What also surprised me was that all the questions he answered in a very one dimensional kind of way. Basically it would appear that his understanding goes as far as to believe that if scientifically it couldn't happen… Then its impossible. To which I would have posed the questions I did in my last post on "Where is God?" on how would he go about explaining miracles? And I'm not talking about miracles in which we pray for a loved one to recover from an illness and they miraculously recover faster than normal. I'm talking about miracles that are shocking, and that science can't explain. Miracles like people who have been blind, suddenly being able to see… Yet they don't have pupils. Or bodies of individuals that don't decay? Or even people who have lost body parts, miraculously have them returned to them out of the blue, and in perfect working condition, like the man that St. Padre Pio healed who was with an eye, and got it back! How would Richard Dawkins explain that? How would any atheist explain that?Another troubling topic for me when watching this video was when the Cardinal was asked if we all came from apes. He hesitated for a while and tried to answer the question in a round about way to include the fact that God ultimately created the first humans. But eventually agreed that it was possible that we could have evolved from apes. I find trouble with this personally, because from my understanding, there really is no connection between us an apes besides the fact that their make-up is very similar to ours. Yet the make-up of a Lion and a Tiger is the same as well, and they can have baby Ligers. Same with a horse and a donkey who can have mules, or a wolf and a dog who can have pups. But there is something that truly separates us from apes and physically does not make us, "cousins". I wish the Cardinal would have been a little more clear about that.
Finally another issue that Richard Dawkins tried to pin the Cardinal to the wall on, was the issue of the resurrection of the body and the Eucharist. And this is the way I would have responded.
Dawkins: ...The brain is what we do our thinking with, the brain is going to rot. That's all there is to it. I'm intrigued how the Christians say that we are going to be resurrected... in the body? I mean, that's… an astonishing idea and I don't think you really mean that. Just as I believe that you don't really mean that the wafer turns into the Body of Christ. You must mean body in some special kind of sense.
Myself: Mr. Dawkins of course these terms "Resurrection of the Body" and "the Body of Christ" are puzzling to you because you look at this from a very scientific and worldly kind of view. And from that understanding, you're right… Its impossible for a dead and decayed body to come back to life, just as much as it is impossible for a piece of bread or a glass of wine to turn into flesh and blood. It just can't happen by the means of earthly science. But it can, by the power of God, just as much as the universe can come into existence from nothing. We know that the resurrection is possible and is going to happen because Jesus Himself told us it would happen and showed us in His own resurrection. If that Jesus wouldn't have rose from the dead… There would not be one Christian here today. The Romans would have never tolerated such a lie to be going around… And in fact they didn't! Many of the first early Christians were killed and slaughtered for this truth that Jesus rose from the dead. But the movement didn't stop, because it was the truth, and there were Christians willing to die for this truth! Would you be willing to die over the belief that there isn't a God? Or would you rather not take that chance?
Dawkins: But other Christian denominations are willing to take that (the belief in the real presence in the Eucharist) as more symbolic and metaphorical meaning and Catholics take it as a literal meaning. And I'm trying to be charitable, I'm trying to suggest that its that same sense in that you say that the body is resurrected, because the body is certainly not resurrected in terms of the cell, the protoplasm, the proteins, the DNA… That doesn't happen any more than the wafer turns into that… So you do not mean the wafer turns into the body in any sense in which normal English language usage would understand. You mean it in some other sense. And I take it, its that same sense that the body is resurrected.
Myself: You are correct in some degree that the sense in which this occurs is not from the means of this world. But it does happen.
Dawkins: But I am also a rationalist. I mean, english is my native language! The wafer does NOT become the body of anybody in the english language!
Myself: Well then let me explain it to you better in english that you might understand. Everything has a substance, it is what makes it what it is, correct? At Mass when the Priest utters the words of consecration, repeating the words and actions that Christ did, what happens to the bread and the wine is called "Transubstantiation". It is where the substance of what makes the bread, bread and the wine, wine is suddenly changed into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. It may still look and taste like bread and wine, but it's substance is that of Jesus Christ Himself. Now to you, this may not be a good enough scientific explanation… But again it is because you are seeing this from the perspective of the world. And to believe this you must have the understanding of the world from the sense that God can make anything happen. And if the Man who is the Son of God told us that this is His Body and is His Blood, than I would rather trust what He says over what you say.
God love you all, Pray the Rosary daily!
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