Contemporary issues in Christianity and science

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Contemporary issues in Christianity and science

• CATH 322
• Professor William Sweet
• Fall 2015

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Introduction

• What is religion?
• What is Christianity?
• How is Catholicism distinct?
• What is science?
• What is distinctive about science (goals, tasks,
  methods)?
• The role of science in culture

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What is religion?

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What IS Christianity?
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HOW IS CATHOLICISM DISTINCT?

• Historically
• A central authority (though 23 different rites)
• Some doctrinal matters
• Some practices
• Relation of scripture and tradition
• Magisterium

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MAGISTERIUM
Source Level of Magisterium Nature of what is taught Required Response
Pope (in virtue of his position as pastor and teacher of all) / ex cathedra Extraordinary (i.e., using extraordinary means to declare) and universal Infallible on matters of faith and morals full assent of faith, to be firmly accepted and held
Bishops, in union with the Pope, defining doctrine at General / Ecumenical councils Extraordinary (and universal) Infallible on matters of faith and morals full assent of faith, to be firmly accepted and held
Bishops, in unison, in union with the Pope, proposing definitively, although dispersed Ordinary (i.e., using ordinary means such as encyclicals, letters), and universal Infallible on matters of faith and morals full assent of faith, to be firmly accepted and held
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MAGISTERIUM
Pope Ordinary Authoritative but not definitive or infallible Religious submission of intellect and will
Bishops in union with the Pope Ordinary Authoritative but not definitive or infallible Religious submission of intellect and will
Roman Curia (e.g., Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) Ordinary Authoritative but not definitive or infallible Religious submission of intellect and will
Bishops magisterium cathedrae pastoralis - "magisterium of the pastoral chair"   With authority, but not definitive or infallible  
Theologians magisterium cathedrae magistralis / "magisterium of the teaching chair" role is to explain church teaching / assist bishops Neither authoritative nor infallible legitimate disagreement
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MAGISTERIUM
Priests No magisterial authority
Sensus fidei the supernatural instinct for the faith, so far as the word of God resides in the whole church / the baptized faithful (Lumen Gentium 12 Dei Verbum 8)      
Private revelations No magisterial authority    
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Theology, dogma, and scripture

• What is dogma?
• -- a truth appertaining to faith or morals,
  revealed by God, transmitted from the Apostles in
  the Scriptures or by tradition, and proposed by
  the Church for the acceptance of the faithful.
  Catholic Encyclopedia
• Other important truths
• truths proxima fidei
• truths theologice certa
• sententia communis
• Conclusiones theologicae
• Philosophical truths

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What is the purpose of scripture?

• Purpose in general
• What is scripture (in Christianity)?
• Finding out the meaning of scripture
• Different kinds of texts
• The role of literary devices,.method and metaphor
• Approaches to texts (Ignatius Loyola, Lonergan)
• What human beings bring to a text

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Example of Chiasmus in the Noah / Flood Story   A
Noah (610a)__B Shem, Ham, and Japheth
(10b)___C Ark to be built (14-16)____D Flood
announced (17)_____E Covenant with Noah
(18-20)______F Food in the ark (21)_______G
Command to enter the ark (71-3)________H 7 days
waiting for flood (4-5)_________I 7 days waiting
for flood (7-10)__________J Entry to ark
(11-15)___________K YHWH shuts Noah in
(16)____________L 40 days flood
(17a)_____________M Waters increase
(17b-18)______________N Mountains covered
(19-20)_______________O 150 days water prevail
(21-24)________________P GOD REMEMBERS NOAH
(81)_______________O 150 days waters abate
(3)______________N Mountain tops visible
(4-5)_____________M Waters abate
(5)____________L 40 days (end of)
(6a)___________K Noah opens window of ark
(6b)__________J Raven and dove leave ark
(7-9)_________I 7 days waiting for waters to
subside (10-11)________H 7 days waiting for
waters to subside (12-13)_______G Command to
leave ark (15-17 22)______F Food outside ark
(91-4)_____E Covenant with all flesh
(8-10)____D No flood in the future
(11-17)___C Ark (18a)__B Shem, Ham and
Japheth (18b)A Noah (19)
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METAPHOR

• Luke 1334 (see also Matthew 2337 ) Jerusalem,
  Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and
  stones those who are sent to it! How often have I
  desired to gather your children together as a hen
  gathers her brood under her wings, and you were
  not willing!
• John 1011 Jesus said, I am the Good
  Shepherd
• John 647-51 I tell you the truth, he who
  believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of
  life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the
  desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that
  comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and
  not die. I am the living bread that came down
  from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he
  will live forever.
• John 109 I am the gate whoever enters through
  me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and
  find pasture.

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DIFFERENT HISTORIES OR DIFFERENT STORIES?

• Two Genesis stories, and the possible influence
  of two authors/editors
• Genesis 11-23
• Genesis 24-324

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SUMMARY

• When we talk about Christianity, we need to be
  precide
• What people believe?
• Teachings / dogmas?
• Scripture
• Literally (including literary devices)
• Metaphorically
• The purpose of a text?

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What is science?

• Definitions
• Science as any systematic, rigorous,
  rationally-pursued investigation
• Who is a scientist?
• Science today
• Goals, tasks, and methods of science today
• Subject matter
• Method
• World view

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What is science?

• Scientific method
• Usually causal
• Usually empirical (observation and experimental)
• Falsifiable (testable) Popper, replicability
• Objective ( but observer effect / quantum theory)
• Probabilistic v demonstrative

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What is science?

• World view
• Materialist / naturalist
• Nature as an object
• Value rooted in human ends
• Claims to be disengaged /impartial
• Instrumentalist model of reasoning

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What is to be learned from this?

