If I have to suffer though theological works that aim to reconcile faith and evolution, you, my faithful readers, must suffer along with me (that sounds like a proper theological sentence, doesn’t it?). Here’s a sophisticated argument from Making Sense of Evolution, by Catholic theologian John Haught (p. 142).
Here he’s talking about that old blowhard Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s “synthesis” of Catholicism and evolution. Haught’s main point is that scientific materialism is not only a faith in itself (we have to have “faith” that our senses tell us anything real about the world), but also is impotent before the Big Questions of meaning, purpose, and morality:
The prevalent materialism among evolutionists since the time of Darwin declares that nothing deeper than the surface commotion of mindless material is taking place as the universe moves from its early elemental multiplicity to the recent emergence of minds and morality. However, as Teilhard insists, one would have to be deliberately blind and almost willfully unempirical to view evolution as no more than this. A wider (dramatic) vision allows one to see that in evolution the universe has always aimed to become more. It has never ceased being restless for increasing complexity, consciousness, freedom, and intense beauty. The evidence is all around us. Indeed, our own existence and remarkable capacity for thought, freedom, creativity and goodness is information enough that the universe has become more over the course of time.
Yes, that’s a conscious, striving, aiming universe there. It’s a universe that wants stuff, like more complexity, consciousness, and beauty. It’s a universe also known as God. So much for those of us who are deliberately blind and willfully unempirical.
Do you know what it’s like to read 140 pages of this and, glancing ahead, realize with a sinking heart that you still have to endure ten more pages? Pages have never been so long!
Sigh. It pains me to even think about someone else having to slog through this stuff.
Remind me… just why are you sticking pins in your eyes?
I think it’s so he can rebut the criticisms of religionists that their atheist critics criticisms are deeply flawed because we are unaware of “sophisticated” (really, sophistical) theology. Thus, he hopes to become a more credible critic and triumph in more future arguments.
JC is reading theology for our wins!
Sadly, the religionists will always respond, “Ah, but you haven’t read this piece of [often, my] sophisticated theology!”!
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It’s the theological equivalent of every fossil found adding two more gaps.
Exactly that.
And when they run out of bigger, better, more sophisticated fol-de-rol which they demand you read, they’ll claim you haven’t comprehended it, or haven’t read it with an open mind. Because if you had, youd’ve changed your mind for sure.
JC is my personal savior. (He cried for my wins.)
Yes. That’s better than mine.
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“Doesn’t it hurt to keep punching yourself in the face like that?”
“Yeah, but it feels great when I stop.”
“A wider (dramatic) vision allows one to see that in evolution the university has always aimed to become more.”
Hahaha.. Guess this guy is unaware of fish that lost their eyes, reptiles that lost the legs, etc..
I would continue dissecting his stupidity but I’d be typing for quite a while..
Oh dear, Haught wrote “universe,” of course, not “university”! I’ve fixed it; thanks.
Ah Jerry, If you leave it as “university” it makes more sense(poor writing aside.) ‘The wider vision is that the university has always aimed to become more in evolution.’
Haught apparently not only knows what the universe wants! Apparently he knows that there have been no other planets out there where has life ever evolved, “restless for increasing complexity, consciousness, freedom, and intense beauty [and demonstrating a] remarkable capacity for thought, freedom, creativity and goodness” –
only to be unceremoniously snuffed out by a nearby supernova. Of course, if all that did happen, most assuredly it was because them folks didn’t have Jesus!
If theologians can’t distinguish between “earned trust” and “blind faith”, they have not earned my trust.
In standard cosmology any complexity will eventually be diluted into nothing.
Hence possibly answering what “nothing” is, an infinite expanse of heat dead vacuum. I note that theology still hasn’t explained “how nothing comes from something”.
Theology: The art of answering nonsensical questions with random crap pulled out of your behind, and then never allowing anyone to question said BS. That’s about all I think of when I hear the word theology.
Also on complexity, the standard points remains.
