CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN
CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE
CATH 322
PROFESSOR WILLIAM SWEET
FALL 2015
INTRODUCTION
• What is ‘religion’?
• What is Christianity?
• How is Catholicism distinct?
• What is science?
• What is distinctive about science (goals, tasks, methods)?
• The role of science in culture
WHAT IS RELIGION?
•
WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?
HOW IS CATHOLICISM DISTINCT?
• Historically
• A central authority (though 23 different ‘rites’)
• Some doctrinal matters
• Some practices
• Relation of scripture and tradition
• ‘Magisterium’
MAGISTERIUM
Source
Pope (in virtue of his
position as pastor and
teacher of all) / ex
cathedra
Bishops, in union with the
Pope, defining doctrine at
General / Ecumenical
councils
Bishops, in unison, in
union with the Pope,
proposing definitively,
although dispersed
Level of Magisterium
Nature of what is taught
Required Response
Extraordinary (i.e., using
extraordinary means to
declare) and universal
Infallible on matters of
faith and morals
full assent of faith, to be
firmly accepted and held
Extraordinary (and
universal)
Infallible on matters of
faith and morals
full assent of faith, to be
firmly accepted and held
Ordinary (i.e., using
ordinary means such as
encyclicals, letters), and
universal
Infallible on matters of
faith and morals
full assent of faith, to be
firmly accepted and held
MAGISTERIUM
Pope
Ordinary
Bishops in union with the
Ordinary
Pope
Roman Curia (e.g.,
Congregation for the
Ordinary
Doctrine of the Faith)
Bishops
Authoritative but not
“definitive” or infallible
Authoritative but not
“definitive” or infallible
Religious submission of
intellect and will
Religious submission of
intellect and will
Authoritative but not
“definitive” or infallible
Religious submission of
intellect and will
“magisterium cathedrae
pastoralis” - "magisterium
of the pastoral chair"
Theologians
With authority, but not
“definitive” or infallible
role is to explain church
magisterium cathedrae
teaching / assist bishops
magistralis / "magisterium
of the teaching chair"
Neither authoritative nor
infallible
legitimate disagreement
MAGISTERIUM
Priests
No magisterial authority
Sensus fidei = the
supernatural instinct for the
faith, so far as the word of
God resides in the whole
church / the baptized faithful
(Lumen Gentium 12; Dei
Verbum 8)
Private revelations
No magisterial authority
THEOLOGY, DOGMA, AND SCRIPTURE
What is ‘dogma’?
• -- “a truth appertaining to faith or morals, revealed by God, transmitted from the Apostles in
the Scriptures or by tradition, and proposed by the Church for the acceptance of the faithful.”
= Catholic Encyclopedia
Other important truths
• truths “proxima fidei”
• truths “theologice certa”
• “sententia communis”
• “Conclusiones theologicae”
• Philosophical truths
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF SCRIPTURE?
• Purpose in general
• What is ‘scripture’ (in Christianity)?
• Finding out the meaning of scripture
• Different kinds of texts
• The role of literary devices,.method and metaphor
• Approaches to texts (Ignatius Loyola, Lonergan)
• What human beings bring to a text
Example of Chiasmus in the Noah / Flood Story
A Noah (6:10a)
__B Shem, Ham, and Japheth (10b)
___C Ark to be built (14-16)
____D Flood announced (17)
_____E Covenant with Noah (18-20)
______F Food in the ark (21)
_______G Command to enter the ark (7:1-3)
________H 7 days waiting for flood (4-5)
_________I 7 days waiting for flood (7-10)
__________J Entry to ark (11-15)
___________K YHWH shuts Noah in (16)
____________L 40 days flood (17a)
_____________M Waters increase (17b-18)
______________N Mountains covered (19-20)
_______________O 150 days water prevail (21-24)
________________P GOD REMEMBERS NOAH (8:1)
_______________O’ 150 days waters abate (3)
______________N’ Mountain tops visible (4-5)
_____________M’ Waters abate (5)
____________L’ 40 days (end of) (6a)
___________K’ Noah opens window of ark (6b)
__________J’ Raven and dove leave ark (7-9)
_________I’ 7 days waiting for waters to subside (10-11)
METAPHOR
• Luke 13:34 (see also Matthew 23:37 ) Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets
and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children
together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
• [John 10:11] Jesus said, ‘I am the Good Shepherd’
• John 6:47-51 “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life.
Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes
down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down
from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever….”
• John 10:9 “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go
out, and find pasture.”
DIFFERENT HISTORIES OR DIFFERENT STORIES?
Two Genesis stories, and the possible influence of two ‘authors/editors’
• Genesis 1:1-2:3
• Genesis 2:4-3:24
SUMMARY
When we talk about Christianity, we need to be precide
• What people believe?
• Teachings / dogmas?
• Scripture
•
Literally (including literary devices)
•
Metaphorically
•
The purpose of a text?
WHAT IS SCIENCE?
• Definitions
• Science as any systematic, rigorous, rationally-pursued investigation
• Who is a scientist?
• ‘Science’ today
• Goals, tasks, and methods of ‘science’ today
• Subject matter
• Method
• World view
WHAT IS SCIENCE?
• Scientific method
• Usually causal
• Usually empirical (observation and experimental)
• Falsifiable (testable) Popper, replicability
• Objective ( but observer effect / quantum theory)
• Probabilistic v demonstrative
WHAT IS SCIENCE?
• World view
• Materialist / naturalist
• Nature as an object
• Value rooted in human ends
• Claims to be disengaged /impartial
• Instrumentalist model of reasoning
WHAT IS TO BE LEARNED FROM THIS?
• What counts as science?
•
Astrology, alchemy, phrenology, necromancy
• One method or many?
• Science and culture
•
Science as a part of culture
•
Science as shaping culture (UNESCO / evolutionary humanism)
•
universalistic
• Is science impartial, value neutral, autonomous? (Tuskagee case)
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225 CE)
• “After Jesus Christ, we have no need for curiosity; nor do we need inquiry after the Gospel. When we
believe, we desire to believe nothing more. For we believe this before all else: that there is nothing else
that we ought to believe.” De praescriptione haereticorum ("On the Rule of the Heretics”). Ch 7 –
Augustine (354–430 C.E.)
