It seems the Catholics are the only ones willing to even discuss these issues. Whether people agree or disagree, at least the topic is being discussed openly.
This is troubling for me as a convert with more of a fundamentalist background and as a fan of mythology. It immediately takes me back to the Annunaki.
As a trained Biologist, I used to believe this to be so because I needed to merge what I knew from scientific writings and teachings with what I had learned in Catechism about the story of creation. No longer do I believe this, as I have learned that the scientific communities have extrapolated the information they teach as truth from exaggerations that have been made with the fossil records. I know that all the "human" ancestors like astrolopiticus, that the scientific community claims to have found and what they look like are based on just a few bones and not an almost complete skeleton at all. They also based strongly on the writings of Darwin who was known to be a strong opponent of the creation narrative as he was strongly opposed to religion in all.
The Theory of Evolution is devoid of observational foundation because it is a logical impossibility. Each particular species requires an intelligent efficient cause that established it. It is against reason to propose that nature itself, extrapolating a "hidden potential" inscribed in it by God, generated every species that we see in this world. In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas clearly states that creation is distinguished from the government of creation. All the first living beings of each species were created by God directly (in a short or long time). It is the succession of these beings by way of reproduction that belongs to the work of the providential government of creation. I don't know where the Thomistic Institute got this crazy idea defended in the video.
I'm not sure your claim Darwin was a atheist is correct and that was a motive. As for ancient fossils that is still open to revision. Physical bones does not indicate these creatures were like us with an immortal soul. All animals exist in innocence as they do not make moral choices. They act as they act without interior knowledge of good and evil. The book of Genesis is the retelling and reinterpretation of a much older Sumerian story. The description of the Garden of Eden is Sumerian and approx 10,000 years old. Genesis is not ever meant to be a scientific paper in the sense of now.
@@leonardovieira4445 God's act of creation is ongoing in time. Creatures exist then perish for many reasons. God is the life giver and maintains all that exists as an act of will. We are rational animals and so it is entirely consistent that evolution is one shaping factor in our own existence. God is the master of time, matter and existence.
@@johnfisher247 You didn't understand the thesis of the video. TI is saying that the advent of life itself and each new species is explained by NATURAL PROCESSES, which would be, in essence, the expression of a higher order inscribed by God in the cosmos created in the "beginning". It is what he called "seed", "hidden life form", and "hidden potentiality". In the beginning, God would have directly created only inanimate matter, and inscribed in it this "hidden form of life", which, although hidden, would be a perfection of the very NATURE of the cosmos, reduced to an act from time to time, in specific circumstances. It is an intellectual juggling act to endogenize the creative action of God in nature, through an illogical concept never proposed by St. Thomas.
Evolution, any type, can be evaluated from a theological, philosophical, or empiriological perspective. Taking the philosophical perspective, evolution cannot withstand philosophical/metaphysical analysis. In the end, whether one is talking about proper accidents, common accidents, or uncommon accidents, they all reveal the nature of the thing. But, accidents are THAT BY WHICH a thing acts. Now when we act, we act through our faculties (accidents). Our senses, intellect and other faculties are all accidents. If our natures acted of themselves, every time we acted, our natures would change. Example: every time I knew a tree my nature or essence would change to be a tree. All things that are created act through accidents. Accidents are lower in the order of being than essences are. This means that: the accidents in one species are incapable of causing the essence (which is higher in the ontological order) of a higher order. This is all based upon the principle of sufficient reason. An accident cannot cause another species by its very nature. Substance can only beget substance. Only a being that can act through its substance is capable of causing another substance. Only being that can do that is God. God is the only cause of any essence or substance. Now, if you posit theistic evolution, you are confronted by a host of other incoherences and issues, not the least of which is the principle of economy.
Finally a good theistic evolution video! I’m naturally better than other people at most things so I’m more evolved for my specific environment or situation. Perhaps we should get all of the most evolved people and start breeding them to create perfect human beings. We’d have to stop the lesser evolved from breeding (we’ll make places or camps for them to go in). Then we can bring the human race back to its former perfection! I told one of my friends about this idea (their a creationist) and he said something about “entropy” and that we shouldn’t do that but they weren’t as evolved as me so I told them that their argument was silly.
@@ThomisticInstitute Can you ask for a date when for the orgin of man as such? It could be important to ascertain the moments in which he acts-as spring rejuvenates the flowers-if periodical then we may it might reveal a ratio which can be employed in making political decesions that need to be made. Obviously if such a time is about to come to pass again we can do our part to be receptive to whatever action it is going to be. Wouldn't it also have implications concerning the end of the world too?
I think and many other people, also priests like father professor Tadeusz Guz, think that animals too continue to live after the death of their bodies. Father professor Tadeusz Guz says that the Church says that animals continue to live after death, and that the Church only does not know if they live as individual dogs, cats etc. or as one soul of dogs, cats etc. It would be confirmed by the saint sister Faustyna Kowalska who had a vision in which she saw all creation worshiping God.
THE CREATION OF SELF DEFINITION. All of life is a process of deciding Who You Are, and then experiencing that. As you keep expanding your vision, you make up new rules to cover that! As you keep enlarging your idea about your Self, you create new do's and don'ts, yeses and nos to encircle that. These are the boundaries that "hold in" something which cannot be held in. You cannot hold in "you," because you are as boundless as the Universe. Yet you can create a concept about your boundless Self by Imagining, and then accepting, boundaries. In a sense, this is the only way you can know yourself as anything in particular. That which is boundless is boundless. That which is limitless is limitless. It cannot exist anywhere because it is everywhere. If it is everywhere, it is nowhere in particular. God is everywhere. Therefore, God is nowhere in particular, because to be somewhere in particular, God would have to not be somewhere else - which is not possible for God. There is only one thing that is "not possible" for God, and that is for God to not be God. God cannot "not be." Nor can God not be like Itself. God cannot "un-God" Itself. I am everywhere, and that's all there is to it. And since I am everywhere, I am nowhere. And if I am NOWHERE I Am NOW HERE THE CREATION OF SELF DEFINITION. All of life is a process of deciding Who You Are, and then experiencing that. As you keep expanding your vision, you make up new rules to cover that! As you keep enlarging your idea about your Self, you create new do's and don'ts, yeses and nos to encircle that. These are the boundaries that "hold in" something which cannot be held in. You cannot hold in "you," because you are as boundless as the Universe. Yet you can create a concept about your boundless Self by Imagining, and then accepting, boundaries. In a sense, this is the only way you can know yourself as anything in particular. That which is boundless is boundless. That which is limitless is limitless. It cannot exist anywhere because it is everywhere. If it is everywhere, it is nowhere in particular. God is everywhere. Therefore, God is nowhere in particular, because to be somewhere in particular, God would have to not be somewhere else - which is not possible for God. There is only one thing that is "not possible" for God, and that is for God to not be God. God cannot "not be." Nor can God not be like Itself. God cannot "un-God" Itself. I am everywhere, and that's all there is to it. And since I am everywhere, I am nowhere. And if I am NOWHERE I Am NOW HERE Everything in the universe is consciousness. Space and time in all planes of reality are only projections within universal consciousness. There really is no here or there for everything is at one place where Mind is. Mind does not move at all. Mind simply is (Not to be confused with the brain). Mind is everywhere yet nowhere. Mind is nowhere but Here, Now. We are all existing together as a singularity in one place and time. Everything is one, Here and Now. Your soul is the reflection of all souls. You are the Other. Without the other, you would not exist. You are defined by your relationships with others. You would need to describe the whole universe in order to define a single person. Therefore every single person is the whole universe. Your soul is both personal and universal at the same time. Everyone is a reflection of yourself. You are in a hall of mirrors where every reflection of yourself appears different. Others you admire reflect the qualities you most cherish in yourself. Others you detest reflect the qualities you most deny in yourself. Each person you see is a different version of you. The outer world is a mirror of yourself at any place and time. If you want to know the state of your personal consciousness, just look around and see what is happening to you. If you want to know the state of the collective consciousness, just look around at what is happening in the world. Your personal reality is synchronistically orchestrated by your sense of Self at all times. If a critical mass of people expressed their higher selves, they would cause a transformation in collective consciousness and the world reality. Every time a person rises in personal consciousness, he moves the state of the world towards a higher one than before. TRANSCENDENT WORLD: You are comfortable here when you can experience all possibilities. Your awareness is open. You are connected to the source. Your consciousness is merged with the mind of God. SUBTLE WORLD: You are comfortable here when you can hold on to your vision. You trust yourself to follow where the mind goes. You aren't bound up in resistance, objections, skepticism, and rigid beliefs. Inspiration occurs as a normal part of your existence. MATERIAL WORLD: You are comfortable with your personal reality. You take responsibility for it. You read the world as a reflection of who you are and what is happening "in here." As the reflection shifts and changes, you track the changes occurring inside yourself. If a white man was created by God, And if a black man was created by God, Black and white men are equal before God. If God is reality, And if reality is consciousness, Then God is consciousness The Need to Create, Discover, and Explore. God becomes a creative source. He gave us our birthright of curiosity. He remains unknowable, but he unfolds one secret after another in creation. At the far edge of the universe, the unknown is a challenge and a source of wonder. God wants us not to worship but to evolve. Our role is to discover and explore. Nature exists to provide endless mysteries that challenge our intelligence - there is always more to discover. This is your God if you live to explore and be creative, if you feel happiest confronting the unknown, if you have total confidence that nature can be unraveled, including human nature, as long as we keep questioning and never settle for fixed, preordained truth. God becomes pure wonder. After reason has reached the limits of understanding, the mystery remains. Sages, saints, and the divinely inspired have penetrated it. They have felt a divine presence that transcends everyday life. Materialism is an illusion. Creation was fashioned in two layers, the visible and the invisible. Miracles become real when everything is a miracle. To reach God, one must accept the reality of invisible things. Nature is a mask for the divine. This is your God if you are a spiritual seeker. You want to know what lies behind the mask of materialism, to find the source of healing, to experience peace, and to be in direct contact with a divine presence. Unity, the State Beyond All Needs. God becomes One. There is complete fulfillment because you have reached the goal of seeking. You experience the divine everywhere. The last hint of separation has vanished. You have no need to divide saint from sinner, because God imbues everything. In this state, you don't know the truth; you become it. The universe and every event in it are expressions of a single underlying Being, which is pure awareness, pure intelligence, and pure creativity. Nature is the outward form that consciousness takes as it unfolds in time and space. This is your God if you feel totally connected to your soul and your source. Your consciousness has expanded to embrace a cosmic perspective. You see everything happening in the mind of God. The ecstasy of great mystics, who seem especially gifted or chosen, now becomes available to you, because you have fully matured spiritually. The God that brings the scheme to an end, God as One, is different from the others. He isn't a projection. He signifies a state of total certainty and wonder, and if you reach that state, you are no longer projecting. Every need has been fulfilled; the path has ended with reality itself.