– Cosmology is a terribly inefficient though rather reliable producer of “dust” (atoms that forms molecules). ~ 50 % of universes many orders of magnitude variation around our “sweet spot” produces dust. But it is vastly diluted by spacetime and other particles to a fraction of the used volume.
– If life is “pond scum”, the planetary ponds are “star scum”, and the star ponds are “vacuum scum”. Why the wasted complexity, when it could all be “life”?*
Hiding behind “complexity” is simplistic.
———-
* And if you believe in “souls”, you have to add another level of ineffective dilution to the biology.
I read a passage like that, and I always think, retrovirus.
Perhaps convicted criminals could be forced to read “sophisticated” theology as penance. Or would that be cruel and unusual punishment?
Definitely, you’d never get that through an appeal.
This saves you the trouble of booking a session with an on-call theological dominatrix.
“the universe has always aimed to become more”
Yup, it will keep on ‘becoming more’ until it dissipates into cold nothingness. That’s definitely an intelligent design. Dramatic too, going out with a whimper and a fizz.
Oh no, wait.
Sophisticated Theology falls into two main categories:
I tries to explainz that the Bible doesn’t say what it sez.
I maeks stuffz up.
This attempt falls into the second category.
You forgot the third category; poetry, or endless quantities of random fancy words designed to sound impressive, that mean nothing at all. This one is very popular. Though in the end I think they are all subcategories of Maeks stuffz up.
The prevalent mendiocrity among theologians since the time of Aquinas declares that nothing deeper than the surface commotion of mindless drivel is being expounded as scientific knowledge moves from its early ignorance to its present state with the emergence of theories with broad predictive utility. One would have to be deliberately blind and almost willfully unempirical to view theology as more than the art of shifting goal posts and spouting of nonsense. A wider (obvious) vision allows one to see that in its dreary obtuseness, theology always aims to beat a dead horse. It has never ceased being restless for increasing self-importance, obfuscation, puffery, and intense banality. The evidence is all around us. Indeed, theologian’s existence and remarkable capacity for bloviation, circumlocution, and creative inanity is evidence enough that the information content of their universe has become more and more diluted over the course of time.
Well done, sir.
Why do you bother to read such drivel?
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Yeah. The reason that christian apologetics tell you that you have to read six or seven more books to truly understand what they’re saying is that by the time you’ve done that, you will have lost the ability to think at all.
Jerry, we are afraid for your sanity if you continue down this path of confusion and corruption!
But religion is insane. That’s the point. Rather than attempt to read theology so as to understand theology, much better to read theology so as to understand the insanity of theologians.
Did he just say it’s unempirical to not see the conscious motive of the universe?
‘You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.’
That was so beautiful, so moving, so romantic. Please excuse me while I go throw up.
Teilhard de Chardin is the dude who solved the conflict between the Fall and reality by supposing that God retconned the whole thing. First he created the universe just like Genesis says he did; then, after Adam (no relation) and Eve et the apple, he recreated the past complete with an ancient earth and a bunch of fossils, retroactively. Really. Because we deserved to be nothing more than damn dirty apes after that, I guess.
This “sophisticated theology” is like reading an in-depth explanation of why the elder wand changed allegiance but Snape’s wand did not (after he was disarmed by Harry in Prisoner of Azkaban.) A complete waste of time unless you’re already in the fan club.
Isn’t Haughtiness an unchristian trait?
Yes, but you’ve got it backwards. Being christian is what safeguards you from being haughty, no matter how you behave.
Wait, so my “belief” in gravity requires faith? So if I take a REAL leap, it would truly be a leap of faith?
No no no, you’re not understanding the nuances! The fall actually killing you is a matter of faith, because you believe your senses that you got squashed like a bug, but cannot prove that this isn’t just your imagination.