• What counts as science?
• Astrology, alchemy, phrenology, necromancy
• One method or many?
• Science and culture
• Science as a part of culture
• Science as shaping culture (UNESCO / evolutionary
  humanism)
• universalistic
• Is science impartial, value neutral, autonomous?
  (Tuskagee case)

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An ambiguous history

• Tertullian (c. 160 c. 225 CE)
• After Jesus Christ, we have no need for
  curiosity nor do we need inquiry after the
  Gospel. When we believe, we desire to believe
  nothing more. For we believe this before all
  else that there is nothing else that we ought to
  believe. De praescriptione haereticorum ("On
  the Rule of the Heretics). Ch 7
• Augustine (354430 C.E.)
• "Usually, even a non-Christian knows something
  about the earth, the heavens, and the other
  elements of this world, about the motion and
  orbit of the stars and even their size and
  relative positions, about the predictable
  eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the
  years and the seasons, about the kinds of
  animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this
  knowledge he holds to as being certain from
  reason and experience. It is a disgraceful and
  dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
  Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy
  Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics and
  we should take all means to prevent such an
  embarrassing situation, in which people show up
  vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to
  scorn. (The Literal meaning of Genesis (De
  Genesi ad litteram), 401 AD)

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An ambiguous history

• Still, human beings seek to know
• Augustine crede, ut intelligas, "believe so
  that you may understand" (Tract. Ev. Jo., 29.6)
• Anselm (10331109)
• faith seeking understanding / Fides quaerens
  intellectum
• Credo ut intellegam - I Believe That I
  Might Understand
• Benedict XVI
• The path of theology is indicated by the saying,
  "Credo ut intelligam" I accept what is given in
  advance, in order to find, starting from this and
  in this, the path to the right way of living, to
  the right way of understanding myself 

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An ambiguous history

• Charlemagne (742 814) 1st Holy Roman Emperor
• edicts of 787 and 789
• "Let every monastery and every abbey have its
  school, in which boys may be taught the Psalms,
  the system of musical notation, singing,
  arithmetic and grammar / Trivium and Quadrivium
•  
• Education in the Middle Ages
• seeking to understand scripture, but also nature
  (in which Gods handiwork is revealed) 
• Robert Grosseteste (c.11751253) empirical
  method
• Roger Bacon, ofm (c.12141294)
• Nicolaus Copernicus (14731543)

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An ambiguous history

• Aquinas (1225-1274)
• no two truths
• Jean Calvin (1509 1564) - we see both
  approaches
• a) earth is no more than 6000 years old (e.g.
  Institutes 1.14.1).
• -- creation days are normal days. (Commentary on
  Gen. 15),
• -- creation accomplished in six days, not in one
  moment (e.g. Institutes1.14.2) God creating the
  world in six days, resting on the seventh,
  manifests His works and creates a model for us to
  imitate (Commentary on Fourth commandment Ex.
  208)
• -- criticizes those who seek to reconcile the
  doctrine of Scriptures with the dogmas of
  philosophy to avoid teaching anything which the
  majority of mankind might deem absurd.
  (Institutes 2.2.4)

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An ambiguous history

• Jean Calvin
• b) Nothing is here i.e., in Genesis treated of
  but the visible form of the world. He who would
  learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him
  go elsewhere. (Comm on Genesis 16)
• Undoubtedly were one to attempt to speak in due
  terms of the inestimable wisdom, power, justice,
  and goodness of God, in the formation of the
  world, no grace or splendor of diction could
  equal the greatness of the subject. Still,
  while we contemplate the immense treasures of
  wisdom and goodness exhibited in the creatures as
  in so many mirrors, we may not only run our eye
  over them with a hasty, and, as it were,
  evanescent glance, but dwell long upon them,
  seriously and faithfully turn them in our minds,
  and every now and then bring them to
  recollection. But as the present work is of a
  didactic nature, we cannot fittingly enter on
  topics which require lengthened discourse."
  Institutes, Book I, ch. XIV, S. 21

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An ambiguous history

• Some would say Christianity made modern science
  possible, but sometimes a troubled relationship
• Galileo  (15641642)  See The Crime of Galileo
  Indictment and Abjuration of 1633
  http//www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1630galileo.asp
  
• Charles Darwin (1809 1882) - On the Origin of
  Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the
  Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle
  for Life (1859)
• "I have never been an atheist in the sense of
  denying the existence of a God. I think that
  generally ... an agnostic would be the most
  correct description of my state of mind. (1879)

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An ambiguous history

• Bl. J.H. Newman (1801 1890)
• It does not seem to me to follow that creation is
  denied because the Creator, millions of years
  ago, gave laws to matter. He first created matter
  and then he created laws for it laws which
  should construct it into its present wonderful
  beauty, and accurate adjustment and harmony of
  parts gradually. We do not deny or circumscribe
  the Creator, because we hold he has created the
  self acting ,originating human mind, which has
  almost a creative gift much less then do we deny
  or circumscribe His power, if we hold that He
  gave matter such laws as by their blind
  instrumentality moulded and constructed through
  innumerable ages the world as we see it. If Mr
  Darwin in this or that point of his theory comes
  into collision with revealed truth, that is
  another matter but I do not see that the
  principle of development, or what I have called
  construction, does. As to the Divine Design, is
  it not an instance of incomprehensibly and
  infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have
  given certain laws to matter millions of ages
  ago, which have surely and precisely worked out,
  in the long course of those ages, those effects
  which He from the first proposed. Mr Darwin's
  theory need not then to be atheistical, be it
  true or not it may simply be suggesting a larger
  idea of Divine Prescience and Skill.
• -- John Henry Newman to J. Walker of Scarborough,
  May 22, 1868 / http//www.disf.org/en/documentatio
  n/Newman_Walker_eng.asp

