So I guess I'm not ending my inquiry. Although of course we will be playing by Wesleyan (prison) rules I guess, Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience, are all fair play.
The main issue of contention that has remained since the Reformation between Protestants and Catholics and is chronologically the first battleground, is nature (and thus grace).
What is Nature? Was it perfect without grace? Was Adam merely natural, or did he also have sanctifying grace? What is original sin? etc.
I'm going to try to keep posts shorter so that you don't have to read as much, with the sacrifice being extra prooftexts.
Pelagius argued that Nature was perfect in itself, and that Adam was not given any gift of grace, because nature itself is a gracious gift. Protestantism agrees with Pelagius in arguing that Nature was perfect and was without grace, it was "good", and man likewise "very good" ('no one is good but God alone' as Jesus said).
The Cappadocians and Augustine argued on the contrary that man was not without grace, and that the 'breath of life' implied more than life, but actually the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and/or Sanctifying Grace. God blessed them in the garden before the Fall, and this seems to me, to indicate a divine gift (grace). This is "Original Righteousness" in Thomas. It thus follows that Original Sin is merely "not having Original Righteousness/Sanctifying Grace".
Fr. Hardon (man I feel gross typing that name) has an article on it here:
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/God/God_013.htm
Called to Communion also has good posts on it as well (here's just part 7 in the series: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/03/aquinas-and-trent-part-7/)
Showing posts with label Creation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creation. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Circle of Death - Young Earth Creationism and Evolution
I was watching "Planet Earth" the other night with my mom, we'd just bought it, and it was fascinating how everything in the ecosystem eats each other. The eagles will eat the baby foxes and the foxes will be eating the eggs of the eagles, etc and at one point I saw a fox with 4 baby birds in it's mouth at once to bring back for its children to eat. I was thinking that it wasn't so much a circle of life as it was a circle of death. But that's how nature works.
I was at my parents Baptist church the other night and we were discussing evolution and I was saying that even though I don't hold to it, it has absolute support from the scientific community, and only those crazies on the outsides who are acting out of religious conviction - which is admirable but unscientific - disbelief in it. It works for 99% of life, and Creationists are out there finding the rapidly shrinking 1% of things they haven't explained (Biology never claims a comprehensive worldview anyway) and then try to show how they are irreducibly complex. But anyone who's actually read a book by Dawkins or an Evolutionary Biologist will tell you that all of those CAN be explained by natural selection, in fact he takes 10 examples from a Creationist book of 'irreducible complexity' and shows how they could have developed over time.
I really don't have a view on Creationism vs Evolution - as an Augustinian Christian I only hold 2 propositions about the whole event. 1. God created out of sheer superabundant love and joy for his own glory. and 2. Man willfully and knowingly sinned against him, and death remains the punishment and universal phenomenon of that sin. Obviously those are problematic with scientific evolution because man would have no official starting point, it would be just one chain of matter and categories would be arbitrary. So I couldn't strictly speaking believe in a world where everything is killing each other to survive, in essence, I couldn't believe in the world that we have right now. There had to be Shalom. The Hebrew reading of Genesis is that in the beginning God created the earth in peace/Shalom, man had peace with God, man and woman had peace, and man and creation had peace. It was all in Shalom. Natural selection doesn't work with this philosophical/theological view of nature.
But I'm not dumb enough to completely ignore the fossil record, obviously the whole point of evolution was to explain why we weren't digging up fossils of dogs and cats, etc, species we see walking around on the earth right now. So at some point there had to be dinosaurs, other weird scary things, and no humans on the earth. Which still synchs up with the general order of the universe. So I guess you could call me an Old Universe, Old Earth, Creationist. I have the same view as Chesterton who said he had no problem with evolution as a science/biology but as a philosophy it cannot co-exist with Christianity. But in my view, Science and the revelation to God's people are all a part of revelation and they should all come together, there shouldn't be a divergence. I was taught this in high school by the smartest Mennonite I know who taught us about Galileo, etc, and said "If science and religion come into conflict it is because one of them has made a mistake, it is either false science or false theology" and he cited the example of "The earth is firmly established it cannot be moved" from the Psalms and the rotation of the earth, and how that was a wrong hermeneutic we had, and that we've changed our theology accordingly. And things like the scientific acceptance of the Big Bang Theory (written by a Catholic Priest) gives me hope that Christianity and Science can play nicely together in the end.
