God or Randomness? Wrong Question! (Aquinas 101)

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Can science explain the order we find in the world, without God? Is the universe and all the things in it the result of an absolutely random and absolutely unguided process? Are we ourselves the result of such a process? Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., a Dominican friar from the Province of St. Joseph, weighs in on randomness, chance, and divine providence.
Randomness, Chance, and Divine Providence (Aquinas 101) - Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.
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This video was made possible through the support of grant #61944 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

[@anthonyw2931]

Another aspect of God and Creation that I was grossly wrong. These videos are truly illuminating.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Thanks for the comment! Hope you continue to find the videos helpful.

[@JakeTheArmyGuy]

Every time I learn something new about how the universe works, I praise God's brilliance. The Master Storyteller!

[@DistributistHound]

This reminds me of a recent debate between Jimmy Aikin and Dr. Craig in regards to the kalam Cosmological argument, in this debate both argue about God been able to imagine and creating and infinite number of things in which Jimmy leaves the possibility of the universe not having a beginning as not to fully trust the current scientific knowledge we currently have and avoiding to put limits to God omnipotence to which Dr. Craig disagrees stating the impossibility of an infinite regression. Something similar to Saint Buenaventura and St. Thomas Aquinas about this argument centuries back... imagine if St. Thomas had the knowledge of astronomy or quantum mechanics we have today.

[@M3W3]

A true randomness in tossing something out is the item either float, drop , disappear or change shape etc. Random to the point u can’t even predict any outcome😂. But praise the Lord this world is not that random , it is just orderly disorganized… that’s what I like to think it is… there are natural orders that we can’t defy and there are outcomes that we are able to control.

[@Bradley_UA]

You are right, randomness is just your inability to predict the outcome with absolute certainty. There is no "true randomness" more random than that, and the ordinary randomness doesn't require god, because it's simply your ignorance and inability to predict things.

[@raimundohenriques1433]

Randomness follow directional (not random) laws: laws of probabilities

[@pauljordan4452]

Nothing causes itself and Subsistent Existence sustains us and everything. If you don't have an ego, and identify with your voice, taking perspective of others with I AM YOU, AT THE SAME TIME, YOU ARE ME, you realise it is speech that makes us human and can recognise this basic truth. St Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

[@johnwake1001]

God bless you, brothers! Your work is invaluable. I know how difficult it is to speak concisely and clearly about such complex issues.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Many thanks! God bless you.

[@andersonmeneses3599]

Thank you very much, Thomistic Institute. Your videos are deterministically necessary in order to get us out of chaos and randomness... :-) Regards.

[@boku5192]

Thnaks exited for future episodes :)

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Cheers, thanks for watching! May the Lord bless you!

[@stephenmerritt5750]

There is no such thing as random. There is only complexity.

[@mozphet3030]

Been my thinking as well. What appears random to us is just inhumanly incomprehensibly complex.

[@paularnold3745]

Yes, it is called chaos. Chaos does not mean without order as many wrongly think. It means the known variables are numerous and the unknown variables are even more numerous.

[@larrybedouin2921]

Yes, Amen. Irreducible complexity.

[@robfrank1130]

Wonderful as ever.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Cheers! Thanks.

[@paddyearly]

Just came across this channel and I love this first video I’ve looked at🙏 God is all there is thanks be to God🙏

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Welcome! Glad you found us.

[@Bradley_UA]

What if you change the order in that sentence. Instead of "god is all there is" how about "there are many things that exists, and all the collection of them im going to call god". Do you agree with that?

[@jato72]

Thank you for attempting to tackle this topic. This video appeared on my random feed. It was helpful since I am attempting to find my way back to Christianity. Being scientifically oriented in my thinking, I struggle with the "supernatural" aspect of religion. Thanks again.

[@paularnold3745]

My wife is a molecular biologist. From her perspective, the complexity of what goes on in the deepest recesses of a cell cannot be the result of pure evolution and must involve intelligent design, which ultimately concludes in the existence of the supernatural. We will pray for you during your journey back to Christ.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

You're welcome! We're so glad this came up on your feed and hope you find the other videos in the series helpful. God bless you.

[@dansaber8435]

@The Thomistic Institute God does things but randomly like the sower where he doesn't plant every seed in fertile soil. Random scattering is how God does things and that's what we observe in nature. And it is unknowable as the direction of the winds that God controls.

[@Bradley_UA]

If you are really scientifically minded, you should also know about irrational thinking. What they do in this video is redefine supernatural in a way that is compatible with modern science. All it does is reduces the amount of cognitive dissonance for people who _want_ to believe. But we also know that's exactly what people do to hold on to beliefs that they know they don't have good reasons for, and never will. That's irrational, and if you just decide to forget that is irrational, because you want to believe, then you didn't being scientifically minded, you are deliberately fooling yourself. The real questing is what do you believe/what to believe, and why

[@jato72]

@@Bradley_UA Excellent. Yes. I WANT to believe, but as you have laid out, it is a difficult journey. My worldview is contingent and subject to change with new information.

