What the Church really teaches about evolution

–By Benjamin Wiker, OSV News–

When people ask me, "What does the Catholic Church think about evolution?" they are rarely prepared for my answer, "Let's sit down for a few months and talk about it."

The problem is this: the Catholic Church does not only think about evolution. It conceives the theory of human evolution in the much broader context of its understanding of human beings, reason, science, sin, morality and the redemption of humanity by God incarnate. The Church cannot think about anything without thinking about almost everything, because everything is the work of God.

I want to point this out directly, because the tendency of our catch phrase culture is to fall upon some brief quote made by a Pope in a speech or encyclical, or by a Vatican official, or a Catholic scientist , or a Catholic theologian , and treat it in isolation as if all we needed to know about evolution as Catholics we could write it on an index card and carry it in our wallet or purse to keep handy as a reference.

But that is not how the Catholic Church conceives evolution, or anything in general. The Church does not think in clever phrases for the impatient. It thinks like a cathedral where everything is connected, stone upon carefully balanced stone, complex and intimately interdependent, built over centuries to endure yet more centuries according to the eternal plan, all harmoniously crafted to worship God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so that all that is human is redeemed, nature transformed by grace as it reaches toward heaven.

Perhaps the best place to begin to understand what this might mean with respect to evolution is the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You will find some isolated statements specifically about evolution, but these statements are an integral part of the entire catechism, the vast and cathedral-like presentation of the faith. Like the individual stones of a cathedral, you cannot pull out the isolated affirmations without the whole edifice collapsing. More directly, we might say that the Catholic consideration of evolution is framed by the Catholic catechesis on creation and redemption. Within this catechesis there are certain assumptions, both natural and supernatural, that set definite limits to the consideration of evolution.

Let me offer two examples from the Catechism that have not appeared in the popular press coverage of the Catholic Church and evolution. "By natural reason, man can know God with certainty, based on his works" (no. 50). This is, in fact, a dogmatic statement based on the marvelous capacities of natural human reason and on the fact that nature itself, including its biological aspects, manifests the glory and wisdom of its Creator, and every creature reflects "in its own way a ray of God's infinite wisdom and goodness" (no. 339).

What does this mean for our consideration of evolution? That any view of evolution that assumes, as a matter of principle, that biological nature is completely governed by chance and blind laws is erroneous. According to that view of evolution - advocated today by such prominent atheists as Richard Dawkins - nature reveals the total absence of wisdom, i.e., the absence of a wise Creator. In the face of this, the Catechism firmly maintains: "We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of necessity, blind fate or chance" (no. 295).

Aha! That must mean that the Catholic Church rejects evolution! No, I'm sorry. There are no such quick and easy answers. The Catholic Church does not reject evolution, because it does not reject, but, in fact, welcomes any legitimate scientific inquiry. Science studies nature, and the truth of creation can never contradict the truth of the Creator.

Thus (citing Vatican Council I's "Dei Filius"), the Catechism informs us that "methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never be in conflict with faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith come from the same God" (n. 159).

What does this mean, in particular, for evolution? Read on. "Creation possesses its own goodness and perfection, but it did not emerge complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created in transit (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it" (no. 310). "In God's plan, this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature" (no. 310).

From this perspective, as Cardinal Christoph Schönborn pointed out, evolution is understood as creation "prolonged in time".

Aha! That must mean that the Catholic Church accepts evolution! No, I'm sorry.

There are no such easy and quick answers. The church cannot simply accept the theory of evolution, because there is no single evolutionary theory that it can accept. There are, instead, different theories, different approaches to evolution.

As St. John Paul II rightly pointed out, "instead of speaking of the theory of evolution, it is more accurate to speak of the theories of evolution. The use of the plural is necessary here, partly because of the diversity of explanations of the mechanism of evolution, and partly because of the diversity of philosophies involved."

The truth is this. The Church cannot affirm evolution with total conviction, since evolution, as a science in itself, is not entirely sound. We must distinguish between evolution itself and our knowledge of it (what current scientists think they know about evolution).

We have every reason to believe that evolution is something that happened, but what really happened in it is something to be discovered on the long and difficult road of scientific discovery, of which we have only traveled a part. That is why the Church is rightly cautious.

What, then, is the truly Catholic position?

The recent controversies over evolution, intelligent design and creationism have generated so much confusion that it is no wonder Catholics are almost completely baffled as to what to think. Setting the record straight will be no easy task, but here's a start, point by point.

First of all, Catholics must hold that our study of nature confirms the existence of God. The Catechism clearly states: "The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty by his works, in the light of human reason, even though this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error" (no. 286).

The catechism is based on the definitive affirmation of the dogmatic constitution "Dei Filius" of the First Vatican Council: "Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of everything, can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural virtue of human reason, since from the creation of the world, his invisible nature is clearly perceived in created things."

And this statement is firmly rooted in Scripture, as St. Paul affirms in Romans: "For what can be known about God is manifest to them, for God has made it manifest to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible nature, that is, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in created things" (1:19-20).

It is not surprising, then, that the catechism affirms: "Created in the image of God and called to know and love him, those who seek God discover certain ways to come to know him. These are also called proofs of God's existence, not in the sense of proofs proper to the natural sciences, but as convergent and convincing arguments that make it possible to attain certainty of the truth" (n. 31).

