http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/created+Bang+pope+says/4069177/story.html
Look at it this way: if the Catholic Church decides to accept the theory of the Big Bang then what they are saying is that they accept a model of the universe that runs on scientific principles. Now, if the universe runs on scientific principles then it must be governed by laws of physics which, being laws, can not change.
This means that whatever the laws of physics are at the start of the universe, those laws must continue to be the case throughout the existence of the universe. Therefore, anything that is contrary to those laws (like walking on water or coming back from the dead, for example) can not be possible. Any intervention of God, in fact, in the affairs of reality after the Big Bang must be impossible.
If one negates the Biblical creation story then what one is doing is opening the door for the negation of all the hokum mythology that populates the living belief of Christians. This doesn’t occur all at once, mind you; the Anglican Church has long had a doctrine of evolution as a series of controlled steps ordered by the almighty; it has just taken the Catholics an extra generation to catch up. What does happen, however, when one embraces the Big Bang is that one introduces the possibility of reasonable doubt for every event in the Bible. If creation is simply a metaphor and we can look to the science to tell us the universe came about another way, then why can we not do the same thing with the story of the resurrection?
It is pretty obvious that people can’t come back from the dead; particularly if they live in a universe governed by laws where resurrection is impossible and where any intervention by a deity would negate those laws. I recognize as I write this that the Pope is advocating for a universe where laws of physics apply, but that God alone can bend them because he is God. What I am saying in response, however, is that if some matters are clearly scientific and some matters are articles of faith then the division between which one is which becomes not a matter of faith on which lives can turn but a matter of opinion, decided by mortals, not one of whose voices can have any authority over the other, and the Bible itself becomes not a rulebook filled with unquestionable truth, but rather a jumping off point for what is true and legitimate and what is not…but then I guess it was always like that.
Look at it this way: if the Catholic Church decides to accept the theory of the Big Bang then what they are saying is that they accept a model of the universe that runs on scientific principles. Now, if the universe runs on scientific principles then it must be governed by laws of physics which, being laws, can not change.
This means that whatever the laws of physics are at the start of the universe, those laws must continue to be the case throughout the existence of the universe. Therefore, anything that is contrary to those laws (like walking on water or coming back from the dead, for example) can not be possible. Any intervention of God, in fact, in the affairs of reality after the Big Bang must be impossible.
If one negates the Biblical creation story then what one is doing is opening the door for the negation of all the hokum mythology that populates the living belief of Christians. This doesn’t occur all at once, mind you; the Anglican Church has long had a doctrine of evolution as a series of controlled steps ordered by the almighty; it has just taken the Catholics an extra generation to catch up. What does happen, however, when one embraces the Big Bang is that one introduces the possibility of reasonable doubt for every event in the Bible. If creation is simply a metaphor and we can look to the science to tell us the universe came about another way, then why can we not do the same thing with the story of the resurrection?
It is pretty obvious that people can’t come back from the dead; particularly if they live in a universe governed by laws where resurrection is impossible and where any intervention by a deity would negate those laws. I recognize as I write this that the Pope is advocating for a universe where laws of physics apply, but that God alone can bend them because he is God. What I am saying in response, however, is that if some matters are clearly scientific and some matters are articles of faith then the division between which one is which becomes not a matter of faith on which lives can turn but a matter of opinion, decided by mortals, not one of whose voices can have any authority over the other, and the Bible itself becomes not a rulebook filled with unquestionable truth, but rather a jumping off point for what is true and legitimate and what is not…but then I guess it was always like that.
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