Creation or Evolution theories

I like you Jimmy, I think after this ALL the women here are going to like you.

 

That's OK. I was really talking about the harem warfare/genocide that God commanded. It really is a problem for non-believers and is used as a weapon against the truth of God and His Church. But it only makes sense if there was a genetic attack on the line that was to produce the Christ to save us. That is why I mentioned the "first evangel", the protoevangelium: "The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent"

Even Scott Hahn admits that there existed from that moment two seeds: the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent, and they battled for ages.........

 

You know, even if I took it that it was Seth's line that went with these women, there is still need of the flood, because God had to take the good man that had managed to hold on to his blessings and to get rid of the ones that were so far gone they would have just continued polluting mankind with their sin, it would have been impossible to keep even one good line going.. (Unfortunately we seem to be very near that same point today)

Yes, mine is more simplified, but it still amounts to the same reasoning as to why God had to do away with these people. God had to start again, with a new covenant. Abraham proved his line worthy (even though he was a naughty boy) when he was prepared to give up his own son in obedience to God.

I love these discussions.

 

Exactly! That is why this discussion belongs here, in the Creation and Evolution thread. It is a genetic manipulation story. An attempt to stop God from incarnating as one of us in Jesus Christ to save us from our exile.

Remember, the fallen angels at that moment of the first evangel, said "I will not Serve". What they refused to serve was "God as Man" (such a low form of creation, much lower than them the beautiful angels). When the protoevangelium prophecy was uttered to them from God Himself, they saw the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and the chose not to serve the God-Man that would be the redeemer.

Thus they became "the Damned".
And their offspring became the "Children of the Damned" (yes, like the Iron Maiden Song from the '80s for all you British heavy metal fans out there in the UK)....

 

I love this stuff too. That's why I get too excited sometimes on these topics.

 

yes, that was satan's cry.. I will not serve..

 

And... What is the natural mechanism proposed for the jumps?

I will try to answer tomorrow some of the particular points you explain in the conclusions.

 

Peter, you said:

"It is on the basis of the views he sets out that I don't personally find the comments on evolution in Maria Valtorta a red flag from an intellectual standpoint. A question mark and a challenge, yes, but not necessarily false."

I commented early today about the basic mistakes in this part of the writing. i did not talk about evolution but about basic biology and there is where "jesus" is making a big mistake. That is why I question from an intellectual point of view the authenticity of this writings and seriously doubt their divine origin.

 

This comes from the prophecies of La Salette,.. so it sounds like like the lustful angels would be in need of a body maybe? Also mentioned in La Salette was that convents would become the grazing grounds for Asmodeus and the like,..which would be the angels of impurity...
"It will be at this time that the Antichrist will be born of a Hebrew nun, a false virgin who will be in communication with the ancient serpent, master of impurity; his father will be a bishop (Ev.). [We spell out the word "bishop" here. In the French text appear only the first two letters of évèque, the French word for bishop, but there is little doubt that this is the word they stand for, because in Mélanie's first draft of the message the whole word is spelled out.]
"At birth he will vomit blasphemies, he will have teeth; in a word, this will be the devil incarnate; he will utter terrifying cries, he will work wonders, he will live only on impurities. He will have brothers who, although not incarnate devils like himself, will be children of evil; at the age of twelve, they will be noted for the valiant victories they will win; soon they will each be at the head of armies, assisted by legions from hell.

 

CEDIVAL calls this a "Supreme Pontifical Imprimatur," where "he took upon himself to pass the first official judgment on these writings." CEDIVAL glues this inside the cover, though the publisher does not print a imprimatur. The reason: it has none!

Comment: The Supreme Pontifical Imprimatur is supported by signed testimony from Maria Valtorta's Spiritual Director Father Romualdo M. Migliorini, as well as signed testimony of two distinguished Priest witness, logged by an official Vatican Recording Cardinal and verified in writing by Vatican Cardinal with an impeccable expertise in Canon Law.
The statement by Father Pacwa: "The reason: it has none!", is entirely untrue. In addition to the Supreme Papal Imprimatur, an Archbishop as well as Several Bishops have given their Imprimaturs, such as Archbishop Soosa Pakiam of Trivandrum (for the Malayalam translation prepared in India. Note: If the Vatican thought that the Archbishop of India made an error in judgment, it would have him remove his Imprimatur. Nonetheless, the Vatican has let his Imprimatur stand). Furthermore an Imprimatur was given by Bishop Roman Danylak (Titular Bishop of Nyssa Rome, Italy). A Nihil Obstat from Msgr. Luigi Lovazzano, Vicar-General, Albano, Italy, and Imprimaturs from Bishop Bonicilli, from the same diocese. Evidence that Father Mitch may not have performed adequate fundamental research before making such proclamations.