I would have liked the video to explain the rationale of why it is impossible that the rational soul comes from God and not from matter, as the sensible and vegetative souls do.
@@henrylansing9734 Partly, yes. The rational soul is inmaterial therefore it cannot corrupt as the body. This is why animal sould do not trascend, but humans do.
Every thought or feeling or anything having to do with consciousness is material. It exists due to the activity of neurons in your brain. Neurons are physical and material things.
When God creates creatures "According to their kind"... What does that mean then? - Also I don't get the notion of how does "survival of the fittest" goes together with intentional "creation" of flying, swimming, etc. animals according to their kind. Why would such specification be there if God didn't create them according to their kind but rather as a whole "nature kind". Not convinced of the argument, I think it could fit philosophically but I don't understand how does it fit revelation.
According to their kind: inanimate matter, vegetative, sensitive and rational. That is why call them species. Each created to do what they do: Final cause or finality. The finality we observe in all things accordin to their kind. Atoms have the finslity to keep their inertia. Vegetales to grow and reproduce. Humans to grow snd think. I suggest you watch the causes video.
@@antoniomoyal Again, this fits with natural philosophy and not with revelation, when I say "kind" I mean the categories used in the Holy Scriptures, not the ones you are bringing up, for example in Genesis 1:21 you get "every winged bird according to its kind". It is not a broad "animal kingdom" statement, but rather specific, he created specific animals with wings according to their kind in that part. I understand the 4 causes of Aristotle, the thing is that in this case God created specific beings with specific final causes different from others, the categorization of "atoms" and their final causes is something you are bringing up and not what God was necessarily speaking about.
@@ashleypuza6911 this is incorrect, the church has never declared a dogmatic way of understanding Genesis, and the Church Fathers do not agree on one simple way of looking at this, there are many ways to interpret this passage in the Catholic Church, but "according to their kind" is not a discussion at all, evolutionism is a philosophy, you can speak of change within the potency of a substance but not a substantial leap between kinds.
Thank you Thomistic Institute for this great video. An answer that I synthesize from your videos to the question of how do we know that the soul is not a naturalistic result? Is that complex sistems cannot organize themselves from simple parts, it is plausible that they follow a design that is not result from natural causes other wise we would see other living beings acquiring a rational intelect, the best explanation I can give is that the intelligence we have is likely to come from a higher intelligence rather than from no intelligence... kind off an answer I get from watching your courses. God bless and thanks again 🙌
Many scholastic philosophers, like Ed Feser, or even many non scholastics like David Bentley hart, have argued that the rational mind is immaterial, and thus could not have developed naturally.
Precisely what I believe, albeit put forth a bit more eloquently. Both my parents are Christian, but they also have scientific backgrounds (my mom was a geologist and my dad a biologist). I've always thought that people who argue against evolution are being willfully ignorant. It's hard to deny the evidence that animals gradually changed into new creatures. Evolution is simply adaptation shaped by environmental pressure over eons, it's observable both in the fossil record and in our own timespan with smaller-scale microevolution. What the "Young Earth Creationists" and similar groups fail to do is make a distinction between evolution as a whole, and the idea of humans evolving from monkeys. We are genetically related, and even just looking at us and earlier hominids, it's pretty hard to deny a connection. As you point out, the difference is the addition of a rational soul. It's likely that God put all the systems in motion, and once hominids had evolved to his satisfaction, he infused them with souls, creating what we call homo sapiens (although I wouldn't be surprised if Neanderthals also had souls, considering they were extremely similar to us and were able to interbreed).
Yes, it violates the principle. But TI will argue that the cosmos contains within itself a "hidden form of life", which makes it the direct cause of the "evolution" evolution of living beings in a complex and comprehensive mechanism of influences. In other words, this thesis is not Thomistic.
I wouldn't use the word 'intervene' to God, but God grants the birth or creation of the uniquely rational and eternal human soul to the individual human being at conception, as we humans, creation, participate in God's creative work of creation according to his divine providence and purpose. But really it's just my personal way of describing what Fr. Dominic has explained so well and rightly. When it began or who the first historical 'Adam' and 'Eve' were, who received the rational souls as truly human persons with enlightened immortal souls and given the supernatural grace of heaven, before they immediately screw things up and hence left over to the forces of nature in their enlightened, special, yet forever marred identities which they transmitted to all their descendants as original sin (apart from the ones destined as God's own paths of salvation, namely the Blessed Mother and Christ) unless people receive again the grace of salvation through Jesus, is a technically difficult question to answer or prove. But we can perhaps, use the analogy of human growth, we can't really determine the exact day, or hour, or minute, or second, of when a child has turned into the 'age of reason' and hence can be considered responsible for a personal sin committed, but we know that at a particular time, a baptized boy or a girl sinned knowingly and he or she needs to go to confession to receive grace of forgiveness.
What do you mean by "hidden way of life"? In which work by St. Thomas I find this definition? Can you indicate the reference in the writings of St. Thomas?
The soul is the *essential* form of the body in that it makes the creature to be what it is - namely a living, sensing, and reasoning organism. It cannot be taken away without destroying what the organism is, e.g. in death. The accidents (or *accidental forms*) can change or be removed while retaining the essential character of the organism. So one is still a human being even if one's hair changes color or falls out.
You perceive the form by perceiving the accidents. Because the accidents are necessitated by the form (in limited beings of a natural kind). The formal cause (the form/essence) of something is ontologically prior to the material cause (the accidents), because materiality is always given to form; that's how we understand materiality. Material, "accidental", being cannot exist without form.
Aristotle used an analogy from the arrangement of letters. For instance, AB and BA have the same "matter", and everything sensible about either sequence is an accident. The form of each, however, is different.
If you want a really in depth investigation into this kind of metaphysics, I would highly recommend Edward Feser’s “Scholastic metaphysics: a contemporary introduction” or David Oderberg’s “real essentialism”.
Question please. I am a special needs nurse and I work with people who have autism. Autism is a condition whereby abstraction is not always possible. Someone for instance will not be able to identify a kitchen for the first time in a new home because they can’t abstract what a kitchen is. Does this mean that either 1. Autistic people do not have a soul (I obviously don’t believe that) or 2. The brain is actually responsible for the spiritual work of abstraction. 3. We have no spiritual substance and the brain can abstract through a material process as yet undiscovered. Thanks Asked with genuine sincerity and curiosity
Thomistic philosophers always make an important distinction between "potentiality" and "actuality" within the nature of things, including human beings and animals. A human, when he/she is a early fetus or embryo, doesn't have the property of sight or hearing currently "actualized", but the property of sight/hearing exists in "potentiality". But that potentiality is embedded in the nature of the thing. So, just because a human embryo can't see or hear, that doesn't make them not a human being, because those properties exist as potentialities within their nature. Their nature is directed toward an outcome where they have those properties of sight and hearing fully actualized. Same goes for your nursing patients with autism. Just because their faculties of reason are diminished by disease, that doesn't mean they aren't human; That's because those faculties exist as potentialities within their nature. If not for their disease or mental illness hampering the actualization of their potentials, they would have perfectly fine faculties of reason. Their nature is directed toward an outcome where they have those faculties fully actualized; it's just that the disease is frustrating that outcome.
Hi Dominic, are used to believe in millions of years but now I am a creationist I believe in a literal six days of creation. I stumbled over to Doug Petrovich Also dr. Kurt Wise what caused the flood And then also ken ham Noah’s ark.
Isn't it possible too, that God made sure that the biodies of earlier primates would evolve naturally to be shaped in accordance with the soul? So that when the soul, the Shape of the Body, the Body was already shaped precisely right to fit the Soul?
Hi Thomistic Institute. Underlying the theory of evolution is the contention that the fittest species are the ones that survive and shape further evolution, and not that simply the best survive. It's not an evolutionary example, but take the example of Betamax vs VHS. Betamax was better, but VHS out-competed it, and we all know which one survived. VHS was "fitter," so to speak. Why should we believe that a human's rationality, or grasp of the profundity of, for example, a stimuli, is the best and not just the fittest?
Because rationality is more perfect than irrationality. The universe works mathematically and tgecrationsl soul can grasp it. However, humans will perish according to the matter. When we say it is 'best' according to God.
Humans are animals in the genus Hominidae, so how do you claim they are separate from hominid animals, they are hominid animals? Where do you draw the line of which hominids are capable of reason? Denisovans? Neanderthals? Homo heidelbergensis? Homo Erectus? What characteristics do you claim show a superior level of understanding? There is no clear line of demarcation as you claim.
