Two Catholics – Dr. Douglas Darnowski (Professor of Molecular Biology) and Dr. Kevin Mark (Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation) – debate whether theistic evolution or creationism is most compatible with Catholic teaching.
Once belief in God goes, there is no end to the nonsense found to take His place.
God usually works slowly and predictably within the laws He Himself made. When we study the details that we know about the living world, we see that they are truly astounding and enthralling.
Natural science is a great thing, and many great scientific advancements have helped us immensely. But evolutionary science is historically about as reliable as Faucian Bugle Science.
One year after scientists flipped the switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), physicist Lawrence Krauss fretted, “I worry whether we’ve come to the limits of empirical science.” His worry was not unfounded—in the last eleven years and at a cost of over $13B, the sole accomplishment of the LHC has been the confirmation of … Read more
A legion of publishers will attest that Father Stanley Jaki (1924-2009) did not suffer fools gladly, and under that category he filed virtually all editors. He wrote in perfect English but with a discernible Hungarian syntax so that his footnotes could be longer than the main text, and verbs often were fugitive. His patience with … Read more
In the space between the Cross and the Parousia, we are prone to wonder: What really happens when we die? What does it mean to be absent from the body and present with the Lord? What is heaven like? Will our deceased pets be there? At the resurrection, will we be raised at the age … Read more
In 1977, George Lucas struck box-office gold with the epic adventure Star Wars. Mystic luminaries, anthropomorphic androids, light sabers, and computerized special effects captured the imaginations of audiences young and old alike. But perhaps the most lasting impression on viewers was Obi-wan Kenobi’s Delphic disclosure: “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power… It surrounds … Read more
The parish priest told the class, with all the authority of a papal decree, that the creation account in Genesis, including the first human couple, was a myth. It was enough to raise not a few eyebrows, mine and my wife’s included. As a murmur began to build among the stunned attendees, a passage from … Read more
G.K. Chesterton said, at the end of his fine biography The Dumb Ox, that Thomas Aquinas ought to be called “Saint Thomas of the Creation.” That is because Thomas defended the integrity, the beauty, the intelligibility, and the real and not notional existence of things, good old created things, fire and flood, flowers and grass, birds … Read more
Hubris is a theme that preoccupied the minds of the ancient Greeks. Man’s fate was unpredictable in a world governed by capricious deities, therefore one ought to temper one’s aspirations and avoid displeasing them in any way. Calamities could befall whole cities because of hubris in one man, as Sophocles dramatized in Oedipus Rex. In … Read more
In a criticism of creation and intelligent design, Carl Sagan famously quipped, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” What bypassed the critical filters of the late science popularizer is that the extraordinary theories concocted by materialistic scientists not only lack extraordinary evidence, they lack any evidence, and in some cases, any possibility for evidence. Panspermia, parallel … Read more
Harvey, Irma, and Jose are the latest in a long list of recent disasters inflicting widespread violence on man and nature. In 2011, a super outbreak of tornadoes claimed the lives of over 340 people in the Southeast. In Alabama whole communities were wiped off the map. Within a few miles of my home in … Read more
Recently, Bishop Paprocki released a decree on “same-sex ‘marriage’ and related pastoral issues.” Some Catholics interpreted it as an unjust singling-out (and rejection) of a specific group of persons. In terms of sin itself they do have a point—we are all sinners. However, some went as far as to interpret it as a form of excommunication. What seemed absent in the grievances I … Read more
A lady recently wrote me with a question about the role of material things in life. She was confounded by apparent contradictions between living a pious life while enjoying material things that are all around us. She had read the stories of the saints and how they often scorned material things. Since we are all … Read more
In an episode of Antiques Roadshow, a furniture expert was presented an unexceptional-looking table, one that struck me as something I could put together in an afternoon. Although the piece had no decorative embellishments or maker’s mark, the expert immediately identified it as the work of George Nakashima, an innovative furniture maker of the last century. I was amazed, for somewhere in the table’s stark simplicity … Read more
So often in contemporary Catholic and Christian circles, there is a tendency to abandon any reference to Christ and his Church when debating thorny marriage issues in our culture. For those of us in Australia who have not suffered the judicial over-reaching that was witnessed in the US, the debate is still open. Yet, those … Read more
God loves stuff. Things. Matter. We can tell that God loves stuff because he made so much of it. From the dust of the Horsehead Nebula to the sand of a Pacific beach to the granite of the Rocky Mountains, God made it all, and, according to its own proper nature, loves it all. He … Read more
In spite of themselves, atheists can help to remind us of an important truth about God, that is, that he radically transcends the universe. It is God’s very transcendence that makes atheism possible, or at least more likely. If God were an item in the universe open to empirical investigation, presumably, there would be far … Read more
Even before its opening March 28 the film Noah starring Russell Crowe as the man commissioned by God to build an ark, stirred controversy among Christians. A number of Christian reviewers have praised the movie. But Noah has its significant detractors, many of whom have condemn its unbiblical mounting of the Genesis story. This reviewer … Read more