But there will always be people like Dawkins, and people like the Inquisition, constantly fighting each other, and to paraphrase Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz 'people have been fighting about it for so long that it no longer is a fight about what the truth is, but who can come up with cleverer arguments, so I stay away from it'. I obviously believe in God - Philosophically it's impossible to me to accept an atheistic universe - therefore I believe in creation, but I haven't studied biology enough to get in depth into debates, but as Chesterton says of the Unitarians and the Catholics I say of the Creationists and Evolutionists 'it's not as though we believed their doctrines which appeared strange so much as we simply believed that everyone should be given a fair chance even if they appeared strange' (paraphrased from Conversion and the Catholic Church). I just don't like the simplistic black and white dicotemies that place all anti-Christs with evolution , when many good Christian men are theistic evolutionists (like Alistair McGrath, and pretty much every Roman Catholic and Anglican theologian).
I'm at least glad that now I sit in a camp though (however weakly) of Old Earth Creationism, but even there I must laugh at myself because I think if we were ONLY studying the bible I would be a young earth creationist (John MacArthur's biblical studies on the topic are actually pretty strong that it isn't poetry - that is Genesis 1-3 - and never was considered poetry, and is literal, I just wish he'd take that approach to John 6 and 1 Cor 11 heh aka. Eucharist). If I was just going by science I'd be an evolutionist purely. So in Anglican style I'm taking the via media.
So at this church I told them basically: the problem is not over what science says - it clearly says evolution (no matter what the focus on the family video says) - the problem is over whether we should be teaching any science based on empiricism. Empiricism being essentially a non-Christian worldview and a philosophically untenable one as well. The whole venture of science is to look at ONLY the natural world, that's it's box it is closed within, obviously they will say nothing of the supernatural world, and that silence will be understood by most to mean non-existance. But if we as Christians believe that Naturalism (matter is the only real thing) is a flawed understanding of the world, we shouldn't be trying to get creationism taught in the classroom, we should be trying to get philosophy taught in the classroom, give every kid a summa theologica or Decartes Meditations, and they'll realize that the world is matter and spirit, that biology itself is flawed if it thinks it is a comprehensive worldview, etc.
But I was a Catholic so they drifted off when I included myself in the category of Christian, and just started glaring at me for not accepting their simple "Us and Them" mentality. It's amazing how Nietzschean the young earthers come off as they'd rather simply impose their will on others (including teaching children in schools) and banish any literature or idea that doesn't fit within their framework. Strangely enough it was Christendom that existed as the first self-critical worldview, welcomed debate and discussion, but apparently the sola scripturans are becoming more Muslim every day, religion of the book, fundamentalism, King James only/Arabic only authoritative. But again that's not me being anti-Protestant , that's Alistair McGrath's summation of modern fundamentalism in "Christianity's Dangerous Idea", he convincingly argues that the Anabaptist tradition of iconoclasm, etc, is almost identical to Islam. Confessional/Traditional Protestantism doesn't have such a problem, but I just have to laugh at the comment I read in history class the other day "The Saracens were quickly linked to the Protestants as they said only a Muslim or Calvin could so quickly dispose of a crucifix or desecrate a statue of the Virgin" History is funny - much funnier than I am. So ya. Ben Stein. Shut up...