We forget that God can make things just with word. In Lazarus case 4 day old decayed dead body came to full life with a word This means God can create the whole universe and each animal with a word. We don't need evolution for it If it was evolution , then Bible would have told it in Genesis
In the bible it never claimed dinosaurs existed yet they do, in the bible it never claims that there are 8 planets on the solar system yet there are, in the bible it never says that we are made up of cells yet we are. Just because the bible doesn't mention something doesn't mean it isn't true. That's why we also need to rely on science to understand the world
orthodox Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Bahá’í, a great deal of paganism, and so forth - is to speak of the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things. (30) This is the one God in whom we live and move and have our being, to use the language of Paul in the book of Acts. Hart contends that modern religious fundamentalists and atheists, alike, are working with a concept of “God” that is more akin to what ancient peoples, even the ancient Hebrews, referred to as the “gods.” The “gods” were distinct beings who worked within and upon the natural order of things. “God,” in contrast, is not a “distinct causal agency that in some way rivals the natural process of conception” (28). Atheists seem to assume that, when Christians speak of God as creator, they are speaking of a “supreme mechanical cause located somewhere within the continuum of nature” (28), while young earth creationists and others, unfortunately, give them good cause to make this mistake. Thomas Aquinas represents the classic conception of God as creator when he speaks of a “universal rational order” called into being and infused, by God, with “determinate ends” (38). This God’s operations in the universe cannot be proved or disproved since, “the reality of God… saturates every moment of the experience of existence, every employment of reason, every act of consciousness, every encounter with the world around us” (34). The God of classical theism is not “man writ large,” to use a phrase from Karl Barth. We know and experience God not as we know and experience other beings within the material universe, but as we participate in the “transcendental perfections” (58). To state this classic idea in biblical terms, we can know and experience God only as we begin to will as God wills, allowing our minds to be conformed to the mind of Christ, abiding in love, and entering into peace, rest, and joy. Knowledge and experience of God are analogical and participatory rather than univocal and evidentiary. While atheism cannot disprove the God of classical theism, the God of classical theism retains great explanatory power where all forms of materialism fall short. Regarding being, Hart suggests that “nothing in the cosmos contains the ground of its own being” (92). Yet, “it cannot possibly be the case that there are only contingent realities” unless we want to affirm an infinite regress. Human consciousness, too, is a mystery inaccessible to materialist explanations since “the most basic phenomenology of consciousness discloses [a] vast… incommensurability between physical causation and mental events” (153). Hart contends that attempts to make sense of human consciousness “in materialist terms frequently devolve into absurdity, and seem inevitably only to exchange one explanatory deficiency for another” (169). Likewise, and despite unconvincing materialist assertions to the contrary, Hart argues that the human longing for “goodness” and “beauty” (these together constitute bliss) makes little sense within the confines of a materialist metaphysic (238-290). Surely, we can see the folly in turning “from the mystery of being to the availability of things, from the mystery of consciousness to the accessible objects of cognition, from the mystery of bliss to the imperatives of appetite and self-interest” (331). Yet, this is the trajectory of our late modern world, and this is what the New Atheists endorse. This is a brilliant book; surely Hart’s finest to date. The prose is beautiful and accessible, the argument thorough and convincing. Nearly every page has a paragraph that begs to be recorded, remembered, and shared, so this review has not scratched the surface. Because Hart draws on a variety of classical theistic religions, some readers might suspect that Hart advocates a kind of religious pluralism where several religions merge into one. This is not at all the case. Hart is an Orthodox theologian, and he does not stray from a confessional stance in the least. I would like to end by stating that this book offers not only a blistering critique of atheism but also a very convincing case against some of the most popular apologetic programs among evangelicals, such as young earth creationism and intelligent design. It is often said that these intellectual movements arose in late modernity and are far more pagan in their presuppositions than they are Christian. Hart makes this case as well as anyone has, and I hope, for the sake of the faith once delivered, that evangelicals pay close attention even if the New Atheists do not.
Father, I wonder if you are familiar with Quine’s conformational holism. The idea is that evidence underdetermined our theories. So there is an ambiguity to every piece of evidence such that we can revise our beliefs according to what we happen to value. Young Earth Creationists have they capacity to revise other beliefs in their web of belief, rather than give up the view that the earth is about 6,000 years old.
I am troubled by the idea of a "material soul." This seems contrary to Aristotle's De Anima; can you cite a place in STh for this concept. I favor the idea that all souls are spiritual, that there cannot be such a thing as a " material soul." A soul is the principle of life and therefore must be immaterial. If there could be such a thing then why do you say humans can't have it? Animals can abstract from stimuli; a dog can have the abstraction of "dog" and apply it to varius different dogs that he meets. The idea of a material soul suggests that it's the brain which is materialism.
"Material" soul in the sense that all the operations of the vegetable and sensitive souls take place through the material substratum of the body. The human soul is "spiritual" in the sense (i) that the three operations of the intellect (abstraction, judgment and reasoning) take place without the participation of the body, despite having as a starting point the sensitive image produced by the internal sense of imagination or fantasy, (ii) and in the sense that it subsists apart from the body, unlike the vegetable and sensitive souls.
@@williamjerome5836 A "material" soul is not mentioned. This terminology is not used by St. Thomas, not that I remember. But he addresses the three kinds of souls and their respective potencies in the four articles of I Pars, question 78. At your service!
7:26 Why does he continue to use the term "spiritual soul"? Man is a spirit made in God's image (God is a spirit). /And the Bible never references God's "soul."
The fact that the soul is the form of the body doesn't entail necessarily that the body of the first humans was different from the body of other animals. For exemple, in transubstantiation we have a change in the substantial form, from the one of bread to the one of the body of Christ, but the appearence doesn't change. That's because the form is not the "skhema". What does it mean to be intelligent, or rational? The soul, as the form, has the active intellect, but the body has the passive intellect. The active intellect is related to the passive as the form to the prime matter (of course any physical object, quarks or atoms, is not prime matter, prime matter is not any specific object, every specific object has already a form). So, as the form "labels" certein matter as my body, the active intellect "labels" the activity of the brain as my thought. Of course that's something metaphysical, not biological. We can say, anyway, that the soul is the origin of our perspective and free will, even without specific biological change. The official teaching of the church is not that the soul is created at the moment of conception: that's a common theological opinion among contemporary neothomists (that is a caricature of real thomism anyway), but many theologians still believe in deferred animation, and the consensus among theologians (even thomists) is that this is still an orthodox theory.
You are mistaken on behalf of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the creation of every human soul, because the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" states the following: Nr 366: "The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection." [Cf. Pius XII, Humani generis: DS 3896; Paul VI, CPC # 8; Lateran Council V (1513): DS 1440.] Nr. 1703: "Endowed with" a spiritual and immortal' soul. The human person is 'the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake.' From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude." See also Pius XII.: Humani generis (1950), Nr. 36: "For the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God."
@@loremipsum2989 that the soul is created immediately means that it is created directly by God, and not from other things. It's a technical term in theology and medieval aristotelian philosophy: immediately means "without a medium", i.e. not from pre-existing matter, it doesn't mean "at the moment", it doesn't mean that the ensoulment happens at the moment of biological conception, every professional theologian knows that this is not a part of the teaching of the church. Both the International teological commission and GPII stated that we don't know when the ensoulment happens. They say that we must protect life since conception as a consequence of the virtue of prudence and of the fact that from conception we have a certein "destiny" (i.e. God has a plan even for the embryo, the embryo is destined to become a person). But that's a different thing, the fact that the embryo is destined to become a person, and so destined to beatitude since conception, doesn't mean that it is a person with body and soul since conception (an idea that, moreover, is hard to accept in the standard aristotelian framework of Aquinas, and that was also tentatively denied by Augustine). I can tell you this because I've studied this problem with many theologians from the "roman school", so I'm pretty confident that this is the orthodox understanding of the topic.
@@Pienotto You don't convince me: Instruction of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Dignitas Personae - On Certain Bioethical Questions - promulgated Sept. 8, 2008: "4. It is important to recall the fundamental ethical criterion expressed in the Instruction Donum vitae [from 1987] in order to evaluate all moral questions which relate to procedures involving the human embryo: “[quoting Donum vitae I, 1] Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say, from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from the same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.” 5. This ethical principle, which reason is capable of recognizing as true and in conformity with the natural law, should be the basis for all legislation in this area. In fact, it presupposes a truth of an ontological character-, as Donum vitae demonstrated from solid scientific evidence, regarding the continuity in development of a human being. If Donum vitae… did not define the embryo as a person, it nonetheless did indicate that there is an intrinsic connection between the ontological dimension and the specific value of every human life. Although the presence of the spiritual soul cannot be observed experimentally, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo give [quoting Donum vitae I, 1 again] “a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?” Indeed, the reality of the human being for the entire span of life, both before and after birth, does not allow us to posit either a change in nature or a gradation in moral value, since it possesses full anthropological and ethical status. The human embryo has, therefore, from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person. (Cited from Catholic Answers: Tim Staples: A Person From the Moment of Conception, 1/17/2015.)
@@loremipsum2989 of course we have to treat the embryo with the dignity we would give to a spiritual person. But all of this, as both Augustine and GPII says, is due to the virtue of prudence: I don't know if there is already a soul or not, so, in order to avoid the risk to commit an homicide, I avoid certein practices. But this is due to prudence, and not to the knowledge that this IS the killing of a person, maybe it is not, but it is still immoral to accept such a risk. So this doesn't mean that there is a soul in the first moment of the existence of the zygote. Many professional theologians today say that this is not the case, I can tell you because I've both studied and worked with them. Many neothomist think that this is the case. Both the opinions are regarded orthodox by the vast majority of the community, as says for exemple Angelo Bellon OP, one of my teachers, or even bioethicists critics of differite animation as Roberto Colombo or Laura Palazzani. Also many classical theologians, as Giovanni Regina, were strong opposers of the idea of immediate animation. Many defend it as a tool to justify their ideas about abortion, but that's a bias and a corruption of teological thought as, as we have seen, the problem of the moment of ensoulment is totally disconnected from the problem of the morality of abortion.
