Great post

I'll post something for you this weekend (I will need to type out)

A conversation between religion, reason and science, written by a former Priest who was booted for teachings against the church (occult theologian)...

Hey, the book is posted on the web...here is the part your post reminded me of

RESUME OF THE FIRST PART

IN THE FORM OF A DIALOGUE

FAITH, SCIENCE, REASON.------

SCIENCE. You will never make me believe in the existence of God.
FAITH. You have not the privilege of believing, but you will never prove to
me that God does not exist.
SCIENCE. In order to prove it to you, I must first know what God is.
FAITH. You will never know it. If you knew it, you could teach it to me; a
nd when I knew it, I should no longer believe it.
SCIENCE. Do you then believe without knowing what you believe?
FAITH. Oh, do not let us play with words! It is you who do not know what I
believe, and I believe it precisely because you do not know it. Do you preten
d to be infinite? Are you not stopped at every step by mystery? Mystery is for
you an infinite ignorance which would reduce to nothing your finite knowledge,
if I did not illumine it with my burning aspirations; and if, when you say, "I
no longer know," I did not cry, "As for me, I begin to believe."
SCIENCE. But your aspirations and their object are not (and cannot be for m
e) anything but hypotheses. {91}
FAITH. Doubtless, but they are certainties for me, since without those hypo
theses I should be doubtful even about your certainties.
SCIENCE. But if you begin where I stop, you begin always too rashly and too
soon. My progress bears witness that I am ever advancing.
FAITH. What does your progress matter, if I am always walking in front of y
ou?
SCIENCE. You, walking! Dreamer of eternity, you have disdained earth too m
uch; your feet are benumbed.
FAITH. I make my children carry me.
SCIENCE. They are the blind carrying the blind; beware of precipices!
FAITH. No, my children are by no means blind; on the contrary, they enjoy t
wofold sight: they see, by thine eyes, what thou canst show them upon earth, an
d they contemplate, by mine, what I show them in Heaven.
SCIENCE. What does Reason think of it?
REASON. I think, my dear teachers, that you illustrate a touching fable, th
at of the blind man and the paralytic. Science reproaches Faith with not knowi
ng how to walk upon the earth, and Faith says that Science sees nothing of her
aspirations and of eternity in the sky. Instead of quarrelling, Science and Fa
ith ought to unite; let Science carry Faith, and let Faith console Science by t
eaching her to hope and to love!
SCIENCE. It is a fine ideal, but Utopian. Faith will tell me absurdities.
I prefer to walk without her.
FAITH. What do you call absurdities?
SCIENCE. I call absurdities propositions contrary to my demonstrations; as,
for example, that three make one, that a {92} God has become man, that is to s
ay, that the Infinite has made itself finite, that the Eternal died, that God p
unished his innocent Son for the sin of guilty men. ...
FAITH. Say no more about it. As enunciated by you, these propositions are
in fact absurdities. Do you know what is the number of God, you who do not kno
w God? Can you reason about the operations of the unknown? Can you understand
the mysteries of charity? I must always be absurd for you; for, if you unders
tood them, my affirmations would be absorbed by your theorems; I should be you,
and you would be me; or, to put it better, I should no longer exist, and Reaso
n, in the presence of the infinite, would halt, blinded for evermore by your do
ubts, which are as infinite as space.
SCIENCE. At least, you should never usurp my authority, or give me the lie
in my own domains.
FAITH. I have never done so, and I could never do so.
SCIENCE. So! You have never believed, for example, that a virgin could bec
ome a mother, without ceasing to be a virgin, in the physical, natural, positiv
e order of things, in spite of all the laws of Nature; you do not affirm that a
piece of bread is not only a God, but a real human body with its bones and its
veins, its organs, its blood; such, in short, that you make of your children w
ho eat this bread a little race of cannibals.
FAITH. There is not a single Christian who would not be revolted by what yo
u have just said. That sufficiently proves that they do not understand my teac
hings in this positive and gross sense. The supernatural which I affirm is abo
ve Nature, and consequently could never oppose itself to her; the words of Fait
h are understood only by Faith; Science has only to repeat them to pervert thei
r proper sense. I employ these {93} words because I have no others; but since
you find my remarks absurd, you should conclude from that that I give to the sa
me words a meaning which escapes you. When the Saviour revealed the dogma of t
he real presence, did he not say: "The flesh profiteth nothing, but my words ar
e spirit and life." I do not give you the mystery of the incarnation for an an
atomical phenomenon, nor that of transubstantiation for a chemical manipulation
. By what right do you exclaim "Absurd!"? I do not reason about any of the th
ings you know; by what right do you say that I talk unreasonably?
SCIENCE. I begin to understand you, or rather, I see that I shall never und
erstand you. This being so, let us remain separate; I shall never have need of
you.
FAITH. I am less proud, and I recognize that you may be useful to me perhap
s. Perhaps, too, you will be very sad and very desperate without me, and I wil
l not leave you unless Reason consents.
REASON. Be well 'ware of doing so! I am necessary to both of you. And I,
what should I do without you? In order to be just, I need to know and to belie
ve. But I must never confound what I know with what I believe. To know is to
believe no longer; to believe is not to know as yet. The object of Science is
the known; Faith does not occupy itself with that, and leaves it all to Science
. The object of Faith is the unknown; Science may seek it, but not define it;
she is then obliged, at least provisionally, to accept the definitions of Faith
which it is impossible for her even to criticize. Only, if Science renounces
Faith, she renounces hope and love, whose existence and necessity are as eviden
t for Science as for Faith. Faith, as a psychological fact, pertains to the rea
lm of {94} Science; and Science, as the manifestation of the light of God withi
n the human intelligence, pertains to the realm of Faith. Science and Faith mu
st then admit each other, respect each other mutually, support each other, and
bear each other aid in case of need, but without ever encroaching the one upon
the other. The means of uniting them is --- never to confound them. Never can
there be contradiction between them, for although they use the same words,, th
ey do not speak the same language.
FAITH. Oh, well, Sister Science; what do you say about it?
SCIENCE. I say that we are separated by a deplorable misunderstanding, and
that henceforward we shall be able to walk together. But to which of your diff
erent creeds do you wish to attach me? Shall I be Jewish, Catholic, Mohammedan
, or Protestant?
FAITH. You will remain Science, and you will be universal.
SCIENCE. That is to say, Catholic, if I understand you correctly. But what
should I think of the different religions?
FAITH. Judge them by their works. Seek true Charity, and when you have fou
nd her, ask her to which religion she belongs.
SCIENCE. It is certainly not to that of the Inquisition, and of the authors
of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
FAITH. It is to that of St. John the Almoner, of St. Francois de Sales,> of
St. Vincent de Paul, of Fenelon, and so many more. {95}
SCIENCE. Admit that if religion has produced much good, she has also done m
uch evil.
FAITH. When one kills in the name of the God who said, "Thou shalt not kill
,"> when one persecutes in the name of Him who commands us to forgive our enemi
es, when one propagates darkness in the name of Him who tells us not to hide th
e light under a bushel, is it just to attribute the crime to the very law which
condemns it? Say, if you wish to be just, that in spite of religion, much evi
l has been done upon earth. But also, to how many virtues has it not given bir
th? How many are the devotions, how many the sacrifices, of which we do not kn
ow! Have you counted those noble hearts, both men and women, who renounced all
joys to enter the service of all sorrows? Those souls devoted to labour and t
o prayer, who have strewn their pathways with good deeds? Who founded asylums
for orphans and old men, hospitals for the sick, retreats for the repentant? T
hese institutions, as glorious as they are modest, are the real works with whic
h the annals of the Church are filled; religious wars and the persecution of he
retics belong to the politics of savage centuries. The heretics, moreover, wer
e themselves murderers. Have you forgotten the burning of Michael Servetus and
the massacre of our priests, renewed, still in the name of humanity and reason
, by the revolutionaries who hated the Inquisition and the Massacre of St. Bart
holomew? Men are always cruel, it is true, but only when they forget the relig
ion whose watchwords are blessing and pardon.
SCIENCE. O Faith! Pardon me, then, if I cannot believe; {96} but I know no
w why you believe. I respect your hopes, and share your desires. But I must fi
nd by seeking; and in order to seek, I must doubt.
REASON. Work, then, and seek, O Science, but respect the oracles of Faith!
When your doubt leaves a gap in universal enlightenment, allow Faith to fill i
t! Walk distinguished the one from the other, but leaning the one upon the oth
er, and you will never go astray.

Here's the link http://www.joshuah.org/Steps/Articles/KeytotheMysteries.html (sorry for long post) Bill

tnx for your 3 blogs on Faith/Evolution.
With respect, theology is not merely an extended commentary on Holy Scripture. The Protestant "Sola Scriptura” position is completely untenable, for reasons deiscussed eg [by me] on with further links. Please try St Thomas Aquinas' 'Summa Theologica' - all on the web eg at New Advent. I am willing to defend the thesis that the Bible cannot meaningfully be torn out of its context, which is the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, which is not at all a human association but in a real, although mysterious manner, the actual Body of Christ remaining in the World (actually, it's all in Paul). Once this is assimilated, the conflict between Religion & Science dissolves. Science is getting to know Someone by the House He builds (physics) & the Garden He keeps (biology), & theology & prayer is like going inside and talking to Him personally.

Sorry! Software deleted the link!

The Protestant "Sola Scriptura" position is completely untenable, for reasons discussed eg [by me] on tradwiki with further links.