I was at my parents Baptist church the other night and we were discussing evolution and I was saying that even though I don't hold to it, it has absolute support from the scientific community, and only those crazies on the outsides who are acting out of religious conviction - which is admirable but unscientific - disbelief in it. It works for 99% of life, and Creationists are out there finding the rapidly shrinking 1% of things they haven't explained (Biology never claims a comprehensive worldview anyway) and then try to show how they are irreducibly complex. But anyone who's actually read a book by Dawkins or an Evolutionary Biologist will tell you that all of those CAN be explained by natural selection, in fact he takes 10 examples from a Creationist book of 'irreducible complexity' and shows how they could have developed over time.
I really don't have a view on Creationism vs Evolution - as an Augustinian Christian I only hold 2 propositions about the whole event. 1. God created out of sheer superabundant love and joy for his own glory. and 2. Man willfully and knowingly sinned against him, and death remains the punishment and universal phenomenon of that sin. Obviously those are problematic with scientific evolution because man would have no official starting point, it would be just one chain of matter and categories would be arbitrary. So I couldn't strictly speaking believe in a world where everything is killing each other to survive, in essence, I couldn't believe in the world that we have right now. There had to be Shalom. The Hebrew reading of Genesis is that in the beginning God created the earth in peace/Shalom, man had peace with God, man and woman had peace, and man and creation had peace. It was all in Shalom. Natural selection doesn't work with this philosophical/theological view of nature.
But I'm not dumb enough to completely ignore the fossil record, obviously the whole point of evolution was to explain why we weren't digging up fossils of dogs and cats, etc, species we see walking around on the earth right now. So at some point there had to be dinosaurs, other weird scary things, and no humans on the earth. Which still synchs up with the general order of the universe. So I guess you could call me an Old Universe, Old Earth, Creationist. I have the same view as Chesterton who said he had no problem with evolution as a science/biology but as a philosophy it cannot co-exist with Christianity. But in my view, Science and the revelation to God's people are all a part of revelation and they should all come together, there shouldn't be a divergence. I was taught this in high school by the smartest Mennonite I know who taught us about Galileo, etc, and said "If science and religion come into conflict it is because one of them has made a mistake, it is either false science or false theology" and he cited the example of "The earth is firmly established it cannot be moved" from the Psalms and the rotation of the earth, and how that was a wrong hermeneutic we had, and that we've changed our theology accordingly. And things like the scientific acceptance of the Big Bang Theory (written by a Catholic Priest) gives me hope that Christianity and Science can play nicely together in the end.
But there will always be people like Dawkins, and people like the Inquisition, constantly fighting each other, and to paraphrase Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz 'people have been fighting about it for so long that it no longer is a fight about what the truth is, but who can come up with cleverer arguments, so I stay away from it'. I obviously believe in God - Philosophically it's impossible to me to accept an atheistic universe - therefore I believe in creation, but I haven't studied biology enough to get in depth into debates, but as Chesterton says of the Unitarians and the Catholics I say of the Creationists and Evolutionists 'it's not as though we believed their doctrines which appeared strange so much as we simply believed that everyone should be given a fair chance even if they appeared strange' (paraphrased from Conversion and the Catholic Church). I just don't like the simplistic black and white dicotemies that place all anti-Christs with evolution , when many good Christian men are theistic evolutionists (like Alistair McGrath, and pretty much every Roman Catholic and Anglican theologian).
I'm at least glad that now I sit in a camp though (however weakly) of Old Earth Creationism, but even there I must laugh at myself because I think if we were ONLY studying the bible I would be a young earth creationist (John MacArthur's biblical studies on the topic are actually pretty strong that it isn't poetry - that is Genesis 1-3 - and never was considered poetry, and is literal, I just wish he'd take that approach to John 6 and 1 Cor 11 heh aka. Eucharist). If I was just going by science I'd be an evolutionist purely. So in Anglican style I'm taking the via media.
