Metropolitan Kallistos Ware Preaches Evolution Heresy

[Cyprian]

Pravoslavnik,

I have answered your questions, but you have not addressed many of mine. First answer the questions that were posed to you, and then we can talk about Darwinism.

1) I asked you point blank if according to your way of thinking, you believe that creatures had devoured one another for millions or billions of years prior to the creations of the first-man Adam. So far, no direct answer.
2) I asked if according to your way of thinking, one can choose to either reject or accept the theory of evolution and still be considered Orthodox in any case. So far, no direct answer.
3) I asked you to elaborate on the nature and fate of these "adamah" you mentioned, who you claim were created in a distinctly different fashion than Adam. So far, no specific answer.

Thank you in advance,

Cyprian

[Pravoslavnik]

Cyprian,

Go back and re-read my last three posts. I have consistently answered your questions, many times.

1) The earth is 3.5 billion years old, and the physical universe in which we live is about 15 billion years old. Countless species of plants and animals existed and perished upon the earth for millions of years prior to the first appearance of our hominid ancestors and homo sapiens. These are basic facts of paleontology.

2) One can be an Orthodox Christian--like Bishop Kallistos Ware or George Kalomiros-- and accept the scientific theory of evolution as an elegant explanation of the paleontological data. In fact, the truths of science and Orthodox Christianity are entirely consistent with each other, and form an intercalated, epistemological whole. It is the atheistic scientists and Fundamentalist Christians (both Protestant, and some modern Orthodox) who have, unfortunately, promoted the false popular notion that science and Christianity are contradictory worldviews.

3) What became of the adamah? They are us-- the homo sapiens of world history.

Code: Select all

  Now answer MY question.  What is the name of the Orthodox heresy that condemns the scientific theory of evolution?  It is obviously not social "Darwinism," as you suggested last week.  Social Darwinism is not a scientific theory at all, but rather a type of moral and political philosophy which was crudely derived from Darwin's biological theory.  Secondly, "Darwinism" is not the name of any heresy ever defined as such by the Holy Church.

[Cyprian]

1) You didn't specify how these animals allegedly perished during these millions of years. Did any of them eat one another? Yes or no?
2) You said one can accept the scientific theory of evolution and be Orthodox. You never confirmed if one can REJECT the theory and still be considered Orthodox.
3) "What became of the adamah? They are us-- the homo sapiens of world history." But you said in an earlier post: "One verb is used to describe multiple stages of the creation, including the creation of men from the earth-- literally, the 'adamah.' The other verb refers to the special, distinct creation of Adam-- wherein God breathed into Adam 'and he became a living soul.'" Sounds to me as if you are implying that you are NOT a descendant of Adam, but rather you are descended from something else: the "adamah". Please confirm: are all men descended from Adam & Eve? Yes or no. Or are you alleging some men descend from Adam and others from the "adamah"?

[Cyprian]

While we are waiting to see if Pravoslavnik wishes to entrench himself deeper and deeper in his heresy by denying the clear teaching of Sacred Scripture and the Holy Fathers...

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. --Genesis 1:29-30

As everyone can see, Man as well as the animals were ordained by God Almighty to eat VEGETATION, not flesh. The eating of flesh came only much later after the sin of our Forefather.

St. Basil the Great

On the Origin of Man

Code: Select all

  To you, to the wild animals and the birds, says the Scripture, fruits, vegetation, and herbs (are given)....We see, however, many wild animals who do not eat fruits.  What fruit does the panther accept to nourish itself?  What fruit can the lion satisfy himself with?
  Nevertheless, these beings, submitting to the law of nature, were nourished by fruits.  But when man changed his way of life and departed from the limit which had been assigned him, the Lord, after the Flood, knowing that men are wasteful, allowed them the use of all foods:  "Eat all that in the same way as edible plants".  By this allowance, the other animals also received the liberty to eat them.

The Feast of the Theophany

From the Second Canon: (by St. John Damascene)

He who once assumed the appearance of a malignant serpent and implanted death in the creation, is now cast into darkness by Christ's coming in the flesh: And by assailing the Master, the Dawn that has shone forth upon us, He crushes his own hateful and loathsome head.
+++

What part of the teaching of the Church cannot you understand, O heretics! The Holy Scriptures? The Holy Fathers? The Divine Services of the Church?

For God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For he created all things, that they might have their being: and the generations of the world were healthful; and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of death upon the earth: --Wisdom 1:13-14

For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it. --Wisdom 2:23-24

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. --1 Corinthians 15:21

For the origin of all things is from God, but their destruction has been introduced by our wickedness for our punishment or benefit. For God did not create death, neither does He take delight in the destruction of living things. But death is the work rather of man, that is, its origin is in Adam's transgression, in like manner as all other punishments. --St. John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

[Pravoslavnik]

Cyprian,

Code: Select all

   Do you, then, believe that the great "dinosaurs" of the Jurrasic period of earth history-- the Brontosaurii, T. Rex, Stegosaurii, Triceratops, etc-- were STILL ALIVE upon the face of the earth when humans first appeared upon the earth?  In other words, do you believe that the dinosaurs never perished, never experienced death or predation, prior to the appearance of man?   As a person who has visited Jurassic excavation sites, such as the one at Dinosaur National Monument in northwestern Colorado, I find it impossible to believe that this Fundamentalist interpretation of [i]Genesis[/i] could be true.  Surely, there is a mystical aspect to this Biblical commentary about "death" resulting from Adam's Fall that is not a literal, scientific description of paleontological history.  God "planted a garden" in Eden and placed Adam in this garden.  I do not doubt that such was the case.  Was this garden a special creation of sorts-- in a timeless dimension of the cosmos contiguous with our perceived physical universe and planet earth?