Indeed, we can prove the existence of God by some kind of philosophical argument. But to say that it is a philosophical argument does not mean that it is, therefore, unscientific or, worse, an unscientific argument. If we can reason from nature to arrive at the existence of God, it must surely be from a very well-grounded understanding of nature; that is, one that takes full account of the latest scientific developments related to the area or aspect of nature being considered when using reason.

What about creationism and intelligent design? Unfortunately, the term "creationism" is associated with denying evolution altogether and trying to prove a literal interpretation of the Bible against modern science. But the Church does not completely reject the possibility of evolution, and the Catholic approach to the Bible is not that of a fundamentalist.

At the same time, the church adopts a critical stance toward evolution rather than simply affirming whatever contemporary evolutionists of any kind are saying, and the church also believes wholeheartedly that the Bible is true and fully inspired and without error.

What about intelligent design theory? It should be noted at the outset that "intelligent design theory," as it is known for short, is not really a single thing, but a complex combination of competing approaches. In general, however, proponents of intelligent design tend to claim that some scientifically verifiable fact-for example, that this particular molecular biological structure is too complex to have been generated solely by natural selection-directly demonstrates the existence of an intelligent designer.

Such arguments have considerable merit, more than Catholics have been inclined to grant, precisely because they focus on very particular trouble spots for a purely materialistic and reductionist explanation of evolution.

But as noted above, the Catholic approach is to consider the scientific evidence only as part of a larger philosophical argument that must be presented if we are to demonstrate the existence of God from nature.

The point is this: particular scientific evidence alone could never be sufficient to prove the existence of God and, moreover, much more attention must be paid to philosophy in order to adequately assemble all the "convergent and convincing arguments" necessary to do so.

Historically, the most important starting point for a discussion of the Catholic Church and evolution is Pope Pius XII's encyclical "Humani Generis" (1950), which stated that evolution was worthy of scientific study within certain limits.

To many it has seemed that the Church is saying something like this: You can believe whatever you want about evolution as long as (1) you hold that all human souls are immediately created by God, (2) you hold some form of monogenism rather than polygenism-that is, you hold that all human beings have a common evolutionary ancestor rather than arising from a disordered multitude-and (3) you do not manifestly hold a purely materialistic theory of evolution that in any way undermines the dignity of the human person.

Can it really be that easy? No, it can't, precisely because these seemingly simple boundaries, upon closer examination, are anything but simple.

Take the first: that all human souls are immediately created by God. This statement does not represent a retreat of the church to a minimalist stance: "Say what you will about the evolution of the human body, but let us still have souls!". Rather, it signifies a resounding "No!" to all forms of materialism, since it reduces human beings to mere physical beings.

This poses a great obstacle for many prominent evolutionists, because, as a rule, they have tended towards complete materialism.

Charles Darwin himself deliberately defined his evolutionary explanation of human beings in "The Origin of Man" (1871) to show that he could explain everything about human beings - from their morals to their intellectual capacities, from their artistic abilities to their belief in God - according to an entirely materialistic and reductionist scheme.

Today, the most prominent evolutionists have no place for the human soul. They and most evolutionists assume that purely material causes - causes subject to natural selection - fully explain human capacities.

And the second? Here, again, the church says a lot. It says, in effect, that whatever today's scientists may think, however well established their theories of human origin may seem to be, in the end, when all the evidence is in, science will not contradict the fact that human beings have a single progenitor.

It should be noted that I am not saying that science will eventually prove the existence of Adam and Eve. The point is much more surprising.

I say that, try as it may and deviate wherever it will, science will find that all its attempts to investigate the possibility of human polygenism are ultimately fruitless, and that all its attempts to investigate the possibility of monogenism will prove wonderfully fruitful. The church declares that faith cannot be contradicted because the God of Revelation is the Creator God.

And the last one? This is perhaps the broadest limit of all, and the least understood. In asserting that no evolutionary theory can be true if it denies or distorts the dignity of the human person, the Church demands much. Indeed, it directly opposes the founder of modern evolution, Charles Darwin himself.

Darwin, in his work "The Origin of Man," put forward an evolutionary explanation of human nature, specifically designed to demonstrate that our moral nature was the direct result of natural selection. Several things followed from this.

First, morality is replaced by moralities, the singular by the plural. For Darwin, moral traits developed in specific peoples, during specific times and under specific circumstances. They were as variable and transitory as, for example, the plumage of birds or the shape of turtle shells. A large number of our contemporary evolutionists agree.

Second, there are no intrinsically evil actions. In fact, good and evil boil down to what contributes to survival and what harms the chances of survival. Everything that contributes to the survival of an individual, a group, a race, or a nation must be good; nothing that contributes to the survival of an individual, a group, a race, or a nation can be evil.

Most contemporary Darwinists have had difficulty digesting this truth, and that gives them a lot of credit; I think their doubts show that they are indeed made in the image of God. But others have no qualms about infanticide and morally ranking human children below adult apes.

Third, if natural selection really is the basis of morality, then we should try to base our social policies on it. If human beings evolved through fierce competition between individuals, tribes and tribes, races and races, where the unfit became extinct and the fit lived to reproduce more often, then our social policies should be adjusted accordingly: we should not allow the "unfit," the weak, the sick, the morally and intellectually inferior, to outbreed the fit, the strong, the healthy, the morally and intellectually superior. In stating this, Darwin has the honor of being the father of the modern eugenics movement, a movement that is gaining more and more momentum.

It should be clear, even with this brief analysis, how great are these seemingly small limits that the Church imposes on those who legitimately want to investigate evolution, especially human evolution.