I've been talking online recently to a reader of this blog, Pon de Replay, who I've also known over the years in the Catholic forums, about the question of evolution in relation to Catholicism. I let him know, with his tacit approval, I would be writing a post here commenting on that discussion, without giving anything too personal about him. Pon, as I call him, left the Catholic Church several years ago, by his own admission abandoning belief in Catholicism, or any sense of the Christian God, seemingly identifying with agnosticism.
He was once a devoted, traditional Catholic attending the Traditional Latin Mass, with all the theology and devotion typical of those Catholics who are attached to this Rite. Yet I have found him to be a gentleman exhibiting still a Christian spirit in the way he thinks and interacts with others. As I've told him, I pray for his reversion, and would hope to one day convince him that he need not turn away from Christ or the Church because of evolution.
Yet, Pon slowly over the course of years, being a very intellectual man, began to question certain core tenets. Believing in evolution, he came to the conclusion that if evolution is true, then the Church's claims on a) an all good God, b) who created man, c) as two first parents, Adam and Eve had to be--in his mind--an irreconcilable contradiction.
The main reasons he gives are that, according to evolution, Homo sapien evolved from multiple lines of hominids. That is, higher level primates in different regions and times gradually changed species to Homo sapien, i.e. an upright animal capable of reason and wisdom. That is, according to Pon, there could not be just one set of first parents, but many.
The second objection given, related to an evolutionary view of nature, is from theodicy, that is that sub-discipline of theology that tackles the problem of evil. Pon, like many people today, cannot reconcile the immeasurable amount of evil and suffering in the world with an all good God who creates and sustains this world. That is, for Pon in particular, how can an all good God allow so much suffering in the animal kingdom for millions of years as part of an evolutionary process, through disease, mass extinctions, and animal conflict?
I've asked these questions myself, without entertaining any actual doubt on my own end, but I do understand where people like Pon are coming from, and have known a number of Catholics or Protestant Christians who abandoned their faith principally over evolution.
As for myself, I do not believe in the theory of evolution. But I do not reject it in itself either. It's a scientific theory that in my opinion should not be taught as anything more than a hypothesis, there being scientific evidence to discredit it as well as scientific evidence to back it up. I am agnostic on exactly how God created the world and man, that is in scientific terms, while I as a traditional Catholic accept the inerrancy of Scripture from the books of Genesis through the book of the Apocalypse.
And it is not dogma, de fide teaching, or a requirement of the Magisterium to take the Creation stories literally.
We are, as I understand it, required to believe that: a) God created man, b) He created two first parents, one individual male and one individual female, c) they were in a state of natural perfection, d) all humans descend from these first two parents, and e) they committed original sin which we inherit, meriting punishment on the world.
I am not sure if is de fide, but I believe it is the common opinion that any disorder or suffering in the cosmos, including disease and death among animals, is a result of original sin on creation, rendering it in a fallen state.
Which then brings us back to Pon's objection. He came to the conclusion that through a process of natural selection, on an Earth with an apparently very long history, lower forms of life gradually evolved into higher forms of life, eventually primates, and from primates eventually the human race emerged. Yet, if you imagine Earth circa say 4 million years ago, when sub-rational hominids were still dragging their knuckles on the ground and grunting, through evolutionary processes, spread out in varying locations, it stands to reason--IF evolution were true, as Pon believes--then there would have been multiple evolutionary lines resulting essentially at different moments in time in many first parents emerging from hominid.
For Pon and other formerly theistic evolutionalists, this would apparently fly in the face of a dogma of only two first parents, and thus discrediting Divine Revelation as a whole.
In my undergrad studies majoring in biology, I was required to spend a good deal of time studying evolution, and it seemed to dominate much of our lectures, not only as a scientific theory but as a natural philosophy of the world, and for some anti-religious zealot professors a final proof for them that the claims of religion and the existence of God are backward foolishness.
But I do not recall reading any strong evidence that Homo sapien emerged necessarily from multiple lines. What I do recall is reading about scientific evidence--mind you this was from a creationist book I read at the time to counter the anti-religious litanies I was subjected to by professors--that genetic studies point to there being actually, in fact, two original individual Homo sapiens from which the human race emerged.
Which the Bible names as Adam and Eve (meaning the First Man, and First Woman).
Yet, beyond those studies now eons ago, I have been decidedly ignorant of further complexities of evolutionary science. Perhaps if I find the right book on this subject, I can give Pon a better scientific rebuttal.
The second main objection of Pon, that I suspect is a common one of formerly practicing Catholics who left the Faith over evolution, is that, for him, the level of suffering found on Earth, in particular among animals, would seem to fly in the face of the idea of an all good God, that is the idea of a loving Father who feeds and takes care of the birds of the air, as Our Lord counseled.
My response to Pon was/is to reference Fr. Stanley L. Jaki's great work The Savior of Science, in which he describes the pitfalls of pre-Christian or anti-Christian versions of science, being an apologist of the truest natural science finding its ideal in Christ and the Faith, without which human reason falls ultimately short.
