is not. Anatomically there is today a clear difference between our species Homo sapiens and other animal species, even our “closest relatives”, chimps and bonobos.”

Fine & good.

“The more we go back into evolutionary history, the more the difference between Homo sapiens and other species fades away.”

Yes, pre-history does that. We should always keep in mind, however, that “pre-history” and “pre-human” is often an attractive distraction.

“I am interested in knowing when this difference became as distinct as it is today.”

Ok, so this sounds like a palaeological or ethological topic. Are you personally interested in studying palaeology or ethology, with a background in quantum physics, and philosophy? It does not sound like “cultural anthropology” is part of your theoretical range so far, or at least in a muted or only limited way. If there is significant gap between us, one feature of it is because I think closer to the language of culture than to the language of physics.

“I am interested to know when there is evidence for the sense of moral and legal accountability (in line with Genesis 9:5-6). The systematic study of evidence that allow me to answer this question comprehends fields as evolution of morality, legal systems, money, religion. This fields of study, together with that of evolutionary biology , sum up to what I call evolutionary science . And the answer I obtain to my question is: Not later than 5,300 BP, since Cuneiform writing unquestionably evidences sense of accountability.”

Unfortunately, that is not “all there is” to “the answer”, at least, not how I see things, and I don’t think your argument justifies the elevated use of “evolutionary science” (much more to say about this another time). You instead appear to be covering only a small portion of what it seems you think more largely you are trying to cover. This is part of what I consider the deception in taking an evolutionary universalist approach. It has a tendency to swallow up “fields as evolution of morality, legal systems, money, religion” under inaccurate generalities and “just so stories”. Using “evolutionary” thinking in those fields serves to re-create the “original sin” of the Garden of Eden translated into an academic theory – by removing the responsibility of the actor(s) for the “development” (shorter time span, teleological, intentional, internalist-orientation) they are committing upon the world.

“Like you I reject the attempt to explain revealed religion, let alone the statement that God made humankind in the image of God, merely on the basis of any evolutionary mechanism. But this said, I would like to stress that Dunbar and other representatives of evolutionary religious and moral studies contribute significantly to answer the question I am interested in, that is, the time when the universal revelation referred to in Genesis 9:3-6 was done.”

I am thankful we have agreement on the first sentence. :pray:

My curiosity with your approach so far comes from having found “good anthropologists” who are religious theists, instead of having always to turn for ideas to proselytizing atheist “anthropologists” like Harari, Diamond, Pinker or Dunbar. Why continue going to atheist anthropologists for guidance (e.g. re: ERS), given that it means you willingly cede the “terms of engagement” to that which the atheist anthropologist chooses? What if those terms aren’t the best ones for the Roman Catholic Church to use?

You started with “what the term is motivated by”. That was a very curious start to me (who is not a psychologist, but thinks most of the noise involved here features the social psychology of local evangelical churches, led by their pastors, who are the primary forces for maintaining YECism in the USA). :blush:

Gen 9:6 we also agree is very important. I would argue it is entirely unimportant, however, for the field of “physics”, while instead being key for anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, political sciences, psychology, etc. Do you claim Gen 9:6 is relevant for physics?

What both you and Mitchell seem in some ways to be trying to discuss already has a name, though you haven’t been using it in a “reflexive" theoretical way. The name is: extension. McLuhan introduced it in the 1960s, and elaborated it in the sense that: “Christ, after all, is the ultimate extension of man”. In the electronic-information era, consider “evolution” as a limited, naturalistic term, compared with “extension”, the latter which fits much more comfortably and suitably in discussions of purpose, meaning, origins, and value, than does “evolution” or “memetics” talk.

In short, what does “original sin” (and every sin hence) extend from? Not just an externalist evolutionary explanation or a quantum vacuum, right?

1381

Exactly! That is why I find Atoine’s hang-up with “Darwinian evolution” a little annoying. I think creationists like this term because they want to deal with evolution as if Darwin’s work were the scripture of a rival religion.

To borrow your favorite word, I would say that human development is an extension of evolution. :wink:

I like this notion even if I think your reference to “more powerful” tools is questionable. It is a lesson we can learn from physics that it is difficult to capture the whole of reality by looking at things in only one way. This has led me to think the same regarding the mathematical view of physics, the objective way of looking at things in science, and the skepticism of academia in general.

And I don’t think it was ever the best term for who we are. It is the name for a biological species and I think that is only a part of what we are and not even the most important part.

I don’t think we are biologically so distinct as Antoine seems to insist. On the other hand, because of our minds I think we can be considered a different form of life altogether. It is not that I don’t think our biological species has any noteworthy differences. I do. Accordingly, I have challenged our classification of homo sapiens as primates since even as a biological species we haven’t fit the definition of primates for millions of years (when we became the best long distance runners on the planet to hunt game). But I don’t think that is something on which to pin our humanity. The more important difference is language and the human mind.

Yes I thought you were headed in this direction with that reference to “more powerful” tools. I obviously disagree. I certainly wouldn’t say that quote “ Christ, after all, is the ultimate extension of man ”. Doesn’t even make much sense to me. Sounds a bit like adoptionism. But perhaps I might get a better understanding of where you are coming from if you explain this quote. After all I would hardly expect an RC to be pushing anything like adoptionism.

If I was looking for a study of the nature of sin in the scientific worldview then I would suggest psychopathology, the study of bad habits, and the lies we tell ourselves.

1382

Yes, at least for “the character of” sin that might help. A kind of “almost apophatic theology” that is still clinging to its “western-ness”. Jordan B. Peterson is currently the psychologist/psychotherapist/guru most visibly and regularly (recently returning to health) speaking about this topic as a “public intellectual”. But he’s not “evangelically Christian”, nor a “Protestant” to say the least.

“human development is an extension of evolution”

Yes, well kudos to you. This is stated almost exactly 20 years from when that same thought came to me. I remember it vividly. I was walking along “Enlightenment Street” (Prospekt Prosvisheniye) at some time around 07:30 or 08:00 in the morning en route to the subway for language lessons. Had been reading McLuhan’s “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” for a few weeks while in transit & that “extension thinking” was starting to sink in to me. Had also just recently attended a fascinating and moving conference over 3 days about “the problem of the human being in science and theology”, including the presentations of Eastern Orthodox priests about “evolutionary” theories and ideas in science, philosophy and theology. That’s the background and context for my usage of “extension”, in case it helps.

My point of reference for finding all of this (which traces back at least as long as “evolutionary” thought), which you’ve now “followed-through” on, is not Ellen G. White, George McCready Price, Henry Morris, or even anything produced in N. America (where I assume you are located, yes?). That “different point of reference” is largely what has kept the conversation so long in the making between “us”, which does not mean among ideological “creationists”, which most of “us” are not. Perhaps here, in case Antoine is willing to consider McLuhan as well, perhaps even ahead of “sketchy palaeo” Teilhard de Chardin, and indeed, in many ways a necessary cap on Aquinas and Aristotle, this thread may make progress.

1383

Christ, after all, is the ultimate extension of man

Ah… I think I get it. He is talking about the body of Christ which he sees as being realized in electronic communication network or what he also calls the global village.

And… I don’t agree with this. This global village electronic communication network would be better likened to a forum or a market place of ideas where in the diversity of ideas presented these ideas may confront each other and compete with each other for attention. In this I would go back to the etymological origin of the forum, " a site located at the center of the ancient city of Rome and the location of important religious, political and social activities. Historians believe people first began publicly meeting in the open-air Forum around 500 B.C., when the Roman Republic was founded."