@@loremipsum2989 n.b.: in order to fully understand the dignitatis personae, you have to check not the donum vitae, but the declaration on procured abortion: note n.19 says explicitly that an embryo would have a human life and an human nature even if it had not a soul since conception. The ensoulment completes, and not creates, the human nature of the embryo. The fact that the embryo have an human nature since conception doesn't mean that the immediate animation is true. This is based on an idea by Tertullian: what will be human is already human.
The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss David Bentley Hart Reviewed by Bryan C. Hollon, Theology, Malone University In recent years, atheist critics of religion have been quite aggressive in working to get their message out. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and a host of others have published popular books attacking theistic belief, and they have done a nice job promoting their work via television interviews, public debates, lecture tours, and the like. Generally speaking, the arguments of the “New Atheists,” as they are often called, are not so new at all. Indeed, anyone who encounters the thinkers mentioned above after having read deeply in nineteenth- and twentieth-century atheist thought will see many of the old arguments represented, often as though for the first time, and typically with less sophistication. Even the most absurd recent trend, atheist mega-churches, is not so new as one might think. Auguste Comte, an early nineteenth-century French philosopher and inventor of the term “sociology,” produced a highly detailed plan to create atheist churches all over France. In Comte’s plan these churches would come under the authority of a hierarchy of atheist priests who would catechize, administer atheist sacraments, shape humanity through the rhythms of an atheistic liturgical calendar, and so on. Comte, like many of his generation, was a thoroughgoing moralist and believed that an atheistic “positive religion” was necessary to direct the affections of human beings properly, forming them in love and ushering in a utopia. Of course, Comte’s vision seems far more interesting than the happy-clappy atmosphere of the new atheist mega-churches. It should not surprise us that an era as morally and intellectually impoverished as our own would produce such a shallow version of atheism. Karl Marx called for the abolishing of illusory happiness created by religion, “even if by hand-to-hand combat,” and communist revolutions ensued. Friedrich Nietzsche sought a revaluation of all values and became an inspiration to Adolph Hitler. The “New Atheists” write sophomoric books caricaturing religious belief, and their fans gather before atheist self-help preachers and employ a rocking band to set the mood. David Bentley Hart believes that the new atheism fits very well with the spirit of our shallow, consumer civilization. “Such a society is already implicitly atheist… It cannot allow ultimate goods to distract us from proximate goods. Our sacred writ is advertising, our piety is shopping, our highest devotion is private choice” (313). Turning one of Marx’s most famous criticisms of Christianity on its head, Hart suggests that the new atheism is “the opiate of the bourgeoisie, the sigh of the oppressed ego, the heart of a world filled with tantalizing toys… the triviality of the movement is its chief virtue” (313). Though not hoping for a return to more militant forms of atheism, Hart would like to move the current debate beyond caricature, if at all possible. He suggests that his “intention is simply to offer a definition of the word ‘God’… and to do so in fairly slavish obedience to the classical definitions of the divine found in the theological and philosophical schools of most of the major religious traditions” (1). This task is necessary because those arguing that belief in God is untenable seem to have no idea what the word “God” actually refers to and no idea what it might mean for a religious adherent to experience God. When the New Atheists rail on religious belief, they are rarely if ever speaking of any God affirmed in any version of classical theism. This is unfortunate, since surely “the truly reflective atheist would prefer not to win all his or her rhetorical victories against childish caricatures” (5). Of course, Hart does not actually believe that atheist victories are possible at all if we “get the actual definition of ‘God’” right and understand all that is entailed in this definition, since “one cannot reject the reality of God [so defined] …without embracing an ultimate absurdity” (17). Hart’s treatment of several recent works is amusingly scathing. For instance, a physicist named Victor Stenger wrote a book titled How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. For Hart, the title alone is enough to demonstrate Stegner’s total ignorance of the issues at hand, since it betrays a “fundamental misunderstanding not only of the word ‘God’ but of the word ‘science’ as well” (21). He takes aim, also, at Dawkins who claims to refute the “Five Ways” of Thomas Aquinas and in the process misunderstands the whole point of the Five Ways and likewise misrepresents the logic and argument of each of them. Throughout the book, Hart continues to offer examples such as these. Even as I was delighting in Hart’s witty devastation of Dawkins and others, I could not help but think that the New Atheists are merely the mirror image of a remarkably feeble late modern religious intellectual culture. Is it really fair to fault atheists for ridiculing what many, if not most, religious people actually believe? Indeed, when the face of public Christianity is demarcated by people such as Ken Ham, Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, and Bishop Spong, how can we fault our atheist detractors for failing to get Christian belief right? Hart acknowledges the problem and suggests that, in public figures such as these, “the new atheism has opponents against which it is well matched” (24). This is really no excuse, however, since the New Atheists presume to be intellectuals. The problem undergirding both late modern religious belief and atheist caricature is a failure to grasp, as ancient religious adherents did, that God is not one being among others, though larger and more powerful. Instead the word “God,” as used in
“The opinion of those who say with regard to the truth of the faith, that it is a matter of complete indifference what one thinks about creation, provided one has a true interpretation of God is notoriously false. Because an error about creation is reflected in a false opinion about God.” St. Thomas Aquinas The Angelic Doctor and Father of the Church Summa contra Gentiles The ancient and immutable teaching of the Church is that God created everything, at once, by fiat. Consider how reliable and clear that is. Now consider how confusing theistic evolution and this infused soul nonsense is. Who is the author of confusion? I know you mean well and trust that St Thomas Aquinas will straighten you out in heaven, but I pray that you get this revelation sooner. Even secular science will disavow Darwinism in the coming years or decades. The evidence to do so is mounting. In the meantime we should not be tossed about by every wind of doctrine. And that is exactly what evolutionary science is: doctrine. Hold firm to the truth we have been handed by Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the Saints. Let God be true and every man a liar. Romans 3:4
You State in your video that the human soul is immortal. The Body dies and the soul lives on forever. In the garden of Eden, Adam was created with a living soul. His soul was kept alive because of the tree of life. His soul was mortal. In Revelation, you find that the tree of life follows him on to paradise. This tree is what keeps his soul alive. At judgment day only the people that go to heaven get to live on because of the tree of life. The other souls die. This is their second death. Adam was forbidden from taking from the tree after his sin to keep him from becoming immortal. This would mean that his soul would not die in hell. The angels have immortal souls and will not die in hell while man's soul will have his second death. This is in the Bible.
No, that's incorrect. No other organism posseses a rational mind. No organism can contemplate the meaning of life or any other abstract thought such as that as they all lack rationality.
Or, God created Adam in the Garden of Eden. And from the side of Adam God created Eve. all in 6, 24 hour days. Truly a all powerful God can do this. The Bible very well can be a history and scientific book.
Father, if you are just going to appeal to God as the source of our intellect anyways then why entertain the evolution hypothesis? There is still no evidence of a substantial change from species to species. There is no need to denigrate Genesis as "not scientific" and "not historic." It tells us that God created all species as is, and that should be good enough for us. God gave each species the potential to change within its nature (e.g., look at all the breeds of dogs that exist), but a species cannot be something that is not its own nature. Your idea that God gave the first organism all potency is incoherent because then all creatures for all time would have the potential to be any other creature thus destroying the concept of substance. This kind of thinking is why some men think they have the potential to be a woman. In your view, transgender men are correct, they have the potential to be a woman and are not wrong to try and actualize that. In the view of Genesis, God created all things in a particular and substantial way which cannot substantially change itself.
Fr. you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Some amongst us recognize pantheism in Christian clothing but when the pantheist tries to give the impression St. Thomas Aquinas is one he's "evolved" from foolishness to sacrilege. Human respect isn't worth it Fr.
🇷🇺☦️🤝☪️🇵🇸So far I enjoyed you and even admired you, but now you simply ruin it, lying like that, misrepresenting Aquinas. Even as a Russian Roman Orthodox I would never dare to believe that Aquians would have agreed with that dumb primitive theory of Evolution!! You contradict yourselves, since believing in eternal forms and divine design is diametrically opposed to that heretical modern beliefs! How dare you?? I am in shock!🤦
It seems the Catholics are the only ones willing to even discuss these issues.
Whether people agree or disagree, at least the topic is being discussed openly.
This is troubling for me as a convert with more of a fundamentalist background and as a fan of mythology. It immediately takes me back to the Annunaki.
As a trained Biologist, I used to believe this to be so because I needed to merge what I knew from scientific writings and teachings with what I had learned in Catechism about the story of creation. No longer do I believe this, as I have learned that the scientific communities have extrapolated the information they teach as truth from exaggerations that have been made with the fossil records. I know that all the "human" ancestors like astrolopiticus, that the scientific community claims to have found and what they look like are based on just a few bones and not an almost complete skeleton at all. They also based strongly on the writings of Darwin who was known to be a strong opponent of the creation narrative as he was strongly opposed to religion in all.
The Theory of Evolution is devoid of observational foundation because it is a logical impossibility. Each particular species requires an intelligent efficient cause that established it. It is against reason to propose that nature itself, extrapolating a "hidden potential" inscribed in it by God, generated every species that we see in this world. In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas clearly states that creation is distinguished from the government of creation. All the first living beings of each species were created by God directly (in a short or long time). It is the succession of these beings by way of reproduction that belongs to the work of the providential government of creation. I don't know where the Thomistic Institute got this crazy idea defended in the video.
