Response to Diacorda's ". . . A critique"

This is a response to a video that Diacorda sent to me in which she criticizes the Transcendental Arguments for God.

You can see that video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED5WSK_Ixg4

The Brian Swimme Article cited can be found here.
http://www.wie.org/j19/swimme.asp

Links do not constitute endorsement.

For the record:
Fr. Robert J. Carr has an M.Div from St. John's Seminary in Boston.

As part of his graduate curriculum he studied Atheism at Boston College (That is not a joke, he really did. Michael Buckley was his professor.) and Biblical Archeology at Harvard University.

He is a strong proponent of understanding Evolution in light of Christianity and Christianity in light of Evolution.

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• Catholic
• evolution
• diacorda
• Jesus
• Teilhard
• stbenedictsomerville

[DonsonJack]

Excellent video, i wish more Theistic people like you would be posting in youtube, instead ´literalists´ ?

I also hope that "typical" atheist ´arguments´ or style of arguing does not get to you.

I should know this, since im atheist myself...or agnostic...who knows.

Excellent points Pastor, especially the fact that there are limits to explanatory power of science when we move to some other level than existential level...so to speak.

However i think Diacora meant something different

[stbenedictsomerville]

Thanks so much for your comments.

[Szkeptik]

Your response to Diacorda (as I understand) is based on the arguement that miracles have a natural basis, and can be explainable within nature, we are simply not advanced/intelligent enough to understand them. But this is actually a point in favor of diacordas arguement, because you are actually saying that God cannot do His miracles in a supernatural way. So you are basicly you are describing a non-omnipotent God.

[stbenedictsomerville]

Thanks for your response. It was a great one. However, it is a misinterpretation slightly. Remember first we believe that grace builds on nature or that God works through the natural as well as the supernatural. I have a friend who was cured of throat cancer miraculously. However, something did happen on a biological level because the medium was biological as well, cancer cells among other throat cells.

[Szkeptik]

On the humanity part. We humans are a very successful achievement in nature. Nature only cares about the survival of the FITTEST. Destroying other species is not our imperfection but theirs. They are getting extinct because they are not good enough, and nature doesn't tolerate that kind of weakness.

And if we get extinct because our ignorance imbalances the biosphere than it will mean we weren't good enough eighter so nature got rid of us.

[stbenedictsomerville]

Thanks again for your response (I wrote the below first.) Survival of the fittest is not an accurate description of the evolutionary process, and few evolutionists accept it. Unlike other species that become extinct, we would become extinct by our own hand, not by a natural process.

[Weltenweber]

A very interesting video, I enjoyed it very much.

I was especially fascinated by your idea that our destructive behaviour toward the ecosystem could be explained in Christian theology with original sin.

I wondered if you are familiar with the oxygen catastrophe about 2.4 billion years ago which also led to mass extinction on an even broader scale and if you would regard this as a natural example of a destructive force within a former stable ecosystem.

[Jeremias1111]

An btw: I do not agree to your definition of miracles.

While it is clear (but untestable) that miracles occur through divine intervention, being "outside the understanding of current science" can not be a proper criterion to identify miracles.

What science can not understand, i.e. explain yet is just this: unexplained. A miracle is much more than unexplained. It contradicts our understanding of the natural world.

[Jeremias1111]

Regarding the miracles you present God of the Gap variant.

Instead of pointing to something unknown and saying "God did it", you point to the (presumably) unknowable.

But if it can not be known how an event occurs, your claim that this one is a miracle will for ever be a mere assertion.

[Jeremias1111]

I think the high extinction rate cause by humans can be explained without referring to an "Original Sin".

To put it shortly: The ability of human societies to alter the environment precedes the notion of unwanted side-effects. Economical and political interests delay the implementation once a solution is found.

[MercifulMing]

If you believe that God intervened on behalf of your friend and their cancer, and that dilligent prayer played a part in that, what are we to make of all the cases he does not intervene in, no matter how noble the cause or how hard people pray about it?

[mjr256]

There are numerous examples given by leading Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins both on YouTube & in his books where he explains this misconception that Evolution is a chance process, refuting this old monkey's typing shakespeare, wind making a working Boeing 747 metaphor thing. I can even recommend specific YT videos.

[mjr256]

Why must there be a god at all? Some1 going to a doctor & coming out "cured" is not a miracle. How about some1 show me an example of God magically curing an amputee, something that can't be explained rationally. This is a god of the gaps argument. Further, nothing short of special pleading could make the Abrahamic god more viable explanation as any other supernatural claim. Why not attribute miracles to leprechauns?