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An ambiguous history

• Tennessee's Butler Act, 1925 (1926 Mississippi
  1928 Arkansas)
• That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any
  of the Universities, Normals and all other public
  schools of the State which are supported in whole
  or in part by the public school funds of the
  State, to teach any theory that denies the Story
  of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the
  Bible, and to teach instead that man has
  descended from a lower order of animals.
• Similarly
• unlawful for any teacher or other instructor in
  any university, college, normal, public school or
  other institution of the state which is supported
  in whole or in part from public funds derived by
  state or local taxation to teach the theory or
  doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from
  a lower order of animals, and also that it be
  unlawful for any teacher, textbook commission, or
  other authority exercising the power to select
  textbooks for above-mentioned institutions to
  adopt or use in any such institution a textbook
  that teaches the doctrine or theory that mankind
  ascended or descended from a lower order of
  animal. Arkansas
• Challenged in The State of Tennessee v. John
  Thomas Scopes (1925) repealed 1967 Epperson v.
  Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968),

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An ambiguous history

• Gaudium et spes (Vatican II - 1965)
• 7. new conditions have their impact on religion.
  On the one hand, a more critical ability to
  distinguish religion from a magical view of the
  world and from the superstitions which still
  circulate purifies it and exacts day by day a
  more personal and explicit adherence to faith. As
  a result many persons are achieving a more vivid
  sense of God. On the other hand, growing numbers
  of people are abandoning religion in practice.
  Unlike former days, the denial of God or of
  religion, or the abandonment of them, are no
  longer unusual and individual occurrences. For
  today it is not rare for such things to be
  presented as requirements of scientific progress
  or of a certain new humanism. In numerous places
  these views are voiced not only in the teachings
  of philosophers, but on every side they influence
  literature, the arts, the interpretation of the
  humanities and of history and civil laws
  themselves. As a consequence, many people are
  shaken.

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An ambiguous history

• Gaudium et spes (Vatican II - 1965)
• 33. Through his labors and his native endowments
  man has ceaselessly striven to better his life.
  Today, however, especially with the help of
  science and technology, he has extended his
  mastery over nearly the whole of nature and
  continues to do so. Thanks to increased
  opportunities for many kinds of social contact
  among nations, the human family is gradually
  recognizing that it comprises a single world
  community and is making itself so. Hence many
  benefits once looked for, especially from
  heavenly powers, man has now enterprisingly
  procured for himself.

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An ambiguous history

• Gaudium et spes (Vatican II - 1965)
• 36. If by the autonomy of earthly affairs we mean
  that created things and societies themselves
  enjoy their own laws and values which must be
  gradually deciphered, put to use, and regulated
  by men, then it is entirely right to demand that
  autonomy. Such is not merely required by modern
  man, but harmonizes also with the will of the
  Creator. Therefore if methodical investigation
  within every branch of learning is carried out in
  a genuinely scientific manner and in accord with
  moral norms, it never truly conflicts with faith,
  for earthly matters and the concerns of faith
  derive from the same God. Indeed whoever labors
  to penetrate the secrets of reality with a humble
  and steady mind, even though he is unaware of the
  fact, is nevertheless being led by the hand of
  God, who holds all things in existence, and gives
  them their identity. Consequently, we cannot but
  deplore certain habits of mind, which are
  sometimes found too among Christians, which do
  not sufficiently attend to the rightful
  independence of science and which, from the
  arguments and controversies they spark, lead many
  minds to conclude that faith and science are
  mutually opposed.
• But when God is forgotten, however, the creature
  itself grows unintelligible.

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summary

• The key questions Do science and religion
  conflict? Are they compatible?
• Need to know What are they? What exactly
  conflicts/is compatible?
• What does each assert?
• Are there broader issues? (institutions, world
  views, politics/economics)

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summary

• The key questions Do science and religion
  conflict? Are they compatible?
• Need to know What are they? What exactly
  conflicts/is compatible?
• What does each assert?
• Are there broader issues? (institutions, world
  views, politics/economics)

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Origins cosmology, cosmogony, and creation

• 1. Introduction / Background
• a) Why are we interested in origin stories?
• b) Who/what can be a cause? How does the
  existence of the universe occur?
• 2. How does Science approach origins?
• - method (naturalism)
• - 3 theories
• 3. How does Christianity approach origins?
• - Scripture
• - Philosophy/theology
• Catechism
• Speculative Metaphysics

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Origins

• Why are we interested in origin stories?
• Who/what can be a cause? How does the existence
  of the universe occur?
• What is a cause?
• What caused that (event)? e.g., a bomb blast
  at an embassy
• the bomb itself (material)
• the idea that the bomber has in mind (formal)
• the bomber (efficient)
• her ideal liberating her country (final)

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Origins

• What is a cause?
• What caused the sculpture?
• the stone (material)
• the image / form in mind (formal)
• the sculptor (efficient)
• the goal a beautiful object (final)

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Origins

• How does science approach origins?
• Naturalism
• a) methodological naturalism
• naturalism is committed to a methodological
  principle within the context of scientific
  inquiry i.e., all hypotheses and events are to
  be explained and tested by reference to natural
  causes and events. To introduce a supernatural or
  transcendental cause within science is to depart
  from naturalistic explanations.