I'm not sure your claim Darwin was a atheist is correct and that was a motive. As for ancient fossils that is still open to revision. Physical bones does not indicate these creatures were like us with an immortal soul. All animals exist in innocence as they do not make moral choices. They act as they act without interior knowledge of good and evil. The book of Genesis is the retelling and reinterpretation of a much older Sumerian story. The description of the Garden of Eden is Sumerian and approx 10,000 years old. Genesis is not ever meant to be a scientific paper in the sense of now.
@@leonardovieira4445 God's act of creation is ongoing in time. Creatures exist then perish for many reasons. God is the life giver and maintains all that exists as an act of will. We are rational animals and so it is entirely consistent that evolution is one shaping factor in our own existence. God is the master of time, matter and existence.
@@johnfisher247 You didn't understand the thesis of the video. TI is saying that the advent of life itself and each new species is explained by NATURAL PROCESSES, which would be, in essence, the expression of a higher order inscribed by God in the cosmos created in the "beginning". It is what he called "seed", "hidden life form", and "hidden potentiality". In the beginning, God would have directly created only inanimate matter, and inscribed in it this "hidden form of life", which, although hidden, would be a perfection of the very NATURE of the cosmos, reduced to an act from time to time, in specific circumstances. It is an intellectual juggling act to endogenize the creative action of God in nature, through an illogical concept never proposed by St. Thomas.
Evolution, any type, can be evaluated from a theological, philosophical, or empiriological perspective. Taking the philosophical perspective, evolution cannot withstand philosophical/metaphysical analysis.
In the end, whether one is talking about proper accidents, common accidents, or uncommon accidents, they all reveal the nature of the thing. But, accidents are THAT BY WHICH a thing acts. Now when we act, we act through our faculties (accidents). Our senses, intellect and other faculties are all accidents. If our natures acted of themselves, every time we acted, our natures would change. Example: every time I knew a tree my nature or essence would change to be a tree. All things that are created act through accidents. Accidents are lower in the order of being than essences are. This means that: the accidents in one species are incapable of causing the essence (which is higher in the ontological order) of a higher order. This is all based upon the principle of sufficient reason. An accident cannot cause another species by its very nature. Substance can only beget substance. Only a being that can act through its substance is capable of causing another substance. Only being that can do that is God. God is the only cause of any essence or substance.
Now, if you posit theistic evolution, you are confronted by a host of other incoherences and issues, not the least of which is the principle of economy.
Finally a good theistic evolution video! I’m naturally better than other people at most things so I’m more evolved for my specific environment or situation. Perhaps we should get all of the most evolved people and start breeding them to create perfect human beings. We’d have to stop the lesser evolved from breeding (we’ll make places or camps for them to go in). Then we can bring the human race back to its former perfection! I told one of my friends about this idea (their a creationist) and he said something about “entropy” and that we shouldn’t do that but they weren’t as evolved as me so I told them that their argument was silly.
thank you father Legge
You're most welcome! May the Lord bless you.
Connection to the transcendental is evolution of the mind and spirit in the direction of complexity, got it.
Thanks, TI. Your work is absolutely essential.
Our pleasure! May the Lord bless you.
yes it is absolutely essential to teach Darwinism
I've watched dozens+ of your videos. They were all wonderful. This one on Creation of Man answered sooooo many questions for me!Thanks.
Thanks for watching! May the Lord bless you!
@@ThomisticInstitute Can you ask for a date when for the orgin of man as such? It could be important to ascertain the moments in which he acts-as spring rejuvenates the flowers-if periodical then we may it might reveal a ratio which can be employed in making political decesions that need to be made. Obviously if such a time is about to come to pass again we can do our part to be receptive to whatever action it is going to be. Wouldn't it also have implications concerning the end of the world too?
I could listen to Father Legge all day. Fantastic video.
Thanks for watching! May the Lord bless you.
I think and many other people, also priests like father professor Tadeusz Guz, think that animals too continue to live after the death of their bodies. Father professor Tadeusz Guz says that the Church says that animals continue to live after death, and that the Church only does not know if they live as individual dogs, cats etc. or as one soul of dogs, cats etc. It would be confirmed by the saint sister Faustyna Kowalska who had a vision in which she saw all creation worshiping God.
THE CREATION OF SELF DEFINITION.
All of life is a process of deciding Who You Are, and then experiencing that.
As you keep expanding your vision, you make up new rules to cover that! As you keep enlarging your idea about your Self, you create new do's and don'ts, yeses and nos to encircle that. These are the boundaries that "hold in" something which cannot be held in.
You cannot hold in "you," because you are as boundless as the Universe. Yet you can create a concept about your boundless Self by Imagining, and then accepting, boundaries.
In a sense, this is the only way you can know yourself as anything in particular.
That which is boundless is boundless. That which is limitless is limitless. It cannot exist anywhere because it is everywhere. If it is everywhere, it is nowhere in particular.
God is everywhere. Therefore, God is nowhere in particular, because to be somewhere in particular, God would have to not be somewhere else - which is not possible for God.
There is only one thing that is "not possible" for God, and that is for God to not be God. God cannot "not be." Nor can God not be like Itself. God cannot "un-God" Itself.
I am everywhere, and that's all there is to it. And since I am everywhere, I am nowhere. And if I am NOWHERE I Am NOW HERE
THE CREATION OF SELF DEFINITION.
All of life is a process of deciding Who You Are, and then experiencing that.
As you keep expanding your vision, you make up new rules to cover that! As you keep enlarging your idea about your Self, you create new do's and don'ts, yeses and nos to encircle that. These are the boundaries that "hold in" something which cannot be held in.
You cannot hold in "you," because you are as boundless as the Universe. Yet you can create a concept about your boundless Self by Imagining, and then accepting, boundaries.
In a sense, this is the only way you can know yourself as anything in particular.
That which is boundless is boundless. That which is limitless is limitless. It cannot exist anywhere because it is everywhere. If it is everywhere, it is nowhere in particular.
God is everywhere. Therefore, God is nowhere in particular, because to be somewhere in particular, God would have to not be somewhere else - which is not possible for God.
There is only one thing that is "not possible" for God, and that is for God to not be God. God cannot "not be." Nor can God not be like Itself. God cannot "un-God" Itself.
I am everywhere, and that's all there is to it. And since I am everywhere, I am nowhere. And if I am NOWHERE I Am NOW HERE
Everything in the universe is consciousness. Space and time in all planes of reality are only projections within universal consciousness. There really is no here or there for everything is at one place where Mind is. Mind does not move at all. Mind simply is (Not to be confused with the brain). Mind is everywhere yet nowhere. Mind is nowhere but Here, Now. We are all existing together as a singularity in one place and time. Everything is one, Here and Now.
Your soul is the reflection of all souls. You are the Other. Without the other, you would not exist. You are defined by your relationships with others. You would need to describe the whole universe in order to define a single person. Therefore every single person is the whole universe. Your soul is both personal and universal at the same time. Everyone is a reflection of yourself. You are in a hall of mirrors where every reflection of yourself appears different. Others you admire reflect the qualities you most cherish in yourself. Others you detest reflect the qualities you most deny in yourself. Each person you see is a different version of you.
The outer world is a mirror of yourself at any place and time. If you want to know the state of your personal consciousness, just look around and see what is happening to you. If you want to know the state of the collective consciousness, just look around at what is happening in the world. Your personal reality is synchronistically orchestrated by your sense of Self at all times. If a critical mass of people expressed their higher selves, they would cause a transformation in collective consciousness and the world reality. Every time a person rises in personal consciousness, he moves the state of the world towards a higher one than before.
TRANSCENDENT WORLD: You are comfortable here when you can experience all possibilities. Your awareness is open. You are connected to the source. Your consciousness is merged with the mind of God.
SUBTLE WORLD: You are comfortable here when you can hold on to your vision. You trust yourself to follow where the mind goes. You aren't bound up in resistance, objections, skepticism, and rigid beliefs. Inspiration occurs as a normal part of your existence.
MATERIAL WORLD: You are comfortable with your personal reality. You take responsibility for it. You read the world as a reflection of who you are and what is happening "in here." As the reflection shifts and changes, you track the changes occurring inside yourself.
If a white man was created by God,
And if a black man was created by God,
Black and white men are equal before God.
If God is reality,
And if reality is consciousness,
Then God is consciousness
The Need to Create, Discover, and Explore.
God becomes a creative source. He gave us our birthright of curiosity. He remains unknowable, but he unfolds one secret after another in creation. At the far edge of the universe, the unknown is a challenge and a source of wonder. God wants us not to worship but to evolve. Our role is to discover and explore. Nature exists to provide endless mysteries that challenge our intelligence - there is always more to discover.
This is your God if you live to explore and be creative, if you feel happiest confronting the unknown, if you have total confidence that nature can be unraveled, including human nature, as long as we keep questioning and never settle for fixed, preordained truth.
God becomes pure wonder. After reason has reached the limits of understanding, the mystery remains. Sages, saints, and the divinely inspired have penetrated it. They have felt a divine presence that transcends everyday life. Materialism is an illusion. Creation was fashioned in two layers, the visible and the invisible. Miracles become real when everything is a miracle. To reach God, one must accept the reality of invisible things. Nature is a mask for the divine.
This is your God if you are a spiritual seeker. You want to know what lies behind the mask of materialism, to find the source of healing, to experience peace, and to be in direct contact with a divine presence.
Unity, the State Beyond All Needs.
God becomes One. There is complete fulfillment because you have reached the goal of seeking. You experience the divine everywhere. The last hint of separation has vanished. You have no need to divide saint from sinner, because God imbues everything. In this state, you don't know the truth; you become it. The universe and every event in it are expressions of a single underlying Being, which is pure awareness, pure intelligence, and pure creativity. Nature is the outward form that consciousness takes as it unfolds in time and space.
