[geocentrism] bad Catholics v Good guy.
- From: "philip madsen" <pma15027@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "geocentrism list" <geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 07:43:33 +1000
I just dug up a few points out of another file called Canonised Heresies, by
Paula Haigh, which discusses what we are talking about, that is the science
which calls evolution and gheliocentric cosmology fact. My selections I labled
good and bad guys.
Bad Catholic
5.The Church will neither affirm nor deny evolution, as it is not her business
to do so.Father Ernest Messenger .
Good Guy:
St. Thomas Aquinas represented the tradition of the Church when he said in his
Summa (ST, I, 1, a 6, ad 2) that Theology has no concern to prove the
principles of other sciences, but only to judge them. Whatsoever is found in
other sciences contrary to any truth of this science (i.e., of theology) must
be condemned as false: Destroying counsels and every height that exalts itself
against the knowledge of God. (2 Cor. X: 4, 5)
Bad Catholic Father Ernest Messenger
4. There is nothing in the theory of evolution intrinsically repugnant to
either Scripture or faith.
Good Guy:
He Father Ernest Messenger is a prime example of both the cause and the effects
of the loss of Thomistic metaphysics and the Catholic Theology that builds on
self-evident and necessary principles of natural reason. For just as Grace
builds on nature, so does a sound Theology build on a sound cosmology
and physics with all the other lower natural sciences. This can only happen
when the hierarchical nature of knowledge and the sciences is observed. For as
St. Thomas says, it belongs to Theology - not to prove the principles of the
lower sciences - but to judge their truth or falsity in accordance with the
Truths of Faith that are the object of Theology. This is the duty of the
Church, using Her Theology, that all science may achieve the end of all
creation which is the Glory of God. Finally,
Selected quotes showing the errors of science when it excludes the discipline
of theological judgement.
Presumptive Words
The major rhetorical device used by Father Zahm is that of the presumptive
word. This is but a concise form of circular reasoning, begging the question,
of assuming as self-evident and proven what is really but an unproven
hypothesis or mere prejudice with no basis in reality. Closely aligned with
this device is that of the false cause which often ridicules an opponent on
false premises.
An example of both these fallacies in one sentence is the following:
Many causes might be assigned for the interest that has been manifested in this
question [of the antiquity of man] - an interest which, far from subsiding,
seems to enhance as time rolls on - but not the least potent has been, no
doubt, the antagonism that by many was imagined to exist between the teachings
of Scriptural chronology and the findings of modern science. (Bible, Science
and Faith, p. 177-8)
The presumptive words here are "imagined", "findings" and "modern science".
Throughout his books, on almost every page, Fr. Zahm uses these and similar
presumptive words. Science is the major one because, with the exception of
certain passages where he distinguishes certain "schools" of scientists, this
one word Science is always used as denoting those discoveries of the various
natural sciences in a way that assumes the interpretations of the data to be
infallibly true. That is to say, they are undeniable "facts" - another
presumptive word very frequently found in Fr. Zahm's books.
It is worth noting that this emphasis upon facts goes back to French Catholic
lay scientist Lamarck (1714-1829) who could well be described as the first
Positivist as well as a prominent proto-evolutionist. According to him,
Positive knowledge could not give absolute certainty, but since it was the only
knowledge available, "let us collect with care the facts which we can observe,
let us consult experience wherever we can, and when this experience is
accessible to us, let us assemble all the inductions which observation of facts
analogous to those which escape us can furnish, and let us assert nothing
categorically: in this way, we shall be able little by little to discover the
causes of a multitude of natural phenomena, and perhaps, even of phenomena
which seem the most incomprehensible. (From the Beginning, Vol. 2, page 251-2)
(Emphases added)
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the commonly acknowledged founder of Positivism,
could have lifted his ideas on scientific method and epistemology right out of
Lamarck's Philosophie Zoologique (1809):
Positivism is now a general term for philosophical positions which stress the
factual aspects of knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, and generally
try to reduce factual statements to some foundation in sensation ... (From
the Beginning, Vol. 2, page 252) (Emphases added)
This care to collect facts which are observable and therefore "positive"
knowledge, nevertheless reduced knowledge to sensation and therefore to the
phenomenal rather than the real, epistemological inheritance from Kant. Fr.
Zahm willingly inherited and made his own this radically deviant epistemology
rather than checking the canonized philosophy of Thomism which would have based
his science as well as his epistemology on sound rather than erroneous grounds.
But like the majority of the scientists of his day, and of ours, he had long
ago rejected the metaphysical and theological bases of all reality and
especially, of Biblical exegesis, in exchange for the more sensational
"observation" and "collection" of sensational "facts". In the following pages,
it will become evident just now bizarre the interpretation of the facts can
become when
the divine light of Scripture and Tradition is abandoned in favor of the
"findings" and "discoveries" of an atheistic Science.
Today, both heliocentrism and evolution are claimed to be "facts". The late
Stephen Jay Gould, in an article published in Time magazine for August 23,
1999, manifesting his acceptance of Comte's positivism, said
... evolution is as well documented as any phenomenon in science, as strongly
as the earth's revolution around the sun rather than vice versa. ... In this
sense, we can call evolution a "fact". (Science does not deal in certainty, so
"fact" can only mean a proposition affirmed to such a high degree that it would
be perverse to withhold one's provisional assent.
The unmistakable implication is that if you do not accept the two "facts" of
heliocentrism and evolution, at least provisionally - which provision is
assumed to be the most rational - you are simply perverse. And we all know that
the perverse person is one who refuses to accept the obvious, the self-evident,
the proven fact. (Incidentally, neither heliocentrism nor evolution has a shred
of real, empirical proof to support it.) However, both Fr. Zahm and Stephen Jay
Gould hedge their scientifically documented facts with disclaimers such as
"Science does not deal in certainty" and "Science cannot contradict the Bible."
Yet in both cases we are perverse or intellectually enslaved if we do not
accept the pronouncements of this infallible Science.
Word doc 294 kb for who asks for it... for the keen readers of jargonistic
literature, .. like using words such as epistemological , exegesis, not my
scientific cup of tea. Its pure elitism. not written for peasants like me. but
I can translate it..
Philip.
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