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Origins

• b) metaphysical naturalism
• maintains that
• (1) nature is all there is and whatever exists or
  happens is natural
• (2) nature (the universe or cosmos) consists only
  of natural elements, that is, of spatiotemporal
  material elements--matter and energy--and
  non-material elements--mind, ideas, values,
  logical relationships, etc.--that are either
  associated with the human brain or exist
  independently of the brain and are therefore
  somehow immanent in the structure of the
  universe
• (3) nature works by natural processes that follow
  natural laws, and all can, in principle, be
  explained and understood by science and
  philosophy and
• (4) the supernatural does not exist, i.e., only
  nature is real, therefore, supernature is
  non-real.

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Origins

• c) supernaturalism
• maintains that
• there are supernatural beings (gods, goddesses,
  lesser deities, angels, devils, fairies, trolls,
  leprechauns, ghosts, wood nymphs, etc.), who
  act in the world (miracles, raising from the
  dead, faith healing, virgin birth, life after
  death, communication between living and dead,
  communication between human and god), and who
  have concerns such as (sanctification, salvation,
  sin, immortal souls, spirits, etc.)
• Since everyone agrees that the natural exists,
  it is the responsibility of the supernaturalists
  to demonstrate the existence of the
  supernatural. This they have not done.
• From Steven Schafersman "Naturalism is Today
  -- By History, Philosophy, and Purpose -- An
  Essential Part of Science".

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Origins

• Definition of Cosmology
• is the study of the structure and changes in the
  present universe, while the scientific field of
  cosmogony is concerned with the origin of the
  universe. Observations about our present universe
  may not only allow predictions to be made about
  the future, but they also provide clues to events
  that happened long ago when ... the cosmos began.
  So the work of cosmologists and cosmogonists
  overlaps. http//genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/educ
  ate/scimodule/Cosmogony/CosmogonyPDF/CosCosmolTT.p
  df
• ? Three theories of cosmogony steady state, big
  bang, bang bang bang

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Origins

• 1. Steady state theory
• Sir James Jeans (1877-1946), in the 1920s
  revised in 1948 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold,
  Hermann Bondi J. Narlikar
• A steady-state universe has no beginning or end
  in time
• the universe is always expanding
• but maintaining a constant average density
• matter is continuously created to form new stars
  and galaxies at the same rate that old ones
  become unobservable as a consequence of their
  increasing distance and velocity of recession
• On the grand scale, the average density and
  arrangement of galaxies is the same.
• Since the universe is unchanging throughout time,
  the universe needs no complicated explanation
  of its beginning.

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Origins

• 1. Criticisms of Steady state theory
• - Edwin Hubble showed that the universe was
  expanding (general relativity theory excluded the
  possibility of a static universe)
• discovery of the cosmic microwave background
  radiation (in 1965) thought to be left over from
  the Big Bang
• quasars and radio galaxies were found only at
  large distances (therefore existing only in the
  distant past), not in closer galaxies, whereas
  the Steady State theory predicted that such
  objects would be found everywhere, including
  close to our own galaxy.
• the mechanism for the creation of new matter
  was never found
• But quasi steady state cosmology

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Origins

• 2. The Standard Hot Big Bang Model of the
  Universe
• Time t  0 (about 15 billion years ago)
• Radius r  0.Temperature T  Infinite.Density
  mass per volume Infinite.
• t  0.01 seconds
• T  100,000,000,000 0C.Energy is mostly
  radiation.
• t  2 seconds
• T  10,000,000,000 0C.Density 100 million kg
  per cubic meter.Proton-antiproton and
  neutron-antineutron pairs begin forming.

42
Origins

• 2. The Standard Hot Big Bang Model of the
  Universe
• t  3 minutes
• T  1,000,000,000 0C.Protons and neutrons begin
  forming hydrogen and helium.
• t  20 minutes
• About 25 of the protons and neutrons in the
  universe are now helium.
• t  10,000 years
• T  10,000 0C.Density 0.000,000,000,000,000,01
  kg per cubic meter.
• t 15 billion years (now)
• T -270 0C. (This temperature from Penzias and
  Wilson experiment.)
• Density 10-27 kg per cubic meter.

43
Origins

• 3. Bang Bang Bang Theory
• a. a new string-theory-based cyclical model (Paul
  Steinhardt (Princeton) Neil Turok (Cambridge)).
  
• b. "eternal inflation" theory (Andrei Linde
  (Russian/American, Stanford) Alan Guth
  (Physics, MIT) Guth makes the Higgs field the
  agent for cosmic inflation.
• Linde If it starts, this process can keep
  happening forever It can happen now, in some
  part of the universe."
• So, eternal inflation a greater universe
  unimaginably large, chaotic and diverse
• Linde "Chaotic inflation allows us to explain
  our world without making such assumptions as the
  simultaneous creation of the whole universe from
  nothing"

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Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• 1. Cosmogony and Creation in Scripture
• creation narratives
• Genesis 11 through Genesis 23 / God creates by
  spoken command ("Let there be...")
• Genesis 2424 / Yahweh shapes the first man from
  dust, places him in the Garden of Eden man names
  the animals and God creates the first woman,
  Eve, from the man's body.
• Other creation narratives / flood stories
• ancient Near East -- Atra-Hasis epic
  (Babylonian/Akkadian) Canaanite
• Mesopotamia /Epic of Gilgamesh (2100 BC)
• What is their purpose? (Why written? What was the
  intent/the message that the authors had in mind?)
  How was / is it read?

45
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• 2. Historically
• James Ussher (1581-1656)
• A chronology Annales veteris testamenti, a prima
  mundi origine deducti ("Annals of the Old
  Testament, deduced from the first origins of the
  world") 1650,
• Continued 1654 Annalium pars posterior,
  published in 1654.
• Creation starts "the entrance of the night
  preceding the 23rd day of October... the year
  before Christ 4004 i.e., 6 pm, 22 October 4004
  BC
• Is this a religious belief or a scientific belief
  (orboth)?