So at this church I told them basically: the problem is not over what science says - it clearly says evolution (no matter what the focus on the family video says) - the problem is over whether we should be teaching any science based on empiricism. Empiricism being essentially a non-Christian worldview and a philosophically untenable one as well. The whole venture of science is to look at ONLY the natural world, that's it's box it is closed within, obviously they will say nothing of the supernatural world, and that silence will be understood by most to mean non-existance. But if we as Christians believe that Naturalism (matter is the only real thing) is a flawed understanding of the world, we shouldn't be trying to get creationism taught in the classroom, we should be trying to get philosophy taught in the classroom, give every kid a summa theologica or Decartes Meditations, and they'll realize that the world is matter and spirit, that biology itself is flawed if it thinks it is a comprehensive worldview, etc.
But I was a Catholic so they drifted off when I included myself in the category of Christian, and just started glaring at me for not accepting their simple "Us and Them" mentality. It's amazing how Nietzschean the young earthers come off as they'd rather simply impose their will on others (including teaching children in schools) and banish any literature or idea that doesn't fit within their framework. Strangely enough it was Christendom that existed as the first self-critical worldview, welcomed debate and discussion, but apparently the sola scripturans are becoming more Muslim every day, religion of the book, fundamentalism, King James only/Arabic only authoritative. But again that's not me being anti-Protestant , that's Alistair McGrath's summation of modern fundamentalism in "Christianity's Dangerous Idea", he convincingly argues that the Anabaptist tradition of iconoclasm, etc, is almost identical to Islam. Confessional/Traditional Protestantism doesn't have such a problem, but I just have to laugh at the comment I read in history class the other day "The Saracens were quickly linked to the Protestants as they said only a Muslim or Calvin could so quickly dispose of a crucifix or desecrate a statue of the Virgin" History is funny - much funnier than I am. So ya. Ben Stein. Shut up...
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Why I'm Not Finished My Journey - Constant Conversion
WARNING!!!!! - Personal/spiritual post rather than Polemical/religious post - Ye who enter here abandon all hope
The Humility of a Hero
"Christ’s death redeemed man from sin, but I can make nothing of the theories as to how!"-C.S. Lewis
As I gave my thoughts on the Substitutionary Atonement and how I had to more or less 'give it up' for Catholicism, I realized that one of my favorite Anglicans had also given it up. Borrowing from another blog: "In The Allegory of Love Lewis referred to a poem whose "theology turns on a crudely substitutional view of the Atonement." In Mere Christianity Lewis indicated that he did not accept the substitutionary view of atonement." (http://www.faithalone.org/journal/2000i/townsend2000e.htm)
But I love Lewis' humility. He was clearly an Anglican/Protestant Arminian and accepted Sola Fide/Faith Alone but he tried to find a middle ground for which all Christians could come together on.
For me, I just need to accept that there is much that I haven't decided on and that this indecision is OK.
What I 'know'
When it comes to Theology Proper (Trinity, Who God is, etc) I think all Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox agree. And regarding Ecclesiology and the Sacraments my position is staunchly Roman Catholic, which of course will never allow me to leave the Church, but will also give me a plaguing of constant fear and guilt until I get to have my first confession, communion, and confirmation.
What I don't 'know':
But even if I am settled in my mind on the Catholic view of Conversion and the work of the Holy Ghost, I still can't actually invision it practically. I never know anyone who actually changes. Just sinner saints as Luther would say. I would completely doubt the truth of regeneration if it weren't for the few months of it I experienced in Bible School 3 years ago, and a few of my friends who are doing much better than I. But all of them aren't Roman Catholic, and many aren't even baptized. So how does that fit with my theology? it doesn't seem to. Again I just don't know.
And just ask me about Creation, Theistic Evolution, Young Earth, Old Earth, etc. I have absolutely no idea. I don't think I fit into any category because I think they all have problems. I could write an entire blog on this issue (maybe I'll do that next), but currently I find the Christian narrative and the Scientific narrative at odds, and I don't like picking sides because I -like Galileo- think science will vindicate God if it is true, and I believe all truth is God's truth. So I'm waiting around right now, and utterly confused on the matter.