• "Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements
of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about
the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds
of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason
and experience. It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably
giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to
prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and
laugh it to scorn.” (The Literal meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram), 401 AD)
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Still, human beings seek to know
Augustine: crede, ut intelligas, "believe so that you may understand" (Tract. Ev. Jo., 29.6)
Anselm (1033–1109)
•
faith seeking understanding / Fides quaerens intellectum
•
Credo ut intellegam - I Believe That I Might Understand
Benedict XVI
•
The path of theology is indicated by the saying, "Credo ut intelligam": I accept what is given in advance, in order
to find, starting from this and in this, the path to the right way of living, to the right way of understanding
myself
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Charlemagne (742 –814) – 1st Holy Roman Emperor
• edicts of 787 and 789
• "Let every monastery and every abbey have its school, in which boys may be taught the Psalms, the
system of musical notation, singing, arithmetic and grammar“ / Trivium and Quadrivium
Education in the Middle Ages
• seeking to understand scripture, but also nature (in which God’s handiwork is revealed)
• Robert Grosseteste (c.1175–1253) – empirical method
• Roger Bacon, ofm (c.1214–1294)
• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Aquinas (1225-1274)
no ‘two truths ‘
Jean Calvin (1509 – 1564) - we see both approaches
a) earth is no more than 6000 years old (e.g. Institutes 1.14.1).
-- creation days are normal days. (Commentary on Gen. 1:5),
-- creation accomplished in six days, not in one moment (e.g. Institutes1.14.2) “God creating the world in
six days, resting on the seventh, manifests His works and creates a model for us to imitate” (Commentary
on Fourth commandment – Ex. 20:8)
-- criticizes those who seek to “reconcile the doctrine of Scriptures with the dogmas of philosophy” to
“avoid teaching anything which the majority of mankind might deem absurd.” (Institutes 2.2.4)
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Jean Calvin
b) “Nothing is here [i.e., in Genesis] treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn
astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere.” (Comm on Genesis 1:6)
“Undoubtedly were one to attempt to speak in due terms of the inestimable wisdom, power, justice, and
goodness of God, in the formation of the world, no grace or splendor of diction could equal the greatness
of the subject. Still, … while we contemplate the immense treasures of wisdom and goodness exhibited in
the creatures as in so many mirrors, we may not only run our eye over them with a hasty, and, as it were,
evanescent glance, but dwell long upon them, seriously and faithfully turn them in our minds, and every
now and then bring them to recollection. But as the present work is of a didactic nature, we cannot
fittingly enter on topics which require lengthened discourse." [Institutes, Book I, ch. XIV, S. 21]
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Some would say Christianity made modern science possible, but sometimes a troubled relationship
Galileo (1564–1642) See: The Crime of Galileo: Indictment and Abjuration of 1633
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1630galileo.asp
Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) - On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the
Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859)
• "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ...
an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.“ (1879)
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Bl. J.H. Newman (1801 –1890)
It does not seem to me to follow that creation is denied because the Creator, millions of years ago, gave laws to
matter. He first created matter and then he created laws for it — laws which should construct it into its present
wonderful beauty, and accurate adjustment and harmony of parts gradually. We do not deny or circumscribe
the Creator, because we hold he has created the self acting ,originating human mind, which has almost a
creative gift; much less then do we deny or circumscribe His power, if we hold that He gave matter such laws as
by their blind instrumentality moulded and constructed through innumerable ages the world as we see it. If Mr
Darwin in this or that point of his theory comes into collision with revealed truth, that is another matter — but I
do not see that the principle of development, or what I have called construction, does. As to the Divine Design,
is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have given certain
laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those
ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. Mr Darwin's theory need not then to be atheistical, be it
true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill.”
-- John Henry Newman to J. Walker of Scarborough, May 22, 1868 /
http://www.disf.org/en/documentation/Newman_Walker_eng.asp
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Tennessee's “Butler Act,” 1925 (1926 Mississippi; 1928 Arkansas)
“That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the
State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that
denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has
descended from a lower order of animals.”
Similarly
“unlawful for any teacher or other instructor in any university, college, normal, public school or other
institution of the state which is supported in whole or in part from public funds derived by state or local
taxation to teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals,
and also that it be unlawful for any teacher, textbook commission, or other authority exercising the power to
select textbooks for above-mentioned institutions to adopt or use in any such institution a textbook that
teaches the doctrine or theory that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animal.” Arkansas
Challenged in The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (1925) [repealed 1967]; Epperson v. Arkansas, 393
U.S. 97 (1968),
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Gaudium et spes (Vatican II - 1965)
7. “new conditions have their impact on religion. On the one hand, a more critical ability to distinguish religion
from a magical view of the world and from the superstitions which still circulate purifies it and exacts day by
day a more personal and explicit adherence to faith. As a result many persons are achieving a more vivid sense
of God. On the other hand, growing numbers of people are abandoning religion in practice. Unlike former days,
the denial of God or of religion, or the abandonment of them, are no longer unusual and individual
occurrences. For today it is not rare for such things to be presented as requirements of scientific progress or of
a certain new humanism. In numerous places these views are voiced not only in the teachings of philosophers,
but on every side they influence literature, the arts, the interpretation of the humanities and of history and civil
laws themselves. As a consequence, many people are shaken.
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Gaudium et spes (Vatican II - 1965)
33. Through his labors and his native endowments man has ceaselessly striven to better his life. Today,
however, especially with the help of science and technology, he has extended his mastery over nearly the
whole of nature and continues to do so. Thanks to increased opportunities for many kinds of social contact
among nations, the human family is gradually recognizing that it comprises a single world community and is
making itself so. Hence many benefits once looked for, especially from heavenly powers, man has now
enterprisingly procured for himself.
AN AMBIGUOUS HISTORY
Gaudium et spes (Vatican II - 1965)
36. If by the autonomy of earthly affairs we mean that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own
laws and values which must be gradually deciphered, put to use, and regulated by men, then it is entirely right
to demand that autonomy. Such is not merely required by modern man, but harmonizes also with the will of
the Creator. … Therefore if methodical investigation within every branch of learning is carried out in a genuinely
scientific manner and in accord with moral norms, it never truly conflicts with faith, for earthly matters and the
concerns of faith derive from the same God. Indeed whoever labors to penetrate the secrets of reality with a
humble and steady mind, even though he is unaware of the fact, is nevertheless being led by the hand of God,
who holds all things in existence, and gives them their identity. Consequently, we cannot but deplore certain
habits of mind, which are sometimes found too among Christians, which do not sufficiently attend to the
rightful independence of science and which, from the arguments and controversies they spark, lead many
minds to conclude that faith and science are mutually opposed….
But when God is forgotten, however, the creature itself grows unintelligible.
SUMMARY
The key questions: Do science and religion conflict? Are they compatible?
- Need to know: What are they? What exactly conflicts/is compatible?
-
What does each assert?
-
Are there broader issues? (institutions, world views, politics/economics)
SUMMARY
The key questions: Do science and religion conflict? Are they compatible?
- Need to know: What are they? What exactly conflicts/is compatible?
-
What does each assert?
-
Are there broader issues? (institutions, world views, politics/economics)
ORIGINS: COSMOLOGY, COSMOGONY, AND CREATION
1. Introduction / Background:
a) Why are we interested in origin stories?
b) Who/what can be a cause? How does the existence of the universe occur?
