Audio Lectures by Father Thomas Hopko - The Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia
Written Observation by Fr Symeon Elias - The Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A.
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." President Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation, Jan. 17, 1961.
Jul 03, 2010
| Darwin and Christianity - Part 13: God and Creation |
This was a wonderful entry to follow Michael Cremo's interview, with which I ended Volume 13. The Veda's teach of the unfolding and infolding of eons of time and in the pagan paradigm of Hinduism. It of course makes of BEING, that which is eternal as we have said - the foundation of paganism. It would be foolish to believe that none of the pre-christian writings of other religions did not hold great wisdom about the nature of BEING. The “Days” of Genesis and the Eons of Hinduism may very well be speaking in different ways about the same very ancient events in pre-history. I'm convinced by the anomalous data, Cremo and other have catalogued that the days in Genesis were eons of time. And in the Genesis story we have two versions of what transpired on each day. In the Elohim version in Genesis God created Man in the sixth eon/day. This the Christian theologians believe is the oldest of the two versions. In the YHWH version, the “groundling/Adam” was made in the first part of the story. And the groundling was was witness to the eons in which the rest of creation was made. Hinduism, places no beginning merely a state where there was “eternal consciousness” and for reasons creatures of that consciousness fell into lower forms and yet lower forms still.
The huge difference is that Genesis through both of its stories of God's creation-action, shows purpose in it and places man in his proper role upon the earth. The Hindu story makes of life upon the earth a devolution, and makes life here purposeless. The only purpose in Hinduism is the selfish wish to evolve to higher planes of existence. Christianity also contains this wish to evolve to higher planes of existence, since being Human in Christ Jesus's perfect humanity, is an ever-becoming in Him. There will be no time in all the eons of time that humans in Christ will not be growing into communion with God. But Christianity gives us something else, which is a purpose - ever growing communion with the cause of all things. It is not just our own selfish purpose to grow into the image of the likeness of the Son of God, so that we can continue to “become” in eternity, ever growing into communion with God. Christianity tells us that this is God's wish and we are not alone, that even now we are not alone, that even now God is with us to help us to guide us, to communicate, and commune with us. Christianity tells us that God loved his creation “the world” so much that he would give his only begotten son, begotten of the Father before all worlds, before all universes, before all time, before all being, to create for us, when the time was right a “new human nature” of which we could become a part and live “abundantly” ever-becoming with God in eternity. As excellent as Michael Cremo's excellent research and writing is about the “flaws” to put it mildly of Darwinism, what he leaves us with is some purposeless existence and no chance to commune with anything but the “para-normal” spiritual world, here and now, which Christians know to be populated by both guardian angels, and demonic spirits of deception. In a very real way, The Way created by Jesus Christ's suffering, crucifixion and resurrection, the The Way through the massive fallen spiritual world, is the means of safe passage as it were to that eternal communion we seek, and better than that, that God wants for us. This is the meaning of the passage where Jesus said, “I AM The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” It is a becoming to quote Father Tom, from “creation to redemption, to salvation, to deification, to transfiguration, to glorification. They are all enacted by the agency of the Logos, who is incarnate as Jesus Christ. In other words by the agency of Christ Himself. As the creed says, following Saint Paul, 'through whom all things were made' and by the accomplishing actions of the power of the divine breath, the divine wind, the divine spirit, The Holy Spirit.”
I do not limit, and indeed the church does not limit the ways in which good, well intentioned people may eventually come to God, through The Way who is Jesus Christ crucified. An orthodox mind greater than me said, “Inasmuch as the earthly and visible Church is not the fullness and completeness of the whole Church which the Lord has appointed to appear at the final judgment of all creation, she acts and knows only within her own limits; and (according to the words of Paul the Apostle, to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 5. 12) does not judge the rest of mankind, and only looks upon those as excluded, that is to say, not belonging to her, who exclude themselves. The rest of mankind, whether alien from the Church, or united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her, she leaves to the judgment of the great day. The Church on earth judges for herself only, according to the grace of the Spirit, and the freedom granted her through Christ, inviting also the rest of mankind to the unity and adoption of God in Christ; but upon those who do not hear her appeal she pronounces no sentence, knowing the command of her Saviour and Head, "not to judge another man's servant" (Rom. 14. 4). But Christians do not have to guess The Way, they may walk it, if they choose, they may know it, they may purposely travel it, it is clearly demarcated inside the ancient Christian faith. .
