On the Regress to Infinity Backwards Being Still Impossible

The creationist arguments and its variants rely on supposing that an infinite regression is impossible. I wonder, why precisely is such an infinite series held to be impossible.

It is actually the argument of St Thomas Aquinas. As in The Five Ways. Furthermore, it is not per se Young Earth Creationist.

If one places two mirrors facing each other, there is one mirror the image of the other, which contains its own image, which contains the image of the other, which contains its own image, et cetera ad infinitum.

Has the infinitude of mirror images been truly verified? But even so, it is not an infinitude backwards in causes, but forwards in effects.

It is not infinite regression, since it regresses to the two mirrors and what is put between them as first cause, together with light, of that particular effect.

If one divides 10 by 3, the answer is 3.3333333333333, etc. ad infinitum.

The value of pi, is held to be 3.14159, etc., etc.

If become aware that I think, I think that I think, and I think that I think that I think, etc. ad infinitum.

Are each of these not infinite regressions?

If one divides 10 by 3 one gets 3 and 1/3. If one uses duodecimals, that has a finite expression: the third length of ten feet is three feet and four inches. However, a seventh would be as impossible to express in duodecimals as in decimal fractions.

Since decimal fractions are not thirds, they are incommensurable with the third, and expressing the third in decimals becomes potentially infinite - i e whenever the mathematician gives up, he knows he could theoretically go on. And that however far he went on, he would not have exactly expressed that other ratio, as he exactly expresses it by saying 3 and 1/3.

That infinitude is precisely because it is impossible to express thirds in terms of decimals - unlike halves, fourths, fifths, twentyfifths, twentieths and so on.

Similarily the relation between periphery and diameter of a true circle is irrational, because these two have no common measure. It is therefore as impossible to express in either decimals or any other fractions as are into decimals those fractions of nominators including factors other than two or five.

If the universe itself contains these infinite regressions, why should there not be an infinite regression of causes?

Neither in double mirrors, nor in decimals do we find a regress into the infinite backwards in causation.

In the case of expressing thirds, sevenths, et c. in decimal fractions or of expressing irrational geometric relations in any kind of fraction (but you can say of any decimal acquired that it is below or above the value that cannot be expressed, as you can say of any non-decimal fraction in the case of irrational relations.

Such infinitude is purely accidental, and in the effect of expressing improperly, not in causation.

In the case of double mirrors, you have just maybe an infinitude forwards in effect (not really, I think), but certainly not backward in causation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
UL of Nanterre,
Tuesday Holy Week
(Latin and Uniate Cal.)
Year of Our Lord MMXII.

"You-Cat" No-Cat-But-A-Weasel, Part-2

In Question 42, YOUCAT asks: “Can someone accept the theory of evolution and still believe in the Creator?” It answers:

Yes. Although it is a different kind of knowledge, faith is open to the findings and hypotheses of the sciences…A Christian can accept the theory of evolution as a helpful explanatory model, provided he does not fall into the heresy of evolutionism, which views man as the random product of biological processes.

One can of course still believe in a creator as one creating first cell or guiding evolution, but this is not sufficient for a Christian belief in God, who is not only creator and majestic, but also truthful and author of all texts that constitute the Holy Writ, also known as Holy Bible.

The recall site cites Humani Generis by Pius XII against the error.

Thus, although the fathers of the Council of Trent referred to this foundational text as “the sacred history of Genesis” (15) and Pope Pius XII confirmed in the 1950 encyclical Humani Generis that the first eleven chapters of Genesis ”are truly a kind of history” one sees the authors of YOUCAT taking the destructive path that the Modernists first forged more than a century ago. (16)

Unfortunately Humani Generis is not quite categoric in ruling out prolonged scenarios in which six days stand for six long periods. Church Fathers do explain the six days mostly as six days as we know them, but some as six instants in which the angels apprehended the single instant creation. Single instant is of course shorter than six days, no Church Father says the six days are as in creation longer than six days. Neither does it rule out quite categorically that Adam could have had ancestors as to his body, which the site here does not cite, but it cites a patristic counterargument:

In reality, however, the Catholic Church rejected this view long before Charles Darwin, as all Church Fathers and Doctors, including St. Thomas Aquinas, unanimously taught that Adam was created immediately (directly and all at once) by God, from the dust of the earth, and Eve was supernaturally created by God from Adam’s side. This teaching is found throughout the writings of the Fathers and in 561, Pope Pelagius I affirmed it in a profession of faith:

For I confess that…Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created, the one from the earth, the other…from the rib of man... (18)

(The Sources of Catholic Dogma, Henry Denzinger, p. 91.)

Adam and Eve, a genealogy that places Our Lord as number 72 from Adam, are not just parts of Genesis, but also of Gospel. If Jesus was indeed God, either this was and remains true, or he would have known it was false. And he was and is God. And God is no liar.

Applies of course to miracles of sun standing still (by orders of Joshua) or of demons being cast out (by order of Our Lord Jesus Christ) too. Heliocentrism and psychiatry sqare badly with Biblical and therefore Christian data here.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Creil
17-VIII-2011

Qui Créa Paris? Dieu Ou L'Homme?

Ce message fait partie de la série création vs évolutionnisme, clicquer ici pour voir les autres

Je viens de constater qu'il y a un dominicain qui s'appelle Jacques Arnould. Il est aussi adversaire du créationnnisme.

Il est aussi attitré de théologie et de l'histoire des sciences. Je me demande s'il est aussi proche d'un Marc Arnould, psychanalyste ou quelque chose comme ça.

Avant de répondre à la question qu'il a selon son livre sur les créationnistes débattu avec un créationniste américain, je vais d'abord dire quelques choses sur l'étude non-théologique.