2. How does Science approach origins?
- method (naturalism)
- 3 theories
3. How does Christianity approach origins?
- Scripture
- Philosophy/theology
- Catechism
- Speculative Metaphysics
ORIGINS
Why are we interested in origin stories?
Who/what can be a cause? How does the existence of the universe occur?
What is a cause?
•
What caused that (event)? – e.g., a bomb blast at an embassy
–
the bomb itself (material)
–
the idea that the bomber has in mind (formal)
–
the bomber (efficient)
–
her ideal: liberating her country (final)
ORIGINS
What is a cause?
•
What caused the sculpture?
–
the stone (material)
–
the image / form in mind (formal)
–
the sculptor (efficient)
–
the goal: a beautiful object (final)
ORIGINS
How does science approach origins?
•
Naturalism
a) “methodological naturalism”
naturalism is committed to a methodological principle within the context of scientific inquiry; i.e., all
hypotheses and events are to be explained and tested by reference to natural causes and events. To introduce a
supernatural or transcendental cause within science is to depart from naturalistic explanations.
ORIGINS
b) “metaphysical naturalism”
maintains that
(1) nature is all there is and whatever exists or happens is natural;
(2) nature (the universe or cosmos) consists only of natural elements, that is, of spatiotemporal material
elements--matter and energy--and non-material elements--mind, ideas, values, logical relationships, etc.--that
are either associated with the human brain or exist independently of the brain and are therefore somehow
immanent in the structure of the universe;
(3) nature works by natural processes that follow natural laws, and all can, in principle, be explained and
understood by science and philosophy; and
(4) the supernatural does not exist, i.e., only nature is real, therefore, supernature is non-real.
ORIGINS
c) “supernaturalism”
maintains that
there are supernatural beings (gods, goddesses, lesser deities, angels, devils, fairies, trolls, leprechauns, ghosts,
wood nymphs, etc.), who ‘act’ in the world (miracles, raising from the dead, faith healing, virgin birth, life after
death, communication between living and dead, communication between human and god), and who have
concerns such as (sanctification, salvation, sin, immortal souls, spirits, etc.)…
“Since everyone agrees that the natural exists, it is the responsibility of the supernaturalists to demonstrate the
existence of the supernatural.” [This they have not done.]
From: Steven Schafersman: "Naturalism is Today -- By History, Philosophy, and Purpose -- An Essential Part of
Science".
ORIGINS
Definition of Cosmology
“is the study of the structure and changes in the present universe, while the scientific field of cosmogony is
concerned with the origin of the universe. Observations about our present universe may not only allow
predictions to be made about the future, but they also provide clues to events that happened long ago when ...
the cosmos began. So the work of cosmologists and cosmogonists overlaps.”
http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/educate/scimodule/Cosmogony/CosmogonyPDF/CosCosmolTT.pdf
 Three theories of cosmogony: steady state, big bang, bang bang bang
ORIGINS
1. Steady state theory
Sir James Jeans (1877-1946), in the 1920s; revised in 1948 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi; J.
Narlikar
A steady-state universe has no beginning or end in time
• the universe is always expanding
• but maintaining a constant average density
• matter is continuously created to form new stars and galaxies at the same rate that old ones become
unobservable as a consequence of their increasing distance and velocity of recession
• On the grand scale, the average density and arrangement of galaxies is the same.
Since the universe is unchanging throughout time, the universe needs no [complicated] explanation of its
beginning.
ORIGINS
1. Criticisms of Steady state theory
- Edwin Hubble showed that the universe was expanding (general relativity theory excluded the
possibility of a static universe)
- discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation (in 1965) thought to be left over from the Big
Bang
- quasars and radio galaxies were found only at large distances (therefore existing only in the distant
past), not in closer galaxies, whereas the Steady State theory predicted that such objects would be
found everywhere, including close to our own galaxy.
• the mechanism for the creation of ‘new matter’ was never found
• But ‘quasi steady state cosmology’
ORIGINS
2. The Standard Hot Big Bang Model of the Universe
• Time t = 0 (about 15 billion years ago)
• Radius r = 0.
Temperature T = Infinite.
Density = mass per volume = Infinite.
• t = 0.01 seconds
• T = 100,000,000,000 0C.
Energy is mostly radiation.
• t = 2 seconds
• T = 10,000,000,000 0C.
Density = 100 million kg per cubic meter.
Proton-antiproton and neutron-antineutron pairs begin forming.
ORIGINS
2. The Standard Hot Big Bang Model of the Universe
• t = 3 minutes
• T = 1,000,000,000 0C.
Protons and neutrons begin forming hydrogen and helium.
• t = 20 minutes
• About 25% of the protons and neutrons in the universe are now helium.
• t = 10,000 years
• T = 10,000 0C.
Density = 0.000,000,000,000,000,01 kg per cubic meter.
• t = 15 billion years (now)
• T = -270 0C. (This temperature from Penzias and Wilson experiment.)
• Density = 10-27 kg per cubic meter.
ORIGINS
3. Bang Bang Bang Theory
a. a new string-theory-based cyclical model (Paul Steinhardt (Princeton); Neil Turok (Cambridge)).
b. "eternal inflation" theory (Andrei Linde (Russian/American, Stanford) ; Alan Guth (Physics, MIT) – Guth
makes the Higgs field the agent for cosmic inflation.
• Linde: “If it starts, this process can keep happening forever … It can happen now, in some part of the
universe."
• So, eternal inflation = a greater universe = unimaginably large, chaotic and diverse
• Linde: "Chaotic inflation allows us to explain our world without making such assumptions as the
simultaneous creation of the whole universe from nothing"
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
1. Cosmogony and Creation in Scripture :
•
creation narratives
Genesis 1:1 through Genesis 2:3 / God creates by spoken command ("Let there be...")
Genesis 2:4–24 / Yahweh shapes the first man from dust, places him in the Garden of Eden; man names
the animals; and God creates the first woman, Eve, from the man's body.
• Other creation narratives / flood stories
• ancient Near East -- Atra-Hasis epic (Babylonian/Akkadian); Canaanite
• Mesopotamia /Epic of Gilgamesh (2100 BC)
What is their purpose? (Why written? What was the intent/the message that the authors had in mind?)
How was / is it read?
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
2. “Historically”
James Ussher (1581-1656)
• A chronology: Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti ("Annals of the Old Testament,
deduced from the first origins of the world") [1650],
• Continued 1654: Annalium pars posterior, published in 1654.
• Creation starts "the entrance of the night preceding the 23rd day of October... the year before Christ
4004“ – i.e., 6 pm, 22 October 4004 BC
Is this a religious belief or a scientific belief (orboth)?
