Catholicism and Evolution w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. & Prof. Jonathan Lunine 

This is very interesting. Thank you Fr. Gregory and Professor Lunine!

Interesting. Thank you.

I love catholicism. This is a case in point. Very broad perspective. Pursuit of truth should make us open to reason and evidence wherever it may be. How God made existence matters less than why. We know the why... but isn't part of that the Pursuit of truth?

Thank you, Fr Pine, for your ministry. Are there other forms of intellectual traditions that might address the evolution worldview from a Catholic perspective? I know Fr Coyne was a Jesuit; but are there Basilians, or some other traditions within the Catholic Church that address the evolution question? Thank you

The fossil record can be understood as demonstrating the similarities in the way God made all creatures, not the progress of one species to the next. There needs to be observable physical evidence of evolution before anyone can begin to think about it as a theory that explains reality. Until then, we maintain what has been passed on to us by our fathers.

How can acceidents become substances?

Terrific discussion! The contribution I would make, from a scientist's point of view, is that all of science is constrained by phenomenology, not entirely in the sense of the subjective nature of human observation through the senses, but more importantly in the fundamentally limited nature of the senses and observation. The way this is usually stated is that science can do nothing more than offer models of reality ('theories') and can never describe reality itself. The only true thing we can say about science is that it does not derive truth, only facts, but logic and mathematics (themselves flawed and self-referential) can be employed in the development of models. I don't want to throw in the Thomists with the Encyclopédistes, but I'd like to add that, as a Franciscan, I reject Linnaeus' taxonomic consignment of all of human essence and potential to Homo sapiens. I don't understand intellect as the defining attribute of humanity. Rather, I insist the Imago Dei marks us first of all as images of the Creator, and therefore a more useful genus and species designation would be something like Fabricator universalis, since the builder (Fabricator) images the Architect or Creator. Thus we have a nearly illiterate young man building/rebuilding San Damiano, which is in essence the building/rebuilding of the entire Church. I'm not saying my rope cincture is any better or more useful than your leather belt, but merely offering the idea that intellect is not the quality that we most closely share with the Divinity. We were given a mandate in Genesis, not so much an essence as a trajectory. We can apply our intellect to that trajectory, to be sure, and so, should we happen to meet someday on the road to Rome, we could certainly exchange belts, and both of us would benefit from the exchange. 🙂 PM 2024

How do you explain how life comes about in the first place in terms of evolution?

How can there be coplete randomness for that would make something 50/50 and therefore no such thing as pure chance since it would be nothing and therefore does not exist?

In many ways scientists seem to be like the writer of Revelation where a scroll is discussed, but nobody was worthy to open it so as to comprehend it's contents so as to gain an idea of the meaning of our human existence. For example it says: "And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open the book, nor to see it. And one of the ancients said to me: Weep not; behold the lion of the tribe of Juda, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof." [Apocalypse (Revelation) 5:5] So, in relation to this we now recognize Jesus to be the one who was worthy to open the Divine Wisdom of God, and to reveal some of this wisdom, and meaning of life, to His followers and to their future disciples through them. That is to say, mysteries concealed from the beginning of the world have been solved by the various teachings and acts of Jesus Christ during and after His life here on Earth. Regarding randomness, it would be interesting to conceive or calculate the infinitesimally small odds of St. Peter the apostle throwing a fishing line and hook into the sea and then consequently pulling out a coin from the mouth of the fish that he just caught, and then use that same coin to pay the obligatory 'temple tax' that Jesus ordered him to pay. At least we know from this story that mere random events, such as a fish randomly swimming in the Sea of Galilee and mistakenly consuming a metallic coin.... can easily be foreknown by the likes of Jesus Christ. Maybe this example is just a single, minute portion of the contents of that scroll of Revelation that only He, Jesus Christ, was worthy to understand, and then to share some of the contents of that mystical scroll with us His ignorant and sinful disciples?

Does evolution deny original sin?

how do you get life from inorganisc matter?

[29] And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: [30] And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. This part of the Genesis story is hard to reconcile with the fossil record that shows Dinosaurs ate each other. As far as the intelligibility of the universe is n astronaut once said he had a moment in space on a space walk when he understood the whole point of the created universe was for human consciousness of it. And so St. Paul could say We have no excuse not to know God from the things He has made All very interesting

Thanks. After watching craps like Darwins Dilemma and some other absurdities that ridiculize us believers and do such a diservice to God this is a blessing,

I find it easier to just accept that God is finite...I am not sure why we have to jump through all these philosophical hoops to maintain God's literal infinitude. Why can't God be majestically and worshipfully powerful, good, and wise, without being literally infinite? Why can't we take the Scriptural and Patristic references to God's infinitude figuratively?

Did Adam and Eve have parents?

You know rhat God ıs transcendal don t you know? He ıs more rapıd lıke the speed of lıght and He don t needs papers on frontıera

Ken Miller? Really? Great sufferin' soupspoons!

Also, the Thomist in this video whining about how scientists often overstep their bounds is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black, because Thomists regularly step outisde their bounds and pretend that they are experts on everything. I am not saying that scientists never overstep their professional boundaries, because we do. I am just saying that it is kind of silly for a Thomist of all people to be whining about it 😂

You should invite Hugh Owen et al. instead of yet another modernist.

Man I know exactly where this video is going: the whole evolution guided by an omniscient God thesis, so boring, so inaccurate, so out of sync with the Fathers and actual science that isn't cherry picked. So 1980s or 1990s "Catholicism".

This is the lunatic that does pints with Aqinas.He also appears whenever I want to watch the Godly Kreefe. His name should be Gregory Pain.