[@larrybedouin2921]

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Don't think to make God the author of sin and death.

[@dhdh2343]

Superb

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Thank you!

[@china-bot6695]

Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. These guys are helping to Save the world.

[@Kaspar502]

Huge video, very distinct and extraordinarily intelligent. Thank you for uploading

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Thanks so much for the comment, and thanks for watching. God bless you!

[@tropifiori]

Outstanding. Thank you Father Frank

[@ThomisticInstitute]

You're welcome! Thanks for watching.

[@larrybedouin2921]

Why do we have a seven day week from the beginning hiterto? The answers to this question can be found in Gods written word.

[@edwardelliott5756]

Excellent. I happen to be in a 12 step program where we stress a “Higher Power”. Obviously there is great room for all kinds of weird and wacky self generated gods and Powers so my job is to suggest the one true God of the Bible. The only power who can justly claim the title of “God”. Because he IS God.

[@paularnold3745]

God Bless you Edward. I will pray for your strength in your 12 step program.

[@Bradley_UA]

Even though you claim only one god is god, I still don't understand which god you mean. Muslims assert Allah is god, christians assert Jesus is god, Jew assert jahwe is god. So there, you have three different conceptions of gods already, without even going to pagans. If you are going to claim only one of them is real, you need to give evidence for what you think it's the one you picked, and not none at all.

[@gaetanopace5079]

It is of particular interest how the narrative of the Creation in Genesis is tabled in an order. Chaos, the Greek Arxe is sequentially the same as Darwin tabled the sequence. I do not see this as a mere coincidence. It goes to show that Science can help us understand better what was handed down to us by Tradition first and writing subsequently. It also goes to show that when we deal with KNOWLEDGE and SCIENTIA we have to approach them with due respect and humility to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us. We search to understand, in order to learn, that which is being revealed to us. It should never confuse us but help us to see the revelations, u

[@Bradley_UA]

In what way does the spirit guide you?

[@matheuspinho4987]

"chance" implies regularity, so we alredy began with order

[@AdmiralofU2]

The Carmelites core charism is finding God everywhere, right?

[@joecoolmccall]

Why have I never heard this explained like this by anyone before? I want to read more about this...

[@Bradley_UA]

Because simply saying "this definition of supernatural doesn't contradict science" doesn't make it true, especially since bible asserts the sort of supernatural things that do contradict science, so this video cannot be used in defence of Christianity. In other words, it's a very bad argument, that's why no mainstream apologist is using it. (Not to say they are using better arguments)

[@cdshop1301]

Ed Feser had a longer talk about this idea. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIK8i2Wih5d1Y9U

[@joecoolmccall]

@@cdshop1301 ok cool thanks. Feser is a name I recognize. I'll add this to a watch later play list

[@gabrielteo3636]

Let's suppose the universe was caused by an non-conscious necessary thing or the universe itself was the necessary thing, how would it be different? My guess is it would be exactly the same.

[@purryegbert8609]

Good vid -

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Thanks!

[@legron121]

Read The Consolation of Philosophy.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

A great work!

[@gybx4094]

I'm too old to become a Catholic, but I really like the fact that you're discussing these questions. Protestants won't even consider these issues, let alone discuss them.

[@MiB365]

It is never too late

[@raimundohenriques1433]

What matter is to go to “promised land” ever after 40 40 years in desert!

[@aperson2368]

You're never too old for that

[@watsonblack7481]

These videos are always great! keep it up.

[@giahuypham1385]

What about the Demiurge

[@_Breakdown]

This was good… but, ideally, would be even better if it was presented a little bit slower... because there is a lot to process.

[@joseluis-kd8xh]

where does Aquinas affirms the existence of Prime Matter?

[@legron121]

“Now it is clear from this argument of Aristotle that substantial generation and corruption are the source from which we derive our knowledge of prime matter.” Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on The Metaphysics of Aristotle, 1689.

[@tomdooley3522]

It's called intelligent design.

[@pjohnson81]

Theologians and priests need a better understanding of physics and the laws of probability, not only that scientist need a better look at what God is. The confusion is on the definition of a random process as opposed to a stochastic process.

[@joaop.r.4129]

A difficult there I have is this following: how can we say that matter, form, substance, accident, essence, prime matter, etc, are all existing things or only concepts created by us that were refuted by modern sciences? For exemple, how can we say there is an essence of Bread and that it is not only the mixing of other things like atoms at. I mean, how can we say philosophical notion of substance held by Scholastics exist in real and things aren’t only a mixing of atoms and substances (in a chemical way) ?