Dear Jerry, just as I refuse to accept Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf because I didn’t ask him to do it and would have attempted to stop it if I had been present (assuming it ever happened at all), neither do I accept your sacrifice on my behalf, of your precious time. Do not feel that you must do this dreadful suffering for my benefit. I certainly am not prepared to waste my only life reading abject nonsense and I don’t think anyone else should either. For the love of ceiling cat desist sir!
I enjoy my daily reading of your blog and am always amused by what you find and the great replies you get. Thank you.
The Progress of Religion Throughout History:
30 A.D. There’s got to be something more than just this world.
1300 A.D. There’s got to be something more than just this world.
1600 A.D. There’s got to be something more than just this world.
1900 A.D. There’s got to be something more than just this world.
2000 A.D. There’s got to be something more than just this world.
2011 A.D. There’s got to be something more than just this world.
See? Theology has always been on the cutting edge of understanding.
Brilliant. Summarises it beautifully, doesn’t it?
I was going to ask what the meaning and purpose was supposed to be, but then I caught this bit. The “becoming more” thing I’ve been handling just fine over the past several years, mostly from sitting on my ass at the computer. I guess I’m denying the guidance of the universe by now exercising towards “becoming less.”
Mind you, I’ll keep this passage handy when some blowhard tries using the “evolution denies entropy” argument again. See? There could be a benefit to knowing this stuff after all.
What a fucking gasbag.
By one “authority” on writing, no sentence should be longer than 29 words, which of course is awfully arbitrary, but it’s people like this that instigate such “rules”.
I will be holding funeral services for the brain cells that died as I tried to make sense of that quote. If you are unable to attend the services, please feel free to drink the alcoholic beverage of your choice in honor of the dead.
Oh oh! Inclusive fitness gets dissed — http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-wasps-altruism-20110813,0,1512057.story.
It’s really great to have this evolutionary puzzle explained. Now we know why these individuals help out at the nests of nonrelatives and we know it fits in really well with inclusive fitness theory.
“Dissed” as in having sex with it, you mean?
It again strikes me as significant that theology claims as its province the “big questions”, but then consistently fails to answer them.
What “big question” has theology ever answered? The meaning of life? The origins of the universe? Our ultimate purpose? Please tell me where oh where can we find the definitive answers to these questions in theology? To the same degree of certainty that we have answered the question that f=m*a, or that gravitational attraction = the inverse of the square of the distance.
Waiting….
Waiting …
Waiting …
I thought so. Theology doesn’t answer such questions. It only posed them and then offers a tu quoque complaint that science doesn’t answer them, either.
I can hardly sleep waiting for some theologian to explain dark matter and energy from their extensive knowledge of the universe. Why are they holding out on us, it must be in the Bible surely?
Gee, he ought to try to refute the teleonomic argument with evidence for that intent he so desperately seeks. He scorns us naturalists for not recognizing other venues of knowledge than science, but we do -art,history,etc, -any that measure up to reason. He thus begs the question of those other venues. They cannot be revelation, infirmed intuitions or traditions.
He is begging the question of those wanted outcomes- intent-teleology.
Faith doth that to people!
Logic is the bane of theists.
Theology is the study of that square circle or married bachelor. Google arguments about Him-that square circle,the ignostic-Ockham, the presumption of naturalism, the one of rationalism, the one of skepticism, and the problem of Heaven.
Peter Medawar eviscerated de Teihard decades ago! Google.
“the universe has always aimed to become more” So how is the universe “aiming to become more” with regards to entropy and the inevitable heat death (a long way down the road, but still)? As my colleague Professor Brian Cox put it, ‘nothing will happen, and it will carry on not happening for ever’.
PS I know! We will all have become one with God! Ha! With one bound, Jebus was free.
The three laws of thermodynamics:
1) You can’t win.
2) You can’t even break even
3) You can’t get out of the game
There’s proof of intelligent design if there ever was one.
Peter Medawar said most of what was worth saying about Teilhard de Chardin: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Medawar/phenomenon-of-man.html
Dear Haught. Harry Frankfurt wrote “On Bullshit” just for you. Srsly.