L'Histoire des Sciences est la pire discipline possible pour apprendre l'histoire des sciences. Elle est à peine historique et surtout pas scientifique. Si on regarde La Science comme une ville ou un état assez monolithique, de type monarchie persane, L'Histoire des Sciences est son épopée nationale Schahnahme et les Historiens des Sciences son Ferdausi. Jamais l'historien des sciences, dans un conflit entre une position analogue à celle de La Science Moderne et une autre, ne manque une occasion de soutenir la position analogue pour faible qu'elle était en arguments comme précurseuse de la Lumière et de repousser l'autre position comme une erreur heureusement depui vaincu. Giordano Bruno y figure comme héro, Jean Kepler y a une position plus grande que son maître Tychon Brahé, les Papes Urbain VIII et Pie IX qui condamnaient ou soutenaient adversaires scientifiques de Galilée et de Charles Darwin y figurent comme vilains. Si ce n'est pas vrai pour chacun, c'est la tendance générale.

Les mathématiques ont une position un peu spéciale. D'un côté on admet que les définitions des anciens Grecs étaient exactes, mais de l'autre on soutient la chifre aussi connu comme zéro, on soutient l'écriture de formule un peu abrégé qu'est

"(a-b)²=a² -2ab +b²"

comme une preuve qu'un produit et par là aussi un résultat et par là aussi un nombre peut être négatif. Les manuels scolaires français ont le grand avantage devant ceux de la Suède de présenter ça comme des "nombres rélatifs" et en même temps le tort (en terminologie mathématiquement exacte) de ne pas préférer le nom inverse "rélations numérales". Ceux parmi les élèves qui comprennent ont par là un grand example de la figure stylistique métonymie.

Mais revenons à Jacques Arnould O.P.

Le créationniste américain avait demandé "qui créa Paris?" et le dominicain a commencé à bégayer quelque chose sur les différents hommes qui y ont contribué, sans être sûr qui devrait être cité devant les autres, puis le créationniste a dit "non, c'est Dieu qui a créé Paris."

Jacques Arnould O.P. a trouvé ça dur. Il y a trouvé une preuve que les créationnistes sont des hommes doctrinaires sans imagination ou même réalisme. Je n'ai pas personnellement rencontré cet homme américain, je ne peux pas dogmatiser qu'il n'avait pas ç tître personnel ce trait de charactère, mais je doute là-dessus, car l'exemple que le dominicain nous montre dans ce livre (j'ai juste ouvert le livre pour y lire cette dialogue) ne le prouve pas. Au contraire, il prouve que le créationniste américain s'avait posé les bonnes questions sur l'essence même de Paris.

Paris est tout d'abord un lieu sur la terre. 48° 51′ 24″ Nord de l'Équateur et 2° 21′ 07″ Est de Greenwich (c'est à dire 0° 0' 0" Est/Ouest de l'Œil Crevé de Sainte Geneviève, comme l'a noté un vieux numéro de Journal de la France Courtoise). Il a été créé comme toute autre lieu sur la terre - par Dieu.

Ce qu'on appelle normalement Paris, c'est une partie de la surface tellurienne. Tous qui est en-dessous jusqu'au Centre de la Terre (selon nous les autres géocentriques donc jusqu'au Centre même de l'Univers) en rocher, en sédiments, en plateaux tectoniques (là, ça devient théorique) et en tous ce qui se trouve en dessous des éventuels plateaux tectoniques: c'est Dieu qui l'a créé, sans exception. Si l'Enfer s'y trouve, comme dessous chaque autre ville ou lieu non urbain, comme je le crois, la seule chose que Dieu n'a pas créé dedans est la mauvaise volonté des damnés.

Tous ce qui est au-dessus, jusqu'au Ciel, jusqu'à l'extrème limite extérieur de l'Univers (pourvu que nous les géocentriques ayons raison), Dieu y a tout créé aussi. La bonne volonté des bienheureux est plus que la mauvaise des damnés quelque chose qu'on peut attribuer à Dieu.

Regardons de plus près cette surface tellurienne de 48° 51′ 24″ Nord de l'Équateur et 2° 21′ 07″ Est de Greenwich, c à d de Paris. La Seine y coule, c'est Dieu qui a créé l'eau et tout ce qui est naturel dans le creux où elle coule, y compris l'Île de la Cité et l'Île St Louis. Mais on peut ajouter quelque part que des hommes ont contribué à rendre les berges de la Seines plus stabiles, moins inondables, moins vulnérables en localité par les inondations qu'il y a.

Les hommes y ont également apporté des matériaux venus d'ailleurs pour bâtir des maisons et des églises et d'autres bâtiments et monuments. On peut dire que Paris n'existait qu'en puissance avant que les hommes y viennent s'installer. Le lieu 48° 51′ 24″ Nord de l'Équateur et 2° 21′ 07″ Est de Greenwich ne devient pas vraiment Paris avant ça. Même plus: il devient Paris après avoir été Lutetia Parisiorum. Peut-être après avoir été encore autre chose avant. C'est donc quand même, comme le veut Jacques Arnould l'homme qui a créé Paris?

Mais c'est Dieu qui a créé l'homme, c'est Dieu qui a créé chaque rocher en dehors de Paris dont on a puisé marbre, c'est Dieu qui a créé les autres rocher, dont on a puisé de chaux pour faire le beton, et encore les cailloux qu'on met dans le beton. On fortifie le beton par squelettes d'acier, est qui a créé l'acier en ses matériaux d'origine, le fer et le charbon? Encore une fois: Dieu.

On y vend des crêpes, certes une création humaine, mais à partir des œufs que Dieu laisse se produire dans les poules, du lait que Dieu laisse apparaître dans les vaches, du blé ou de la sarrassine que Dieu a fait pousser. Les hommes n'ont que planté la sarrassine ou le blé, maintenu les poules et les vaches en captivité.

On y vend des chandails* en laine, mais c'est Dieu qui a créé les brebis. Et Les tricoteurs et les tricoteuses. Si les livres sont faits sur papier de lin, c'est Dieu qui a fait pousser le lin (pourtant planté d'abord par un homme) et si c'est papier industriel c'est Dieu qui a créé chaque arbre.