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
2. Scripture and hermeneutics
"What is the literal sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and writings of the
ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of our own time. For what they wished to express is not to
be determined by the rules of grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the context; the interpreter must,
as it were, go back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries of the East and with the aid of history,
archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences, accurately determine what modes of writing, so to speak, the
authors of that ancient period would be likely to use, and in fact did use. For the ancient peoples of the
East, in order to express their ideas, did not always employ those forms or kinds of speech which we use
today; but rather those used by the men of their times and countries. What those exactly were the
commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a careful examination of the ancient
literature of the East"
-- Pius XII, Encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, 30 September 1943
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
a) Creation stories explain something – though not necessarily historical or scientific
i) * questions of meaning and purpose
ii) *assurance of order
iii) * indicating value – the value of nature, of human beings (in relation to other things), of animal
life/the environment
iv) * to affirm / a reminder of who is responsible.
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
"The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that
took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole
of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents" (CCC 390).
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
Genesis 6:18 But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons,
your wife, and your sons' wives with you.
Genesis 9: 1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and
fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the
sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your
hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I
now give you everything.
……
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your
descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all
the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth.
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
Genesis 17
“As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,
And you will be the father of a multitude of nations.
5 “No longer shall your name be called Abram [exalted father]
But your name shall be Abraham;
For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. 7 I
will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their
generations for aneverlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. 8 I will give to
you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an
everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
The approach of philosophy / theology
The difference between Cause and creation
What does God create?
- Not just How does God create? but Why does he create?
•
Not just an efficient cause but a final cause
•
And usually ex nihilo [material cause]
•
And God sustains
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
Catholic Catechism
293 “The world was made for the glory of God." St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things "not
to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it", for God has no other reason for creating
than his love and goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand."136
The First Vatican Council explains:
This one, true God, of his own goodness and "almighty power", not for increasing his own beatitude, nor
for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows
on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing
both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . ."137
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
Catholic Catechism
282. Catechesis on creation is of major importance. It concerns the very foundations of human and
Christian life: for it makes explicit the response of the Christian faith to the basic question that men of all
times have asked themselves: “Where do we come from?” “Where are we going?” “What is our origin?”
“What is our end?” “Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?” The two
questions, the first about the origin and the second about the end, are inseparable. They are decisive for
the meaning and orientation of our life and actions.
283. The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies
which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development
of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the
greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and
wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon they can say: “It is he who gave me unerring
knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements… for
wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me” (Wis 7:17-21).
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
Catholic Catechism
• 284. The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order,
which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing
when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the
meaning of such an origin: is the universe governed by chance, blind fate, anonymous necessity, or by
a transcendent, intelligent and good Being called “God.” And if the world does come from God's
wisdom and goodness, why is there evil? Where does it come from? Who is responsible for it? Is there
any liberation from it?
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
Catholic Catechism
• 287 The truth about creation is so important for all of human life that God in his tenderness wanted to
reveal to his People everything that is salutary to know on the subject. Beyond the natural knowledge
that every man can have of the Creator, [Cf. Acts 17:24-29; Rom 1:19-20] God progressively revealed to
Israel the mystery of creation. He who chose the patriarchs, who brought Israel out of Egypt, and who
by choosing Israel created and formed it, this same God reveals himself as the One to whom belong all
the peoples of the earth, and the whole earth itself; he is the One who alone "made heaven and earth".
[Cf. Is 43:1; Pss 115:15; 124:8; 134:3]
• 288 Thus the revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and forging of the covenant of the
one God with his People. Creation is revealed as the first step towards this covenant, the first and
universal witness to God's all- powerful love. [Cf. Gen 15:5; Jer 33:19-26] And so, the truth of creation is
also expressed with growing vigour in the message of the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and the
liturgy, and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen People. [Cf. Is 44:24; Ps 104; Prov 8:22-31] [280, 2569]
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
Catholic Catechism
• 289 Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique
place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. The inspired authors have
placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation - its
origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and
the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living
Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the
"beginning": creation, fall, and promise of salvation.
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
Summary: teaching on creation is of major importance.
Why? Not because of the ‘scientific’ character of Christian teaching
• i) Important because creation is connected with purpose
• ii) Important because creation is connected with ‘meaning’
• iii) Important because creation is connected with humanity knowing God’s existence:
• iv) Important because creation is a “mystery”
• v) Important because creation is something active, it is ongoing
• vi) Important because creation is only part of a larger story
Creation is revealed as the first step towards this covenant, and is “revealed” throughout scripture – i.e.,
God’s activity is revealed through scripture.
ORIGINS
How does Christianity approach origins?
What is humanity’s role in origins or creation?
 In scientific cosmology / cosmogeny
 In Christianity
• Creation -> the first step towards covenant
• -> “revealed” throughout scripture
• Creation is good – but it was not complete when created.
ORIGINS
What is humanity’s role in origins or creation?
• 302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the
hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward an
ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call «divine providence» the
dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection…
• 306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures' cooperation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God's greatness and
goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their
own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of
his plan.
ORIGINS
What is humanity’s role in origins or creation?
What is that cooperation?
• 307 To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them
with the responsibility of "subduing" the earth and having dominion over it. [Cf. Gen 1:26-28] God thus
enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its
harmony for their own good and that of their neighbours. Though often unconscious collaborators with
God's will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their
sufferings. [Cf. Col 1:24] They then fully become "God's fellow workers" and co-workers for his kingdom.
[1 Cor 3:9; I Th 3:2; Col 4:11]
ORIGINS
What is humanity’s role in origins or creation?
Why isn’t creation perfect? Why is there evil?
310. But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God
could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create
a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. 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. With physical good
there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.
ORIGINS
Another approach to cosmogeny, cosmology, and creation
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881- April 10 1955)
Paleontologist and ‘philosopher / theologian’
•
The Phenomenon of Man (1955; Engl tr 1959)
•
Christianity and Evolution (1971)
Creation and evolution unfolding of the material cosmos towards union with God
• this is ‘directed’, and has a final cause [“convergent evolution”]
• primordial particles [geosphere]  development of life [biosphere]  the appearance of humanity and
consciousness [“noosphere”]  to what he called the Omega Point [supreme consciousness] in the
future
ORIGINS
Does the Big Bang theory have any implications for Christianity (or for theism) ?
Yes – negative:
• Stephen Hawking's Grand Design (2012) > Did God Create the Universe
• ‘The role played by time at the beginning of the universe, is, I believe, the final key to removing the
need for a grand designer – and revealing how the universe created itself.’
As we travel back in time towards the moment of the big bang… time itself must come to a stop.
You can’t get to a time before the big bang because, there was no ‘before’, the big bang.
We have finally found something that does not have a cause – because there was no ‘time’, for a cause
to exist in.
• So when people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them the question itself makes no sense.
Time didn’t exist before the Big Bang, so there is no time for God to make the universe in.
ORIGINS
Does the Big Bang theory have any implications for Christianity (or for theism) ?
