telige@mail.clara.fl.com (William) wrote in

Peter H Proctor<drp@drproctor.com> wrote:

This is a heretical point of view. For milllenia theologians
have set agreement with science as a boundry condition for scriptural
interpretation. E.g., Pope John Paul II has stated that
"(Scriptural) truth cannot contradict (scientific) truth.

I think the Pope, like fundamentalist creationists, states scriptural
truth cannot contradict scientific truth but adds the caveat that if
there appears to be a conflict then the scientific truth must have
been mistaken.

It's a little more subtle than that, in that the RCC does not adhere to
the heretical doctrine of sola scriptura.

It would probably read more like scientific truth must be mistaken
if it conflicts with dogma pronoounced ex cathedra an morals and
dogma by a sitting pontiff.

Note the word 'interpretations'. If there is a conflict then either
the interpretation of scripture is wrong or the interpretation of
science is wrong. According to the Church, 'real' scripture and 'real'
science cannot be in conflict. Like everything else in religion, it is
basically fireproof - and therefore pretty meaningless.

Science has the advantage over other systems of knowledge of being self-
testing and self-correcting. There is nothing wrong with the Church
suggesting that science is wrong, as long as she understands that, in
order for this to be established scientifically, the scientific method
must be used.

Of course, as a conciliarist, I'm not happy with the idea
of infallible popes anyway. The scientific method is a perfectly valid
means of ascertaining truth, to the very best of human ability. But the
truth it ascertains pertains only to the physical universe of science,
not to other portions of reality.

The latter-day young-earth creationists are, by the lights of the
traditional Church, heretics.

They have replaced the man-to-man
transmission of apostolic authority in the Church (Holy Orders) with
their own authority of sola scriptura (a doctrine, claiming that all
doctrine must be supported in scripture only, first proposed by
Augustine, then rejected by him and by the Church on the very reasonable
grounds that scripture is not self-defining, is not consistent enough to
support such a doctrine logically, and in any case does not teach it,
thus invalidating the doctrine by its own test of authenticity).

It was Pope Damasus and Jerome (then the ranking Bible scholar and still
working on his translation of scripture into Latin which became the
Vulgate) who talked Augustine out of it.

Not only have the latter-day heretics accepted sola scriptura (as
promulgated latterly by Luther and Calvin), but they have extended it
into sola scriptura ad litteram, taking scripture only in its most
literal sense (except, of course, whenever that becomes too silly even
for them). I would, however, ask the much more useful question (than the
one posed in the subject line) as to whether a young-earth creationist
can be a Christian. Christian teaching, even if we confine it to the New
Testament does inveigh against bearing false witness and encourages
people to investigate for themselves if something is true or not. Yet
young-earth creationism requires that people either remain deliberately
ignorant in order to deceive themselves or that they participate in what
has become a professional campaign of lies and hate-mongering against
scientists of all and of no religion.