On y transporte beaucoup de ces choses (les chandails plus souvent que les crêpes, en proportion de la consommation totale des choses), en trains ferroviaires ou en voitures, et qui a créé l'électricité (qu'elle s'explique pour de vrai par les électrons et le pouvoir électromagnétique - personne n'a vu ni l'un ni l'autre, sauf, s'ils existent les anges peut-être et Dieu - ou autrement), qui a créé le goudron, qui a créé le pétrol? Dieu.

Quand on dit que Dieu est tout-puissant on entend pas que Dieu fait chaque chose qui se passe, on entand que chaque chose qui se passe est faite soit par le choix de Dieu, soit par sa permission. Et pareil, quand on dit que Dieu est le Créateur de toute chose visible et invisible, on entend qu'il y a des choses que Dieu a créées directement, il y a d'autres qui ont été réarrangées par une créature avant d'être ce qu'ils sont, mais réarrangées à partir aussi de la créature visible.

On y voit un parallèle dans l'Église. Et c'est très dangéreux pour un ecclésiastique d'oublier que les anges, les âmes, les corps concernés par surtout les Sacrements, les matériaux dont on fait les Sacrements et Sacrementaux, les lieux où l'Église a lieu, tout ça est la créature de Dieu. Un évêque peut choisir telle ville plutôt que telle autre pour y faire sa mission, et quand le choix n'est pas le sien, c'est celui d'un autre homme: d'un pape ou patriarche qui l'envoie ou un roi qui le réclame (ne serait-ce pas joli si le roi de Maroc reclamerait des moines du Barroux pour faire son baptême et une mission catholique? - sauf qu'on n'y est pas, il est encore Musulman). En Suède la loi écrite la plus ancienne chez nous, la Loi Westrogothe (qui n'est pas la Loi Wisigothe) commence avec un chapître dite de l'Église, dans lequel est reglé quand on doit baptiser un enfant et qui est autorisé à aller chez l'évêque pour reclamer le curé d'une nouvelle paroisse. Mais chaque choix fait par un homme ne fait autre que disposer ce que Dieu Lui-Même a créé ou donné.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mouffetard, Paris V
29 janv. 2011, la fête de
St François de Sales

*Si c'est "chandaux", alors c'est la faute du bibliothécaire, moi je lui ai posé la question.

En plusieurs domaines, la même gamme de réponses ...

Ce message fait partie de la série création vs évolutionnisme, clicquer ici pour voir les autres

Un chose semble exister parce que ...

• ... elle y est depuis l'éternité en éternité (éternisme)
  
• ... elle a été créée (créationnisme)
  
• ... elle s'est développée à partir de qqc de plus rudimentaire (évolutionnisme)
  
• ... elle n'est qu'une illusion (dokétisme).

Pour les individus on est normalement qq part entre créationniste (pro-création) et évolutionnisme (développement fétal et post-natal). Normalement on est aussi dokétiste quand au vécu dans les rêves.

Pour la réalité en totale les éléates étaient éternistes, et à partir de là docétistes pour ce qui concerne la réalité visible et changeante.

Tout le monde est éterniste pour qq chose.

Un chrétien est normalement éterniste pour Dieu, créationniste pour les choses visibles, y compris notre conscience.

Un athée radical est normalement éterniste pour la matière-énergie, évolutionniste pour son élaboration détaillée, dokétiste pour les globalités comme la conscience humaine elle-même.

Les domaines où s'opposent créationnisme et évolutionnisme sont donc création ou évolution:

• de l'univers au debut ...
  
• des astres ...
  
• des systèmes solaires (sauf pour géocentriques qui n'y croient que pour les astres outre la terre du si-dite notre système solaire) ...
  
• de la terre ...
  
• de la vie son apparence ...
  
• de la vie sa diversification en plusieurs espèces ...
  
• de l'intelligence humaine ...
  
• de la langue humaine ...
  
• de la culture humaine ...
  
• du christianisme, du dogme chrétien.

Je n'ai pas énuméré la morale. J'y viens:

• Le dokétisme en morale s'appelle nihilisme.
  
• Le progressisme est un évolutionnisme de la morale.
  
• La "loi naturelle" est une forme d'éternisme de la morale.
  
• La loi divine révélée est une forme de créationnisme de la morale.
  
• La loi humaine décrétée est une forme de créationnisme de la morale. Ou de sous-créationnisme. Une création artistique subordonnée à ... révélation divine ou loi naturelle ou morale évoluante ou ... le rien qu'on suppose la morale être en réalité. Ça dépend de la philosophie morale du législateur.

En morale le catholique est à la fois éterniste et créationniste. Il croit que les dix commendements ont été révélés à Sinaï - et correspondent à la nature éternelle des choses, le savoir éternelle que Dieu a sur soi-même et sa création angélique, humaine, matérielle. Le protestant tend au créationnisme sans éternisme. L'athée y tend aussi, par biais de l'évolutionnisme morale. Mais une création sans base éternelle devient un nihilisme, un dokétisme moral.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibliothecâ Pompidolianâ
26/XI/2010

SSHL, je déconseille

À l'age de 14, j'étais chrétien biblique a-confessionel, sans vie paroissiale, mais croyant et j'espérais gagner le ciel et éviter l'enfer, tout en évitant les pires péchés. J'étais aussi harcelé parce que j'étais créationniste. J'étais aussi devenu un homme, et tombé amoureux pour la première fois. Beaucoup plus tard j'ai appris que mon premier amour est mariée et mère et je n'ai aucune intention de me mêler dans sa vie.

Bon, après quelques scènes pénibles entre elle et moi entre mon rivale et moi, le harcèlement devient insupportable.

Dans un premier temps on m'a laissé étudier à la maison. On s'est informé, théoriquement il était possible d'être autorisé de faire les cours de la prochaine année par correspondance, on a voulu.

Les salopards des services sociaux ont refusé. Soit une école spécialisé pour jeunes handicapés - tel était sa réputation à l'époque - soit SSHL, une école internationale où les suédois d'étranger envoyaient leurs jeunes.

Pourquoi l'acharnement de m'éloigner si loin, soit socialement (par l'école spécialisé), soit géographiquement (à SSHL, 6-8 h. de train entre Malmö et Stockholm, ensuite attendre un train local et 45 minutes, ensuite attendre un bus, et ensuite 30 minutes)?

