Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Phil Lewandowski" data-source="post: 66590" data-attributes="member: 44">Re: You&#039;re welcome.Hi Mike,I just wanted to make a clarification because this was said a couple of posts ago as well. This is actually not true.&nbsp; If you read my post #65 on page two, it could help to shed a little light. Modern C/ID only came around quite recently.&nbsp; The Christian faith that finds its way back to the originator, Jesus, is of course the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church denies any sort of modern C/ID and confirms it as quite off the mark.&nbsp; It must always be faith and reason with no ultimate contradiction between the two and a wedge must not be forced between the two.One of my favorite quotes on this comes from Blessed JPII:&quot;Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.&quot;It focuses in on the dynamism that takes place through all of reality--it is never either/or--it will always end up being a both/and in some way.&nbsp; That is why both Pope JPII and current Pope Benedict XVI continue to reinforce that evolution is at the point where it holds much more weight than a &quot;theory.&quot;&nbsp; In other words, it is pointing toward an actual truth of reality.&nbsp; As I mentioned earlier, there is still much to be sorted out with evolution, but I don&#039;t believe one can rationally deny that some sort of physical evolution is taking place.---In my humble opinion, I think the more interesting question is the one that as physics and cosmology continues to move full-steam ahead has gotten a lot of attention lately--Why is there something rather than nothing?&nbsp; This is a very interesting question because it does not deal directly with creation ex nihilo, but rather deals in this very moment right now.&nbsp; All physical beings within space-time, including space-time itself, need not exist right now.&nbsp; There is nothing by their very nature that makes their existence necessary.&nbsp; So the question becomes why do we exist at all right now?&nbsp; A person realizes that this is the most basic and fundamental of questions that needs to be answered.&nbsp; This then leads to the distinction of essence and existence. Where an essence is somethings &quot;whatness&quot;&nbsp; i.e., treeness, dogness, Hamletness. This is simply what something is by its very nature. But that something having this &quot;whatness&quot; does not require that is has &quot;thatness.&quot;&nbsp; Thatness is existence.&nbsp; Obviously treeness and dogness has existence, but Hamlet most definetely has an essence, specifically that character in Shakespeare&#039;s play. And we can entertain a picture of Hamlet in our mind and reason about Hamlet&#039;s decisions within the play, but none of this means that Hamlet actually exists.&nbsp; In fact, he doesn&#039;t.&nbsp; So again we come to the point of, what in this very moment is responsible for the existence, the &quot;thatness&quot;, of every single existent thing?&nbsp; I will leave it open-ended as this is always a good question to contemplate as we are dozing off tonight! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />&nbsp; &nbsp; (This is also a specifically philosophical answer we are looking for, not a theological answer.)Take Care,Phil</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Phil Lewandowski, post: 66590, member: 44"] Re: You're welcome. Hi Mike, I just wanted to make a clarification because this was said a couple of posts ago as well. This is actually not true. If you read my post #65 on page two, it could help to shed a little light. Modern C/ID only came around quite recently. The Christian faith that finds its way back to the originator, Jesus, is of course the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church denies any sort of modern C/ID and confirms it as quite off the mark. It must always be faith and reason with no ultimate contradiction between the two and a wedge must not be forced between the two. One of my favorite quotes on this comes from Blessed JPII: "Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes." It focuses in on the dynamism that takes place through all of reality--it is never either/or--it will always end up being a both/and in some way. That is why both Pope JPII and current Pope Benedict XVI continue to reinforce that evolution is at the point where it holds much more weight than a "theory." In other words, it is pointing toward an actual truth of reality. As I mentioned earlier, there is still much to be sorted out with evolution, but I don't believe one can rationally deny that some sort of physical evolution is taking place. --- In my humble opinion, I think the more interesting question is the one that as physics and cosmology continues to move full-steam ahead has gotten a lot of attention lately--Why is there something rather than nothing? This is a very interesting question because it does not deal directly with creation ex nihilo, but rather deals in this very moment right now. All physical beings within space-time, including space-time itself, need not exist right now. There is nothing by their very nature that makes their existence necessary. So the question becomes why do we exist at all right now? A person realizes that this is the most basic and fundamental of questions that needs to be answered. This then leads to the distinction of essence and existence. Where an essence is somethings "whatness" i.e., treeness, dogness, Hamletness. This is simply what something is by its very nature. But that something having this "whatness" does not require that is has "thatness." Thatness is existence. Obviously treeness and dogness has existence, but Hamlet most definetely has an essence, specifically that character in Shakespeare's play. And we can entertain a picture of Hamlet in our mind and reason about Hamlet's decisions within the play, but none of this means that Hamlet actually exists. In fact, he doesn't. So again we come to the point of, what in this very moment is responsible for the existence, the "thatness", of every single existent thing? I will leave it open-ended as this is always a good question to contemplate as we are dozing off tonight! ;) (This is also a specifically philosophical answer we are looking for, not a theological answer.) Take Care, Phil [/QUOTE]

Verification