Tag Archives: Darwin

The Battle Over the Origin of Species

Anthropology, Creation, Creed, Evolution, Science, Scripture, , , , , , ,

Writing in his journal in 1873, Charles Darwin said “I have lately read Morley’s Life of Voltaire and he insists strongly that direct attacks on Christianity (even when written with the wonderful force and vigor of Voltaire) produce little permanent effect; real good seems only to follow the slow and silent side attacks.”  Using his slow and silent theory of Evolution as his side attack, Darwin decided that he would reimagine the Book of Genesis.  The original Origin of Species speaks of the supernatural beginnings of all of creation and it was to be replaced by a completely naturalistic explanation for the origin of all that is.  Darwin’s Theory of Evolution started a revolution, first by consigning the first three chapters of Genesis to “myth” and then systematically deconstructing each of the tenets of the Creed.  The Church was certainly caught flat-footed when the attack began and the Faithful made compromises with Darwinists that can be labeled as “theistic evolution.”  But this compromise does not just remake the beginnings but removes the supernatural from nearly every element of the Faith.  It is high time then that we reconstruct a theology of Creation which starts with a proper understanding of the opening chapters of Genesis.

Before diving into the specifics, we must first admit that the use of figurative language has as its goal to make the truth clearer.  Those who attempt to reconcile the two Origin of Species accounts often speak as if Genesis is using figurative language to convey the truth that God created all things, but that it is not intended to explain how He did so.  Nevertheless, the account does in fact reveal how He made things.  Genesis speaks very clearly that the animals are made from the clay(Gn 1:24), Adam from the slime of the Earth (Gn 2:7) and Eve from the rib of Adam (Gn 2:23). 

The Figurative Catch-22

It is often contended that the author of Genesis is merely using figurative language thus opening the door to an evolutionary explanation.  The problem with this interpretation is that there is no need to use figurative language; ordinary language will do.  Darwin did it and didn’t need the Holy Spirit’s help.  If Theistic Evolution is true, then the figurative language makes this less clear, not more, and violates the sole purpose of using figurative language to begin with.  No one would read “Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds” (Gn 1:23), and think this is simply a metaphor for one living species becoming another.  It is quite clear, even if we admit that it is figurative language, that the author is saying that the living animals all came directly from inanimate matter.  Likewise with man who God “breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” If man’s body came from animate being, then “breathing the breath of life” into the man so that he “became a living soul” may be figurative language, but the figure does not actually point to reality.

This also invites the more fundamental question as to why God needs to use figurative language to begin with.  Certainly, there are truths that are beyond human understanding and thus only a metaphor or the like will do.  But when speaking of God’s actions in Creation, the Omnipotent God, can do things in such a way as to make them explainable.  In other words, why would God need a metaphor to describe how He created—couldn’t He just create in a way that enables Him to also describe it in relatively simple terms? Why do we default to thinking that “the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth” isn’t actually how God actually did it?  The only reason why we wouldn’t read that literally is because we a priori remove any supernatural action on God’s part and assume that it is a metaphor for some natural explanation.  Again, why would God then use a metaphor when there is a natural explanation that could be explained using clear language?  The ancient peoples knew of different theories of evolution, so it would have been intelligible to even them.  “Slime” or “dust” (depending on your translation) is not a metaphor for ape, even for the most inarticulate person you could imagine.

That it should be read with a supernatural interpretation is clear from the fact that things are created by God’s Word—“through Him all things were made.”  How can we reconcile God’s “let there be” and evolutionary construction of the universe by natural processes?  The only way is through a Deistic conception of God by which He speaks not directly into creation (i.e. supernatural creation and miracles) but through some Divine blueprint by which the universe reaches its completion without any direct intervention on His part.

The Mind of the Church

It was mentioned above that the Church was caught somewhat flat-footed in its response to Evolution.  That was not the case initially.  A local synod was held in Cologne, Germany in 1860 to specifically address Evolution. They sought to respond to the release of Origin of Species in Germany and nip any attempt to say humans were subject to evolution in the bud.  Although it was a document of a local Church it did receive the unreserved acceptance of Rome because it contained the ordinary Catholic teaching.  Likewise, Vatican I declared that all things were created directly “according to their whole substance” by God.  Pope St. Pius X also commissioned the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC), giving them Magisterial Power to declare the truths about Genesis.  In his 1907 Motu Proprio, Praestantia Scripturae, he declared that “all are bound by duty of conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Pontifical Commission, both those which have thus far been published and those which will hereafter be proclaimed.”