J'étais chez ma mère et grand-mère à Höja. Socialement, Höja c'est comme les immeubles de Montreuil, commune de Versaille. Travailleurs, pas de domination par les immigrés. L'école de Höja étant à l'époque incomplète, il fallait soit aller à Videdal, quartier dominés par maisons détachés, soit à Rosengård, quartier qui rappelle Belleville, XX^e ou XIX^e. J'avais vécu a Vienne quelques années. Un de mes potes avait entre-temps choisi Rosengård, il est devenu un peu préjugé contre ce qu'il considère peut-être comme racaille, j'ai vérifié après quand je l'ai rencontré. On savait que ce n'était pas une école très calme.

À l'age de onze on a donc choisi Videdal. Là, il y avait pas mal de gens cultivés. Mais, qui étaient aussi trop bien situés pour se pouvoir permettre de laisser leur fille en compagnie d'un jeune homme de 14, qui croyait en l'amour éternel, qui refusait l'avortement et la contraception, qui était créationniste, dont la mère était divorcée et n'avait pas fini ses études, dont la grand-mère était veuve appauvrie après le décès de son mari, mon cher papi le brasseur-destilateur, dont la famille s'était installée à Höja après Södertelge (beaucoup plus proche de Stockholm) on ne savait pas très bien pourquoi - en réalité c'était pour se réconcilier avec son beaufrère manouche duquel il s'était enfui comme jeune, et par nostalgie de Malmö, la ville de son enfance.

J'ai fait quatre ans à SSHL. Une des raisons pour lesquelles je trouve que j'ai suffisemment déjà fait en termes de vie de caserne. J'ai pas détesté la discipline, elle m'a protégé contre harcèlements. Car, là, j'ai découvert un monde d'anticléricaux que je ne savais pas qu'elle existait en dehors du communisme et ceux qui votent communiste. J'ai découvert comme est dégueulasse la franc-maçonnerie. Une "Mère de Maison" était veuve d'un franc-maçon, aimante et plus tard épouse d'un autre (ils se sont mariés quand l'allocation de retraite pour les veuves a été abolie, elle en avait tout en étant encore dans une vie professionnelle).

À SSHL j'ai connu le désespoir, pas comme tentation momentanée, mais comme état habituel; quand je pensais à certaines choses. Si c'était dur d'avoir un fille des bourgeois aisés à Videdal, il était impossible d'avoir la fille de tel ou tel employé d'une compagnie multilatérale, on a fait ce qu'on a pu pour me rendre moins romantique, plus pervers. "Essaie de te branler, ça fait bien" un camérade m'a dit. Un matin, dans le vide du cœur, dans le train-train des choses quottidiennes, dans la rancune envers un harcèlement qui durait pas les heures à l'école, mais les matins et les après-midis, les soirées, je l'ai fait.

C'est quand j'ai vaincu cette habitude des années plus tard, quand je suis tombé amoureux d'une fille jeune comme mon premier amour, que j'ai connu la psychatrie. Avant je m'était rendu compte des motifs assez bas pour lesquels on m'a empêché de trouver l'amour de ma vie à Videdal et à SSHL, et les méthodes encore plus bas, y compris prétendre que j'aurais du comprendre moi-même que si c'était le service social qui payait mon séjour là-bas, c'était pas pour moi d'y trouver l'amour.

Non, je ne respecte pas la psychiatrie. Non, je ne respecte pas les services sociaux. Non, je ne respecte pas SSHL. CAR mes "camarades" de cette école n'ont pas lâché. Un qui, à l'époque, ne m'avait pas harcelé, que j'avais ajouté comme ami sur FB, vient après des mois ou même deux ans de silence entre nous de m'adresser avec ses mots:

Seriously, stop your Rasputin shit. From a friend to a friend,

Je vous confie ma reponse:

what "Rasputin shit" are you talking about?

And seriously: if my grandmother served a lady in your family, that does not give you any right whatsoever to tell what to do or what to stop. Item for having been to same school.

And, one more thing: I do not consider you my friend.

When I got around to finding you again, I thought we might get along. We have had nothing to talk about so far, and I do not relish you post.

Il n'est plus parmi mes amis sur FB.

S'il me considère comme "faisant le Raspoutine", c'est que, soit il s'est informé auprès des gens tout aussi malhonnêtes que lui, soit c'est ma réligion - je suis devenu Catholique à SSHL, vu que les plus paisibles parmi mes harceleurs ou les potes des harceleurs, dans les heures de débât (une activité que j'aime toujours et gagnait pas mal à l'époque) il m'ont appri que c'est de l'Église Catholique (détestée par eux à cause de l'Inquisition, et déjà aussi les croisades et les chasses aux sorcières) que les luthériens ont la Sainte Bible. La réception dans l'église fut procrastinée, j'ai été reçu en mai 1988, en faisant mes études de Latin.

C'est dans la bibliothèque du III qu'on m'a volé la carte d'indentité périmée. C'est en fin du compte le Club Suédois de Paris qui m'a financié le nouveau passeport. Je leur ai passé le mot, s'il y avait un thème qu'ils voudraient que j'aborde (j'ai fait quelques articles sur commande, question de politesse envers amis ou bienfaiteurs, question aussi de faire connaître mon blog), je n'ai pas reçu la reponse. À moins que la reponse soit l'intervention de cet "ami". Une intervention que je n'accepte pas, vu qu'elle est basé sur le malhonnête (c'est malhonnête de me taxer de "faire le Raspoutine") et sur un interventionnisme que je n'accepte pas de quartiers comme ça.

Ceux qui pendant l'affaire de financier mon passeport ont refusé l'option de profiter de "ma plume", ceux également qui ont refusé l'option de valoriser mes écrits et compositions musicales selon les conditions qui se trouvent ici et here et ici/here, je les trouves par passivité complices de ces gens là, qui ont systématiquement détruit ma vie en Suède.