Confident of papal approval, Father Berti brought the books to the Vatican press. However, in 1949, two commissioners of the Holy Office, Msgr. Giovanni Pepe and Father Berruti, O.P., condemned the Poem, ordering Berti to hand over every copy and sign an agreement not to publish it.


Comment: This statement misrepresents the particulars. This meeting took place after Cardinal Ottaviani realized he was bypassed in the approval process. According to the Priest’s testimony in 1949, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani who then headed the Holy Office, summoned Father Corrado Berti and Father Andrew Cecchin to the Holy Office. Furthermore, during this meeting both Priests were forbidden to speak or communicate in any way immediately before the meeting.

Monsignor Pepe and Father Berruti, officials of the Holy Office, were entrusted with reading the new judgment to both Priests (authored by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani), which reversed and undermined the Papal Imprimatur. Monsignor Pepe and Father Berruti had no role in condemnation itself. The order of silence cleverly restricted Father Berti from informing Monsignor Pepe and Father Berruti of the Papal Imprimatur given by Pope Pius XII.

"As a litmus test of integrity, it may be prudent to consider how Cardinal Ottaviani authored the infamous Secret 1962 Vatican document that mandated the excommunication of children victimized by pedophile priests in the event they sought help from authorities, as uncovered by CBS News in 2003. This same Cardinal purportedly had several notorious tantrum incidents. While giving a protracted harangue at the pulpit, a technician resorted to switching off his microphone, which resulted in a standing ovation by the congregation. In another similar incident, the Priests listening to him one by one started turning their chairs around, facing away from him" (5).

 

Thanks Peter! I love this site!


Father Berti returned the manuscripts to Valtorta and handed over only his typed versions. Despite his signed promise, in 1952 Father Berti went to publisher Emiliano Pisani. Though aware of the Holy Office's opposition, Pisani printed the first volume in 1956, and a new volume each year through 1959.


Comment: Although Father Berti brought all the typescripts in his possession; he could not deliver all the copies, because some were in the possession of other people who declined to be deprived of them. The Holy Office, headed by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, forbade the publication of these writings and threatened to place them on the Index of forbidden books in the event of a publication. The reversal of the Papal Order by the Holy Office was in direct violation to Canon Law. Again, the Code of Canon Law: Book II, Part II, Section I, Chapter I, Article I, gives the Pope full and supreme power over all levels of the Church and free use to exercise this power. Canon law clearly requires that this Papal order be embraced with unconditional acceptance and submission. This is why Father Berti was so persistent in assisting in the publishing of Maria's works, despite the later persecutions he suffered at the hands of his superiors. The Church was in violation of Canon Law for putting it on the index in the first place.



When volume four appeared, the Holy Office examined the Poem and condemned it, recommending that it be placed on the Index of Forbidden Books Dec. 16, 1959. Pope John XXIII signed the decree and ordered it published. L'Osservatore Romano, on Jan. 6, 1960, printed the condemnation with an accompanying front-page article, "A Badly Fictionalized Life of Jesus," to explain it.


Comment: Canon 1385 (Index of Forbidden Books) requires a Papal signature to validate the decree, obviously it would not be possible for Cardinal Ottaviani to obtain a signed condemnation decree from Pope Pius XII against His very own Papal Imprimatur. The unsigned article that appeared in L'Osservatore Romano condemning Valtorta's writings as ‘A Badly Fictionalized Life of Jesus", was purportedly written by Ottaviani himself.

 

VERY, VERY COOL!!


And Yet, Father Pacwa overlooks the most definitive, and perhaps the most incontestable proof. The 10,000 pages of Divine Revelation were given by our Lord in completelyrandom succession. Maria records the visions in simple bound school note books, with no corrections, in the random order as they were given. On the surface, the complete work appeared as a well shuffled deck of cards.

Towards the end, Jesus provides the proper sequence, the key, which could not be realized until the mammoth task of typing the manuscript was completed, allowing the individual pages to be sequenced in the specified succession. When finally placed in the correct progression, the puzzle materializes into a seamless perfect flowing chronology. Maria Valtorta keeps perfect track of Jesus, Mary and over 500 additional personalities.

None of which are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jesus is appropriately in Jerusalem and Judea for Passover and Pentecost in all four spring seasons, and at the Tabernacles in all three fall seasons of His ministry. Jesus traverses the land of Palestine from one end to another in at least six cycles (some 4,000 miles), ministering in some 350 named locations, including places in Palestine known only to specialized archaeologists. A fundamental proof of divine influence.