[@Bradley_UA]

Good question. I don't care much about philosophy, but here is how physicists would answer it. Those are just different models, that are equally as real/not real. To solve a problem, we make up a model of it. It's by definition made up. It's only true to the extent that it has predictive capability. For example, you can use atomic model of matter to predict movement of earth around the sun. But you will have to model every single atom in both sun and earth, and then model acceleration and gravitation and velocity of every single one of them. That's hard. So another way to do it is to model earth as a singular object, that has its own velocity and mass. It's just a model we made up. Earth doesn't objectively exists. But you know what, neither do atoms. All of those are just models, and of course there is a concept of reducibility, but it didn't mean earth didn't exist, only a collection of atoms exist. Because what earth is, is this collection of atoms. Same with bread. What makes bread bread is not some underlying substance that isn't reducible to atoms. Bread is the atoms, arranged in this specific way. That's what it means to be bread, that's what it means for bread to exists. If you think "there is no bread, there are only atoms that act like bread" - well, acting like bread is what it means to be bread. There was never anything more like bread than a collection of atoms that makes up bread. That's how we can say bread exists. It means: a collection of atoms arranged in this specific way exists. That's what existence is.

[@neptasur]

You are not eliminating concepts, you are only exchanging them. You are only trading Scholastic concepts (form, substance, etc) for modern ones (i.e. atoms). Now you might object by saying "but atoms actually exist". But if I ask you to explain what you mean by "atom" you will only answer with concepts that you happen to prefer as opposed to ones you don't.

[@neptasur]

@@Bradley_UA Your example arbitrarily stops at atoms. If you're going to use atoms to explain earth, you would also need to use subatomic particles to explain atoms. This process of reduction would continue in infinite regress so it is not an answer to the question. Take QM for example: the resolution of the wave function depends on an irreducible observer and cannot, therefore, support reductionism. Likewise, the bread example depends on an irreducible observer. Bread is not bread because it is a particular arrangement of atoms, it is bread because an irreducible observer says it is bread. The atoms that make up the bread are a mostly-porous, odorless, colorless, tasteless, collection of particles; it is the observer that recognizes it bread because of properties (form, prime matter, etc) within the bread that are not reducible to atoms.

[@Bradley_UA]

@@neptasur yes, and the criteria by which i prefer concepts is that they have predictive capability. "Planes fly, cars drive, computers compute. Science works, bitches". Meanwhile none of the ontological philosophy actually has any relevance to the real world, as they are untestable and don't allow you to make any predictions. There is nothing you understand about the universe by assuming god is at the source of everything or whatever. "Prime matter, essense, substance" - they are not refuted, they are simply useless and meaningless concepts

[@neptasur]

@@Bradley_UA As I just explained, you use these "useless and meaningless concepts" in order to do science. An explanation that reduces to atoms now needs to reduce to yet smaller particles ad infinitum. The reductionist must introduce an irreducible substance at some point, and once he does that, the entire Aristotelian mechanism comes right back; and that is precisely what the modern project sought to avoid. The entire scientific apparatus is for the purpose of discovering the nature of things. Why else does it posit frictionless planes, and other conditions that don't actually exist? You cannot prove inertia because you cannot devise a test free from the influence of gravity; you assume it using the "useless and meaningless concepts" you purport to hate so much.

[@timdecker6063]

Man I can't explain God in any kind of less than vague ideas. I mean, the word God, and whatever it really means is complicated enough not to mention all of time and creation. And to try to undo God with logic seems almost completly impossible.

[@thstroyur]

Any proper definition of "God"entails metaphysical necessity; the one I use is that 'God is the ground of reality'. If you say that this is 'vague' - well, then you're really saying that your ideas about reality are vague.

[@paularnold3745]

@@thstroyur What God says of himself explains Him the best. He told Moses "I AM Who AM" also stated as "I AM BEING". The contingent world has being, but its existence comes from God who IS BEING.

[@thstroyur]

@@paularnold3745 I don't disagree with the conclusion, but I don't think it's helpful to start a conversation with a skeptic with "Well, according to my holy book, God is...", because this gets tangled with the (at this point) distraction of making a case for Christianity - otherwise, we will be only begging our own question, and do poor apologetics...

[@josephzammit8483]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKiaZZeHiaiKr6M

[@Bradley_UA]

Of course its impossible to undo god with logic. Because we didn't come up with god by logic. And people don't believe god because they are convinced by logic. There are emotional reasons and indoctrination, and denial of intellectual honesty. People are taught to believe if god on faith, which is without any good evidence, and in the face of evidence to the contrary. Of course logic is useless against it. Luckily,.simply because people believe in god doesn't make it really, or necessary to explain anything in the universe.

[@realmless4193]

The thing about quantum indeterminacy and true randomness is that it shows to me that the universe cannot be necessary as it could have been different and their is no simple "cause and effect" relationship in every part of the universe, so pure physicalism cannot be true. Pure physicalism, classically speaking, assumes all causes are non-random, so if there were random causes it shows that even non-classically physical objects exist.

[@paularnold3745]

I've heard of material determinism. Is pure physicalism just another name for material determinism, or is there a distinction?