Je me demande combien des gens du Club Suédois de Paris sont Franc-Maçons, je me demande combien d'entre eux ont fait SSHL, je me demande également combien des catholiques et jusque dans les rangs des catholiques traditionnels qu'il y a pour continuer cet écartage systématique de ma personne comme "faisant le Raspoutine" tant que je n'ai pas capitulé devant les valeurs sociales selon SSHL. Item, pour ceux qui prétendent que je n'aurais pas appris à écrire, ou que je n'aurais pas appris de composer la musique, ceux qui veulent me remettre en apprentissages, pour moi ce sont en premier ligne Franc-Maçons (pas sans Juifs, malheureusement, ce que n'arrange pas certaines rélations familiales, ou au moins j'ai l'impression), et en deuxième ligne des cathos ou tradis qui me trahissent aux Franc-Maçons.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Faidherbe, Paris XI
21/VIII/2010

Débat om evolution med ngn typ på en facebook-groupe

Han raillerade om att jag läste Genesis med "läs en annan bok".

Jag svarar: om du menar Origin of the Species, har jag redan läst den fram till den sida jag fann att Darwin började med dålig logik.

Derpå citerar jag hans argument inom mina svar:

"du sa att Darwin började med dålig logik"

yes, den sida han slutade med att beskrifva att ringspecies som duf-arter äro indirecte korsningsbara och derföre ha gemensam stamfader och öfvergick till att sepculera i att det kunde vara fallet i fråga om olika arter och slägten som definitivt intet uppvisa indirecte korsningsbarhet (dufvor och örnar, foglar och fiskar, et c)

"Sant, med tanke på att vi alla kommer från Adam och Eva så är det förvånansvärt lite missbildningar på jorden."

Inafvel ökar risken för att dåliga arfsanlag komma fram [när de redan existera, intet nödvändigtvis risken att de bildas]. Dessutom diversifierades menskligheten snabbt till den grad att inafvel kunde undvikas. Dessutom är problemet detsamma med evolutionistisk gemensam förfader.

"Var inte det typ bara 12 000 år sedan?"

Mindre enligt biblisk kronologie.

"Kineser och svarta började ploppa upp här och var, det förklaras inte i din lilla bok"

Jodå, alla folk härstamma från Noah, de svarta från hans sonson Kush. De genetiska skilnaderna äro så små att en åttondels-svart (som Alexandre Dumas den Yngre) ser ut som en hvit.

Nästa replik lemnade han den débatten derhän och öfvergick till förhör om jag var hvad han slutligen kallade "böghatare, abortmotståndare och anhängare af statsmord (dödsstraff)".

D v s mot sodomie [och jag är emot andra preventivmethoder med], mot abort [ngt han intet ansåg sig behöfva parodiera, han fann det motbjudande som sådant], för dessas kriminalisering och för att vissa brott i vissa lägen kunna straffas med döden. Efter mina svar var det tydligen mindre intressant att diskutera evolution.

Hans intresse i denna var tydligen doubbelt: a) att legitimera frångåendet af traditionnel kristen och f d d muslimsk ethik i dessa frågor med att kalla denna ethik för qvarlemningar af äldre (och sämre) utvecklingsstadier; b) att delegitimera kristendomen som sannings- och rättsgrund genom att bestrida skapelsen --- som om utveckling, ifall den existerade och kristendomen vore fel, automatiskt innebure att aflägsna sig från kristendomen, och som om frånvaron af öfvernaturlig rättskälla automatiskt innebure delegitimering af dödsstraff och legitimering af abort och preventivmedler, inklusive då sodomie.

HGL

François Tremblay's conclusions tremble

Argument from necessity of Naturalism:

1. Supernaturalism is only meaningful in that it is a negation of material causes.
2. Negation of material causes would only be possible if one had no limit of knowledge.
3. A transcendent knowledge base is necessary because we have limits of knowledge.
4. Supernaturalism is impossible. (from 1, 2 and 3)
5. Naturalism is an absolute. (from 4)

Critique:

• Supernaturalism is only meaningful in that it is a negation of material causes.

Begs the question how he came to exclude all other causes than material! As a conclusion from this? Then his argument is circular. Or because his knowledge is without limits? Look on his next premisses:

• Negation of material causes would only be possible if one had no limit of knowledge.

All that is needed is knowledge of what natural causes are. If a medicine is not given, if a cure is too sudden to depend on the immunity system, if something has been destroyed which the processes of the body have no possibility to restore and is then suddenly restored - there is no natural explanation.

• A transcendent knowledge base is necessary because we have limits of knowledge.

Even if granted, this would be acceptably identified by miracles. Like when St Luke knew that the boy who had fallen broke his neck and died (he was a doctor) and then saw St Paul restore him to life (and good functioning of complete neck).

This means that the steps four and five fall to the ground.

He then goes on to give a dilemma:

1. Naturalism is an absolute.
2. The concept “god” either implies supernaturalism, or it doesn’t.
   1. If the concept “god” implies supernaturalism, then it is an impossibility. (from 1)
   2. If the concept “god” does not imply supernaturalism, then it is unfalsifiable and meaningless.
3. The concept “god” is either impossible or meaningless. (from 2a and 2b)

Since 1. depends on a false reasoning, 2a. and 3 are not proven.

In the main though, Tremblay depends on "nothing comes from nothing" and identifies creation or the voice of God speaking to Moses as "something comes from nothing" and therefore a violationof that principle. We know well that we can produce some effects wilfully using our body, i e "something comes from our will and material cause connected to it"; we do not know (as that identification would need to repose on) that there be no entity that can produce somthing by its will alone. Indeed, if the historic evidence for miracles is good enough, or the philosophic for a need for creation, then we know there is such a being. Getting to know Him is however quite another adventure. There I can only advice prayer and reading of Church Fathers (including hagiography) and Gospels. That however includes plenty of miracles to read about.

Hans Lundahl
17 juillet (N. C.) 2008
Avignon

Creationism vs. Evolution, considering Thomism, Biology, Church Fathers

series---see comment below for newest index to it.