Related to the specific question at hand, the PBC issued the document “Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis” in 1909.  The question that was posed was “[N]otwithstanding the historical character and form of Genesis, the special connection of the first three chapters with one another and with the following chapters, the manifold testimonies of the Scriptures both of the Old and of the New Testaments, the almost unanimous opinion of the holy Fathers and the traditional view which the people of Israel also has handed on and the Church has always held, may it be taught that: the aforesaid three chapters of Genesis contain not accounts of actual events, accounts, that is, which correspond to objective reality and historical truth, but, either fables derived from the mythologies and cosmogonies of ancient peoples and accommodated by the sacred writer to monotheistic doctrine after the expurgation of any polytheistic error; or allegories and symbols without any foundation in objective reality proposed under the form of history to inculcate religious and philosophical truths; or finally legends in part historical and in part fictitious freely composed with a view to instruction and edification?” to which they answered, “In the negative to both parts.”

Genesis, according to the mind of the Church then, contains actual events “which correspond to objective reality and historical truth” and is not “allegories and symbols without any foundation in objective reality proposed under the form of history to inculcate religious and philosophical truths.”  Genesis is true history from “the beginning”.    

If the modern Church that has been steamrolled by the slow and steady onslaught of Darwinian Evolution it is because these teachings have been mostly forgotten.  If we are to reverse the tide, then we must reassert our confidence in the truth and meaning of God’s Word.  We have abandoned it for dubious science and the fallout has been great.  Only by reasserting the Traditional understanding of the Church can we restore a belief in the supernatural action of God.

Evolution and the COVID-19 Vaccine

Abortion, Anthropology, Bioethics, Evolution, , , , , , ,

It has been noted on a number of occasions on this site, the bait and switch that those wedded to scientific materialism use to sell their evolutionary worldview.  They use the term Evolution in such an elastic manner that it is refute.  Only the most narrow-minded Fundamentalist would fail to see evolution in action in even the tiniest bacteria that grows resistant to antibiotics.  Darwin himself used the example of finches on the Galapagos islands with their varying adaptive beak lengths.  In short, the fact that there is abundant evidence of limited variation within species does not allow us to conclude that finches turned into something else.  This grand claim does not follow from the smaller claim.  In fact, the smaller claim fits perfectly well with the Biblical notion that God created various kinds of creatures.  But this foundation of limited variation (or what we might call microevolution) is not strong enough to carry the weight of Macroevolution.  In fact, intellectually honest scientists all admit that limited variation is little more than a prop for Evolution because there is no currently accepted mechanism among scientists by which, even given long time periods, one kind becomes another.  The insistence that the evolutionary claim is true, despite no solid evidence, is really meant to be a smokescreen that scientists are actually not as sure as they present themselves to be.  This smokescreen is necessary because it is really because Evolution is a philosophy and not about science at all.

Humanism and the Evolutionary Smokescreen

For evidence of this we need look no further than the ongoing Covid crisis.  Under the microevolutionary model, we should expect that as time goes on, different variants of Covid-19 would tend to be more contagious and less deadly.  Why is that?  Because of survival of the fittest.  Those variants which are able to spread easier while not killing their host, would naturally be selected.  Viruses that are deadly, even if they are highly contagious, simply don’t last because they kill their host.  Assuming that the numbers are accurate, this is precisely why we are currently seeing an uptick in “cases” while the attributed deaths are in decline.  This is exactly what should be expected according to the microevolutionary model.

Why then, if we are following the “science” should we have terror in our hearts for the new variants?  Because science, even when it fits the evolutionary narrative, always takes a backseat to philosophy.  The philosophy that is propped up by scientific evolution is humanism and when science is not useful then it must be discarded or ignored. 