This is your God if you feel totally connected to your soul and your source. Your consciousness has expanded to embrace a cosmic perspective. You see everything happening in the mind of God. The ecstasy of great mystics, who seem especially gifted or chosen, now becomes available to you, because you have fully matured spiritually.
The God that brings the scheme to an end, God as One, is different from the others. He isn't a projection. He signifies a state of total certainty and wonder, and if you reach that state, you are no longer projecting. Every need has been fulfilled; the path has ended with reality itself.
I would have liked the video to explain the rationale of why it is impossible that the rational soul comes from God and not from matter, as the sensible and vegetative souls do.
I believe it has to do with it being in God's image, therefore it cannot come from anything but God
There are other videos that do!
@@henrylansing9734 Partly, yes. The rational soul is inmaterial therefore it cannot corrupt as the body. This is why animal sould do not trascend, but humans do.
Every thought or feeling or anything having to do with consciousness is material.
It exists due to the activity of neurons in your brain. Neurons are physical and material things.
When God creates creatures "According to their kind"... What does that mean then? - Also I don't get the notion of how does "survival of the fittest" goes together with intentional "creation" of flying, swimming, etc. animals according to their kind. Why would such specification be there if God didn't create them according to their kind but rather as a whole "nature kind". Not convinced of the argument, I think it could fit philosophically but I don't understand how does it fit revelation.
According to their kind: inanimate matter, vegetative, sensitive and rational. That is why call them species. Each created to do what they do: Final cause or finality. The finality we observe in all things accordin to their kind. Atoms have the finslity to keep their inertia. Vegetales to grow and reproduce. Humans to grow snd think. I suggest you watch the causes video.
@@antoniomoyal Again, this fits with natural philosophy and not with revelation, when I say "kind" I mean the categories used in the Holy Scriptures, not the ones you are bringing up, for example in Genesis 1:21 you get "every winged bird according to its kind". It is not a broad "animal kingdom" statement, but rather specific, he created specific animals with wings according to their kind in that part. I understand the 4 causes of Aristotle, the thing is that in this case God created specific beings with specific final causes different from others, the categorization of "atoms" and their final causes is something you are bringing up and not what God was necessarily speaking about.
As a Catholic, we look at Genesis as a "True Myth", so we don't read it literally. It says something about the Truth of creation, but isn't literal.
@@ashleypuza6911 this is incorrect, the church has never declared a dogmatic way of understanding Genesis, and the Church Fathers do not agree on one simple way of looking at this, there are many ways to interpret this passage in the Catholic Church, but "according to their kind" is not a discussion at all, evolutionism is a philosophy, you can speak of change within the potency of a substance but not a substantial leap between kinds.
Genesis is a beautiful account of real history!
Maybe you can explain to me how man is an animal when God created the animals before He created man
Well Done! It's what I have always believed.
Thank you Thomistic Institute for this great video. An answer that I synthesize from your videos to the question of how do we know that the soul is not a naturalistic result? Is that complex sistems cannot organize themselves from simple parts, it is plausible that they follow a design that is not result from natural causes other wise we would see other living beings acquiring a rational intelect, the best explanation I can give is that the intelligence we have is likely to come from a higher intelligence rather than from no intelligence... kind off an answer I get from watching your courses. God bless and thanks again 🙌
Many scholastic philosophers, like Ed Feser, or even many non scholastics like David Bentley hart, have argued that the rational mind is immaterial, and thus could not have developed naturally.
Precisely what I believe, albeit put forth a bit more eloquently. Both my parents are Christian, but they also have scientific backgrounds (my mom was a geologist and my dad a biologist). I've always thought that people who argue against evolution are being willfully ignorant. It's hard to deny the evidence that animals gradually changed into new creatures. Evolution is simply adaptation shaped by environmental pressure over eons, it's observable both in the fossil record and in our own timespan with smaller-scale microevolution.
What the "Young Earth Creationists" and similar groups fail to do is make a distinction between evolution as a whole, and the idea of humans evolving from monkeys. We are genetically related, and even just looking at us and earlier hominids, it's pretty hard to deny a connection. As you point out, the difference is the addition of a rational soul. It's likely that God put all the systems in motion, and once hominids had evolved to his satisfaction, he infused them with souls, creating what we call homo sapiens (although I wouldn't be surprised if Neanderthals also had souls, considering they were extremely similar to us and were able to interbreed).
Excelent explanation!
Wouldn’t greater organisms coming from lesser organisms violate the principle of the cause always being greater than the effect?
Yes, it violates the principle. But TI will argue that the cosmos contains within itself a "hidden form of life", which makes it the direct cause of the "evolution" evolution of living beings in a complex and comprehensive mechanism of influences. In other words, this thesis is not Thomistic.
I wouldn't use the word 'intervene' to God, but God grants the birth or creation of the uniquely rational and eternal human soul to the individual human being at conception, as we humans, creation, participate in God's creative work of creation according to his divine providence and purpose. But really it's just my personal way of describing what Fr. Dominic has explained so well and rightly.
When it began or who the first historical 'Adam' and 'Eve' were, who received the rational souls as truly human persons with enlightened immortal souls and given the supernatural grace of heaven, before they immediately screw things up and hence left over to the forces of nature in their enlightened, special, yet forever marred identities which they transmitted to all their descendants as original sin (apart from the ones destined as God's own paths of salvation, namely the Blessed Mother and Christ) unless people receive again the grace of salvation through Jesus, is a technically difficult question to answer or prove. But we can perhaps, use the analogy of human growth, we can't really determine the exact day, or hour, or minute, or second, of when a child has turned into the 'age of reason' and hence can be considered responsible for a personal sin committed, but we know that at a particular time, a baptized boy or a girl sinned knowingly and he or she needs to go to confession to receive grace of forgiveness.
What do you mean by "hidden way of life"? In which work by St. Thomas I find this definition? Can you indicate the reference in the writings of St. Thomas?
Yes - please explain, TI.
What does it mean to say that the soul is the form of the body if all sensible aspects of the body like color, hair, etc., are said to be accidents?
The soul is the *essential* form of the body in that it makes the creature to be what it is - namely a living, sensing, and reasoning organism. It cannot be taken away without destroying what the organism is, e.g. in death. The accidents (or *accidental forms*) can change or be removed while retaining the essential character of the organism. So one is still a human being even if one's hair changes color or falls out.
You perceive the form by perceiving the accidents. Because the accidents are necessitated by the form (in limited beings of a natural kind). The formal cause (the form/essence) of something is ontologically prior to the material cause (the accidents), because materiality is always given to form; that's how we understand materiality. Material, "accidental", being cannot exist without form.
Aristotle used an analogy from the arrangement of letters. For instance, AB and BA have the same "matter", and everything sensible about either sequence is an accident. The form of each, however, is different.
If you want a really in depth investigation into this kind of metaphysics, I would highly recommend Edward Feser’s “Scholastic metaphysics: a contemporary introduction” or David Oderberg’s “real essentialism”.
We are a special beings created by God different from Plant and Animal Kingdom! We are a spiritual and rational beings with soul! K
Man didn't came from an irrational animal by Gods work. God doesn't need such an inter animal for his greatest creation that is man.
Question please.
I am a special needs nurse and I work with people who have autism. Autism is a condition whereby abstraction is not always possible. Someone for instance will not be able to identify a kitchen for the first time in a new home because they can’t abstract what a kitchen is.
Does this mean that either 1. Autistic people do not have a soul (I obviously don’t believe that) or 2. The brain is actually responsible for the spiritual work of abstraction. 3. We have no spiritual substance and the brain can abstract through a material process as yet undiscovered.
Thanks
Asked with genuine sincerity and curiosity
Thomistic philosophers always make an important distinction between "potentiality" and "actuality" within the nature of things, including human beings and animals. A human, when he/she is a early fetus or embryo, doesn't have the property of sight or hearing currently "actualized", but the property of sight/hearing exists in "potentiality". But that potentiality is embedded in the nature of the thing. So, just because a human embryo can't see or hear, that doesn't make them not a human being, because those properties exist as potentialities within their nature. Their nature is directed toward an outcome where they have those properties of sight and hearing fully actualized. Same goes for your nursing patients with autism. Just because their faculties of reason are diminished by disease, that doesn't mean they aren't human; That's because those faculties exist as potentialities within their nature. If not for their disease or mental illness hampering the actualization of their potentials, they would have perfectly fine faculties of reason. Their nature is directed toward an outcome where they have those faculties fully actualized; it's just that the disease is frustrating that outcome.
@@williamcurt7204This is a good one
How do you explain Eve ? That God created Woman from Adam
There needs to be a first human being, following the principle of distinction. So the other had to come form the first.
@@antoniomoyalWas there male and female species
Hi Dominic, are used to believe in millions of years but now I am a creationist I believe in a literal six days of creation.
I stumbled over to Doug Petrovich
Also dr. Kurt Wise what caused the flood
And then also ken ham Noah’s ark.
Isn't it possible too, that God made sure that the biodies of earlier primates would evolve naturally to be shaped in accordance with the soul? So that when the soul, the Shape of the Body, the Body was already shaped precisely right to fit the Soul?
They would have animal souls, the human soul is the only soul that is also a spirit.
Hi Thomistic Institute. Underlying the theory of evolution is the contention that the fittest species are the ones that survive and shape further evolution, and not that simply the best survive. It's not an evolutionary example, but take the example of Betamax vs VHS. Betamax was better, but VHS out-competed it, and we all know which one survived. VHS was "fitter," so to speak. Why should we believe that a human's rationality, or grasp of the profundity of, for example, a stimuli, is the best and not just the fittest?
Because rationality is more perfect than irrationality. The universe works mathematically and tgecrationsl soul can grasp it.
However, humans will perish according to the matter.