1 an answer to the question if thomism is opposed to evolution because specific forms are not accidental 2 an answer to a longer answer, after having already answered some turns, which unfortunately defending the compatibility of thomism and evolution - want to read all of the debate? Look at source, then

1 an answer to the question if thomism is opposed to evolution because specific forms are not accidental

Materialism is opposed to thomism precisely in considering corporeal things as accidents of protons, neutrons and electrons in the combinations known as atoms and ions.Even without thomism - is it biologically possible for mammals with one chromosome number to evolve from ammals with a clearly different one?hints:

a) all mammal individuals are diploid, that is: chromosomes go in pairs

b) each chromosome belongs to its own set, which in mammals means: its own pair

c) three or one chromosomes in one pair are a malformation, not the beginning of one pair more or less

d) chromosomes are only counted in natural numbers, not in infinitesimal fractions anyway (yes, genes are infinitesimal fractions of chromosomes, and yes, the chromosomes do change genes, or so people who study presumed chromosome evolutions say; but the issue is the chromosomes, not the individual genes)

2 an answer to a longer answer, after having already answered some turns, which unfortunately defending the compatibility of thomism and evolution

R. H.,I am forced to answer briefly, and I have not much to say, but it is to the point(s).

a) physical causes, sciences thereof

Aquinas certainly acknowledged them. Would that mean he would have accepted evolutionism? Less sure. Evolution presupposes the knowledge of a physical timeline of billions of years. Aquinas helf that what is neither present and perfectly visible and tangible cannot be perfectly known. That includes distant things, that includes past and futre, that includes the hidden. It also includes a possibility, which in thomistic terms would involve a very antithomistic proposition, i e that the essences of the different kinds of plants and animals differ only accidentally and one could therefore evolve from the other by accident, just as red-haired and brown-haired men have accidentally evolved from the same Adam, maybe the same post-flood survivors. This possibility is as unmendelian as it is unthomistic. Mendel knew of recombinations and of qualities that followed suit and did not recombine. Later research has identified the numbers of phenotype recombinations with the chromosomes that define the numbers of genotype recombinations. A lemur, a rat, a dog and a man have quite different chromosome numbers. These are numbers of whole pairs. A pair is not constituted by its number of chromosomes [alone] (two in any mammal) but also by their functions, each chromosome of one pair having in common with the other a specific set of functions. Superfluous and lacking chromosomes in one pair come nowhere near constituting new pairs or reducing the number of pairs (except if two different chromosomes - i e from different pairs - are recombined around one "new" centromere [new as new to both, but old for one of them]: even that would happen only from one parent first time, and the individual would from the other parent inherit a set of chromosomes that has the old dsitribution), variation in chromosome numbers include malfunctions, some of them lethal, some inhibit fertility, some simply make the new individual abnormal....

b) newness of animals and plants:

"Species, also, that are new, if any such appear, existed beforehand in various active powers; so that animals, and perhaps even new species of animals, are produced by putrefaction by the power which the stars and elements received at the beginning. Again, animals of new kinds arise occasionally from the connection of individuals belonging to different species, as the mule is the offspring of an ass and a mare; but even these existed previously in their causes, in the works of the six days."

One by one, now:

"so that animals, and perhaps even new species of animals, are produced by putrefaction by the power which the stars and elements received at the beginning."

Spontaneous generation of animals (like flies and toads) has since that time been rejected. It is as unscientific today as it was unbiblical then. "omne vivum ex ovo."*

"Again, animals of new kinds arise occasionally from the connection of individuals belonging to different species, as the mule is the offspring of an ass and a mare; but even these existed previously in their causes, in the works of the six days."

And mules are infertile. There can therefore never be a population of mules, only a collection of them.

St Augustine gives another example: thorny bushes, toads, flies, et c appeared after the fall as fullgrown individuals, punishing Adam, God having only created them "in ovo" or embryonically before the fall.

*I am not saying strictest sticking to Bible's words be necessary to orthodoxy: I am merely observing that when that old teacher accepted compromising with them to accomodate what was then science, he has not been confirmed by more recent science - like the chrystalline spheres of the heavens, which St Basil explains why Moses didn't mention, though the scientists back then had apparently proven their existance: these scientists back then have not been confirmed by more recent astronomers.

c) six recent days

Some few Church Fathers - Origen, therein defended by St Augustine - said God created all in one single instant (at least embryonically, some species growing to fullgrown individuals only later) and the six days are six mental "dawnings" of the different aspects of that one instant work on the angels observing it. Most say the six days were six days. Thomas say both may be true, the one instant observed in six mental dawnings on angelic knowledge referring to embryonic individuals, the six real days referring to full grown individuals.

I know no Church Father of the First Millennium to have suggested the six days might be what Pius XII in Humani Generis considered possible: six much longer periods.

That discrepancy was once one of my motives for rejecting the papacy of that man, while still accepting papacy as such.

d) a question of historical truth

apart from the question of scientific truth - which leaves the question totally open as to time frame, closed as against kind to kind evolution - apart from the questions of secondary causes which is accepted* whatever you may believe on age dating and macroevolution, apart from the question whether the solution offered by Humani Generis is orthodox or not, there remains a question of HISTORICAL truth

heathen traditions from most places all over the world confirm the details rejected in the name of "scientific progress": a fairly recent creation, a degeneration of men thereafter, a flood, and a repopulation of mankind

*that God sometimes acts through such causes, not that he were bound to exclusively do so

e) Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Maritain

They seem to think that science as known now is the same in base as science as known back then, only the research is better. That is where I think they got it wrong.

Some of the new methods are rather methods of qualified guessing than of real deduction, real observation. They are methods which Aquinas and Aristotle would have rejected as unscientific. The old, less than scientific statements (chrystalline spheres, spontaneous generation) were so by lack of possibility of observations correcting them. They made the best of available evidence. The new ones are unscientific by making the best of evidence that is so clearly off topic.

Unfortunately this post was the only response that kept my promise of briefness. Until I just lengthened it.

New responses:

a) Chromosomes:

"You discussion on chromosomes assumes that any new variation that results in something of a new species would have to be abnormal in the sense of somehow being defective. This is a huge assumption. The truth is that mutation leads to evolution because genes are crossed over in the process from one chromosome to the other."

