Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Chesterton Society Conference --- Intelligent Design Session with Father Stanley Jaki


I attended the Saturday sessions of the 25th Annual Conference of the American Chesterton Society over at the University of St Thomas. It was my first visit to one of their events and it was well worth the time.

Other than browsing through the many book stalls, I was intrigued by a small group presentation on Intelligent Design that was going to take place.

I’ve wondered what the “Catholic position” on Intelligent Design is. I know it’s not “7 Days and 4004 B.C.” And I know it’s not the atheistic Darwinian Natural Selection Theories of the Origin of the Species and Evolution about which I know very little other than what I read “in the papers.”

But I know the Intelligent Design folks want to prove that God created the world. Some want to prove that he did it in 7 Days.

What I “know” of the Catholic position is that the Darwinian Theories are acceptable for belief as long as we acknowledge that at some yet unknown point God “intervened” and “created a Man and a Woman.” There may be more to it, but that’s what “I know.” So I came to learn more.

[Large Section Deleted] Read the entire Chesterton Conference post

2 comments:

Our Word said...

Proving once again that there's a reason we have a mind and heart and soul. We can use science all we want to explain how things work, but at some point we must use the gift of faith to make the leap into the why. The point isn't so much whether God created the world in 7 solar days, but that He could have if he wanted to and that He did put everything in motion.

Anonymous said...

Ray,

I enjoyed reading your post about the ACS conference session. I was there also and found it very interesting. That's the thing about the conference -- it always has plenty of stimulation both for Chestertonians and folks not quite up-to-speed with the big fellow. We've been travelling up from Omaha for the conference for 6 years now. Anyhow, thanks again and I hope you return next year.

By the way, you might be interested in a couple of recent blog posts that touch on these topics. One is about the conference (http://thebookden.blogspot.com/2006/06/25th-annual-american-chesterton.html) and the other about a recent dissent from Darwinism from several hundred international scientists (http://vitalsignsblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/scientific-dissent-from-darwinism.html).

May God keep blessing you,

Denny Hartford
Director, Vital Signs Ministries
Vital Signs web site: www.vitalsignsministries.org
Vital Signs Blog: http://vitalsignsblog.blogspot.com/
The Book Den: http://thebookden.blogspot.com/