“Pages have never been so long!”
That’s because they aim to become more.
A wider (dramatic) vision allows one to see that in evolution the universe has always aimed to become more. … Indeed, our own existence and remarkable capacity for thought, freedom, creativity and goodness is information enough that the universe has become more over the course of time.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
By some totally contrived measure, the universe is more than it was, therefore the prior state of the universe must have consciously strived for this.
“A wider (dramatic) vision allows one to see that in evolution the universe has always aimed to become more. It has never ceased being restless for increasing complexity, consciousness, freedom, and intense beauty. The evidence is all around us”
Of all that is around us what precisely is the evidence that proves the universe is always trying to become more? Our current cosmologies, which are based on physics, mathematics and observation indicate that in fact the universe is heading to oblivion in one form or another. Is there another branch of knowledge that says different? Ah yes, the theology (although I believe he considered himself an anthropologist) of T de Chardin…..pardon me but wasn’t he very effectively debunked more than forty years ago? Next they’ll be quoting Karen Armstrong!
I hope you’re putting yourself through this torture for a good purpose.
Everyone knows ‘Science + mysticism =still= science’ therefore if you take evolutionary theory, and add a little dash of theism, you make Christian theology scientific!
How foolish I feel to have been studying evolution all these years without a ‘dramatic’ vision.
Regarding the idea that “we have to have “faith” that our senses tell us anything real about the world”, I was thinking recently about the problem of skepticism, and I realized that even seemingly irrefutable divine revelation would not get you out of the problem. If we put ourselves in the third level of Cartesian doubt, in which we concede the possibility that all of our perceptions are being caused by an evil demon, even revelation would not help us. The revelation itself could very easily be caused by the evil demon. Religious people claim revelation as an epistemological trump card that defeats the skeptical problem, but even if God appeared to us directly, this would not necessarily be any more reliable than the sense data we get during our everyday experiences.
Reconciliation between Pre-twentieth century & post-twentieth century materialism which includes evolution and theology is simply illogical & irrational and so futile. Theology has its roots in spiritualism or vitalism whereas science is based on materialism as such there cannot be any reconciliation between science & theology till it proved that either of the two is wrong at some fundamental level.
shaiqiifs, of course, that very animism that sees the pareidolia of spirits behind the wind and so forth but reduced to one,yet still running the same superstition of having a personal ,efficient,sufficient reason rather than just a material efficient and sufficient cause. Science only finds the latter, so to add the former indeed still rests a superstition!
Haughty Haught loves his superstition as does Francisco Jose Ayala who has to worship it in order to have purpose and values! See the latter’s ” Darwin and Intelligent Design.”He with, Augustine, puts forth the argument from angst that one cannot rest unless in God’s bosom! No evidence comes forth for that,yet the credulous ever give vent to it, and so,ti’s no genetic fallacy to note Lamberth’s argument from pareidolia or other arguments showing why supernaturalists ever revel in their superstition!
So, we ever must stress the teleonomic argument and the one from pareidolia as to why supernaturalists arrive at their superstition. No intent of any kind presents itself, so God cannot have that intent and so, He cannot have that very intent, and so why then think that He can possibly exist?
John Hick, master theologian, errs in claiming that God makes it ambiguous to see evidence in His favor, when science evinces no intent and so, no ambiguity can possibly exist!
In the end, supernaturalists rely on that fallacy of intent and the arguments from personal incredulity and from ignorance. Logic is indeed the bane of theists!
We naturalists on the other hand have the healthy skepticism of empirical-based incredulity not to arrive at their superstition!
http;//lordgriggs1947sblog.blogspot.com
http;//fatergriggs.blogspot.com
I am the desired end result of that desire for more I can now reveal! Those who read my blogs can discern that pellucidly! I am the Omega Point. I am that diety of whom the philosopher Alexander speaks.
Ah, then again, just peradventure I am lying as a theologian!