[@realmless4193]

@@paularnold3745 material determinism is a form of pure physicalism, yes. But it is important to note that this assumes only classically physical objects exists (things like dice, balls, and walls) and this would assume that quantum particles are just as classically physical. If there is any randomness, you have to stretch the definition of what "physical" means in order to get pure physicalism.

[@Bradley_UA]

There is nothing really indeterministic, or "no simple cause and effect" about quantum mechanics. There is nothing wrong with saying "X will lead to Y 40%, and to Z 60% percent of the time". That is a degree of randomness that we cannot get rid of, but it is the same as if we had pure "physicalism", as you call it, in which we don't have all the information. Those models still have predictive capability, ie determinism and cause an effect. There is simply a degree of randomness thrown it. None of that means universe isn't necessary. The fact that we are talking about this means universe is necessary, and it is necessarily like this. You could say "well, that's not _simple_ cause and effect", and I can only say yes, it's complicated. We can deal with complicated thing, and even if we couldn't, appealing to supernatural things that have no predictive power and cannot be demonstrated doesn't help you deal with it one bit.

[@realmless4193]

@@Bradley_UA a model with some degree of randomness would be similar to pure physicalism where we do not have all the information. However, we cannot prove that quantum mechanics is fundamentally random, but we also cannot prove that quantum mechanics is not random. Different quantum physcists have different opinions on this, but the majority opinion appears to be that of fundamental randomness. It should also be noted that mental activity can be described in a quantum manner but not in a classical manner, and it should also be noted that we can describe the world and mind in terms of mental perspective, but the inverse is not true. What I am telling you is you should look into quantum consciousness and other alternative theories which are debated if you want to debate in this area, especially if you are well studied in it so you don't find yourself caught in confirmation bias. As for us talking about this meaning that the universe is necessary? How is this the case? Yes, us talking about this would be necessary and the universe would be necessary, if literally everything was deterministic, and then we would all essentially be a part of God (the necessary being), but if the universe is not fundamentally deterministic, wether it is fundamentally random or freely chosen, that means it could have been different, but isn't, which means it would not be necessary, so you would only be right if certain conclusions we do not agree about are true.

[@Bradley_UA]

@@realmless4193 what does it matter if it's fundamentally random, or not. I just demonstrated cause and effect in a quantum system with fundamental uncertainty, are you going to address that? Again, I repeat, when we launch a particle though a double slit, it passes through and hits the scree at a random, fundamentally random position. That position is still within the probability distribution that is "caused" by projectile being launched in certain direction. Cause and effect right there. Things don't do whatever they want, there is just a little bit of uncertainty. But there is enough certainty for us to have real objects that behave like they objectively exist. If you want to argue otherwise, you need to come up with a better model, that would have more predictive capability, than physicalist physics. What is that model?

[@coachprinci]

Way over my head. I have no clue what any of this means.

[@john-paulgies4313]

As an leaning-toward-denial agnostic on the hypothesis of evolution and a 4.5 billion year old Earth... I find this conceptual therapy a bit tedious. What bearing does it have on the interpretations of the data? Some, certainly, but not as much as the fact that everyone, for the past few centuries, has assumed and asserted, *a priori* and before any evidence, the presupposition that the world is inconceivably ancient.

[@ProfessorShnacktime]

So you’re a young earth creationist?

[@john-paulgies4313]

@@ProfessorShnacktime Agnostic. But from what I've heard, the age of the Earth and the Cosmos was not determined from the scientific evidence. It was a presumption, not a hypothesis, based on the assumption that the hypothesis of evolution had to be true. And the mainstream scientific community has been taking it for granted ever since, thus reading it into the data. So I'm an agnostic: I'm still waiting for dialogue about this presupposition on the part of those who comprehend the evidence better than I can (being limited to the heresy of the internet as I am).

[@josephzammit8483]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKiaZZeHiaiKr6M

[@Bradley_UA]

You don't understand what agnostic means. Agnosticism is a philosophical stance on the question of possibility of knowledge. Nosticism means you can know something, agnosticism means you can't know something. For example when people say they are agnostic theist, they mean it's impossible to know that god is real, but they still believe. Nostic theists are the ones who are claiming that they know, or that it's possible to know, that god exists. What you are saying is "I don't have an opinion on this subject, because I don't understand science, and I think that dating the universe is somehow relevant and dependant on an assumption that evolution is true, but I never bothered to read even simple wiki article on big bang, but I'll still lean towards denying it, though". Saying "I'm agnostic in regards to evolution" would mean that there is in principle no way to know, and... There is this thing called science... Dunno if you heard of it, it tells you how you can know things.