So it's ironic that I started this blog saying "I'm a Christian looking for a Church" and now I say "I found a Church, but I'm looking for a Christian".... hmm. I wonder what I'll be saying in 2 years from now. I started off a "saved and justified bible-believing Christian" at the beginning, and now I appraise myself a "repentant Roman Catholic candidate in a state of damnation (mortal sin)".
I'm still in the purgatory between Protestant and Catholic and working out all these glitches as it were and confused ideas. But I knew I was in a Catholic mindset when people asked me 'so are you going to trust Jesus or the Church' and I immediately thought "false dicotemy" and primarily, the Church.
Comfort
There are some things that bring me comfort however.
1. Mere Christianity. That I at least gotten over the worst of the family strife over my conversion - C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" is now our household religion. My dad and I when we discuss the faith still speak only with regards to this shared grounds. I also make comments about how there are a great many 'unsaved' people in the Catholic Church and him and I agree on it. (though we use slightly different criteria). And I must say that I've never departed the teaching I received as a child that the Lord looks at the heart first, and so we view in my family now, "true Christianity" not as sola fide or sola ecclesia but as a living trust in Jesus. Pope Benedict XVI calls this the "constant call to conversion" that each Christian has. And while I might not be 'sacramentally' in a state of grace, God knows - I am sure - that my heart is in the right place. And I think that's more important than anything.
2. Kyrie Eliesen. That God is merciful - two of my favourite verses in the bible are: "The sacrifice acceptable to God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Ps 51.17) - a verse I emphasize when I talk to Muslims and Jews about salvation. And Jesus' promise "anyone who comes to me I will never drive away" (Jn 6:37). I also have taken comfort in the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen "God's joy in giving is greater than our joy in receiving".
3. Hope. While I cynically doubt I will ever be regenerate and suffer from constant feelings of guilt and inadequacy, I still take comfort in hope, which St. Paul says "will not disappoint" (Rom 5:5). President Obama -who ever Christian seems to hate- wrote a book called "The Audacity of Hope". I read some of it, and regardless of political views here, I just wanted to use the title for something. As Christians we do have the Audacity to hope. It is audacious because all signs point to despair. Hope is probably my favourite thing in the world, it's one of those words that for me has special meaning. It reminds me of Tolkien and his writing for Hope against despair. It's like the word repentance (which for many people is bad) which for me is a beautiful word. And so I try to pray each day for the Gift of the Holy Ghost which Jesus says the Father will give to us if we only ask, and maybe I'm already receiving it without knowing, but right now I have the audacity to hope for the zoe the supernatural and indwelling life of Christ, which I long for above all else.
Conclusion:
I'm still on the Journey, I'm not finished, and I need to spend some time enjoying the mystery of God, and I find it appropriate to quote the words of C.S. Lewis again:
"Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done..."
Thus begins another day.
The Humility of a Hero
"Christ’s death redeemed man from sin, but I can make nothing of the theories as to how!"-C.S. Lewis
As I gave my thoughts on the Substitutionary Atonement and how I had to more or less 'give it up' for Catholicism, I realized that one of my favorite Anglicans had also given it up. Borrowing from another blog: "In The Allegory of Love Lewis referred to a poem whose "theology turns on a crudely substitutional view of the Atonement." In Mere Christianity Lewis indicated that he did not accept the substitutionary view of atonement." (http://www.faithalone.org/journal/2000i/townsend2000e.htm)
But I love Lewis' humility. He was clearly an Anglican/Protestant Arminian and accepted Sola Fide/Faith Alone but he tried to find a middle ground for which all Christians could come together on.
For me, I just need to accept that there is much that I haven't decided on and that this indecision is OK.
What I 'know'
When it comes to Theology Proper (Trinity, Who God is, etc) I think all Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox agree. And regarding Ecclesiology and the Sacraments my position is staunchly Roman Catholic, which of course will never allow me to leave the Church, but will also give me a plaguing of constant fear and guilt until I get to have my first confession, communion, and confirmation.