Humanism represents a catch-all philosophical school in which man is the measure of all things.  All forms of it end up in the deification of man and the de-deification of God.  It is at the heart of the not-so-modern attempt to fulfill the promise that “you will be like God”.  Buttressed by the view that man has evolved from bacteria rather than as a Special Creation from the hand of God, it professes that man is at the pinnacle of reality.  Every problem, every limitation, natural or not, can be overcome by human reason aided by technology.

Humanism and the Vaccine

It is this viewpoint that causes the oligarchs to set aside actual science in pursuit of their humanistic ambitions.  If the evolutionary truth that the virus is losing some of its power gets out, then people will not get the “vaccine” which is, in a very real way, the next step in humanism’s evolution of man. 

I put vaccine in scare quotes because what is currently being pedaled as a vaccine isn’t a vaccine, at least in the traditional sense of the term. Vaccines are artificial attempts to trigger the body to act in a natural way, enabling it to defend itself when it encounters the wild-type virus.  There are various schools of thought as to whether this triggering of the immune response works, but its goal is to keep you from getting sick using the natural processes of the body.

The new mRNA vaccines, at least according to the manufacturers, are altogether different.  Rather than acting as vaccines, they are akin to gene therapies.  They do not keep the person from getting the virus but instead attempt to stimulate them to create it.  More specifically, it injects a strand of artificial mRNA into the person that causes them to create the S1 spike protein.  In short, it has your body create the very toxin that normally makes it sick.  The hope is that your body will become “familiarized” with the protein and not have as strong of an immune response when it encounters it in the wild.

The details matter not just from a health standpoint but also from a moral and anthropological standpoint.  The ongoing debate in the Church about the moral obligation to receive these vaccines and their complicity in abortion is mostly a red herring.  And not just because these are not vaccines in the traditional sense, but they also represent an attempt at transhumanism.  Coaxing the body to produce something that is not natural is simply an attempt to modify human nature.  It is not in accord with the nature of man to make spike proteins.  This power of making spike proteins, in other words, goes beyond (trans) human nature.  And the Church has always taught that such attempts to alter human nature, either temporarily or permanently, is a grave evil.   

Summarizing then we can say that these “vaccines” even if they didn’t rely on aborted fetal cells would still be wrong.  Catholics should recognize that they are thinly veiled attempts at transhumanism and the Church should condemn them for what they are.  Unfortunately, the pandemic of humanism has even infected many in the Church as well.

It is an evolutionary mindset that is behind this attempt.  If random selection is true, then tinkering with human nature itself is not only licit, but laudatory.  It is simply speeding up man’s ultimate deification through evolution. As Harvard University Paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson once said, “The fact that man knows he evolves entails the possibility that he can do something to influence his own biological destiny. The fact that uncontrolled evolution often leads to denegeneration and usually to extinction makes it highly advisable that man take a hand in determining his own future.”

This understanding of reality, in which man is “nothing but” a collection of cells arranged by natural selection, means that it is possible to manipulate man’s production of certain cells, without upsetting the rest of the body.  This paradigm ultimately does great harm to the whole person because the body is not just a conglomeration of parts, but an integrated whole designed by God. If the vaccine ultimately doesn’t work then it really doesn’t matter because the more fit will survive either way.  There is no way to lose because it has moved evolution chain ever upward to man’s deification.

Scoffers in the End Times

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In writing about Our Lord’s second coming, St. Peter says that despite the fact that “the day of the Lord shall come as a thief,” (2Peter 3:10) there is a sure sign that the end is near.  In those days deceitful scoffers will arise saying “Where is his promise or His coming? for since the time that the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:5).  He goes on to describe these scoffers as “willfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, consisting by the word of God.  Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.  But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of the ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:6-9). 

What the Scoffers are Scoffing About

A moment’s reflection on his words will allow us to realize that these “scoffers of the End Times” are living in our midst.  Peter the Rock is telling us that the scoffers will be those who insist that “things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”  They are, in short, evolutionists.  Evolutionists are those who believe that everything in the universe is a result of an unfolding of naturalistic processes that began with the Big Bang.  There is no room for God in their view and evolution forms the philosophical foundation for their secularist vision of reality. 