46
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• 2. Scripture and hermeneutics
• "What is the literal sense of a passage is not
  always as obvious in the speeches and writings of
  the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the
  works of our own time. For what they wished to
  express is not to be determined by the rules of
  grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the
  context the interpreter must, as it were, go
  back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries
  of the East and with the aid of history,
  archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences,
  accurately determine what modes of writing, so to
  speak, the authors of that ancient period would
  be likely to use, and in fact did use. For the
  ancient peoples of the East, in order to express
  their ideas, did not always employ those forms or
  kinds of speech which we use today but rather
  those used by the men of their times and
  countries. What those exactly were the
  commentator cannot determine as it were in
  advance, but only after a careful examination of
  the ancient literature of the East"
• -- Pius XII, Encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu,
  30 September 1943

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Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• a) Creation stories explain something though
  not necessarily historical or scientific
• i) questions of meaning and purpose
• ii) assurance of order
• iii) indicating value the value of nature,
  of human beings (in relation to other things), of
  animal life/the environment
• iv) to affirm / a reminder of who is
  responsible.

48
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• "The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses
  figurative language, but affirms a primeval
  event, a deed that took place at the beginning of
  the history of man. Revelation gives us the
  certainty of faith that the whole of human
  history is marked by the original fault freely
  committed by our first parents" (CCC 390).

49
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• Genesis 618 But I will establish my covenant
  with you and you shall come into the ark, you,
  your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with
  you.
• Genesis 9 1 Then God blessed Noah and his
  sons, saying to them, Be fruitful and increase
  in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and
  dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the
  earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every
  creature that moves along the ground, and on all
  the fish in the sea they are given into your
  hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves about
  will be food for you. Just as I gave you the
  green plants, I now give you everything.
• 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him
  9 I now establish my covenant with you and with
  your descendants after you 10 and with every
  living creature that was with youthe birds, the
  livestock and all the wild animals, all those
  that came out of the ark with youevery living
  creature on earth.

50
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• Genesis 17
• As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,
• And you will be the father of a multitude of
  nations.
• 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram
  exalted father
• But your name shall be Abraham
• For I have made you the father of a multitude of
  nations.
• 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I
  will make nations of you, and kings will come
  forth from you. 7 I will establish My covenant
  between Me and you and your descendants after you
  throughout their generations for aneverlasting
  covenant, to be God to you and to your
  descendants after you. 8 I will give to you and
  to your descendants after you, the land of your
  sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an
  everlasting possession and I will be their God.

51
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• The approach of philosophy / theology
• The difference between Cause and creation
• What does God create?
• - Not just How does God create? but Why does he
  create?
• Not just an efficient cause but a final cause
• And usually ex nihilo material cause
• And God sustains

52
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• Catholic Catechism
• 293 The world was made for the glory of God."
  St. Bonaventure explains that God created all
  things "not to increase his glory, but to show it
  forth and to communicate it", for God has no
  other reason for creating than his love and
  goodness "Creatures came into existence when the
  key of love opened his hand."136 The First
  Vatican Council explains
• This one, true God, of his own goodness and
  "almighty power", not for increasing his own
  beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but
  in order to manifest this perfection through the
  benefits which he bestows on creatures, with
  absolute freedom of counsel "and from the
  beginning of time, made out of nothing both
  orders of creatures, the spiritual and the
  corporeal. . ."137

53
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• Catholic Catechism
• 282. Catechesis on creation is of major
  importance. It concerns the very foundations of
  human and Christian life for it makes explicit
  the response of the Christian faith to the basic
  question that men of all times have asked
  themselves Where do we come from? Where are
  we going? What is our origin? What is our
  end? Where does everything that exists come
  from and where is it going? The two questions,
  the first about the origin and the second about
  the end, are inseparable. They are decisive for
  the meaning and orientation of our life and
  actions.
• 283. The question about the origins of the world
  and of man has been the object of many scientific
  studies which have splendidly enriched our
  knowledge of the age and dimensions of the
  cosmos, the development of life-forms and the
  appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to
  even greater admiration for the greatness of the
  Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all
  his works and for the understanding and wisdom he
  gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon
  they can say It is he who gave me unerring
  knowledge of what exists, to know the structure
  of the world and the activity of the elements
  for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught
  me (Wis 717-21).

54
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• Catholic Catechism
• 284. The great interest accorded to these studies
  is strongly stimulated by a question of another
  order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the
  natural sciences. It is not only a question of
  knowing when and how the universe arose
  physically, or when man appeared, but rather of
  discovering the meaning of such an origin is the
  universe governed by chance, blind fate,
  anonymous necessity, or by a transcendent,
  intelligent and good Being called God. And if
  the world does come from God's wisdom and
  goodness, why is there evil? Where does it come
  from? Who is responsible for it? Is there any
  liberation from it?