A Jewish perspective of Darwin and Creation by Dr Gerald Schroeder.
About the Author
Dr. Gerald Schroeder
Dr. Gerald Schroeder earned his BSc, MSc and double-Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics and Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught physics for seven years. While a consultant at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission he participated in the formulation of nuclear non-proliferation treaties with the former Soviet Union and witnessed the testing of six atomic bombs. He has served as a consultant to various governments worldwide and has been published in Time, Newsweek and Scientific American. He is the author of Genesis and the Big Bang, the discovery of harmony between modern science and the Bible, now in seven languages. He is also the author of The Science of God and The Hidden Face of God. Dr. Schroeder is currently a lecturer at Aish Jerusalem for the Discovery Seminar, Essentials program, Jerusalem Fellowships, and Executive Learning Center ― focusing on the topics of evolution, cosmology, and age of the universe.Dr Gerald Schroeder's teaching caused Anthony Flew, one of the most famous athiests of the last generation to come to belief in a Creator, in God.
Flew was a strong advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God surfaces. He also criticised the idea of life after death, the free will defence to the problem of evil, and the meaningfulness of the concept of God. However, in 2004 he stated an allegiance to Deism, more specifically a belief in the Aristolelian God, stating that in keeping his lifelong commitment to go where the evidence leads, he now believes in the existence of God. He later wrote the book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, with contributions from Roy Abraham Varghese. This book (and Flew's conversion itself) has been the subject of controversy, following an article in the New Your Times magazine alleging that Flew had mentally declined, and that Varghese was the primary author. The matter remains contentious, with some commentators including P.Z. Myers and Richard Carrier supporting the allegations, and others, including Flew himself, opposing them. For those lost in darkness, any profession of light is seen as insanity - recalling Saint Anthony's statement, "The time will come when men will go mad. When they see you, they will take hold of you and say, 'You are mad you are not like us."' That time is now. Anyone who "disbelieves" the religion of the beast (pure materialism - that man is just a beast) is thought insane or mentally defective by orthodox evolutionists and secular humanists.
Here is a visualization of a single living cell -a visualization of the mechanical complexity of one tiny aspect of the story Dr Schroeder just told you.
If you grasp the complexity of a single cell, and realize that there is no possibility of Life springs from star dust, as Dr Schroeder clearly explains. You need to know something else. You need to know that there is no "unified" theory of physical being. And the two existing theories, Einstein's theory of Relativity, and the theory of Quantum Mechanics cannot be reconciled, both end in what the physicists call "a singularity" which means - we are stumped. And just like Newtonian Physics works on a certain level of physical engineering, and provided the tools that allowed for the formulation of Newtonian Physics, which provided the platform for the theory of Quantum Physics, which is very practical and has thousands of uses we use everyday in Quantum Mechanics. Ultimately, the both tell us nothing about the nature of Being. Honest physicists of all disciplines have to admit "We do not understand." Just like the disciplines in Darwinism and Evolutionism for a hundred and fifty years have claimed 'certain knowledge' when key elements needed were missing and other realities (fossil evidence) rebuked their arrogance, so black holes rebuke the certainties of all disciplines of Physics and they have after all these years of work moved into the realm of the unknown, knowing full well they don't truly understand anything they are seeing. I wrote in volume one saying, "Mathematical genius Georg Cantor a hundred years ago pressed his mind to the discovery of infinity and discovered one infinity is merely enveloped inside the next infinity, which is enveloped inside the next infinity, which he proved conclusively via mathematics. His theories were laughed at or kindly dismiss then, but not any more."
Here is a wonderful example of that second look:
Another interesting interview with Michael Cremo.
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