Yes – negative:
• Stephen Hawking's Grand Design (2012) > Did God Create the Universe
• Assumptions
1. Cause temporally precedes effect
2. Creation is in time
3. Causes are physical
4. Naturalism
ORIGINS
Does the Big Bang theory have any implications for Christianity (or for theism) ?
No – neutral:
1. Cf. Aquinas on the question: Was the universe created in time?
• "That the world began to exist is an object of faith, but not of demonstration or science. And it is useful
to consider this, lest anyone, presuming to demonstrate what is of faith, should bring forward reasons
that are not cogent, so as to give occasion to unbelievers to laugh, thinking that on such grounds we
believe things that are of faith." (Summa theologiae I.46.2)
2. The character of creation stories
ORIGINS
Does the Big Bang theory have any implications for Christianity (or for theism) ?
Yes – possibly positive:
Is the universe self-explanatory?
• Causality and Metaphysical dependence
ORIGINS: SUMMARY
Is there a contradiction? Is there support?
1. Assumptions of this
2. Catholics are at liberty to believe that creation took a few days or a much longer period, according to
how they see the evidence, and subject to any future judgment of the Church (Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical
Humani Generis 36–37). They need not be hostile to modern cosmology.
• BUT: there was creation ex nihilo & what there is is under the impetus and guidance of God, and
their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.
ORIGINS: SUMMARY
Is there a contradiction? Is there support?
• "no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within
his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement . . . it should be remembered that the sacred
writers, or more truly ‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men such
truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not help anyone to salvation’; and that, for
this reason, rather than trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and
treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative language or as the common manner of speech
those times required, and indeed still requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst most learned
people" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus 18).
ORIGINS: SUMMARY
Is there a contradiction? Is there support?
the view(s) of non-Catholic Christians
• no major denomination (Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, “Reformed Churches” /Calvinist/,
Presbyterian) *insists* on 6 day
the views of non Christians:
• Judaism: The Rabbinical Council of America : “evolutionary theory, properly understood, is not
incompatible with belief in a Divine Creator, nor with the first 2 chapters of Genesis.“
• Islam: ": Surely your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods of time, and
He is firm in power; He throws the veil of night over the day, which it pursues incessantly; and (He
created) the sun and the moon and the stars, made subservient by His command; surely His is the
creation and the command; blessed is Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Qur`an 7.54
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Questions:
• Is life reducible to chemistry?
• Why is there complexity in nature?
• Is life on earth unique?
• Does evolution rule out God's existence?
• Original sin?
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not new
• Lucretius (99-55 BC) – De rerum natura [On the nature of things]
•
Explaining Epicurean philosophy (Gk - 307 BCE)
•
Pleasure is the greatest good
•
A general acct of astronomy; natural history and development
•
Universe operates according to physical principles (atomism) and chance, not gods, and not final causes
•
Since all is natural/due to natural causes, no need to fear the gods
•
Still room for freedom: atoms ‘swerve’ [clinamen]
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not new
George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-88)
•
Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi (1749–1804) - 36 volumes
•
Species improve and degenerate over time
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck 1744-1829
•
the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics
•
characteristics change in response to the environment, and then these characteristics are passed on (e.g.,
giraffes and long necks); not a matter of genetics [unknown]
•
i.e., ‘use – inheritance’
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not new
• Charles Lyell 1797-1875 –
•
Principles of Geology, 3 vols (1830-33)
•
by looking at geological deposits -- slow progressive change – not cataclysmic events (e.g., a universal flood)
•
a uniformitarian theory (but not necessarily evolution, until later in his life)
• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
•
See http://www.iep.utm.edu/spencer/
•
Principles of Biology, 1864
•
Move from homogeneity to heterogeneity, yet also a greater integratyion of the parts (organicism)
•
Lamarckian evolution
•
Coined ‘survival of the fittest’
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not new
Charles Darwin 1809-1882
• [and Alfred Russell (1823-1913)]
o
Early medical studies (Edinburgh), attends Cambridge to study for the Anglican ministry
o
Reads & enjoys Paley (1828-31) – adaptation as example of God acting through nature
o Five year voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836) – D joins as a ‘self-funded’ ‘naturalist cum
companion
o
On the Origin of Species 1859
o “natural selection” / nature just “selects” the most suitable from the less suitable ones.
(borrows: the "survival of the fittest."
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Ideas of evolution (chemical, biological) are not new
Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-84)
•
German/Czech priest and scientist
•
founder of “genetics” (though term not coined until after his death (by William Bateson [1861-1926]
•
demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns = “the laws of
Mendelian inheritance” – this is building on something that breeders know
•
Vs blending inheritance
•
work not widely accepted until after he died (circa 1900, when there were several independent attempts]
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Three key questions:
• What is life?
• How do we get life?
• Does life develop?
What is ‘life’?
Oxford: “the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the
capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity [metabolism, reaction to stimuli], and continual
change preceding death.”
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How do we get life?
• Earth = 4.5 billion years ago
• Earliest known life on Earth: between 3.9 and 3.5 billion years ago
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How do we get life?
Aristotle, History of Animals, Book V, Part 1
 Based on observation (empirical)
Now there is one property that animals are found to have in common with plants. For some plants are
generated from the seed of plants, whilst other plants are self-generated through the formation of some
elemental principle similar to a seed; and of these latter plants some derive their nutriment from the
ground, whilst others grow inside other plants, as is mentioned, by the way, in my treatise on Botany. So
with animals, some spring from parent animals according to their kind, whilst others grow spontaneously
and not from kindred stock; and of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying
earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others are spontaneously
generated in the inside of animals out of the secretions of their several organs.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How do we get life?
“Metabolism first”
• the origin of life triggered by the accumulation of very simple organic molecules in thermodynamically
favorable circumstances.
-- mechanisms such as lightning and radiation.
• These act as catalysts for the formation of more organic molecules.
• This is the beginning of life.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How do we get life?
Alexander Oparin (1894-1980)
• The Origin of Life (1924) [The Origin and Development of Life], 1968:
-- no fundamental difference between a living organism and lifeless matter.
-- the properties of life arose in the process of the evolution of matter.
-- there was a "spontaneous generation of life" [attacked by Louis Pasteur] BUT now impossible
because the conditions found on the early Earth had changed
-- so, a "primeval soup" of organic molecules could be created in an oxygenless atmosphere
through the action of sunlight.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How do we get life?
• J. B. S. Haldane (“The Origin of Life,” 1929) : Earth's early oceans were a "hot dilute soup"
• Oparin and Haldane confirmed in 1952
• Miller–Urey experiment:
• mixture of water, hydrogen, methane, and ammonia + electric sparks
• organic compounds, including amino acids and [monomers] formed which are the building blocks
of protein [amino acids = "the building blocks of life"]
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How do we get human life?