What I don't 'know':
But even if I am settled in my mind on the Catholic view of Conversion and the work of the Holy Ghost, I still can't actually invision it practically. I never know anyone who actually changes. Just sinner saints as Luther would say. I would completely doubt the truth of regeneration if it weren't for the few months of it I experienced in Bible School 3 years ago, and a few of my friends who are doing much better than I. But all of them aren't Roman Catholic, and many aren't even baptized. So how does that fit with my theology? it doesn't seem to. Again I just don't know.
And just ask me about Creation, Theistic Evolution, Young Earth, Old Earth, etc. I have absolutely no idea. I don't think I fit into any category because I think they all have problems. I could write an entire blog on this issue (maybe I'll do that next), but currently I find the Christian narrative and the Scientific narrative at odds, and I don't like picking sides because I -like Galileo- think science will vindicate God if it is true, and I believe all truth is God's truth. So I'm waiting around right now, and utterly confused on the matter.
So it's ironic that I started this blog saying "I'm a Christian looking for a Church" and now I say "I found a Church, but I'm looking for a Christian".... hmm. I wonder what I'll be saying in 2 years from now. I started off a "saved and justified bible-believing Christian" at the beginning, and now I appraise myself a "repentant Roman Catholic candidate in a state of damnation (mortal sin)".
I'm still in the purgatory between Protestant and Catholic and working out all these glitches as it were and confused ideas. But I knew I was in a Catholic mindset when people asked me 'so are you going to trust Jesus or the Church' and I immediately thought "false dicotemy" and primarily, the Church.
Comfort
There are some things that bring me comfort however.
1. Mere Christianity. That I at least gotten over the worst of the family strife over my conversion - C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" is now our household religion. My dad and I when we discuss the faith still speak only with regards to this shared grounds. I also make comments about how there are a great many 'unsaved' people in the Catholic Church and him and I agree on it. (though we use slightly different criteria). And I must say that I've never departed the teaching I received as a child that the Lord looks at the heart first, and so we view in my family now, "true Christianity" not as sola fide or sola ecclesia but as a living trust in Jesus. Pope Benedict XVI calls this the "constant call to conversion" that each Christian has. And while I might not be 'sacramentally' in a state of grace, God knows - I am sure - that my heart is in the right place. And I think that's more important than anything.
2. Kyrie Eliesen. That God is merciful - two of my favourite verses in the bible are: "The sacrifice acceptable to God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Ps 51.17) - a verse I emphasize when I talk to Muslims and Jews about salvation. And Jesus' promise "anyone who comes to me I will never drive away" (Jn 6:37). I also have taken comfort in the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen "God's joy in giving is greater than our joy in receiving".
3. Hope. While I cynically doubt I will ever be regenerate and suffer from constant feelings of guilt and inadequacy, I still take comfort in hope, which St. Paul says "will not disappoint" (Rom 5:5). President Obama -who ever Christian seems to hate- wrote a book called "The Audacity of Hope". I read some of it, and regardless of political views here, I just wanted to use the title for something. As Christians we do have the Audacity to hope. It is audacious because all signs point to despair. Hope is probably my favourite thing in the world, it's one of those words that for me has special meaning. It reminds me of Tolkien and his writing for Hope against despair. It's like the word repentance (which for many people is bad) which for me is a beautiful word. And so I try to pray each day for the Gift of the Holy Ghost which Jesus says the Father will give to us if we only ask, and maybe I'm already receiving it without knowing, but right now I have the audacity to hope for the zoe the supernatural and indwelling life of Christ, which I long for above all else.
Conclusion:
I'm still on the Journey, I'm not finished, and I need to spend some time enjoying the mystery of God, and I find it appropriate to quote the words of C.S. Lewis again:
"Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done..."
Thus begins another day.
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