When we say it is 'best' according to God.
Humans are animals in the genus Hominidae, so how do you claim they are separate from hominid animals, they are hominid animals? Where do you draw the line of which hominids are capable of reason? Denisovans? Neanderthals? Homo heidelbergensis? Homo Erectus? What characteristics do you claim show a superior level of understanding? There is no clear line of demarcation as you claim.
ew lol
👏
We forget that God can make things just with word. In Lazarus case 4 day old decayed dead body came to full life with a word
This means God can create the whole universe and each animal with a word.
We don't need evolution for it
If it was evolution , then Bible would have told it in Genesis
In the bible it never claimed dinosaurs existed yet they do, in the bible it never claims that there are 8 planets on the solar system yet there are, in the bible it never says that we are made up of cells yet we are. Just because the bible doesn't mention something doesn't mean it isn't true. That's why we also need to rely on science to understand the world
orthodox Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Bahá’í, a great deal of paganism, and so forth - is to speak of the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things. (30)
This is the one God in whom we live and move and have our being, to use the language of Paul in the book of Acts.
Hart contends that modern religious fundamentalists and atheists, alike, are working with a concept of “God” that is more akin to what ancient peoples, even the ancient Hebrews, referred to as the “gods.” The “gods” were distinct beings who worked within and upon the natural order of things. “God,” in contrast, is not a “distinct causal agency that in some way rivals the natural process of conception” (28). Atheists seem to assume that, when Christians speak of God as creator, they are speaking of a “supreme mechanical cause located somewhere within the continuum of nature” (28), while young earth creationists and others, unfortunately, give them good cause to make this mistake. Thomas Aquinas represents the classic conception of God as creator when he speaks of a “universal rational order” called into being and infused, by God, with “determinate ends” (38). This God’s operations in the universe cannot be proved or disproved since, “the reality of God… saturates every moment of the experience of existence, every employment of reason, every act of consciousness, every encounter with the world around us” (34). The God of classical theism is not “man writ large,” to use a phrase from Karl Barth. We know and experience God not as we know and experience other beings within the material universe, but as we participate in the “transcendental perfections” (58). To state this classic idea in biblical terms, we can know and experience God only as we begin to will as God wills, allowing our minds to be conformed to the mind of Christ, abiding in love, and entering into peace, rest, and joy. Knowledge and experience of God are analogical and participatory rather than univocal and evidentiary.
While atheism cannot disprove the God of classical theism, the God of classical theism retains great explanatory power where all forms of materialism fall short. Regarding being, Hart suggests that “nothing in the cosmos contains the ground of its own being” (92). Yet, “it cannot possibly be the case that there are only contingent realities” unless we want to affirm an infinite regress. Human consciousness, too, is a mystery inaccessible to materialist explanations since “the most basic phenomenology of consciousness discloses [a] vast… incommensurability between physical causation and mental events” (153). Hart contends that attempts to make sense of human consciousness “in materialist terms frequently devolve into absurdity, and seem inevitably only to exchange one explanatory deficiency for another” (169). Likewise, and despite unconvincing materialist assertions to the contrary, Hart argues that the human longing for “goodness” and “beauty” (these together constitute bliss) makes little sense within the confines of a materialist metaphysic (238-290). Surely, we can see the folly in turning “from the mystery of being to the availability of things, from the mystery of consciousness to the accessible objects of cognition, from the mystery of bliss to the imperatives of appetite and self-interest” (331). Yet, this is the trajectory of our late modern world, and this is what the New Atheists endorse.
This is a brilliant book; surely Hart’s finest to date. The prose is beautiful and accessible, the argument thorough and convincing. Nearly every page has a paragraph that begs to be recorded, remembered, and shared, so this review has not scratched the surface. Because Hart draws on a variety of classical theistic religions, some readers might suspect that Hart advocates a kind of religious pluralism where several religions merge into one. This is not at all the case. Hart is an Orthodox theologian, and he does not stray from a confessional stance in the least. I would like to end by stating that this book offers not only a blistering critique of atheism but also a very convincing case against some of the most popular apologetic programs among evangelicals, such as young earth creationism and intelligent design. It is often said that these intellectual movements arose in late modernity and are far more pagan in their presuppositions than they are Christian. Hart makes this case as well as anyone has, and I hope, for the sake of the faith once delivered, that evangelicals pay close attention even if the New Atheists do not.
When do you think God created human soul in the evolution to becoming human?
Father, I wonder if you are familiar with Quine’s conformational holism. The idea is that evidence underdetermined our theories. So there is an ambiguity to every piece of evidence such that we can revise our beliefs according to what we happen to value. Young Earth Creationists have they capacity to revise other beliefs in their web of belief, rather than give up the view that the earth is about 6,000 years old.
I am troubled by the idea of a "material soul." This seems contrary to Aristotle's De Anima; can you cite a place in STh for this concept. I favor the idea that all souls are spiritual, that there cannot be such a thing as a " material soul." A soul is the principle of life and therefore must be immaterial. If there could be such a thing then why do you say humans can't have it? Animals can abstract from stimuli; a dog can have the abstraction of
"dog" and apply it to varius different dogs that he meets. The idea of a material soul suggests that it's the brain which is materialism.
"Material" soul in the sense that all the operations of the vegetable and sensitive souls take place through the material substratum of the body. The human soul is "spiritual" in the sense (i) that the three operations of the intellect (abstraction, judgment and reasoning) take place without the participation of the body, despite having as a starting point the sensitive image produced by the internal sense of imagination or fantasy, (ii) and in the sense that it subsists apart from the body, unlike the vegetable and sensitive souls.
@@leonardovieira4445 Thank you. Is a material soul mentioned by St Thomas Aquinas?
@@williamjerome5836 A "material" soul is not mentioned. This terminology is not used by St. Thomas, not that I remember.
But he addresses the three kinds of souls and their respective potencies in the four articles of I Pars, question 78. At your service!
@@leonardovieira4445 Thank you and God bless!
Genesis is an historical account. This is Church teaching.
7:26 Why does he continue to use the term "spiritual soul"?
Man is a spirit made in God's image (God is a spirit).
/And the Bible never references God's "soul."
And another one.
The fact that the soul is the form of the body doesn't entail necessarily that the body of the first humans was different from the body of other animals. For exemple, in transubstantiation we have a change in the substantial form, from the one of bread to the one of the body of Christ, but the appearence doesn't change. That's because the form is not the "skhema".
What does it mean to be intelligent, or rational? The soul, as the form, has the active intellect, but the body has the passive intellect. The active intellect is related to the passive as the form to the prime matter (of course any physical object, quarks or atoms, is not prime matter, prime matter is not any specific object, every specific object has already a form). So, as the form "labels" certein matter as my body, the active intellect "labels" the activity of the brain as my thought. Of course that's something metaphysical, not biological. We can say, anyway, that the soul is the origin of our perspective and free will, even without specific biological change.
The official teaching of the church is not that the soul is created at the moment of conception: that's a common theological opinion among contemporary neothomists (that is a caricature of real thomism anyway), but many theologians still believe in deferred animation, and the consensus among theologians (even thomists) is that this is still an orthodox theory.
You are mistaken on behalf of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the creation of every human soul, because the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" states the following: Nr 366: "The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection." [Cf. Pius XII, Humani generis: DS 3896; Paul VI, CPC # 8; Lateran Council V (1513): DS 1440.] Nr. 1703: "Endowed with" a spiritual and immortal' soul. The human person is 'the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake.' From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude." See also Pius XII.: Humani generis (1950), Nr. 36: "For the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God."
@@loremipsum2989 that the soul is created immediately means that it is created directly by God, and not from other things. It's a technical term in theology and medieval aristotelian philosophy: immediately means "without a medium", i.e. not from pre-existing matter, it doesn't mean "at the moment", it doesn't mean that the ensoulment happens at the moment of biological conception, every professional theologian knows that this is not a part of the teaching of the church. Both the International teological commission and GPII stated that we don't know when the ensoulment happens. They say that we must protect life since conception as a consequence of the virtue of prudence and of the fact that from conception we have a certein "destiny" (i.e. God has a plan even for the embryo, the embryo is destined to become a person). But that's a different thing, the fact that the embryo is destined to become a person, and so destined to beatitude since conception, doesn't mean that it is a person with body and soul since conception (an idea that, moreover, is hard to accept in the standard aristotelian framework of Aquinas, and that was also tentatively denied by Augustine). I can tell you this because I've studied this problem with many theologians from the "roman school", so I'm pretty confident that this is the orthodox understanding of the topic.
@@Pienotto You don't convince me: Instruction of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Dignitas Personae - On Certain Bioethical Questions - promulgated Sept. 8, 2008: "4. It is important to recall the fundamental ethical criterion expressed in the Instruction Donum vitae [from 1987] in order to evaluate all moral questions which relate to procedures involving the human embryo: “[quoting Donum vitae I, 1] Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say, from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from the same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.”
5. This ethical principle, which reason is capable of recognizing as true and in conformity with the natural law, should be the basis for all legislation in this area. In fact, it presupposes a truth of an ontological character-, as Donum vitae demonstrated from solid scientific evidence, regarding the continuity in development of a human being.
If Donum vitae… did not define the embryo as a person, it nonetheless did indicate that there is an intrinsic connection between the ontological dimension and the specific value of every human life. Although the presence of the spiritual soul cannot be observed experimentally, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo give [quoting Donum vitae I, 1 again] “a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?”
Indeed, the reality of the human being for the entire span of life, both before and after birth, does not allow us to posit either a change in nature or a gradation in moral value, since it possesses full anthropological and ethical status. The human embryo has, therefore, from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person.
(Cited from Catholic Answers: Tim Staples: A Person From the Moment of Conception, 1/17/2015.)