3.5 billion years ago
1 billion years ago,
Beginning of life
1st multicellular organisms, worms, jellyfish,
etc.
500,000,000 years ago
1st fish
450,000,000
1st land plants
250,000,000 years ago
– 1st of 5 mass extinction events
220.000,000
dinosaurs
75,000,000
primates
2.500,000
Homo habilis (most remote ancestors of the
homo genus)
1.800,000
Homo erectus
338,000 ? (200,000 – 300,000)
Y-chromosomal Adam
99,000 – 200,000
Mitocondrial Eve
250,000
neanderthals
160,000
Homo sapiens in Ethiopia
60,000
migration out of Africa
25,000
neanderthals die out
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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The standard scientific view of evolution
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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The standard scientific view of evolution
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How evolution works
a. Lamarck
• epigenesis
• changes in gene expression due to mechanisms other than changes in DNA sequence
• use-function model of inheritance
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How evolution works
b. Darwin [Natural selection]
• i.e., natural selection acting upon random mutation [as distinct from artificial selection, what we now
call selective breeding].
A process in nature in which organisms
•
possessing certain genotypic characteristics
•
that make them better adjusted to an environment
•
and so tend to survive, reproduce, and increase in number or frequency,
•
and therefore, are able to transmit and perpetuate their essential [genotypic] qualities to
succeeding generations.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How evolution works
b. Darwin [Natural selection]
• The key is differential reproduction
• This has been called “survival of the fittest”
• Note the risk of ‘circularity’
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How evolution works
c. Theories of evolution
i) Gradualism (Darwin) - evolution proceeds in small 'grades.'
•
Not necessarily a matter of rate or tempo
•
Not all change is evolution
•
Some changes are within the range of normal variation observed within a population, so not really
‘evolution’
ii) Punctuated Equilibrium (Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould [1972])
• Effort to explain abrupt appearance of new species while also the relative stability of morphology in
widespread species
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Some interesting implications:
1. other evolutionary development
- possible evolutionary path for Troodon
(Dale Russell, National Museum of Man, Ottawa, 1982)
- If Troodon had not perished in the great extinction event (65 million years ago), could have evolved
into intelligent beings
- encephalization quotient (relative brain weight compared to other dinosaurs) of Troodon, six times
higher than other dinosaurs, and pattern of increase
- Could have reached a stage comparable to the human
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Artist’s model of hypothetical “Dinosauroid”, based on
Russell & Séguin (1982)
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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The standard scientific view(s) of evolution
1. What can we conclude from this?
•
• Evolution on other planets
2. What is assumed by this account?
• Naturalism
• Reductionism
• Geological history, mutation, migration
• Assumptions about chance, randomness, determinism
3. What is left out of this account?
• ?
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
1. Darwin
Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been
independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter
by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should
have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I
view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long
before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.
-- Darwin, The Origin of Species, Conclusion [Ch 14] (1859)
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the
Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed
law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been,
and are being, evolved. (1859)[ref to Creator removed in 1861)
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
John Henry Newman
• It does not seem to me to follow that creation is denied because the Creator, millions of years ago, gave
laws to matter. He first created matter and then he created laws for it — laws which should construct it
into its present wonderful beauty, and accurate adjustment and harmony of parts gradually. We do not
deny or circumscribe the Creator, because we hold he has created the self acting originating human
mind, which has almost a creative gift; much less then do we deny or circumscribe His power, if we hold
that He gave matter such laws as by their blind instrumentality moulded and constructed through
innumerable ages the world as we see it. If Mr Darwin in this or that point of his theory comes into
collision with revealed truth, that is another matter — but I do not see that the principle of
development, or what I have called construction, does. As to the Divine Design, is it not an instance of
incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter
millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those ages, those
effects which He from the first proposed. Mr Darwin's theory need not then to be atheistical, be it true
or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill.”
• Letter to J. Walker of Scarborough, May 22, 1868
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
“Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences” 1865
• We, the undersigned students of Natural Sciences, desire to express our sincere regret that researches into
scientific truth are perverted by some in our own times into occasions for casting doubt upon truth and
authenticity of the Holy Scriptures.
• We are not forgetful that physical science is not complete, but is only in a condition of progress, and that at
the present our finite reason enables us only to see as through a glass darkly, and we confidently believe that
a time will come when the two records will be seen to agree in every particular.
• We cannot but deplore that Natural Science should be looked upon with suspicion by many who do not make a
study of it, merely on account of the unadvised manner in which some are placing it in opposition to Holy Writ.
• We believe that it is the duty of every scientific student to investigate Nature simply for the purpose of
elucidating truth, and that if he finds that some of his results appear to be in contradiction to the written
Word, or rather to his own interpretation of it, which may be erroneous, he should not presumptuously affirm
that his own conclusions must be right, and the statements of Scriptures wrong. Rather leave the two side by
side until it shall please God to allow us to see the manner in which they may be reconciled
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
Pius XII Humani generis (1950)
• For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the
present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men
experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into
the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges
us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. However, this must be done in such a way that the
reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and
judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure, and provided that all are prepared to
submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically
the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of faith. Some however, rashly transgress this liberty of
discussion, when they act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were
already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by
reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands
the greatest moderation and caution in this question.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
Creationism
A June 1, 2012 Gallup survey reported:
• "Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present
form at one time within the last 10,000 years. The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of
humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third
of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that
God had no part in the process.“
a) Young earth creationists’ // Institute for Creation Research / Liberty University (Jerry Falwell)
• the (religious) belief that the Universe, Earth and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of the
Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago.
b) Old Earth creationism / theistic creationism
• -- Craig Rusbult, “Evolutionary Creation: Is theistic evolution theologically acceptable?”
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
John Paul II - Truth Cannot Contradict Truth [Magisterium Is Concerned with Question of Evolution for It
Involves Conception of Man] (Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1996)
4. Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical (of Pius XII), some new findings
lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis.* In fact it is remarkable that this
theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries
in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was
neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.
BUT: 5. .if the origin of the human body comes through living matter which existed previously, the spiritual
soul is created directly by God.
As a result, the theories of evolution which, because of the philosophies which inspire them, regard the
spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a simple epiphenomenon of that matter, are
incompatible with the truth about man. They are therefore unable to serve as the basis for the dignity of
the human person.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) (Harvard University, paleontologist)
• evolution is both true and entirely compatible with Christian belief
• No conflict [between science and religion] “should exist because each subject has a legitimate
magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I
would like to designate as NOMA, or "nonoverlapping magisteria")”.