       Similarly, was Adam-- proper noun, as opposed to the general noun, adamah," meaning man created "of the earth"-- a special creation in a space-time contiuum which was contiguous with the physical earth, whose sons Cain and Seth later married "the daughters of men?"

       There are Biblical and Patristic references to the earth being "flat," four-cornered," etc., and I do not doubt that many holy Fathers believed it to be so.  The Roman Catholic Church even denounced Galileo as a heretic for studying physics, and believing that the earth revolved around the sun.  The Holy Fathers had no scientifically accurate concepts of modern microbiology, DNA, or the theory of relativity.  They interpreted the sacred scriptures in the context of the idiom and scientific worldview of their own time-- the fourth century A.D. in St. Basil's case.  On a mystical level, I do, of course, believe that what they taught is true.  Based on relativity theory, for example, the "six days" of creation described in Genesis would have lasted about 15 billion years, when time is measured from the theoretical point at which the Big Bang occurred.

       Finally, you have repeatedly called me a heretic-- apparently in company with my betters, my fellow Orthodox physician Alexander Kalomiros, and Bishop Kallistos Ware.  Yet you have still not named the heresy with which I am charged.  What is it called?

[Cyprian]

I am not interested in playing games with you. You love to divert attention and pose new questions without fully answering mine first. First answer my questions fully, and then we can move on to Darwinism and Dinosaurs.

Again:

1) You didn't specify how these animals allegedly perished during these millions of years. Did any of them eat one another? Yes or no?
2) You said one can accept the theory of evolution* and be Orthodox. You never confirmed if one can REJECT the theory and still be considered Orthodox.
3) "What became of the adamah? They are us-- the homo sapiens of world history." But you said in an earlier post: "One verb is used to describe multiple stages of the creation, including the creation of men from the earth-- literally, the 'adamah.' The other verb refers to the special, distinct creation of Adam-- wherein God breathed into Adam 'and he became a living soul.'" Sounds to me as if you are implying that you are NOT a descendant of Adam, but rather you are descended from something else: the "adamah". Please confirm: are all men descended from Adam & Eve? Yes or no. Or are you alleging some men descend from Adam and others from the "adamah"?

*Note: This second time around I deleted the word "scientific" prior to "theory of evolution", because truth be told, there is nothing scientific about this silly theory at all. It is nothing but a vain philosophy, science falsely so-called.

[Pravoslavnik]

Cyprian,

Code: Select all

  I have repeatedly, and distinctly, answered every single question you have asked, yet you, yourself, have refused to NAME the Orthodox Christian heresy that condemns those who accept the scientific theory of evolution.  You have also refused to say whether you believe that the great Jurassic era dinosaurs were still alive upon the earth when Homo Sapiens finally appeared upon the earth.  You are, frankly, dishonest.  The theory of evolution is very precisely a true scientific theory-- formally similar to Newton's laws of gravity and motion, or Einstein's theory of relativity.  Evolutionary theory offers an elegant explanatory mechanism for the complex, multi-faceted data of paleontology and biology.  If you read a well-written scientific treatise on the subject, such as [i]Finding Darwin's God[/i] by biology professor Kenneth Miller of Brown University, you will also begin to understand why the "Young Earth Creationist" theories of Henry Morris, and the various "Intelligent Design" models published to date FAIL to adequately explain the paleontological data.

     That fact that dinosaurs and countless animal and plant species perished upon the earth for millions of years prior to the era of the hominids is implicit in my questions and answers.  One can, of course, be an Orthodox Christian and refuse to accept evolutionary theory, or any scientific theory, including those of Newton.  If you insist that the earth is flat, for example, who am I to say that you are not a sincere Orthodox Christian, however uneducated in matters of geodicy?  Many Orthodox saints in history believed that the sun revolved around the earth, but they are, nonetheless, the holy saints of God. The Nicene Creed, and the essential, salvific teachings of the Holy Church say nothing specific about these modern scientific theories.

    It is another matter for Orthodox like yourself to make false, dogmatic pronouncements about matters of modern science.  This is specifically what St. Augustine advised that Orthodox Christians refrain from doing in his essay on the "[i]Literal Interpretation of Genesis[/i]" which I referenced earlier on this same thread.  This is also what the Roman Catholic Church did in condemning Galileo for believing that the earth revolved around the sun.  It scandalizes the faithful through ignorance, dogmatic arrogance, and misinterpretation of the mystical reality of scriptures.  There is a scientific sense in which the [i]Genesis [/i]account of creation may be astoundingly accurate (based upon the theory of relativity), but it is NOT derived from the pseudo-scientific "Young Earth Creationist" model of Henry Morris and the Fundamentalist Protestants.  Please have the humility to recognize what you may not really understand about this matter, and do some scientific review.  Kenneth Miller's text is an excellent place to start.   Miller is also a Christian, and makes the case for the inaccuracy of the atheistic "scientism" of Stephen Jay Gould and others, which has led some people to falsely believe that evolution (and Darwin) are necessarily atheistic.  A good book about relative time in the physical cosmos in relation to the Hebrew text of [i]Genesis[/i] is MIT physicist Gerald Schroeder's [i]The Science of God.[/i]