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By Elder Paisios the Athonite
The nonsense we hear in schools these days about Darwin's theory and the rest, even the teachers themselves do not believe what they are teaching. Instead they proceed because they want to pollute the minds of our youth and take them away from the Church.
This is what someone told me: "Let's say the soil contained various substances and micro-organisms, and God took these and created man..."
"You mean," I replied, "that if those elements did not exist in the soil, God would not have been able to create man? It would have been really difficult for Him?"
"Well, let's say," he continued, "that He took some things from the ape and perfected them. Couldn't that be how it happened?"
"Are you trying to say," I answered, "that God cannot create a perfect creature, that he cannot create a human being, even after dedicating a whole day to it? What should He have done? Go get spare parts? Why don't you read the prophecy of Job [1] from the Scripture readings of Holy Thursday? Science does not accept all the claims about our kinship with apes. How long has it been since man went to the moon? In all these years, have apes evolved enough to build a bicycle or at least a skateboard? Have you ever seen an ape on a skateboard? Of course you can teach him to do that, but that's not the same thing."
But the man would not give up. He would insist, "Let's assume this," or "let's say that...."
"Well, let's just say that you will not assume a thing," I finally told him. "This way you'll find the certainty you want."
The theory of evolution was being taught by a professor I knew at the University. Once, I said to him: "In time and with proper care a green bean plant will become a better green bean plant, the eggplant a better eggplant. If you feed and take care of an ape, he will become a better ape, but he will not turn into a human being."
And then there's this thing to think about. Christ was born of a human being, the Panagia. Are we to believe that His ancestors were apes? What blasphemy! And those who support this theory don't realize that they are blaspheming. They throw a stone and do not check to see how many heads they have cracked. All you will hear from them is: "Mine went further than the other fellow's." That's what they are all about these days; they marvel at who will throw a stone the farthest. But they care nothing about those who are passing by and the many heads their stones will crack.
Q: Elder, some people think these theories will help bring Marxists to the Church.
A: Well, perhaps a few Marxists might come to the Church at first. But then they will want to organize as a party and start giving dictates to others: "Now you must go to church; now you may not. Now do this, now do that." They will have rules for everything. And in the end, they will start telling people: "Who told you that there is a God? There is no God! The priests are all making it up to deceive you." This is what will happen; the Marxists will use these good willing folks to achieve their goal. Marxists with a good will and disposition will come back to the Church, repent, and go to confession. But those who have no good disposition, they will never change.
1. Job 38:14 - "Or perhaps it was you who took dust from the earth, formed clay, made it into a living being with a mouth and the ability to speak, and placed him on earth."
I see no conflict between science (which deals from something quite different than theology) and God.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting post, but what it seems to show is that Elder Paisios, although a great man full of incredible wisdom, did not really understand the basic mechanics of Darwinian theory, let alone have a mastery of the evidence for or against the theory. It would have been interesting to hear what Elder Paisios would have said after learning to understand the theory well.
ReplyDeleteChris
As one who does, I think he would have said something similar. It comes down to simple logic, and has nothing to do with evidence.
ReplyDeleteHi John,
ReplyDeleteI'm concerned less about evidence and more about the theory, since that is the thrust of this post. It seems doubtful to me he'd have said a good half of this, because the majority of this post expresses his misunderstandings about the theory (e.g. you don't see apes turning into humans now). I'm not suggesting he'd have believed it if he understood it correctly, but it seems he'd certainly have developed different arguments against it than the ones presented here.
An argument based on scripture or church tradition would be more convincing. Of course God can make man out of clay, but God could as easily make man out of microorganisms or apes. If the argument is that Scripture says it was clay, and we must therefore accept that it was clay, then why not just say that?
Chris
It seems like you are reading more into it than you should. He doesn't ask why apes aren't turning into humans, but why there is no evidence for transitional forms which is at the basis of the theory (in simple language). Keep in mind this is a conversation, not a full exposition of the subject. Its not addressed to scholars or scientists, but is meant for guiding the more simple-minded. Try not to take it out of context and don't look for more than what is offered. If you want a Saint or Elder who went into more depth on the subject, St. Nektarios wrote on it and Elder Joel Yiannakopoulos wrote a book on it. Both are in Greek, but there are many others. Dr. Constantine Cavarnos wrote an excellent little essay on the subject in English also. I've posted many things on the subject, though hardly enough.
ReplyDeleteWhere can I find Dr Constantine Cavarnos' essay?
ReplyDeleteIt's called "Biological Evolutionism". He was a biology major at Harvard University, but after careful thought abandoned the Darwinian model. It can be found through the publisher here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ctosonline.org/contemp/BE.html
Here is a description for the booklet:
"Dr. Cavarnos, a renowned Orthodox scholar and thinker, discusses the philosophical and scientific foundations of the theory of evolution, with particular reference to Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin, and demonstrates from the Holy Fathers, including the great twentieth-century Father, Saint Nectarios of Pentapolis, that evolutionism serves only to dehumanize man and deprive him of his innate longing for divinization."
Fr. Seraphim Rose's book "Genesis, Creation and Early Man" makes many good points also.
I will write my story of how I initially abandoned Darwinism also, probably early next week.
Thank you! I look forward to reading your story.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I see with going down the path of "maybe he took some things from the ape and perfected them" is, why? Is God not 'allmighty' or was he ashamed of how he created us so that he concocted the clay story?
ReplyDeleteIf he is allmighty, couldnt he just tak clay and make man? Did he heal back the cut off ear of a man or simply asked him to stitch it back and put a bandage on it? Can he calm the waters with a command or did he just told them a story to destract them from the stormy waters? Did he heal the blind man or just blew out some dust stuck in his eyes? Did he bring a four day stinking corpse back from the dead or did he have someone else that looked like Lazarus pop out of the tomb? And finally, did he raise himself from the dead or was it all a lie?
If we cannot accept that God could and did make man from clay, how can we accept and believe that his only begoten Son could do the things described in the New Testament?
The scriptures are not a lesson in physics, biology or any other of the sciences.
When looking at the laws of probability alone, the theory of evolution falls flat and cannot explain non-life to life or even matter from nothing. The reading materials handed out to children in schools regarding evolution are not up to date and are not being updated to match the facts. For example: the Cambrian explosion shows fully formed animal types already formed, thus: no evolution. Big bang cosmolgy already states that the universe had a beginning so the universe is therefore not eternal and that should have shut down the case for chaos somehow having an infinite number of attempts at matter and life. Point is that matter, plus energy plus information is required for what we see, and all that needs God by necessity. nothing more can be said. The message is that there is a God and either you want that or you do not. If you do not want it, then you will need to create something else to explain the unexplainable and therefore that thing will become your god. today, we live the zeitgeist of utopia and want to explain away any accountability for our way of life. But at best, this is not wise and will never fulfill what all humanity seeks: real love, real justice and real joy eternal. Scientism can never give you this, it was never imagined or built to do so. Christ can and offers it and is much more believable and honest than those who wish to take away hope so you can face your death with annhilation and the nebulas black of emptiness in mind. That is a sad state, at least, for me.
ReplyDelete