I am not assuming it. I am concluding it, for those changes which involve changes of chromosome numbers, from what I know as a fact about changes of chromosome numbers from normal in men.

b) submission to ecclesiastic authority*:

"Must be convenient to just reject the insights** from encyclicals as you see fit."

I did not reject his encyclicals and his bull before coming to believe believe that he was a heretical non-pope or anti-pope, nor afterwards, but at the same time.

*Which is neither a philosophical, nor a patristic argument
**according to how Pio Nono defined papacy, the Holy Spirit was not given so that Popes might expound new doctrines revealed by Him, but ....

c) Patristics:

"What about St. Cyprian of Carthage:

"'As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand of years, as the seven spirits and seven angels which stand and go in and out before the face of God, and the seven-branched lamp in the tabernacle of witness, and the seven golden candlesticks in the Apocalypse, and the seven columns in Solomon upon which Wisdom built her house l so here also the number seven of the brethren, embracing, in the quantity of their number, the seven churches, as likewise in the first book of Kings we read that the barren hath borne seven'"

Likely to refer to the seven thousand years of human history (including the eighth millennium anno creationis which just started some 200 years ago or more) rather than to timelength of creation week as such. Certainly such a reference is there in De Civitate Dei by St Augustine. Have you really checked the context of the quote, or have you just taken on faith that it be applicable to creation week as such?

"And it was a popular notion among the some of the Early Church Fathers to quote the psalm referring to a day as a thousand years to the lord in reference to Adam in the garden as St. Justin Martyr does."

Now here I would have liked a quote!

"Now if we are talking about a six thousand year creation as believed by at least one Church Father, maybe more, this seems to directly contradict your earlier notion that all Early Church Fathers believed in a short creation."

Which one? St Justin Martyr or St Cyprian of Carthage? The quote not given or the quote that may be taken out of context?

d) infallible criterium:

"Now maybe you have some infallible ability to determine whether encyclical letters or unorthodox but until the Church condemns it I prefer to entertain the possibility."

Vincent of Lerins? Commonitorium? I will not condemn a man as heretic for believing evolution till a general council condemn it, but I will not hold that it is an orthodox interpretation of Genesis or that it does not at least imply grave heresies about God as creator and as good - implications that the individual Christian believer who accepts evolution need of course not be aware of in some cases, but which cannot be absent in all cases either.

Third stage responses:

a) St Cyprians authority is about ... what?

a more extensive quote from treatises 11:11 - here:

"What, indeed, do we find in the Maccabees of seven brethren, equals alike in their lot of birth and virtues, filling up the number seven in the sacrament of a perfected completion? Seven brethren were thus associating in martyrdom. As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand of years,(9) as the seven spirits and seven angels which stand and go in and out before the face of God, and the seven-branched lamp in the tabernacle of witness, and the seven golden candlesticks in the Apocalypse, and the seven columns in Solomon upon which Wisdom built her house( l) so here also the number seven of the brethren, embracing, in the quantity of their number, the seven churches, as likewise in the first book of Kings we read that the barren has borne seven." (unfortunately recurrent footnotes 9 and 1 were neither clickable nor otherwise identifiable on page)

Cyprian is indulging in numerology of a type little used nowadays. As well as in allegoric application. Saying that the seven days (of creation week) contain seven thousand years (of created history after creation and fall) is not tantamount in any way whatsoever to saying that the seven days were really not seven days in the ordinary sense, but seven thousand years. You got him wrong. Familiarise yourself with allegorical method and with numerology before you try to use this as an alternative timeline for creation week. Oh, and: the title of the treatise is not "Hexaëmeron" or "Work of six days" it is "Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus." and chapter 11 is entitled: "11. That it was before predicted that the world would hold us in abhorrence, and that it would stir up persecutions against us, and that no new thing is happening to the Christians, since from the beginning of the world the good have suffered, and the righteous have been oppressed and slain by the unrighteous"

From the beginning of the world. Not at the beginning of the world. Sorry; if you are not intellectually dishonest on your own behalf in citing this as an alternative timeline for creation week as such, at least you are authority-thumping on behalf of someone intellectually dishonest, someone groping for straws to find patristic support for longer timelines. You may of course say that the chapter headings were added by some editor: indeed they were, but they are appropriate. The heading "work of the six days" would have been heavily inappropriate to the chapter as to the treatise as a whole.

b) authority of St Justin the Philosopher

I reproduce your quote in full, just adding some little at the end:

With the Lord “one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4).

Furthermore light was created on day one but the sun not until day for.

Adam was told he would die on the same day that he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil but he lived to be 930 years old. He died within 1000 years which seems to indicate that the days being referred to might be a thousand years each.

You asked about the quote from St. Justin Martyr quoting the psalm referring to a day as a thousand years to the lord in reference to Adam in the garden.

"For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years [Gen. 5:5]. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression ‘The day of the Lord is a thousand years’ [Ps. 90:4] is connected with this subject" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 81 [A.D. 155]).

There you go. And if that isn’t enough to satisfy you skepticism that Church Fathers believed different things about the time frame of the creation narrative I’ll do you a favor of providing a few more quotes to think about. This one is from Irenaeus in agreement with St. Justin Martyr:

"And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since ‘a day of the Lord is a thousand years,’ he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5:23:2 [A.D. 189]).

Indeed so. Only, the day when Adam ate the fruit and died, being indeed a thousand years old, happened after the seventh day on which God rested, thus after the days of Creation Week. Hence, St Justin is no authority for reading six thousand years into creation week.

c) Egyptian patristics

What about the possibility of St. Clement of Alexandria speaking of “an indefinite and dateless production”?

"And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist? . . . That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: ‘This is the book of the generation, also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth’ [Gen. 2:4]. For the expression ‘when they were created’ intimates an indefinite and dateless production. But the expression ‘in the day that God made them,’ that is, in and by which God made ‘all things,’ and ‘without which not even one thing was made,’ points out the activity exerted by the Son"(Miscellanies 6:16 [A.D. 208]).