55
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• Catholic Catechism
• 287 The truth about creation is so important for
  all of human life that God in his tenderness
  wanted to reveal to his People everything that is
  salutary to know on the subject. Beyond the
  natural knowledge that every man can have of the
  Creator, Cf. Acts 1724-29 Rom 119-20 God
  progressively revealed to Israel the mystery of
  creation. He who chose the patriarchs, who
  brought Israel out of Egypt, and who by choosing
  Israel created and formed it, this same God
  reveals himself as the One to whom belong all the
  peoples of the earth, and the whole earth itself
  he is the One who alone "made heaven and earth".
  Cf. Is 431 Pss 11515 1248 1343
• 288 Thus the revelation of creation is
  inseparable from the revelation and forging of
  the covenant of the one God with his People.
  Creation is revealed as the first step towards
  this covenant, the first and universal witness to
  God's all- powerful love. Cf. Gen 155 Jer
  3319-26 And so, the truth of creation is also
  expressed with growing vigour in the message of
  the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and the
  liturgy, and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen
  People. Cf. Is 4424 Ps 104 Prov 822-31
  280, 2569

56
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• Catholic Catechism
• 289 Among all the Scriptural texts about
  creation, the first three chapters of Genesis
  occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint
  these texts may have had diverse sources. The
  inspired authors have placed them at the
  beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn
  language the truths of creation - its origin and
  its end in God, its order and goodness, the
  vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and
  the hope of salvation. Read in the light of
  Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and
  in the living Tradition of the Church, these
  texts remain the principal source for catechesis
  on the mysteries of the "beginning" creation,
  fall, and promise of salvation.

57
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• Summary teaching on creation is of major
  importance.
• Why? Not because of the scientific character of
  Christian teaching
• i) Important because creation is connected with
  purpose
• ii) Important because creation is connected with
  meaning
• iii) Important because creation is connected with
  humanity knowing Gods existence
• iv) Important because creation is a mystery
• v) Important because creation is something
  active, it is ongoing
• vi) Important because creation is only part of a
  larger story
• Creation is revealed as the first step towards
  this covenant, and is revealed throughout
  scripture i.e., Gods activity is revealed
  through scripture.

58
Origins

• How does Christianity approach origins?
• What is humanitys role in origins or creation?
• In scientific cosmology / cosmogeny
• In Christianity
• Creation -gt the first step towards covenant
• -gt revealed throughout scripture
• Creation is good but it was not complete when
  created.

59
Origins

• What is humanitys role in origins or creation?
• 302 Creation has its own goodness and proper
  perfection, but it did not spring forth complete
  from the hands of the Creator. The universe was
  created in a state of journeying (in statu
  viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be
  attained, to which God has destined it. We call
  divine providence the dispositions by which God
  guides his creation toward this perfection
• 306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But
  to carry it out he also makes use of his
  creatures' co-operation. This use is not a sign
  of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God's
  greatness and goodness. For God grants his
  creatures not only their existence, but also the
  dignity of acting on their own, of being causes
  and principles for each other, and thus of
  co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.

60
Origins

• What is humanitys role in origins or creation?
• What is that cooperation?
• 307 To human beings God even gives the power of
  freely sharing in his providence by entrusting
  them with the responsibility of "subduing" the
  earth and having dominion over it. Cf. Gen
  126-28 God thus enables men to be intelligent
  and free causes in order to complete the work of
  creation, to perfect its harmony for their own
  good and that of their neighbours. Though often
  unconscious collaborators with God's will, they
  can also enter deliberately into the divine plan
  by their actions, their prayers and their
  sufferings. Cf. Col 124 They then fully become
  "God's fellow workers" and co-workers for his
  kingdom. 1 Cor 39 I Th 32 Col 411

61
Origins

• What is humanitys role in origins or creation?
• Why isnt creation perfect? Why is there evil?
• 310. But why did God not create a world so
  perfect that no evil could exist in it? With
  infinite power God could always create something
  better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God
  freely willed to create a world in a state of
  journeying towards its ultimate perfection. In
  God's plan this process of becoming involves the
  appearance of certain beings and the
  disappearance of others, the existence of the
  more perfect alongside the less perfect, both
  constructive and destructive forces of nature.
  With physical good there exists also physical
  evil as long as creation has not reached
  perfection.

62
Origins

• Another approach to cosmogeny, cosmology, and
  creation
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881- April 10 1955)
• Paleontologist and philosopher / theologian
• The Phenomenon of Man (1955 Engl tr 1959)
• Christianity and Evolution (1971)
• Creation and evolution unfolding of the material
  cosmos towards union with God
• this is directed, and has a final cause
  convergent evolution
• primordial particles geosphere ? development of
  life biosphere ? the appearance of humanity and
  consciousness noosphere ? to what he called
  the Omega Point supreme consciousness in the
  future

63
Origins

• Does the Big Bang theory have any implications
  for Christianity (or for theism) ?
• Yes negative
• Stephen Hawking's Grand Design (2012) gt Did God
  Create the Universe
• The role played by time at the beginning of the
  universe, is, I believe, the final key to
  removing the need for a grand designer and
  revealing how the universe created itself. As
  we travel back in time towards the moment of the
  big bang time itself must come to a stop. You
  cant get to a time before the big bang because,
  there was no before, the big bang.We have
  finally found something that does not have a
  cause because there was no time, for a cause
  to exist in. 
• So when people ask me if a god created the
  universe, I tell them the question itself makes
  no sense. Time didnt exist before the Big Bang,
  so there is no time for God to make the universe
  in.

64
Origins

• Does the Big Bang theory have any implications
  for Christianity (or for theism) ?
• Yes negative
• Stephen Hawking's Grand Design (2012) gt Did God
  Create the Universe
• Assumptions
• Cause temporally precedes effect
• Creation is in time
• Causes are physical
• Naturalism

65
Origins

• Does the Big Bang theory have any implications
  for Christianity (or for theism) ?
• No neutral
• 1. Cf. Aquinas on the question Was the universe
  created in time?
• "That the world began to exist is an object of
  faith, but not of demonstration or science. And
  it is useful to consider this, lest anyone,
  presuming to demonstrate what is of faith, should
  bring forward reasons that are not cogent, so as
  to give occasion to unbelievers to laugh,
  thinking that on such grounds we believe things
  that are of faith." (Summa theologiae I.46.2)
• 2. The character of creation stories