Jaki, a Benedictine priest, held PhD's in Physics and Theology, devoting much of his writings to a Christian philosophy of science, and critiquing the errors often found in modern science (for example, modern cosmologists like Hawking arguing for an infinite universe). When addressing evolution, he did not go so far as to argue it is true, but rather that one could in theory hold it to be true without contradicting Catholic orthodoxy and the true meaning of Scripture, and the fundamental teachings on creation. Further, he underlines the central problem with evolution, in that it tends not to be just a natural scientific theory, but an erroneous philosophy of nature. Going beyond natural selection, and Darwin's study of tortoises on the famous Galapagos islands, "Darwinism," which Jaki says characterizes mainstream evolutionary thought, is fundamentally atheistic and chaotic. It cannot see the handiwork of an Intelligent Designer creating a cosmos dominated by design, order, stability, and purpose, but rather a sees a cosmos dominated by chaos and disorder.
That I firmly believe is the starting point for the millions like Pon who have set aside religion in the name of science. The starting point being, opening one's eyes, looking outward across the natural landscape, and falsely seeing a world of disorder, disease, and death as the prime causes of existence, instead of a beautiful design.
The kind of design described in the simple Biblical description of God creating all things like Him, and on the last day Man in His own image. And the kind of design that natural science itself reveals, in the marvelous beauty and order found in such things as: a star, solar system, ecosystems of life on Earth depending on one another, or the wonders of the human body.
The problem then I think is not about science, but philosophy, and one's personal philosophy about existence.
I do not hold anything like this view, but I can sympathize with the emotional and personal experience of the agnostic evolutionist. The Bible says this life is a "valley of tears." And God in the Old Testament showed several times just how Just he could be to deal with an unrepentant People.
Job, himself largely innocent, who suffered I think more than any other Old Testament figure, in his indescribable agony still kept his faith and confidence in the all good God. A testimony if there ever was one of how God's justice is in harmony with his love and goodness.
So of course, without a personal faith in a personal God, without the Revelations of Christ, through reason and science alone, mixed with the harsh realities of life, one could naturally take the cynical view of existence.
As I told Pon, for me the answer is simple and completely solves the barriers he has. God has proven the trustworthiness of Divine Revelation, Jesus Christ, and the Catholic Church through a long history of verifiable miracles, without which St. Augustine himself confessed he would not have faith.
Therefore, there can be no true contradiction between natural science and Catholic dogma, I urged/urge him to believe. Whatever is proposed that is in contradiction, can be revised and seen from many, many different angles, that is different scientific hypotheses, to reconcile the science with the Faith.
Case in point, the origin of man. God could have, if He wanted to, evolved two first parents from hominids giving them alone--at first--rational souls. It is a logical process in theory. At some point in time Homo sapien did not exist, but hominids did. But IF evolution is true and humans came from hominid, then logically at some point on the historical timeline the first Homo sapien was born, i.e. to create the new species that is different than hominid.
The other hominid lines could have--at a later date (perhaps hours or days later even, in some other sector of the African jungle)--developed into Homo sapiens, they themselves given at some point immaterial souls.
There was though one snag in that possibilty: the Church teaches all humans descend from the first two parents, that is from one singular hereditary history going back to one individual male, and one individual female.
At that point the anti-religious evolutionist could very well exclaim the final judgment "Ah ha! There you have it! The Bible is in error. We did not all come from one hereditary line, but from many. Case closed."
This only forgets the immeasurable complexity of how the Creator created the word and man, which the Bible itself does not go into complete detail about. There is much that is a natural mystery, that will remain as such to both the believer and the scientist. We simply do not completely know, and i would argue, in the end cannot know for certain, all the complexities of natural history on Earth leading up to man's creation, or how exactly God created man.
God's Providence could have very well directed, after the emergence of Adam and Eve, that their descendants would mate with the other hominid lines at the point they were becoming human (gaining supernaturally genetic material from the line of Adam and Eve first), so that they too were human beings because their genetic changes manifested from them).
In other words, there are many possible mechanisms God could have used to create man by means of evolution, such that there were still two first parents, and by some process all humans have descended at least in part from their genetic line.
That is IF evolution were true. Which I do not actively believe (nor outright reject).
As to Pon's problem with evil in the world, and animal suffering, vs. an all good God, I would concede that without Christ or the Bible, that would be an understandable error to fall into.
But when the veracity of Revelation is proven, in particular by the history of miracles, then it all comes full circle. The answer is clear, yet a mystery.
It is clear that God allows all disorder, suffering, disease, and death, including among animals, as part of His economy of salvation. Man fell into original sin. The result was some relative amount of suffering in the world, yet transient and nothing compared to the eternal bliss of heaven. God allowed Adam and Eve's "happy fault" so that out of the apparent chaos that followed original sin, He will redeem us. Through our suffering we are able to come back to our perfect state with Him, but in an even higher supernatural state and end above the original design.
Therein lies the mystery--that encircling the Savior on the Cross--and through that Redemptive Act--all of creation moves, the sun and planets and stars, all living things, past, present and future towards the final end which is salvation and eternal union with God.
And that it is in the Father sending His only begotten Son, to die for us as the sacrificial victim, that all makes sense and finds its purpose and completion.
Even in the suffering of animals, since animals having no soul or free will, and therefore no self-awareness, are in fact not really suffering at all, that is in the sense we as humans understand "suffering" as a state of pain or hardship that penetrates a conscious soul. Everything that must die, whether a star, tree, or dog, does so as part of the plan of redemption, with everything in the end being offered up as a sacrifice for our sins.
In the end of time, God will destroy the Earth and all nature, and recreate it. And for the Just who die in friendship with God, they will know no suffering, disease, or death. For eternity.
Hope this reflection helps Pon in your own reflection. Blessed Lent.