And here is Origin arguing against taking the six days literally as six twenty-four hour days: "For who that has understanding will suppose that the first and second and third day existed without a sun and moon and stars and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? . . . I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally" (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:1:16 [A.D. 225]).

St Clement of Alexandria talks about the dateless and indefinite production. The context seems to indicate that the first production of things could not be dated in relation to previous events. It is no breach in the consensus that the six days were no longer than six ordinary days.

Origen is remarked about twice by St Augustine: once for the ingenuity of supposing God made all things in one single instant (i e much shorter than six days, absolutely no longer), which means that St Augustine having presumably read all Origen had to say about it concluded that he had opted for a one-instant creation. Which, unlike a seven thousand year or seven billion year creation is not at variance with patristic consensus of first millennium.

The second thing is that he remarked Origen for believing only the allegorical sense of Old Testament passages like the flood, the Antiochenes for believing only the literal sense of passages like the flood, but St Augustine held that a Catholic should believe both: both that those eight people were actually rescued by the arc, all without perishing (literal sense), and that all who are saved are so by the Church, all without perishing (allegorical sense).

d) a sum up of your use of patristics (as seen so far in this debate)

After a scrutiny of you for patristic examples for a longer timespan of creation week than a week, I conclude that it holds not.

I never claimed patristic consensus is for the six days only, I said it is for either that or a one instant creation. The authority of Origen - which is not the authority of a canonised saint! - along with that of St Augustine - which is - go for the one instant creation. St Clement is unclear. Both other examples are such of allegory and prophecy about happenings after creation and fall, not of exposition of creation week as such.

e) further inconsistencies

"I am not trying to read evolution into the Genesis account. I consider evolution a theory of science. As I said before I don’t dogmatically hold onto the theory of evolution. If new data and a new scientific theory came out that best dealt with this evidence, I imagine I would adopt it."

The Genesis account, taken literally, is an account of the beginnings of things visible, including all the animal species. So is Evolution. Labelling the one science and the other spirituality does not change that both taken literally are accounts of among other things, the beginnings of animal species. Now: the beginnings of all the animal species cannot be another thing or have another timeline than the beginnings of all animal species.

You are also pretending to bow down in science only to data and to coherent explanation.

I have already told you that evolution of a species with one number of chromosome pairs into a species with another number of chromosome pairs is a major difficulty. These data are not new, but they may be so to you. You interpreted me as presuming rather than concluding (from humdrum medical data about chromosome syndroms, Downs, Klinefeldt's, et c) that this would involve an evolution passing in each and every such case by at least one - actually more than one generation of - chromosomatically abnormal individuals. Survival of the unfittest, so to speak. If you want to pretend at some honesty in science (I am not talking theology now) read up on chromosomes.

What may also be news to you, though absolutely not to a creationist - yes, I am absolutely still talking about science, not theology here - is that age dating presupposes relying on data we actually do not have: like, for C14, did the atmosphere back when these bones (say the ones in Atapuerca) were alive contain approximately the same percentage of C14 - it has been measureed for a much shorter time - or, for geological dating, are Jura and Trias really remnants from different periods, rather than remnants of different collections of species wrongly classed as period faunas.

And here I remark that Aquinas (my Church does not recognise his canonisation, though I personally find him a holy man, not far from St Photius the Great in character and cultural type, though less learned, perhaps, in classics, and more learned, perhaps, in Aristotle) did not recognise as science the "knowledge" of something past/future/faraway/hidden and at same time contingent.

If something is contingent, it can be known only if visibly and tangibly at hand. Secondary to that is the memory of such knowledge in the individual who had it, tertiary to that knowledge is the transmission of such memory, by spoken or written word, enforced perhaps by pictoiral or other non-verbal means. It is not classed as science, it is individual knowledge of an individual thing or occurrence.If something is known without having to be physically at hand, it is that insofar as the knowledge is typical, not individual: and therefore necessary, not contingent. Past things are not necessary. Eternal (or quasieternal, i e uninterrupted since creation) past-present-and-future things are.

Clearly - and I am speaking as a scientific disciple of the Aquinate, not as a theological one - the claim that birds descend from ornithopod reptiles, who along with sauropod reptiles descend from batrachians, is not an example of eternal, necessary truth: we do not find the frogs or salamanders hatching eggs that become alternatively velociraptors or geckos, neither do we find regularly that velociraptors hatch eggs that become archaeopteryges, or that those hatch eggs that become birds as we know them. Rather, we find neither velociraptors or archaeopteryges around (or if, they have not been identified as such): we find geckos hatching geckos, we find salamanders hatching salamanders, we find birds hatching birds of their own kinds, with the possible - it is viennese history from a time that modern zoologists regard as unreliable, a k a legend - the basilisk, hatched by a cock.

f) "It does not increase ones faith nor make one moral if they believe or disbelieve in evolution."

If you contend yourself with believing evolution, without concluding anything from it, adversely to traditional exegetics ... to traditional view of species as fixed (Teilhard notably believed mankind was evolving to "point Omega") ... to traditional eschatology ... and traditional views of the innocence of all visible creation before Adam's fall; if overmore you ask no questions about the implications in theory of knowledge by accepting evolution as scientific, if you do not accept other similar non-scientific but nowadays academic methods - notably psychology and psychiatry that deal heavy-handedly with what is hidden in the heart of the human neighbour, notably demographic ecological and other futurologic expertise; in short, if you accept evolution with a childish faith without asking questions, without concluding, I think it may be perfectly anodine. But such a limited faith in evolution is, at least in adults, above a certain level of instruction, rare; or otherwise my experience in discussing evolution misleads me.

When you argue with atheists, they know perfectly well that your belief in evolution as a fact, or your limited belief in the closely literal sense of Genesis, is a novum in the Christian Church. They will three out of four times say to themselves or between themselves that you are right about the beginning of all animal species, but that the people you accept as religious authorities were wrong. When you argue without arguing against evolution on the scientific level, when you indeed encourage their belief in modern scientific methods.

Hans