Fr DOMINIC McGrattan in Faith Matters (September 26) comments on the growing tension between faith in Christianity and secularisation. The latter is based on the modern demand of humanity that its scientific and political activities should be free from any interference on the part of theology and metaphysics.
In the book Christianity and Evolution the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (1881-1953) on this problem are given, which he calls “the rise of an evolutive God of the Ahead – hostile at first glance to the transcendental God of the Above, whom Christianity offers for worship”. The problem is now acute, as the international conference in Rome, 2009, in honour of Darwin and his famous book on evolution shows. The delegates, scientists and some theologians, are discarding the doctrine of Original Sin. They concluded that we should not look to the past but to end times or eschatology in order to understand why God created a world full of natural evil such as disorder, diseases, pain and death, as well as good billions of years before humanity emerged on earth by evolution from animal precursors right back to the first primitive living forms. The story of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and their fall in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1-3) is still discussed in the Catechism (CCC, 390-418) as happening at the beginning of the history of humanity, i.e. in space-time. Did God directly create a flawed finite world? This is known as the theodicy problem – the all-powerful, all-knowing, God being responsible, if humanity is not.
In order to answer this problem a radically new synthesis is required, where creation begins in the transcendental realm of God, eternity for divinity but called aeviternity for created being – eternity where change is possible.
The angels who dwell in aeviternity also had a free choice either to freely accept the divine will for their being or to rebel. We are taught that Lucifer and his cohorts of angels rebelled and became fallen and distorted, as Satan and the evil spirits.
We can then think of creation beginning as living immortal transcendental knowledge, one great idea in the mind of God, a union of many distinct ideas.
It also had the freedom to accept the divine will for its actualisation as true being or to rebel and become false being. When tempted by Satan in Eden to be knowledge of good and evil, when God had decreed that it be good only, the one great idea was expelled from aeviternity as the finite fallen world of space time. Knowing is being in God, as we see in the words of Yahweh to Jeremiah (IR-10), “before I formed you in the womb I new you”.
God does not create in space-time. He redeems creation from space-time which is a distortion of our true transcendental being. This is a fundamental error in the understanding of dogma and doctrine in the Catechism. It is understandable because those who wrote Genesis thought of God creating in seven days.
Teilhand de Chardin in Christianity and Evolution in his discussion of Original Sin and the fall makes the same error, so he finally arrived at a rejection of the doctrine of Original Sin as taught by the church. Many who believe in the truth of evolution and the evidence for it, detailed in numerous TV programmes, do the same as happened at the conference in Rome, 2009.
We now require more emphasis on transcendental realities and metaphysics which are being discarded and replaced by physics.
PROF JOHN ROONEY
Belfast BT9
So, you can only be in the ‘United Community’ if you vote for Alliance
I’ve noted with great interest the increasing use of the term ‘United Community’ by the Alliance Party.
From the way it seems to be explained by Alliance Party elected representatives and activists, you can only be in the United Community, and I assume believe in a shared future, if you don’t vote for any parties that describe themselves as nationalist or unionist. In other words, you can’t believe in a shared future unless you vote for the Alliance Party (note – I don’t see other parties, like the Greens or People Before Profit, using this term).
Not only is this dripping with moral superiority, but it also raises some interesting questions.
For example, if, when asked, how you would vote in a future border poll and you were to say that you would vote for the union, does that mean you can’t be a member of the United Community?
If there were ever to be a border poll, are members of the United Community supposed to abstain, or not vote at all? If that’s the case, there are several high-profile Alliance politicians who didn’t receive that email.
Believe it or not, there are some people out there who believe in Irish unity or the union, who may have voted for a range of parties, but who also believe in bringing people in Northern Ireland closer together.
Isn’t the place we’re trying to get to in Northern Ireland one that allows people to have their own views on constitution but encourages us to work together on the issues that matter to us all?
If that’s the case, perhaps trying to create a separate identity only for people agnostic on the constitution is counterproductive for achieving that shared future.
GARETH BROWN
South Belfast
How many more Billy Caspers will there be?
At school I studied the book A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. Set in a mining town in the north of England in the late 1960s. The story follows young Billy Casper, living life on the poverty line, part of a society and education system which failed him.
Life for us here in the north was similar, we were poor without knowing it. The Troubles were cranking up, the country was facing the winter of discontent. The political system was in turmoil. We had nothing to look forward too. Then a long came our knight in shining armour ‘the European Common Market’ which evolved into the EU.
We are weeks away from going back to the future, only this time it will be worse for us. Why? Because we know what poverty is.
We know what queuing at a border means .
We know what it feels like to be let down.
Our struggles to make life better worked to a point, before greed set in.
Where are we now?
What have we to look forward too?
How many more Billy Caspers will there be?
JIM BOYLAN
Warrenpoint, Co Down
Boris happy to segment vote in his favour
Boris Johnson claims to respect the outcome of votes and referendum. His whole campaign against his parliamentary colleagues is that they are refusing to take cognisance of the overall vote of the British public to leave the EU.
But we didn’t see him take too much notice of the 2016 Irish vote to remain in the EU.
He was only too pleased to segment the vote then, in the interests of an unrepresentative party – the Tories.
Also, why are unvoted for advisers allowed precedence of influence over elected representatives inside his government? Did anybody vote for Dominic Cummings?
GABRIELLE STEWART
Omagh, Co Tyrone