Many objections disputed that Maria Valtorta is the only visionary who described Jesus as having golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Furthermore, the Church universally accepted, that Jesus being a Jew, had dark skin, dark eyes, and dark hair. Remarkably, in 1964, a tablet from Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar was recovered in a archaeological find (a copy of this letter is in the Congressional Library in Washington, D.C.) which describes Jesus' physical appearance. It describes Jesus as having golden colored hair. Another unearthed description by Publius Lentrelus describes Jesus' eyes as bright blue.Maria Valtorta is the only Visionary to get this right!


While reviewing the evidence of the Shroud in 1999, Dr. Gilbert Lavoie presented another intriguing discovery, that the body had light blond hair.

 

Thanks, Jose - the conclusions aren't mine, but Jean Staune's (I've just translated the final part of his article word for word, not summarized it).

Regarding the question of jumps, Staune's whole point is that the standard neo-Darwinian paradigm of random mutation plus natural selection can't accommodate them, and that the phenomena he observes such as coordinated macromutations require a new explanatory paradigm which we don't yet have (I don't know what Stephen Jay Gould proposed in his 'punctuated equilibria' scheme). What that could be is anybody's guess on the scientific level. If you look at his article (which at times actually reads very similarly to Valtorta on the topic of the apparent fixity of certain species, especially when he asks the question of why cockroaches don't seem to have evolved over 100 million years!), he gives a range of possible research options.

What happens, then, if you decide that jumps, or 'ontological discontinuity' if you want to talk theo-lingo, are the result of Divine Action? What sort of scientific model might be developed for that? Ken Miller and Robert John Russell (Centre for Theology and Natural Sciences at Berkeley) seem to be proposing the development of an evolutionary model that would be open to Divine working at the quantum level, although Staune isn't convinced about this. For the late Polish Archbishop Zycinski, borrowing certain concepts from Teilhard and Whitehead, God steers evolution, allowing it a certain degree of freedom but constraining it like a Divine magnet or 'strange attractor', so that it ultimatey will end up in the right place. Others such as Holmes Rolston ('Three Big Bangs') and John Haught ('Deeper than Darwin') go down the road of 'active information', i.e. the idea that you can have ontological discontinuity within evolutionary processes while maintaining physical continuity (i.e. no changes in terms of physics and chemistry) by informational changes in DNA - which they relate to the Biblical concept of Logos.

Now this is just my opinion, but if you take this last idea (i.e. that the Logos brings about the creation of the first human by rearranging the genetic information pattern - which surely God is capable of doing - and therefore bringing about a new species), then what I read in Maria Valtorta really doesn't look so stupid ...

What I find extremely interesting is that a major French Valtorta specialist, Francois-Michel Debroise (who published a book on the 'Poem of the Man-God' together with René Lauretin), also seems to be interested in the scientific work of Jean Staune. I didn't know this today, but it very much suggests that we could be onto something here.

 

This takes me back to when I was just a very arrogant 19 year old. The priest raised the question if we believed in Evolution and I... thinking that everyone believed in Evolution more nor less burst out laughing at the idea that anyone wouldn't.

The priest called me aside afterwards and warned me I had deeply hurt and angered people with my flippant response. I have since learned a bit of sense..I hope.

The Catholic Church leaves it up to us to make up our minds on this one and I think she is very wise to do so.


I don't know if you have read much about Charles Darwin the guy who came up with the theory? Because his life can teach us a lot with how we approach discussion about this , which can become heated and Doctrinaire.



Charles came from a very pious Church of England family and was very much a believer. But on discovering the Theory he struggled quite hardly with his faith ,eventually loosing it. His sister, a very devout Christian carried on a long correspondance with him, trying to get him to renounce his beliefs. but she ever succeeded. I don't think poor Charles ever got over the loss of his Faith and he always looked kind of sad to me.

I think this shows us what a mine field such a discussion can be.

I myself very much believe in Evolution but I respect those , like my late parents who did not. I think this is the key in such a discussion mutual respect and admitting that even the wisest of us are just starting out.

I'll say one thing though and that is to do with the Big Bang Theory which I have often thought about and prayed on. It seems very similiar to me to the words of Scripture, 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God.....' I always thought this theory was very like how Scripture describes things....

 

Having said this, I believe there must have been a point where God very directly intervened, though when and where is a big guess....

I have always been puzzled by atheists feeling Evolution proves God does not exist...it has never seemed so to me in the least.

 

Padraig, have you seen this?? Was this particular document the Encyclical PJPII wrote about Evolution??


One of the most influential Catholic Theologians Saint Augustine (Bishop of Hippo) argued that original sin had its beginning in sexual desire, and that the Eden account should be taken both literally and symbolically.


http://thesinofadamandeve-augustine.blogspot.com

http://www.suite101.com/content/augustine-and-original-sin-a171404


Saint Bridget of Sweden wrote nearly 1,000 pages of Private Revelations with full Church Approval, which also clarify the fall of Adam and Eve. Saint Bridget's descriptions sound very much like Valtorta's: "Sensually the devil aroused them".