[@john-paulgies4313]

@@Bradley_UA Hmm... I was using it colloquially, in which case it means "I neither confirm nor deny the possibility of [proposition here] being true", i.e. I'm dubious regarding the claim(s) that the macroscopic evolution of separate species from common ancestors is universally true for living things (specifically things beyond single-cell organisms). There is indeed this thing called science, and not only is it being reformed and (usually) refined, but it has also produced evidence undercutting the above hypothesis in the case of the phenomenon of genetic entropy. I believe this fact alone is, if true, the nail in the coffin of macro-evolution... but I am epistemologically humble enough to acknowledge that it takes a dialogue between the professionals to reconcile the two theories, not my private and data-less machinations of thought. And for this reason, as an agnostic I will wait.😉

[@ianb483]

This isn't a bad high-level overview of the topic of randomness (or apparent randomness) and divine providence in general, but I think you guys are papering over the way the term "random" is used differently in different contexts, and how some of them carry inescapable philosophical baggage that must be challenged by Thomists. Randomness in quantum physics is merely epistemic randomness. Where a photon lands in a double-slit experiment, for instance, is probabilistic in the normal course of things as we experience them. But there is nothing about this that entails that it is random in some ultimate sense, meaning that this "randomness" it perfectly compatible with God having planned and orchestrated each outcome to his ultimate purposes, even if we can't see the forest for the trees. Randomness in Darwinian theory's picture of random variation/mutation and natural selection, on the other hand, is *ontological* randomness. The whole point of the Darwinian narrative is that it supposedly explains how all the incredible biological function, purposiveness, and design that we see in living organisms can be accounted for without any planning or purpose. It was meant to "complete" the mechanistic worldview begun by Descartes by eliminating the need for even the external final causes that Descartes appealed to. Thus, "random" in the context of Darwinian evolution means *unintended*. So to affirm that evolution is guided by divine providence towards God's intended ends (and thus that biological function is real) is implicitly to deny that Darwinism is true. And you should deny Darwinism, because ultimately it's incoherent. To say that biological function/design/purpose is an illusion implies that it exists only in our minds, and that there is nothing objectively there for natural selection to explain in the first place. It's analogous to eliminative materialism in the theory of mind (and in fact it *entails* eliminative materialism, because the purposiveness of our own intellects is part of the function of living organisms that a consistent Darwinism must dismiss as an illusion). Some Darwinists try to resolve this problem by redefining "function" into causal terms, such that the "function" of some biological organ (like the heart or the eye) is whatever caused organisms that had that trait to out-survive ones that didn't in the past. But these sorts of strategies imply that to know the function of a heart or and eye, we have to somehow magically know its evolutionary history, which is absurd. This is analogous to functionalist or behaviorist theories of mind, and are incoherent for similar reasons. Furthermore, Darwinian theory implies that biological organisms are not substances, but mere aggregates of parts, which makes things like consciousness in humans and many animals, and the rational intellect in humans, impossible to account for, or requires some sort of Descartian "ghost in the machine," which is highly problematic even in Descartes' view, and makes even less sense when combined with a theory that says those biological aggregates of parts are cosmic accidents that weren't intended to "house" such "ghosts." These paradoxes have not been solved, because they can't be solved. Biological function simply cannot be coherently eliminated nor reduced to mechanistic terms, for the same reasons that the human mind cannot be. I've noticed that Thomistic philosophers rightly challenge mechanistic theories of mind, and rightly call out the incoherent reductionist neurobabble that is often presented as "science" in philosophy of mind. However, you seem afraid to challenge Darwin in the same way, and seem to try to hedge and accommodate it instead. I suspect that this is because you're afraid of being called "anti-science" since Darwinism has far greater cachet in the secular academy. But you are trying to stick a square peg into a round hole by doing so, and there is no principled reason to do so in the first place since Darwinism is incoherent and Thomism has the better of the argument if you'll only have the courage of your convictions. As for things like "irreducible complexity" and other phenomena that proponents of "intelligent design" talk about, these issues are secondary to the fundamental philosophical issues and so I won't go into any detail regarding them here. But I will say that there are a countless phenomena in biology and paleontology that are implausible in the extreme for Darwinian explanation, and for which Darwinian explanation would have been abandoned long ago, if it weren't for the fact that it's the only mechanistic game in town, and therefore some kind of Darwinian explanation simply *has* to be true in order for the whole Darwinian narrative and the mechanistic worldview it holds up to be true. But once you've accepted that Darwinism (like the mechanistic worldview more broadly) is incoherent and false, there's no reason to try to shoehorn irreducible complexity and associated phenomena into the Darwinian picture. None of this implies that NO form of evolution is true. I think the evidence suggests that newer organisms are derived or descended from previous ones in some sense, but the Darwinian account for biological function is self-stultifying and therefore comprehensively false. Trying to accommodate the Darwinian account while advocating for a Thomistic view of the rational human person is to try to square a circle, and it's pointless. And the Darwinian view, since it entails the denial of living substances and hence of natural ends and natural law, has led inexorably to the extreme moral relativism we witness in our society, as well the secular academy's intellectual collapse into radical post-modernism and irrationalist denial of objective truth, increasingly even in the hard sciences. Thomism is the perfect antidote to this insanity, but to do any earthly good, you're going to need to seize the day. And that's going to mean bravely challenging the secular world - including especially the science establishment - on their most fundamental assumptions and bearing the "anti-science" slings and arrows that will come your way, and it will mean examining where you've internalized the mechanistic worldview's dogmas where you didn't really need to in order to get along and be "respectable." These kinds of shallow, avoid-the-elephant-in-the-room approaches to topics of randomness and evolution just won't cut it.