66
Origins

• Does the Big Bang theory have any implications
  for Christianity (or for theism) ?
• Yes possibly positive
• Is the universe self-explanatory?
• Causality and Metaphysical dependence

67
Origins summary

• Is there a contradiction? Is there support?
• 1. Assumptions of this
• 2. Catholics are at liberty to believe that
  creation took a few days or a much longer period,
  according to how they see the evidence, and
  subject to any future judgment of the Church
  (Pius XIIs 1950 encyclical Humani Generis
  3637). They need not be hostile to modern
  cosmology.
• BUT there was creation ex nihilo what there is
  is under the impetus and guidance of God, and
  their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

68
Origins summary

• Is there a contradiction? Is there support?
• "no real disagreement can exist between the
  theologian and the scientist provided each keeps
  within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless
  there is a disagreement . . . it should be
  remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly
  the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did
  not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner
  structure of visible objects) which do not help
  anyone to salvation and that, for this reason,
  rather than trying to provide a scientific
  exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and
  treat these matters either in a somewhat
  figurative language or as the common manner of
  speech those times required, and indeed still
  requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst
  most learned people" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus
  Deus 18).

69
Origins summary

• Is there a contradiction? Is there support?
• the view(s) of non-Catholic Christians
• no major denomination (Orthodox, Lutherans,
  Anglicans, Reformed Churches /Calvinist/,
  Presbyterian) insists on 6 day
• the views of non Christians 
• Judaism The Rabbinical Council of America
  evolutionary theory, properly understood, is not
  incompatible with belief in a Divine Creator, nor
  with the first 2 chapters of Genesis.
• Islam " Surely your Lord is Allah, Who created
  the heavens and the earth in six periods of time,
  and He is firm in power He throws the veil of
  night over the day, which it pursues incessantly
  and (He created) the sun and the moon and the
  stars, made subservient by His command surely
  His is the creation and the command blessed is
  Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Quran 7.54

70
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Questions
• Is life reducible to chemistry?
• Why is there complexity in nature?
• Is life on earth unique?
• Does evolution rule out God's existence?
• Original sin?

71
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not
  new
• Lucretius (99-55 BC) De rerum natura On the
  nature of things
• Explaining Epicurean philosophy (Gk - 307 BCE)
• Pleasure is the greatest good
• A general acct of astronomy natural history and
  development
• Universe operates according to physical
  principles (atomism) and chance, not gods, and
  not final causes
• Since all is natural/due to natural causes, no
  need to fear the gods
• Still room for freedom atoms swerve clinamen

72
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not
  new
• George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-88)
• Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière,
  avec la description du Cabinet du Roi (17491804)
  - 36 volumes
• Species improve and degenerate over time 
• Jean-Baptiste Lamarck 1744-1829
• the idea of inheritance of acquired
  characteristics 
• characteristics change in response to the
  environment, and then these characteristics are
  passed on (e.g., giraffes and long necks) not a
  matter of genetics unknown
• i.e., use inheritance

73
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not
  new
• Charles Lyell 1797-1875 
• Principles of Geology, 3 vols (1830-33)
• by looking at geological deposits -- slow
  progressive change not cataclysmic events
  (e.g., a universal flood)
• a uniformitarian theory (but not necessarily
  evolution, until later in his life)
• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
• See http//www.iep.utm.edu/spencer/
• Principles of Biology, 1864
• Move from homogeneity to heterogeneity, yet also
  a greater integratyion of the parts (organicism)
• Lamarckian evolution
• Coined survival of the fittest

74
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not
  new
• Charles Darwin 1809-1882
• and Alfred Russell (1823-1913)
• o Early medical studies (Edinburgh), attends
  Cambridge to study for the Anglican ministry
• o Reads enjoys Paley (1828-31) adaptation as
  example of God acting through nature
• o Five year voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836)
  D joins as a self-funded naturalist cum
  companion
• o On the Origin of Species 1859
• o natural selection / nature just selects the
  most suitable from the less suitable ones.
  (borrows the "survival of the fittest."

75
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not
  new
• Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-84)
• German/Czech priest and scientist
• founder of genetics (though term not coined
  until after his death (by William Bateson
  1861-1926
• demonstrated that the inheritance of certain
  traits in pea plants follows particular patterns
  the laws of Mendelian inheritance this is
  building on something that breeders know
• Vs blending inheritance
• work not widely accepted until after he died
  (circa 1900, when there were several independent
  attempts

76
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Three key questions
• What is life?
• How do we get life?
• Does life develop?
• What is life?
• Oxford the condition that distinguishes animals
  and plants from inorganic matter, including the
  capacity for growth, reproduction, functional
  activity metabolism, reaction to stimuli, and
  continual change preceding death.

77
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How do we get life?
• Earth 4.5 billion years ago
•  
• Earliest known life on Earth between 3.9 and 3.5
  billion years ago

78
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How do we get life?
• Aristotle, History of Animals, Book V, Part 1
• ? Based on observation (empirical)
• Now there is one property that animals are found
  to have in common with plants. For some plants
  are generated from the seed of plants, whilst
  other plants are self-generated through the
  formation of some elemental principle similar to
  a seed and of these latter plants some derive
  their nutriment from the ground, whilst others
  grow inside other plants, as is mentioned, by the
  way, in my treatise on Botany. So with animals,
  some spring from parent animals according to
  their kind, whilst others grow spontaneously and
  not from kindred stock and of these instances of
  spontaneous generation some come from putrefying
  earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a
  number of insects, while others are spontaneously
  generated in the inside of animals out of the
  secretions of their several organs.