Secondly, why is this considered of any importance, since the Vatican website now sadly teaches us that there was never an Adam or Eve; "However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, internationality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution." That is certainly not what the Bible says.

Vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html

Therefore, Maria Valtorta's writings can be considered more Catholic than the Vatican, in that her writings hold that there was a real Adam and a real Eve. VATICAN CITY (CNS) - "While apes evolved naturally into pre-human creatures, it was the will and desire of God that turned them into humans, an article in the Vatican newspaper said. "The formation of human beings necessitated a particular contribution by God, though it remains that their emergence was brought about by natural causes" of evolution, it said." Hence, the Vatican embraces that Darwin was right, that we all descended from monkeys, that there was no apple, no Adam, no Eve, no serpent, etc. Who is really in theological error?


In Maria Valtorta's descriptions, the serpent didn't caress Eve in a physical sense, it was done with sinful ideas, putting thoughts and temptations in her mind. Catholic Schools have been teaching our children for years that there was no actual Adam and Eve, that Genesis was an allegory or parable describing how Man and Woman fell into sin. Coupled with the underlying lesson or message being; that human sin is followed by punishment, but the last word in the story is one of grace from God. Maria Valtorta’s writings hold that there was a real Adam and a real Eve, this makes her writings to be more Biblical than what the Church even teaches. One of the foremost theologians of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, Christopher West, has advanced precisely this point; that the first sin of Adam and Eve was a sexual sin resulting from lust.

 

In a paper concerning cosmology/evolution in mystic Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta's 'Living in the Divine Will' by exorcist Joseph Iannuzzi (with whom I don't agree on everything, but who is a quality thinker), there is a very interesting excerpt from a lecture given in 1999 at the Sorbonne by the then Cardinal Ratzinger in which it is pretty clear that he wasn't convinced by macro- as opposed to micro-evolution.

http://divine-will-info-nl.blogspot.fr/

 

Dear Peter,

I was just having a look at the document by Webster where he listed a number of places and cities mentioned by MV and showing and sugesting that

Well, I went through the names he marked with ** and (I stopped by letter M, because I am tired now) and I could find the following ones in

Smith, George Adam, Atlas of the historical geography of the Holy Land

(London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1915.)

Arbela
Achzib
Aere
Ajalon
Alexanderscene
Auja
Capitolias
Dok
Gamala
Gilgal
Kabul
Kaukab
Libnah
Mamre
Mareshah
....

It looks as in 1915 one could find the names even in the maps of many places that Webster thought MV could not know.

As you see, one should not take for granteed all what is published in a book or in an article.
Probably MV had some book that Webster has not

From my point of view these proofs for authenticity can be dismissed.

 

Was he a biologist?

 

This may be an unwarranted blackening of the character of the Cardinal.


In 1962, as head, under the Pope, of the Holy Office, Ottaviani signed its document known by its incipitCrimen sollicitationis, which had as subtitle On the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of the Crime of Solicitation. It laid down detailed rules about the procedure for ecclesiastical tribunals to follow if a priest was accused of making sexual advances connected in any way with the sacrament of Confession.[11] Judges and other officials of the tribunal ("each and everyone pertaining to the tribunal in any way") would be subject to automatic excommunication if they revealed anything about the conduct of the trial, even after the verdict had been declared and put into effect.[12] This penalty did not apply to accusers and other witnesses;[13] on the contrary, anyone with knowledge of the crime who failed to denounce it within one month was subject to automatic excommunication and could be absolved only after actually denouncing the priest or at least promising seriously to do so.[14] Violation of secrecy by the accused was also punished not by excommunication but by suspension.[15]
In 2003, 24 years after Cardinal Ottaviani's death, media reports presented this document as an attempt to "hide sexual abuse".[16][17] Some reported that even accusers were subjected to excommunication if they made their accusations known, and that the document was stored in the Vatican Secret Archives, where it was discovered by a lawyer pursuing cases on behalf of victims of abuse by Catholic priests.[18][19][20] In fact, the 69-page document was sent to "all Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries, including those of Eastern Rite" and was to be found, even if after forty years it was generally forgotten, among the papers in their successors' offices. While media reports also suggested that the ecclesiastical verdict was never to be made known, the document itself spoke of the verdict being "declared" and "put into effect",[21] and the punishments laid down in canon law were: "He is to be suspended from celebrating Mass and hearing sacramental confessions and, if the gravity of the crime calls for it, he is to be declared unfit for hearing them; he is to be deprived of all benefices and ranks, of the right to vote or be voted for, and is to be declared unfit for all of them, and in more serious cases he is to be reduced to the lay state."[22] These punishments were of public character and not subject to secrecy.


Pasted from <http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Ottaviani>