[@Bradley_UA]

Sorry, stopped reading after "darvinian narrative". Even if theory of evolution is wrong, it's is plain as day that we have common ancestry with other great apes and the rest of animals. Evolution is just the best explanation for this observation, better than "god did it". Learn evolution before replying.

[@ianb483]

@@Bradley_UA Indeed, it's clear from your reply that you didn't read my comment well enough to understand it.

[@ToxicPea]

Remember fellas, that 1-1 roll you got on Monopoly that landed you on Boardwalk was not totally random...from a divine perspective.

[@GloriamRomae]

If natural selection is true, how the human race get a inmaterial and rational soul?

[@cadenorris4009]

I also want to know the answer

[@leonardovieira4445]

There is no "natural" selection. The nature of entities is precisely what makes entities what they are, and nothing else (the precise term is quiddity). Every new species, naturally distinct from the previous one, appears in this universe of ours through the intervention of God, who creates each new quiddity. Even if there is material continuity between the species, if one day a reptile's egg was broken and a bird came out of it, it was necessarily God who brought about this transformation. The reptile did not have the nature of a bird to communicate it to the egg, and no one can give what he does not have. This is even more evident in the case of man, whose specific difference (that is, what differentiates him from other species, making him a man, and not another species) is that he is a "human composite", composed of a material body and a spiritual soul. . Whether from a few kilos of clay, or from the gametes of a monkey (I don't think so), the fact is that the first man appeared on the face of the Earth when God infused this matter with a spiritual soul.

[@runningdecadeix4780]

The immaterial, rational soul is especially created by God. This is not in contradiction to anything in evolution, natural selection or biology, as science does not deal with the immaterial soul - such is a work for metaphysics or philosophy of mind. Natural selection explains the origins of our *bodies* in a context of replication. Once there are hominid creatures like ourselves, God can create immaterial souls for them.

[@leonardovieira4445]

@@runningdecadeix4780 No, it doesn't explain. The "natural selection" denotes an autonomous process of improvement of bodies, motivated by changes in the environment. Only the most adapted individuals would survive each environmental change, so that there would be a constant mutation of beings, causing the emergence and disappearance of species over time. This is absolutely false and illogical. One species does not possess in itself the perfections of another species. A more hostile terrestrial environment will not make birds born from reptiles, but will only make reptiles that are stronger or more suited to the new context survive. Reptiles will continue to be born from reptiles. For a bird to appear, the intervention of an intelligence is necessary that orders the matter of the being in view of new perfections that the reptile did not have, and therefore, was unable to give itself to actively, autonomously, "naturally" (whatever you want to call it) generate a bird. It is not illogical to suppose that one day a bird was born from the egg of a reptile, with a strictly material continuity between the species. This is the strictly "scientific" part of the theory of evolution, and only that, to be proved one day (I don't think it ever will be). It is illogical to postulate that this took place by an autonomous, "natural" process, ignoring the obvious fact that an intelligent cause must concur to stipulate the new bodily order of the new species. This is the ideological part of the theory of evolution, which seeks to immanently justify what reason easily understands to be given by the transcendent action of a non-corporeal intelligence. Obs: This directly touches the subject of the video, which is the question of randomness. Can randomness generate order? Can a strictly "natural" process imply the emergence of a new species endowed with new perfections ordered to specific ends (wings to fly)? A step back, together with Thomistic Institute, and you will see that chance is nothing more than the crossing of lines of causality that are not mutually required, but that, by definition, are ordered to their own ends. This is one of the facts that completely destroys the immanentist ideology behind "natural selection". It is absolutely required, rationally, that an intelligent and immaterial being be the first ordering cause of every line of causality in the universe. The events we call occasional are not at all. All have God for their first ordaining cause.

[@st.mephisto8564]

How does natural selection debunk a rational soul?

[@JohnR.T.B.]

Science relies upon the intelligibility of the created universe, if the laws of nature are inconsistent and subjected to random changes themselves (in which case the likelihood is that none of us would be here in the first place), then science is already useless and invalid, because for every bit of moment you need to have a universal set of science that would be violated in the next moment. And hence it's true, even what seems to our eyes, senses, and minds is "random" is not actually random, but governed and contained by a set, no matter how complex, of rules or laws of nature in the grand scheme of things. And, the logical point is that, to have fixed natural orders out of pure randomness or pure chances out of unlimited random possibilities already require logical rules in the first place, that you can have fixed natural orders out of pure randomness; and these logical rules have to be consistent and stable in the first place, which in turn give rise to the intelligible laws of nature, which in turn make science possible. But this acknowledgment itself doesn't directly prove that there is a God, or God according to Catholic understanding exists, because out of God's power that we can sense, we do not perceive the source, something like we know there are electrons and neutrons out of the effects they cause, but our eyes can't see them directly; we can only model them based on their activities. The very fact that you've got to have a first uncaused cause (that is not affected or as a result of other intelligibilities) that can determine all the logical results of intelligibility of the universe and everything else, means science doesn't and can't explain literally everything there is, but only what has been provided us. Much like, we know that if we have a sphere, there has to be a point in the center of it, or the sides of a triangle will always meet at a point somewhere no matter how far apart they are, unless you decide to not adhere to logic that is required to construct science in the first place.

[@larrycarter3765]

There are no gods.

[@WerIstWieJesus]

You pretend to know Holy Thomas but you have not a clue. If you pretend "Thomas says" then give us the sources and I show you your error. I know Thomas. Undeterminacy is a condition for a higher determinacy. Undeterminacy is in fact the right translation of "potentia". Undeterminacy is not a problem for Thomism but its beginning in Aristotle. There can be no movement, no diversity, no creature without undeterninacy. It is not possible to construct a movement only by static states. There has to be a translation from one state to another. And this is real indeterminacy, anything that is very difficult to catch with our mind because our mind is allways moved by anything that is already in act (=determinated). It is the genius of Aristotle to prove that anything like undeterminacy has to be real. But you are mixing different things that haven't any relationship. You are not worthy of the great thinker Thomas of Aquinas. Random is no cause. Every effect needs a cause. And a good metaphysician (not you) is able to show where every actuality of an existing thing comes from. Therefore the final cause is necessary. Therefore, even if a new thing appears there is no contradiction to causality, because the new perfection was already in the planning cause. And this is exactly the sense of the fifth proof of God. No new perfection can appear without a planning mind. Random is no cause. It has no perfection that it can give to an effect. Randomness is only a denial of causality. You have no clue of Saint Thomas. If you pretend anything about Saint Thomas, please give us the sources.

[@GeoCalifornian]

There is no natural selection; only Intelligent Bioengineering Design. Hence, the duck-billed platypus. /geo ex machina

[@thstroyur]

There _is_ such a thing as natural selection; please try and learn the distinction between microevolution (science) and macroevolution (pseudoscience)...

[@Bradley_UA]

@@thstroyur what's the difference between microevolution and microevolution?

[@thstroyur]

@@Bradley_UA You can Wikipedia that; I'd link, but YT is bitchy about links nowadays

[@Bradley_UA]

@@thstroyur according to Wikipedia they are the same process on a different scale. It's like "micro and macro walking", walking for an hour is microwalking, and macro walking is walking for weeks. Why walking for an hour is possible, but for a week is pseudoscience? What's the difference. Only creationists know the answer, lol.

[@thstroyur]

@@Bradley_UA And notice how the Wiki article does not mention that the guy who came up with these definitions was a creationist, lol. And no, your example isn't as clever as you think it is, because it'd be more appropriate to ask, "Why walking for an hour is possible, but for a billion years is pseudoscience?" The key word you're looking for here is _uniformitarianism_ ; fortunately for you, there is also a Wiki article on the subject.

[@jakelivingstone5747]

Please stop teaching macro-evolution to your wide audience as if it poses no threat to the Biblical account of creation.

[@ProfessorShnacktime]

It doesn’t. Genesis is allegory.

[@brucebarber4104]

@@ProfessorShnacktime 🎯

[@st.mephisto8564]

Biblical creation is NOT Literal. Stop making religion more irrelevant than it needs to be

[@jakelivingstone5747]

@@st.mephisto8564 Compromising doesn't seem to be making religion more relevant. Every single Church Father and Doctor has taken Genesis 1-11 to be literal. St. Augustine, who evolutionists cite all the time, taught that it was absurd to believe the world was older than 6,000 years old.

[@st.mephisto8564]

@@jakelivingstone5747 They lived in a primitive world and didn't know the science we do now. It is absurd to hold to literal 6000 yr old creation. It's beyond that, it's what makes Christianity sound laughably irrelevant. You might as well believe in flat Earth and deny gravity

[@kevconn441]

Nice try but philosophy can't prove anything. You can't prove God exists by reason alone. There are no past contingencies, only future ones. For the world to be as it is now, everything in the past was necessary.

[@neptasur]

"You can't prove God exists by reason alone." Yes, you can. Would you like an example? "There are no past contingencies . . . everything in the past was necessary." You should think that one through.

[@kevconn441]

@@neptasur I'm sure if anyone could prove any of the gods exist it would have been done a long time ago. Just the fact that people still question it should tell you something. As for contingencies, I should think it through what?