79
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How do we get life?
• Metabolism first
• the origin of life triggered by the accumulation
  of very simple organic molecules in
  thermodynamically favorable circumstances.
• -- mechanisms such as lightning and radiation.
• These act as catalysts for the formation of more
  organic molecules.
• This is the beginning of life.

80
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How do we get life?
• Alexander Oparin (1894-1980)
• The Origin of Life (1924) The Origin and
  Development of Life, 1968
• -- no fundamental difference between a living
  organism and lifeless matter.
• -- the properties of life arose in the process of
  the evolution of matter.
• -- there was a "spontaneous generation of life"
  attacked by Louis Pasteur BUT now impossible
  because the conditions found on the early Earth
  had changed
• -- so, a "primeval soup" of organic molecules
  could be created in an oxygenless atmosphere
  through the action of sunlight.

81
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How do we get life?
• J. B. S. Haldane (The Origin of Life, 1929)
  Earth's early oceans were a "hot dilute soup"
• Oparin and Haldane confirmed in 1952
• MillerUrey experiment
• mixture of water, hydrogen, methane, and ammonia
  electric sparks
• organic compounds, including amino acids and
  monomers formed which are the building blocks
  of protein amino acids "the building blocks
  of life"

82
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL
3.5 billion years ago Beginning of life  
1 billion years ago, 1st multicellular organisms, worms, jellyfish, etc.
500,000,000 years ago 1st fish
450,000,000 1st land plants
250,000,000 years ago 1st of 5 mass extinction events
220.000,000 dinosaurs
75,000,000 primates
2.500,000 Homo habilis (most remote ancestors of the homo genus)
1.800,000 Homo erectus
   
338,000 ? (200,000 300,000) Y-chromosomal Adam
99,000 200,000 Mitocondrial Eve
250,000 neanderthals
160,000 Homo sapiens in Ethiopia
60,000 migration out of Africa
25,000 neanderthals die out

• How do we get human life?

83
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• The standard scientific view of evolution

84
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• The standard scientific view of evolution

85
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How evolution works
• a. Lamarck
• epigenesis
• changes in gene expression due to mechanisms
  other than changes in DNA sequence
• use-function model of inheritance

86
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How evolution works
• b. Darwin Natural selection
• i.e., natural selection acting upon random
  mutation as distinct from artificial selection,
  what we now call selective breeding.
• A process in nature in which organisms
• possessing certain genotypic characteristics
• that make them better adjusted to an
  environment
• and so tend to survive, reproduce, and
  increase in number or frequency,
• and therefore, are able to transmit and
  perpetuate their essential genotypic qualities
  to succeeding generations.

87
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How evolution works
• b. Darwin Natural selection
• The key is differential reproduction
• This has been called survival of the fittest
• Note the risk of circularity

88
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How evolution works
• c. Theories of evolution
• i) Gradualism (Darwin) - evolution proceeds in
  small 'grades.'
• Not necessarily a matter of rate or tempo
• Not all change is evolution
• Some changes are within the range of normal
  variation observed within a population, so not
  really evolution
• ii) Punctuated Equilibrium (Niles Eldredge and
  Stephen Jay Gould 1972)
• Effort to explain abrupt appearance of new
  species while also the relative stability of
  morphology in widespread species

89
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Some interesting implications
• other evolutionary development
• possible evolutionary path for Troodon
• (Dale Russell, National Museum of Man,
  Ottawa, 1982)
• If Troodon had not perished in the great
  extinction event (65 million years ago), could
  have evolved into intelligent beings
• encephalization quotient (relative brain weight
  compared to other dinosaurs) of Troodon, six
  times higher than other dinosaurs, and pattern of
  increase
• Could have reached a stage comparable to the
  human

90
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• Artists model of hypothetical Dinosauroid,
  based on
• Russell Séguin (1982)

91
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• The standard scientific view(s) of evolution
• What can we conclude from this?
• Evolution on other planets
• 2. What is assumed by this account?
• Naturalism
• Reductionism
• Geological history, mutation, migration
• Assumptions about chance, randomness, determinism
• 3. What is left out of this account?
• ?

92
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How does biological evolution fit with
  Christianity?
• 1. Darwin
• Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully
  satisfied with the view that each species has
  been independently created. To my mind it accords
  better with what we know of the laws impressed on
  matter by the Creator, that the production and
  extinction of the past and present inhabitants of
  the world should have been due to secondary
  causes, like those determining the birth and
  death of the individual. When I view all beings
  not as special creations, but as the lineal
  descendants of some few beings which lived long
  before the first bed of the Silurian system was
  deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.
• -- Darwin, The Origin of Species, Conclusion Ch
  14 (1859)
• There is grandeur in this view of life, with its
  several powers, having been originally breathed
  by the Creator into a few forms or into one and
  that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on
  according to the fixed law of gravity, from so
  simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful
  and most wonderful have been, and are being,
  evolved. (1859)ref to Creator removed in 1861)

93
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE IMMATERIAL

• How does biological evolution fit with
  Christianity?
• John Henry Newman
• It does not seem to me to follow that creation is
  denied because the Creator, millions of years
  ago, gave laws to matter. He first created matter
  and then he created laws for it laws which
  should construct  it into its present wonderful
  beauty, and accurate adjustment and harmony of
  parts gradually. We do not deny or circumscribe
  the Creator, because we hold he has created the
  self acting originating human mind, which has
  almost a creative gift much less then do we deny
  or circumscribe His power, if we hold that He
  gave matter such laws as by their blind
  instrumentality moulded and constructed through
  innumerable ages the world as we see it. If Mr
  Darwin in this or that point of his theory comes
  into collision with revealed truth, that is
  another matter but I do not see that
  the principle of development, or what I have
  called construction, does. As to the
  Divine Design, is it not an instance of
  incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom