Evolution
and Catholic Dogma
By
Anthony Gonzales
We
can define the general theory of evolution as the development of material things from the
most simple of creatures to the most
complex of creatures provoked by the necessity of adaptation. In other words, all living things developed from
very simply living beings through a process of either slow or sudden mutation. This evolutionary process is call natural
selection. From this process we get the term "survival of the fittest".
Pope
John Paul II gave a speech in October 1996 to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences where he
in essence affirmed the possibility of evolution as a legitimate scientific explanation of
the creation of the world. In this speech he referred to the fact that there are
"theories" of evolution and it would be wrong to say that evolution could be
relegated to a single theory. This, of course, was picked
up by the press and made to sound like the
Pope had just come out to affirm
evolution as a "scientific" fact. What in fact Pope John Paul said was merely a reiteration of what Pope Pius XII had said in 1950 with the publication of his Encyclical letter
Humani Generis . But John Paul's statement was much stronger in its implication
that supposedly the scientific research in
evolution seems to lend more credence to its possibility. This is what Pope John Paul II
said:
"Humani Generis,
considered the doctrine of evolutionism as a serious hypothesis, worthy of a more deeply
studied investigation and reflection on a par
with the opposite hypothesis. ...Today , more than a half century after this encyclical,
new knowledge leads us to recognize in the theory
of evolution more than a hypothesis. ...The
convergence, neither
sought nor induced, of results of
work done independently one from the other,
constitute s in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory."
In Humani Generis Pope Pius XII
basically said that the concept of evolution was not in and of itself completely
inimical to the Catholic Faith. Nevertheless,
it had to be understood from within the context of the Revelation of Christ. This means that
certain principles must be maintained for a Roman
Catholic to accept as possible the theory of evolution.
#1. Nothing
comes from nothing. Therefore, God's supremacy in
the creation of matter and in design of the universe must
be acknowledged. He is the first principle of all that exists.
#2.
That God, if He used evolution, did so not out of necessity imposed on Him by
nature itself (as if the nature He created had authority of its own) but rather because He chose to
do so
out of His infinite wisdom.
#3.
That the human spiritual soul is not the product of evolution but is created
directly by God and infused into the human body
at the moment of conception. Therefore, the
spiritual souls of Adam
and Eve were created by God and infused into them when the natural evolution of the human body
had reached its present state.
#4. That there is no such thing as polygenism,
that is, multiple pairs of humans throughout the world. According
to revelation there were only two progenitors of the human race whom we call Adam and Eve. To
accept polygenism is to reject
the dogma of original sin and consequently the need for a Redeemer.
According to Pope Pius XII, as long
as one remains within the parameters of the above
mentioned 4
limitations imposed by the knowledge of divine revelation, then real scientific investigation can speculate
about how God chose to create the universe.
Intentions of Pius XII
This
position of Pius XII was very well thought out and prudent.
He did not wish to condemn as absolutely impossible the concept of evolution, first because the Sacred Scriptures were never meant to
be a scientifically based journal on the
creation of the universe in general and
mankind in particular. They are rather the
inspired insights given to
man by God to reveal certain truths about
Himself and His creation that we might come to
know and love God more profoundly. In
other words, the Scriptures are about man's relationship to God and His relationship
to us. It is not supposed to be National Geographic . Second, because he wanted to avoid making the same mistake that his predecessor
made when condemned the writings of Galileo.
(Note: A clear and
objective reading of history shows that in
reality Galileo was not condemned because of his scientific findings but rather because
the Church wanted time to synthesize his findings with statements in Scripture which
seemed to contradict scientific data. He published his findings as an "in your
face" challenge to the authority of the Papacy.
The Pope had no choice but to act in the way he did, his hand being forced by the
disobedience and imprudence of Galileo.)
The subsequent
fallout over the Galileo incident from
the scientific community and enemies of the Church who distorted the real intentions
behind the Pope's condemnation have been a sore point
even since. Finally, Pope Pius XII wanted to clarify the most important teachings of Genesis and to
correct errors which the theory of
evolution had evoked due to the materialist and atheistic bent of those who proposed it as
the only solution to the existence of the universe. In other words, Pope Pius XII wanted to address the reality
of the spiritual nature of humanity and the sovereignty of God over His creation.
Thus
in 1981 Pope John Paul II addressed the same Pontifical Academy of Sciences with the
following words:
"The Bible
itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and
its makeup, not in order to provide
us with a
scientific treatise but in order to
state the correct relationships of man with God and with
the universe. Sacred scripture wishes
simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses
itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer.... Any other
teaching about the origin and make up of the universe is alien to the intentions
of the Bible,
which does not wish
to teach how the heavens were made but how one
goes to heaven."
To
add further
to this line of thought it must be
noted that Roman Catholic doctrine has never said that we must take the story of a magic tree
and talking snake to be literal historical
events but that the how of creation and the particulars of Adam and Eve's sin can be seen
through stories developed to explain the fact that God is
Creator of all that exists, that He
established and directs the order of His creation, that He created spirit directly and infused it into matter thus creating
a first man
and woman from whom all other humans
come, that these first human's
were innocent
and filled with knowledge and the life
of grace from God Himself and
that finally
they used their individuality in opposition to God's will and sinned. Whether or not the
devil spoke through a snake or appeared to them as
an angel of light it doesn't matter. Nor does it matter if they ate
a forbidden fruit or stepped on forbidden
grass or
simply chose their own
will over and above God's. The point is that
they chose self rather than God and did so deliberately and with the malice of pride.
Darwin's Concept of
Evolution
The
Darwinian concept of evolution is based
purely upon the premise that the whole process of creation was not started or directed by
an Omnipotent God but rather was the product
of random chance with no direction or design. For the materialistic atheist
"design" is simply the product of adaptation nothing more or nothing less.
The
Darwinian theory of evolution has some incredibly difficult problems to overcome for it to be taken seriously
as a theory based on fact. This will be discussed further on
in this article. Nevertheless, it is important
to note that whether or not evolution was a
process of imperceptible mutations which contribute to the natural selection of the
species or was a process of sudden mutations which produced new species it still does not account for how the being now known as Homo sapiens learned how to be human. From whence came
their sense of culture? The ape ancestors of the
Darwinian humans could not have possibly passed on human culture, speech, and
human behavior to their mutant offspring!
So, how did man learn to act like man
and not just another ape?
Christian Theories of
Evolution
I would
like to make it crystal clear that I do not
subscribe to any theory of evolution presently given as an explanation for the origins of living matter. I will give my reasons below. However, it is
useful to understand what those Christian
"scientists" say who speculate
that God may have used evolution as the means by which He created the universe and
ultimately man. By understanding their
hypotheses I believe it is much easier to show how even these theories
are contrary to the revelation given to us through Sacred Scripture and Holy Tradition.
Both
Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II have come out to specifically address the problem of
evolution as a scientific theory which has been
used by atheists to promote atheistic thought
and to
give a "scientific" explanation of the universe that those who do not
believe could have some basis for their unbelief.
Christian
evolutionists have tried to synthesize the theory of evolution with Christian doctrine. Today the Modernists do not even try to make this
blending of apparently opposing view points but what the Popes have said is that in order
to remain Catholic you must follow the above mentioned principles when postulating the
existence of evolution. So what would that
look like. Well there are
several ways those theories could be
presented, but let's look at a brief scenario:
When
God created matter He did so in a natural form of chaos. He then "molded" it into the
stars, planets
and the whole physical universe through natural mechanisms which He had woven
within all things. This was a slow process in time and space. When the earth had been
formed and was ready God created the first forms of life. By His direction of the long
process of evolution and the various stages of mutation within each original species and
their subsequent species God ultimately brought to completion
the creatures He had intended to create from
the beginning. The ultimate goal of evolution
was to be found in Man. Once evolution had developed the
physical bodies God designed to
receive a human spirit then He chose two
of this new species (male & female) and infused into
each one a human spirit; that is a
spirit with the ability of self-reflective and abstract thought. In other words, a
creature who knows and knows that he knows. At
that moment humanity was born. Now since He
gave them a soul that reasons and is not simply moved by instinct God would at the same
time have to infuse them with intellectual knowledge
to know whatever was necessary. Otherwise
they would have simply imitated the animals
with which they were surrounded. Also without this infused
knowledge they would not have been able to communicate with each other through language.
They were also filled with God's sanctifying grace because they were innocent and God's desired for them to be in intimate union with
Himself through their own free choice.
It is
from this first pair of humans that
all humans would have descended.
The Philosophical
Problems of Evolution
At a first glance the Christianized concept of evolution, when looked
at through the eyes of Christian revelation seems to dovetail
nicely with the supposed progress of science in the many different areas where it seems to
accept the concept of evolution as a fact. It allows Catholics to look both educated and
sophisticated when it comes to Mankind's progress in
science and technology. For many
scientists the idea of "creationism" as opposed to evolution is tantamount to
believing that the world is flat or that the
earth is the center of the universe.
Experience tells us that everything in this world
is in flux and constant change which also lends a certain amount of credence to the
concept of evolution. In fact, we use the
word evolution about a variety of changes where we recognize the development from one form
to another even within the same individual.
Nevertheless,
there are some apparently insurmountable problems associated with the theory of evolution
particularly from a Christian stand point. The First and primary problem is the fact that
God as the Infinitely All Powerful and Perfect Being cannot bring forth imperfection from Himself.
In other words, it makes no sense that
God who is omnipotent would choose
to create things outside Himself incomplete and
through stages of development instead of what
He originally intends them to be in the first
place. It must
be remembered that for the
evolutionist no living thing is ever
completely what it seems to be but everything is actually in a constant state of becoming something else. So we can only be considered
Homo sapiens now at this present epoch but what humanity will evolve into can only
be speculated upon by the evolutionists. We have no experiential knowledge of evolution
only a hypothesis or theories of evolution. It has never been observed that one species
has evolved from another different species.
Only
perfection can come from perfection. Therefore, when He Who Is Infinite Perfection itself
created a finite creature His creation would have been by virtue of His nature perfectly
what He intended to create. For instance,
when He thought of creating
a tree God thought of that tree
in all its perfection. The perfect oak tree,
the perfect cypress tree, the perfect
redwood, every variety of tree
was created immediately and perfectly as it was thought to be in the infinite mind of God before anything
other than God existed. Finite creation
therefore was created originally to
perfectly express the thought within the mind of the Creator. What came first the chicken
or the egg? The chicken, of course, the egg has to come from a chicken because an egg cannot reproduce itself.
According
to evolutionist theories the process of creation to produce the first trees was an almost
infinitely long process that when considered reasonably just doesn't make any sense. Even
if God was directing evolution it would be contrary to the nature of infinite perfection
to bring forth His creation in
a state of imperfection and corruption. God can do anything. If it was God's intention to
create human beings as the pinnacle of His creation does it make any sense that the All
Powerful and All Mighty God would start with a microscopic amoeba?
By reason we can know
that God exists and we can ascertain His
attributes from the things He has made. We
can determine by reason, for instance, that God is infinitely good and that he is the
author of life. If we accept the general theory of evolution we would also have to
say that He is the author of death, corruption and violence. Evolution assumes a violent cause to the universe and an incomplete
result. Everything is always in the process of becoming something else. Therefore, according to the theory of evolution, whatever
God may have originally intended to create has not yet become what it is supposed
to be.
There
is a natural evolution, as I stated above. But this evolution is not from one species to
another but just a matter of development from within the species itself. Thus the Zygote
becomes the embryo, the embryo becomes the fetus, the fetus the infant, the infant the toddler,
the toddler the child, the child the adolescent, and finally the adolescent becomes the
adult. The adult is in
essence the exact same individual as the zygote the only difference is that the adult has
reached the full perfection toward which the design was intended. True evolution then is simply development and adaptation
from within the species itself, not an essential change in the species from one to another
as claimed by the evolutionist.
The Theological
Problems with
Evolution
"Therefore
as through one man sin entered the world and through sin death, and thus death has passed unto
all men because all have sinned."
(Romans 5:12)
"For
creation was made subject to vanity not by
its own will but by reason of him who made it
subject--in hope, because creation itself
also will be delivered from its slavery to corruption into
the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. For we know
that all creation groans and travails in pain until now.
(Romans 8:20-22)
Note what has been quoted above. According to divine
revelation not only man but all of creation
which had been made subject to man was forced into futility, corruption and death by the sin of Adam. In other words, THERE WAS NO DEATH in the world
before the disobedience of Adam and Eve. If
you are a Christian evolutionist you are forced to contend with this obvious dilemma. Because evolution is based not on life but on
death, corruption and mutation. Everything to
the evolutionist was created in violence and through death. From the beginning of creation each creature vied
with the other to dominate and to survive. Each
fed upon the other. In the world of the evolutionist disease, corruption, death, mutation, pain and suffering have been the constant lot of every
living creature as it supposedly wrestled to become something other than
what it was created to be in the first place.
It is a
dogma of the Faith that there was no death until the sin of Adam and Eve and without death there can be no evolution unless it happened
after the fall in what might be called the post-
cataclysmic age. But if that is the case evolution becomes a very complicated
theory indeed and you will see that the whole theory does not stand up to the weight of
evidence against it. Nevertheless, to postulate death before the fall is heresy and
violates Canon 1. of the Council of Carthage
418 and Canon 2 of the Council of Orange II 529. It also violates Sacred Scripture:
"Do not invite
death by error of your life, nor bring on destruction by the works of your hands; because
God did not make death and He
does not delight in the death of the living. "(Wisdom 1:12-13)
"...but through the devil's envy death entered the world..."
(Wisdom 2:24)
It is the
constant teaching of the Catholic Church that all of creation was originally made perfect and
what God intended it to be in itself. God
created all things out of nothing and brought forth living creatures in their finite
perfection exactly as they were conceived in His infinite mind from all eternity. There
was no death, not because they could not die but because God is the author of life and not
of death. What He created to live He created to stay alive. The original creatures were in
pure act. All of their potential was immediately and perfectly actualized in the moment
of their creation.
Another theological
problem that must be faced by the theistic evolutionist is that because man is in a
constant state of becoming something else,
according to the main premise of evolution. So one could say that Jesus, the Second Person
of the Blessed Trinity, united His divinity with a lower species of humanity than what
humanity is destined to become. Of course there are those theistic evolutionists like
Teilhard De Chardin who espoused the idea
that Jesus was the pinnacle of human evolution toward which all mankind is moving. The problem with this theory is that it looks at original sin
as merely a condition of humanity's present state but that we are some how capable of evolving past this apparent "glitch"
in humanity's present state of evolution.
Wrong!!!
No matter what fantasies the Modernists may
present for an explanation of their bastardized theology their Siren's songs cannot negate
the truth of the Gospel. Humanity cannot evolve beyond the devastating effects of original
sin anymore than it can grow wings and fly.
Humanity has been wounded and the only remedy for that wound is the healing balm of
Christ's Redemption. Our humanity will be permanently healed in the resurrection of the
dead on the last day. Until then we will continue to struggle to conform ourselves to the
human nature God originally intended.
The Evidence?
To
even begin to expose the web of lies and false scientific "finding" that
have been used to promote the fantasy of evolution in such a brief article as this would
be impossible. The real truth is that evolution has been promoted by those who are
atheistic and wish to have an explanation
of the universe that does not depend upon an Omnipotent Creator. In fact, even though Darwin at the end of his book
The Origin of the Species tries to soften the blow of his theory by saying it would only
give more glory to God if we found He created everything in this manner, he nonetheless,
soon after the publication of his book publicly renounced Christianity and proclaimed himself an
atheist. With evolution as their dogma three
terrible evils came into the world: Marxism with its various forms of socialistic
communism; Secular Humanism with its various forms of social liberalism; and Modernism.
The Second Law of
Thermal Dynamics
The
theory of evolution is based upon the predication
that all living things are constantly becoming
more complex and more superior to their
ancestors. Yet we know that the whole universe is ruled by certain physical laws such as
gravity. For science to ignore gravity would be folly
since it rules the movement and stability of
the celestial
bodies, as well as what is
on those bodies. A physical law which pertains directly
to evolution is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
This law states:
"Any
system that is subject to random agitations will eventually
attain its most disordered
condition....The entropic progress from order to disorder may then be viewed as an example
of the general tendency of chaotic disruptions to disturb organization and structure.
...The tendency toward equilibrium is so fundamental to physics that the second law is
probably the most universal regulator of natural activity known to science."
(Encyclopedia
Britannica 1989)
The
Second Law of
Thermal Dynamics is considered the most fundamental law of physics. It
says that everything by nature seeks
balance and once this balance is disturbed the natural tendency is to go from order to
disorder. This is in direct conflict to the
theory of evolution. It means that science has always observed things falling apart not
becoming more complex.
For
example: In cases of intra-family marriages or the children of incest the tendency is not
toward greater genetic purity but rather just the opposite. In fact, during the reign of
kings in Europe many of their children were frequently stricken with genetic deformities
or genetic diseases. Hemophilia or bleeding disease was quite frequent amount the
offspring of royalty.
So in
truth when observing the material universe science observes things "winding
down" or falling apart rather than becoming stronger and better. We actually have
empirical evidence of devolution not evolution.
In
looking at the above law of thermodynamics the evolutionist will retort that we can see
the process of evolution in the simplest living creatures known to man; viruses and
bacteria. It would seem to be the case,
because science is observing how bacteria and viruses which we thought we had conquered
through antibiotics and antiviral medicines are now returning more virulent and
destructive than ever. It seems that these creatures have evolved to protect themselves
from our chemical warfare. In actual fact they have not evolved in the Darwinian sense but
have rather adapted to the new environment into which we have placed them. Adaptation is
not evolution in the Darwinian sense at all. These
viruses and bacterium have remained viruses and bacterium.
If they had evolved they would have changed into something completely different
than what they remain. "Micro-evolution"
is simply adaptation and there is no evidence that it leads to so called macro-evolution
from one species to another. =
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