[@neptasur]

@@kevconn441 " it would have been done a long time ago. " And it was by Aristotle. That the modern projects sought to ignore him, notwithstanding. Perhaps you could show me the flaw in his argument: I hit a baseball. The ball moves because of the bat. The bat moves because of my hand. My hand moves because of my arm, shoulder, neurons in my brain, etc., etc. None of the things on this list can move by itself but is dependent on something else that is already actual to actualize the potential for motion. This series must by logical necessity terminate by a source that is purely actual because anything containing potential would need further actualization. The source of pure actuality must be outside of time as being in time would mean it has potential. Likewise, it must be omnipotent, eternal, etc. for the same reasons. Such a source of pure actuality is a necessary being and is what we call God.

[@kevconn441]

@@neptasur Hi Jen. First of all I'm not sure what you mean by "modern projects" but I don't think anyone ignores Aristotle. He is acknowledged as one of history's greatest thinkers. There are a few flaws in his argument though. He is using the fallacy of composition ie attributing the properties of the parts to the whole. For example a house is made of bricks, but a house isn't a brick. So just because we observe cause and effect within the universe doesn't mean we can apply it to the universe itself. As for things happening without cause, or a mover if you like, modern science has a bit to say about that. Quantum mechanics has particles which appear to behave in a random, uncaused manner including just popping into existence. You are also making the assumption that the universe had a beginning, a complete unknown. If the universe is eternal in the past there is no logical necessity to terminate your series. Phrases like "pure actuality" are odd, so is "outside of time". It is hard to imagine how anything could be outside time. How could it make the first move or do any actualizing? Surely that would result in a change and change implies time. Finally even if your argument is correct it doesn't follow that the prime mover must be omnipotent, eternal or a god. Might be an alien being from another universe.. who knows.

[@neptasur]

@@kevconn441 The argument does not attribute causes in a temporal series going back in time. Your answer assumes that it does. The argument is an ontological series, not a temporal one. The bat moves the ball, the hand moves the bat, etc. simultaneously. The source of pure actuality has ontological primacy, not temporal. Therefore, your claim that there is a composition fallacy is not correct. Also, Aristotle himself thought the universe eternal, so your claims in that regard are spurious. QM does not disprove causality as not knowing a cause is not the same as knowing that there is not a cause. This can be seen even more easily by pointing out that QM posits an irreducible observer that causes the wave function collapse. You cannot simply ignore the unreduced observer and then carry on as if this example proves the point. “How could it make the first move or do any actualizing?” Again, ontological series, not a temporal series. “Surely that would result in a change and change implies time.” Correct. That is, in fact, Aristotle’s definition of time. However, it does nothing to show that pure actuality exists in time; it does not. “Might be an alien being” As a contingent being is not purely actual and contains potential, said alien being cannot be God.

[@Bradley_UA]

You are looking at science and basically saying "what we asserted about god isn't disproved by this one theory, therefore god is real". That's not how it works. You need to present evidence yourself, and until you do, your belief isn't warranted. No plan doesn't mean randomness. That's why both sides make a mistake: because you are strawmaning what scientific explanations are. God, on the other hand, doesn't explain anything. To say "god created everything" is the same as saying "everything came about naturally". Neither is an explanation. The explanation is when you go in the details of how DNA works, how natural selection works, how biochemistry works, and that shows you a way from simple chemicals to intelligent life. This is _much more_ than just saying "it came about naturally" or "god made it". Anyhow, quantum mechanics is irrelevant to the discussion. Just because views of Thomas Aquinas doesn't directly contradict with angels and whatever properties someone asserted about them, doesn't mean they are real. You have to make a case for what you believe.

[@Bradley_UA]

@@whoami8434 Your comparing 2+2=4 to "god exists" is laughable. Do you ven understand what numbers mean? "2+2=4" - this is not a statement of fact. This is like logical sylogisms: "all elephants are pink, nelly is an elephant, therefore nelly is pink". This is a perfectly logical statement, but its not a statement of fact. To demonstrate the fact that nelly is pink. you need evidence to demonstrate elephants are pink and that nelly is an elephant. Same with 2+2=4. It doesnt automatically mean i have four dollas. It means if i have 2 dollars and pick up another 2 dollars, i will have 4 dollars. But i still need to demonstrate with evidence that i had 2 dollars and then picked up the other 2 dollars. Exactly the same with god. A logical statement akin too "if god exists, then god exists", although a fucking tautology, is simmilar to "2+2=4". But you still need evidence to conclude that god, in fact, exists. ANyway, the whole video is trying to dismiss multiple ways we know christian god cant be real, by redefining a new typo of god, that we cant falsify. This is intellectually dishonest and irrational. All it does, as everything else in aquinas teachings, is allows people who want to believe, to not feel as embarassed when rationality proves them wrong over an over.

[@Bradley_UA]

@@whoami8434 I don't dislike any god, because I dont think they are real. To say the are real, you need evidence. Without evidence you can't say it. Your point about god like math that doesn't need evidence, is wrong.