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Vatican to reassess its view of evolution and ID?

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Pope may embrace intelligent design

Pope Benedict XVI may reportedly embrace the theory of intelligent design, possibly heralding a fundamental shift in the Vatican’s view of evolution.

Philosophers, scientists and other intellectuals are to meet with the pope this week at his summer palace near Rome to discuss the issue, The Guardian reported Monday.

Advocates of the theory argue the universe and living things are so complex they must be a product of intelligent design rather than natural selection. Critics say the theory is a disguise for creationism.

Vatican officials last week announced evolution and creation would be the topics for this year’s meeting of the pope’s Schulerkreis — a group consisting mainly of his former doctoral students that has been gathering annually since the late 1970s, The Guardian said.

Pope Benedict raised the issue during the inaugural sermon of his pontificate, saying, “We are not the accidental product, without meaning, of evolution.”

Source: http://www.physorg.com/printnews.php?newsid=76002236

Comments
[...] Apparently, there is a big confab right now at the Vatican to decide what to say about intelligent design vs. evolution. A friend insisted, for some reason, that I offer an opinion. Heck, everyone is doing that, it seems. [...]What I would tell the Catholic Church: re intelligent design and evolution | Uncommon Descent
May 23, 2007
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It is unthinkable that anyone could not be a creationist. The only issues are how many were there and when, where and how did they do the creating. There is absolutely no evidence they now exist but that one or more did in the past is inescapable. "A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable." John A. DavisonJohn A. Davison
August 30, 2006
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I'm not big on Catholic policy and if you don't want to extend the debate into "truth" then what are you arguing about? Does science have nothing to do with truth? It is arrogant to say that religion cannot having any bearing on "science" esp. if God has set those rules and created animals and humans w/ His own hands. The question at the basic level is did God have a hand in the creation of human beings and how much so? Whatever answer is true (that God indeed specially created man) than science will show that this was so. On the flip side (though I don't agree) if the truth was that it really was through evolution guided or not, science will also show this, unless of course you say science doesn't have to validate the truth. I don't see why ppl don't get the connection - I see why some argue for theistic evolution, Old earth, and young earth, but to say those underlying worldviews, religious or not, have no bearing on the science is wrong.jpark320
August 29, 2006
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The Catholic Church cannot announce that evolution is true or false since that is a matter for science. The Vatican Council I definition of infallibility specifically limits Catholic teaching to "faith and morals." I've quoted Ludwig Ott (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma) in the past, these are all De Fide (meaning required dogmas "of Catholic faith") The world had a beginning in time. (De Fide) God alone created the world. (De Fide) God keeps all created things in existence. (De Fide) God, through His Providence, protects and guides all that He has created. (De Fide) The first Vatican Council (1869-70) echos Romans 1:19-20 that the "one true God...by an absolutely free plan, together from the beginning of time brought into being from nothing the twofold created order, that is the spiritual and the bodily, the angelic and the earthly, and thereafter the human which is, in a way, common to both since it is composed of spirit and body....Everything that God has brought into being he protects and governs by his providence, which reaches from one end of the earth to the other and orders all things well....The same Holy mother Church holds and teaches that God, the source and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason : ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." (Vatican Council I documents) Found here http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM So the Catholic Church is explicitly "creationist" or "intelligent design" (lower case) broadly defined. The question is whether or how science can speak to these. Science does not deal with God or the supernatural. Phil PPhilVaz
August 29, 2006
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This is a case of the MSM not having a clue about religion. It's not the business of the vatican to weigh in on whether ID is a proper scientific theory or not. They will keep doing what they have been doing for 2000 years, proclaiming that God intentionally and freely created the world, and man in his own image and likeness; and that God's existence and providence are known by man through the natural light of his own reason. This meeting is a tradition between a professor and his former students which happened to continue after the former professor became pope. It has no official status. Last year they talked about the concept of God and revelation in Islam and this year they chose creation and evolution. That fellow Schuster is the only representative of the Darwinian view that will be meeting with the pope, the rest of the participants are critics. It may, however, give a shot in the arm to Schonborn and others to continue criticizing Darwinian materialism and to open further the debate within the Church.BK
August 29, 2006
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I wonder if the Roman Catholic church would come together and actually announce (for some odd reason) that Evolution is true and that Creation/ID is false? They might skirt the issue and say "I don't know," but I mean seriously, can they really do anything but choose ID? Though I am an Evangelical and the divide is great btwn us, surely they believe that God, even at the very very LEAST, front-loaded evolution! Knowing Benedict's conservatism, I hope that he will come out and just blast evolution.jpark320
August 29, 2006
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The head of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Peter Schuster, who will meet with the Pope said here
I was a Catholic, but I no longer consider myself one. I suppose I am agnostic. Let’s put it his way -- I have difficulties with the idea of a personal God. I don’t have trouble with God as creator of the world as a whole. .... There may well be an intelligent designer who created the world and the laws of matter, with all its dynamical processes
Of course Peter Schuster is not an IDer, he is only saying ID is possible, but that is still progress. Salvadorscordova
August 29, 2006
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