• “I believe, with all my heart, in a respectful, even loving concordat between our magisteria—the NOMA
solution. NOMA represents a principled position on moral and intellectual grounds, not a mere
diplomatic stance. NOMA also cuts both ways. If religion can no longer dictate the nature of factual
conclusions properly under the magisterium of science, then scientists cannot claim higher insight into
moral truth from any superior knowledge of the world's empirical constitution. This mutual humility has
important practical consequences in a world of such diverse passions.”
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Intelligent Design
"certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an
undirected process such as natural selection.“
- a more direct compatibility than NOMA – but controversial
• -> Irreducible complexity of organisms can’t be explained by natural selection
•
(Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box, 1996)
• … evolutionary biology contends that material mechanisms are capable of accounting for all of biological
complexity, yet for biological systems that exhibit specified complexity [i.e., shows a conditionally
independent pattern ], these mechanisms provide no explanation of how they were produced.
• -> fine tuning of the universe: If “the values of fundamental physical constants, the relative strength of
nuclear forces, …, and gravity between fundamental particles, as well as the ratios of masses of such
particles… were even slightly different, the universe would be dramatically different, making it impossible
for many chemical elements and features of the Universe, such as galaxies, to form”
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
9. Richard Dawkins
Natural selection is an “undirected, reactive” process; God is “utterly extraneous.”
“Whether pushing us or pulling us toward his desired end, the Christian God [and the Jewish and Muslim God as
well, presumably] is utterly extraneous to evolution as Darwin and his modern successors have understood it.
Evolution is an undirected, reactive process ... or it is nothing at all.’ (Jerry Coyne)
“For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was no evolution at all. It made a
nonsense of the central point of evolution.
--- The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.249
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution [as undirected
and reactive], that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).
--- “Put Your Money on Evolution” The New York Times (April 9, 1989) section VII p.35
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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How does biological evolution fit with Christianity?
Richard Dawkins
Moreover: “ the belief that religion and science occupy separate magisteria is dishonest. It founders on the
undeniable fact that religions still make claims about the world which, on analysis, turn out to be scientific
claims. … The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, The Raising of Lazarus, the manifestations of Mary and the
Saints around the Catholic world. Even the Old Testament miracles, all are freely used for religious
propaganda, and very effective they are with an audience of unsophisticates and children. Every one of
these miracles amounts to a scientific claim, a violation of the normal running of the natural world. … The
presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question, even if not in
practice -- or not yet -- a decided one.
--- The God Delusion (2008) p.82
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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What does Christianity add to the account of biological evolution?
a) An account of nature
• value/ends
• providence & purpose
• miracles
b) An account of human nature & human ‘being’ [What is it to be human?]
• soul
• human freedom
• evil and sin
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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What does Christianity add to the account of biological evolution?
• taking ‘Christian’ response largely from official documents of the Catholic church, but also from other
traditions / resources as well
• don’t just assume a conflict!!! (see above)
• each is searching for ‘truth’
• on a metaphysical naturalist account, there *may* be some conflict; on a methodological naturalist
view, there may be *less* conflict – depends on what Christianity ‘adds’.
• both could be in service of a common good
• Catholicism claims no contradiction
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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a) An account of nature
• [Does nature have a value? A purpose? If so, where does it get them from?]
From a scientific perspective
• Big bang
• The first law of thermodynamics / the law of conservation of energy
• Natural selection
• there is no ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ in life; there is no ‘end’ or ‘goal’ or ‘purpose’ to evolution
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Richard Dawkins
•
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no
design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy
poet A.E. Housman put it:
For Nature, heartless, witless Nature / Will neither care nor know.’
DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.
-- River out of Eden (1995) p.133
•
Natural selection, the blind, unconscious automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which
we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no
purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision,
no foresight, no sight at all
-- The Blind Watchmaker (1996), p. 5
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Is there really no value according to naturalism/physicalism?
• There may be a kind of ‘species altruism’ which explains ‘morality’
• Patricia Churchland : “the evolution of oxycontin [hormone known for enhancing feelings of trust,
calmness, and attachment ] may have been one of the mechanisms by which organisms ,that were
already well-designed for taking care of themselves, became invested in taking care of others.”
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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In Christianity - What is added?
- The value of matter: matter is “good’ (not just instrumentally)
 nature has a value (St Francis of Assisi)
- Nature is not ‘complete’
 the possibility of miracles
- That there is a plan (providence) // things have (designed) purposes (telos)/end [final causality]
– Human beings are the summit of creation – and have a *unique* purpose/end as well
• CCC 358: “God created everything for man”
• "Man is the summit of the Creator’s work, as the inspired account expresses by clearly
distinguishing the creation of man from that of the other creatures." CCC 343
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Why is humanity special?
•  specially created in God’s image and likeness,
•
 the source of dignity (CCC 356, 357; see 369)
•  endowed with unique powers -- freedom, reason and will.
•
 the human race forms a unity  (as we have seen) are co-creators with God
•  humanity – and all of human history - have a supernatural destiny (end)
•
 have a spiritual component [ soul ]
•
 we are capable of ‘value’, morality
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Why take Christianity seriously on this issue?
• Recall: 2 methodological perspectives on the same thing:
• - how do you ‘prove something’?
• - what is a ‘good move’ in a game?
• - what is the right method?
•
Maritain: the method is determined by the object
• example of the rainbow, seen by a physicist and by an artist
• Both are dealing with reality, but from different perspectives/ different ends
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Why take Christianity seriously on this issue?
• Therefore: 2 methodological perspectives on the same thing:
• - from the point of view of science [‘natural’ causes]
> what can be known empirically
• - from the point of view of philosophy/theology/scripture [remember Aquinas, Maritain]
> what is known from the point of view of ontological dependence
> what can be known philosophically/theologically
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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An account of human nature and human being
• Preliminary: what is it to be a human person?
• Science / Naturalism (metaphysical) or physicalism:
•
we are just our bodies
•
consciousness is a product / state of matter, just as biological life is
 evidence: chemical stimulation / action with the brain
 ‘burnt toast’ example -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSN86kphL68
•
we are ‘like’ our primate ‘cousins’ [Mammals, Great apes],
 and should show them similar respect (Otherwise, guilty of ‘speciesism’)
•
subject to the same ‘laws’ as all matter
•
but we are extraordinarily complex
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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An account of human nature and human being
• Preliminary: what is it to be a human person?
Christianity (Catholicism): human beings ‘transcend’ their biological framework
i) Self-consciousness is ‘emergent’, not reducible to material/physical at all
Emergentism: “core properties that determine the functioning behaviours of a system cannot be
inferred from an analysis of constituent parts of the system”
ii) the “feeling” / sensation of something (qualia) = Know what it is like
iii) distinction between reasons and causes
iv) human beings have souls
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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i) Souls and bodies
• From the perspective of science / Physicalism: we are our bodies, period (“non-reductive physicalism”)
• Richard Dawkins: “You can’t have it both ways” [According to JP II] “there came a moment in the
evolution of hominids when God intervened and injected a human soul into a previously animal lineage
(When? A million years ago? Two million years ago? Between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens?