@@loremipsum2989 of course we have to treat the embryo with the dignity we would give to a spiritual person. But all of this, as both Augustine and GPII says, is due to the virtue of prudence: I don't know if there is already a soul or not, so, in order to avoid the risk to commit an homicide, I avoid certein practices. But this is due to prudence, and not to the knowledge that this IS the killing of a person, maybe it is not, but it is still immoral to accept such a risk. So this doesn't mean that there is a soul in the first moment of the existence of the zygote. Many professional theologians today say that this is not the case, I can tell you because I've both studied and worked with them. Many neothomist think that this is the case. Both the opinions are regarded orthodox by the vast majority of the community, as says for exemple Angelo Bellon OP, one of my teachers, or even bioethicists critics of differite animation as Roberto Colombo or Laura Palazzani. Also many classical theologians, as Giovanni Regina, were strong opposers of the idea of immediate animation. Many defend it as a tool to justify their ideas about abortion, but that's a bias and a corruption of teological thought as, as we have seen, the problem of the moment of ensoulment is totally disconnected from the problem of the morality of abortion.
@@loremipsum2989 n.b.: in order to fully understand the dignitatis personae, you have to check not the donum vitae, but the declaration on procured abortion: note n.19 says explicitly that an embryo would have a human life and an human nature even if it had not a soul since conception. The ensoulment completes, and not creates, the human nature of the embryo. The fact that the embryo have an human nature since conception doesn't mean that the immediate animation is true. This is based on an idea by Tertullian: what will be human is already human.
You really believe that Creation and Evolution are compatible?? Dodge this: foundationsrestored.com/free-preview/
The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss
David Bentley Hart
Reviewed by Bryan C. Hollon, Theology, Malone University
In recent years, atheist critics of religion have been quite aggressive in working to get their message out. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and a host of others have published popular books attacking theistic belief, and they have done a nice job promoting their work via television interviews, public debates, lecture tours, and the like. Generally speaking, the arguments of the “New Atheists,” as they are often called, are not so new at all. Indeed, anyone who encounters the thinkers mentioned above after having read deeply in nineteenth- and twentieth-century atheist thought will see many of the old arguments represented, often as though for the first time, and typically with less sophistication.
Even the most absurd recent trend, atheist mega-churches, is not so new as one might think. Auguste Comte, an early nineteenth-century French philosopher and inventor of the term “sociology,” produced a highly detailed plan to create atheist churches all over France. In Comte’s plan these churches would come under the authority of a hierarchy of atheist priests who would catechize, administer atheist sacraments, shape humanity through the rhythms of an atheistic liturgical calendar, and so on. Comte, like many of his generation, was a thoroughgoing moralist and believed that an atheistic “positive religion” was necessary to direct the affections of human beings properly, forming them in love and ushering in a utopia. Of course, Comte’s vision seems far more interesting than the happy-clappy atmosphere of the new atheist mega-churches. It should not surprise us that an era as morally and intellectually impoverished as our own would produce such a shallow version of atheism. Karl Marx called for the abolishing of illusory happiness created by religion, “even if by hand-to-hand combat,” and communist revolutions ensued. Friedrich Nietzsche sought a revaluation of all values and became an inspiration to Adolph Hitler. The “New Atheists” write sophomoric books caricaturing religious belief, and their fans gather before atheist self-help preachers and employ a rocking band to set the mood. David Bentley Hart believes that the new atheism fits very well with the spirit of our shallow, consumer civilization. “Such a society is already implicitly atheist… It cannot allow ultimate goods to distract us from proximate goods. Our sacred writ is advertising, our piety is shopping, our highest devotion is private choice” (313). Turning one of Marx’s most famous criticisms of Christianity on its head, Hart suggests that the new atheism is “the opiate of the bourgeoisie, the sigh of the oppressed ego, the heart of a world filled with tantalizing toys… the triviality of the movement is its chief virtue” (313).
Though not hoping for a return to more militant forms of atheism, Hart would like to move the current debate beyond caricature, if at all possible. He suggests that his “intention is simply to offer a definition of the word ‘God’… and to do so in fairly slavish obedience to the classical definitions of the divine found in the theological and philosophical schools of most of the major religious traditions” (1). This task is necessary because those arguing that belief in God is untenable seem to have no idea what the word “God” actually refers to and no idea what it might mean for a religious adherent to experience God.
When the New Atheists rail on religious belief, they are rarely if ever speaking of any God affirmed in any version of classical theism. This is unfortunate, since surely “the truly reflective atheist would prefer not to win all his or her rhetorical victories against childish caricatures” (5). Of course, Hart does not actually believe that atheist victories are possible at all if we “get the actual definition of ‘God’” right and understand all that is entailed in this definition, since “one cannot reject the reality of God [so defined] …without embracing an ultimate absurdity” (17).
Hart’s treatment of several recent works is amusingly scathing. For instance, a physicist named Victor Stenger wrote a book titled How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. For Hart, the title alone is enough to demonstrate Stegner’s total ignorance of the issues at hand, since it betrays a “fundamental misunderstanding not only of the word ‘God’ but of the word ‘science’ as well” (21). He takes aim, also, at Dawkins who claims to refute the “Five Ways” of Thomas Aquinas and in the process misunderstands the whole point of the Five Ways and likewise misrepresents the logic and argument of each of them. Throughout the book, Hart continues to offer examples such as these.
Even as I was delighting in Hart’s witty devastation of Dawkins and others, I could not help but think that the New Atheists are merely the mirror image of a remarkably feeble late modern religious intellectual culture. Is it really fair to fault atheists for ridiculing what many, if not most, religious people actually believe? Indeed, when the face of public Christianity is demarcated by people such as Ken Ham, Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, and Bishop Spong, how can we fault our atheist detractors for failing to get Christian belief right? Hart acknowledges the problem and suggests that, in public figures such as these, “the new atheism has opponents against which it is well matched” (24). This is really no excuse, however, since the New Atheists presume to be intellectuals.
The problem undergirding both late modern religious belief and atheist caricature is a failure to grasp, as ancient religious adherents did, that God is not one being among others, though larger and more powerful. Instead the word “God,” as used in
“The opinion of those who say with regard to the truth of the faith, that it is a matter of complete indifference what one thinks about creation, provided one has a true interpretation of God is notoriously false. Because an error about creation is reflected in a false opinion about God.”
St. Thomas Aquinas
The Angelic Doctor and Father of the Church
Summa contra Gentiles
The ancient and immutable teaching of the Church is that God created everything, at once, by fiat. Consider how reliable and clear that is. Now consider how confusing theistic evolution and this infused soul nonsense is. Who is the author of confusion?
I know you mean well and trust that St Thomas Aquinas will straighten you out in heaven, but I pray that you get this revelation sooner. Even secular science will disavow Darwinism in the coming years or decades. The evidence to do so is mounting.
In the meantime we should not be tossed about by every wind of doctrine. And that is exactly what evolutionary science is: doctrine.
Hold firm to the truth we have been handed by Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the Saints.
Let God be true and every man a liar.
Romans 3:4
There are no higher or lower forms.
If God creates a brand-new soul for each individual person, how is each person born debilitated by original sin?
If Your God made us in his image why did Your god look like a human?
You State in your video that the human soul is immortal. The Body dies and the soul lives on forever. In the garden of Eden, Adam was created with a living soul. His soul was kept alive because of the tree of life. His soul was mortal. In Revelation, you find that the tree of life follows him on to paradise. This tree is what keeps his soul alive. At judgment day only the people that go to heaven get to live on because of the tree of life. The other souls die. This is their second death. Adam was forbidden from taking from the tree after his sin to keep him from becoming immortal. This would mean that his soul would not die in hell. The angels have immortal souls and will not die in hell while man's soul will have his second death. This is in the Bible.
There’s nothing higher order about human life. All the qualities that we have exist in other animals.
No, that's incorrect. No other organism posseses a rational mind. No organism can contemplate the meaning of life or any other abstract thought such as that as they all lack rationality.
Or, God created Adam in the Garden of Eden. And from the side of Adam God created Eve. all in 6, 24 hour days. Truly a all powerful God can do this. The Bible very well can be a history and scientific book.
We don't know, therefore god?
Why didn’t we get anything like this in school…….we became stupid Catholics…..sad
Father, if you are just going to appeal to God as the source of our intellect anyways then why entertain the evolution hypothesis? There is still no evidence of a substantial change from species to species. There is no need to denigrate Genesis as "not scientific" and "not historic." It tells us that God created all species as is, and that should be good enough for us. God gave each species the potential to change within its nature (e.g., look at all the breeds of dogs that exist), but a species cannot be something that is not its own nature. Your idea that God gave the first organism all potency is incoherent because then all creatures for all time would have the potential to be any other creature thus destroying the concept of substance. This kind of thinking is why some men think they have the potential to be a woman. In your view, transgender men are correct, they have the potential to be a woman and are not wrong to try and actualize that. In the view of Genesis, God created all things in a particular and substantial way which cannot substantially change itself.
There is no life that is more alive than other life. What a stupid thing to say.
Fr. you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Some amongst us recognize pantheism in Christian clothing but when the pantheist tries to give the impression St. Thomas Aquinas is one he's "evolved" from foolishness to sacrilege. Human respect isn't worth it Fr.
yeah... Our Lady totally comes from monkeys...
pls stop. you are trying to explain reality with fantasy
🇷🇺☦️🤝☪️🇵🇸So far I enjoyed you and even admired you, but now you simply ruin it, lying like that, misrepresenting Aquinas. Even as a Russian Roman Orthodox I would never dare to believe that Aquians would have agreed with that dumb primitive theory of Evolution!! You contradict yourselves, since believing in eternal forms and divine design is diametrically opposed to that heretical modern beliefs! How dare you?? I am in shock!🤦