Between 'archaic' Homo sapiens and H. sapiens sapiens?). The sudden injection is necessary, of course,
otherwise there would be no distinction upon which to base Catholic morality, which is speciesist to the
core. You can kill adult animals for meat, but abortion and euthanasia are murder because human life is
involved.
• Catholic morality demands the presence of a great gulf between Homo sapiens and the rest of the
animal kingdom. Such a gulf is fundamentally anti-evolutionary. The sudden injection of an immortal
soul in the time-line is an anti-evolutionary intrusion into the domain of science.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
i) Souls and bodies
What is the soul?
• What makes us, us?
• How is it that our ‘consciousness’ gives us a personal identity over time (so that I am the same person),
and what happens when this ‘fails’?
• How can I know myself without seeing my ‘self’?
• What makes me one thing (a unity) and not two (or many more!) things?
• What makes me a living thing?
• What is it to be a human person (a rational animal)?
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
i) Souls and bodies
What is the soul?
[from the perspective of some philosophies] Soul, or form, exists within matter and organizes it
- it makes a substance / thing what it is (its ‘animateness’/ its functionality as a particular kind of
living substance  a rational animal)
- it provides a unity of consciousness (and a unity of ‘self’); an integrity (wholeness) to the person
- while the brain is the central organising organ in the body, the soul is ‘emergent’
- *not* a dualism
NB” the importance of ‘perspective’
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
i) Souls and bodies
What is the soul?
• “The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the
body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body;
spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.” CCC
365
• Aquinas
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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Where does the soul come from? Evolution?
- no:
a) soul is not a physical principle, but a metaphysical one
b) “every spiritual soul is created immediately by God” (CCC 366).
NB: Souls not created before or after a human person comes into existence but at the first
moment of the person’s existence.
souls must be created and united with their bodies at the moment of conception.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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What about identical twins?
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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What about identical twins?
when conception occurs
(a) two souls exist within a single zygote, one for each embryo at embryonic fission [is it possible for
one body to have two souls?]
(b) one soul exists, destined for “soul fission” (the division of a soul resulting in identical twin souls)
[BUT the soul is simple]
(c) a new soul comes into existence from God at the moment of the division of the zygote [Is this
possible? - a new soul cannot come into play, as each embryo’s soul must have existed since
conception, and each was conceived only once and at the same time.]
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
b) Human freedom -- Are human beings free?
From the ‘scientific-physicalist’ view presented above
‘no’, because ……..
From the theological / philosophical perspective
Yes, because …….
- because we are not purely physical beings (i.e., have consciousness *and* a unity of consciousness that
is emergent)
- something which we are aware of ourselves, through introspection
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
c) Why is there evil in the world? (Does evil even make sense?)
From the ‘scientific’ view presented above
According to science (naturalistic), there is no ‘evil’ as such
Recall: Dawkins: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at
bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
- of course, there is pain and suffering [what we call ‘natural evil’]. BUT
- we determine that certain pains and sufferings are evil;
- there is no ‘objective’ morality [good and evil are just human constructs]
-if there is ‘free will’ then there is moral evil, but…..
Other answers: Evil = doing what is wrong evolutionarily – OR – morals come from ‘instinct’ / hard wired
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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c) Why is there evil in the world? (Does evil even make sense?)
From the Christian view presented above
 “Original Sin” (peccatum originale) / St. Augustine (353-430), after Ireaneus
 the doctrine of original sin cannot be proven by natural reason (CCC 396-399)
a) Major Protestant Churches: “The doctrine of total depravity”
• asserts that people are, as a result of the fall, not inclined or even able to love God wholly with
heart, mind, and strength, but rather are inclined by nature to serve their own will and desires and
to reject the rule of God.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
c) Why is there evil in the world? (Does evil even make sense?)
From the Christian view presented above
Augsburg Confession (Lutheranism) about ‘original sin’
• It is also taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are born according to the course of
nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their
mothers' wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover,
this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those
who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
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c) Why is there evil in the world? (Does evil even make sense?)
From the Christian view presented above
Philadelphia Confession of Faith (US Presbyterian Church)
because of inherited sin, "we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite of all good, and
wholly inclined to do evil . . . This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are
regenerated; and, although Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself and the first motions
thereof are truly and properly sin."
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
c) Why is there evil in the world? (Does evil even make sense?)
From the Christian view presented above
Church of England (Thirty-nine articles)
Article IX. Of Original or Birth-Sin.
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault
and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam;
whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so
that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world,
it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
c) Why is there evil in the world? (Does evil even make sense?)
From the Christian view presented above
Catechism of the Catholic Church
a tendency “toward the good because we are made in the image of God, and the darker impulses
toward evil because of the effects of Original Sin."
- no personal inherited sin or guilt
we do not inherit guilt from anyone, but we do inherit our fallen nature [i.e., “human nature [is]
deprived of original holiness and justice", which is "transmitted by propagation to all mankind" (CCC
404).
-- like passing on a defect or ‘lack’ – or (Aquinas) deprived of certain supernatural gifts (e.g., power to
keep inferior powers in check)
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
c) Why is there evil in the world? (Does evil even make sense?)
From the Christian view presented above
Catechism of the Catholic Church
in "yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human
nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state … original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical
sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" — a state and not an act" (CCC, 404).
This "state of deprivation of the original holiness and justice … transmitted to the descendants of
Adam along with human nature" (Compendium, 76) involves no personal responsibility or personal
guilt on their part” (cf. CCC, 405).
Adam and Eve lost God's abiding grace and friendship, their holiness and innocence  lost sanctifying
grace.
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
c) Why is there evil in the world? (Does evil even make sense?)
From the Christian view presented above
- There is ‘natural’ evil (i.e., pain and suffering), due to ‘natural’ defects in created things
- Matter breaks down
- There is moral evil in rational (e.g., human) beings
- There is a natural ‘wholeness’ / integrity
- But, given a material / fallen / defective / nature, without supports (grace), people will “inevitably”
act in ways that exhibit a failure to act in accord with divine law/plan
- Or that act in violation of that law/plan
DEVELOPMENT: EVOLUTION, MATTER, AND THE
IMMATERIAL
Summary: re: implications of Christianity for evolutionary science:
• Christianity ‘adds’ values, purpose, *and* limits (because of these values and purposes)
• Christianity emphasises freedom and morality
• Christianity emphasizes human integrity: there is a ‘wholeness’ to human beings, related to this is what
is ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’
• Christianity emphasizes human dignity:
“In the image and likeness of god”
• What are the ethical implications on Christians for
i) the environment?
ii) others?
iii) themselves?
PART 3. THE FUTURE: TRANSHUMANISM AND
CLONING
Transhumanism and cloning