Given St. Peter’s caution then, it is odd that many Catholics are so quick to accommodate these scoffers by subscribing to what might be called Theistic Evolution.  They proclaim that Evolution is the mechanism by which God created the world and everything in it.  This proclamation comes despite the clear testimony of Scripture and Tradition that creation was not a result of the unfolding of some natural process, but a supernatural one in which God created each thing immediately.  He did not create by some natural law, but created the natural law along with the rest of creation.  Long before Darwin, the Church Fathers knew of evolutionary explanations for Origins and rejected them (see Summa Theologiae I q.73 a.1, obj 2-3 for a good summary of the Fathers’ explanation).

This accommodationist position usually presents in one of two forms.  Because it seeks to accommodate “science” it only concerns itself with human origins specifically.  These might aptly be called natural transformism and special transformism.

Natural Transformism

Those who hold the position of Natural Transformism hold that man was created through some natural process.  By some “accident” of nature, two primates, through normal reproduction, prepared a body that was capable of receiving a human soul.  This spontaneous generation of a human being from primate parents has been condemned by the Provincial Council of Cologne (which has approval of the Holy See):

“Our first parents were formed immediately by God. Therefore we declare that the opinion of those who do not fear to assert that this human being, man as regards to his body, emerged finally from the spontaneous continuous change of imperfect nature to the more perfect, is clearly opposed to Sacred Scripture and to the Faith.”

It also suffers from a common sense problem as well.  This “accident” would also need to be met with a simultaneous “accident” of the creation of another (wo)man that would allow for reproduction or else this first human would have to mate with another non-human.  To accommodate to this position, rather than synthesizing faith and reason, is destructive of the Faith and requires further setting aside of the perennial teachings of the Church related to the Special Creation of Eve and polygenism.

Special Transformism

Special Transformism is usually presented as Evolution preparing the body of some brute and then God infuses a soul into it.  To at least discuss this as a possibility is not out of the question.  In the most authoritative teaching on Evolution, Pius XII’s Humani Generis, the Holy Father said that it was licit to make inquiries “into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter… 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.” 

Most read this freedom to discuss as freedom to assert it as true.  The Holy Father was quite clear that this was not the case: “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.”  Using this as a guideline, let us see what we can say about Special Transformism and what we can’t.

First, we cannot say, without falling into some form of dualism that the body of the primate did not also undergo a transformation.  The soul is not some add-on to a body, but its form (see CCC 365), making it what it is.  We have spoken previously about this type of change as a substantial change, but this position creates a metaphysical Catch-22 such that before the matter that was the primate’s body can take on the form, it must already be a human body.  The only way for this to happen would be if God intervened and changed the body such that it was capable of receiving the human soul.

How this “miraculous” intervention is any different than holding a literal interpretation of Genesis 2:7 is not clear.  Whether God used inanimate matter (the slime of the earth) or previously animate matter (the body of the primate) really makes no practical difference.  Both stretch the limits of scientific explanations for our origins and strike down any concession that involves evolution preparing a body for man.  It is probably better to stand with Moses, St. Peter, Augustine, Chrysostom, St. Basil, Aquinas, and more and stick with a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Theistic Evolution, then, rather than appearing to be an enlightened compromise, actually turns out to look really dumb.  The problem is that Evolution and Christianity are completely incompatible and any attempt to reconcile them simply enables the Scoffers to keep on scoffing.  Moses said one thing about our origin, Darwin said another and the two shall never meet.  You are either a creationist or an evolutionist, but you can’t be both.

Darwin and Intellectual Racism

Anthropology, Atheism, Creation, Evolution, Faith and Reason, Science, , , ,

When you are in the habit of setting days and months aside to celebrate everything and everyone, you are bound to have some rather odd coincidences.  Today, February 12th, might be one of them.  In the midst of Black History Month, we take a day to “celebrate” Darwin Day.  Chosen to coincide with the birthday of Charles Darwin, the day is set aside to highlight Darwin’s unique contributions to science and to promote science more generally.  A strange coincidence because Charles Darwin single-handedly gave the world a theory that, at its very core, gives intellectual justification for racism.

To be fair, Charles Darwin himself was vehemently opposed to slavery.  He came from a long line of abolitionists.  The problem is that he also came from a long line of atheists so that his hatred of God was greater than his love of slaves.  His justification of slavery and many other genocidal practices was not merely an unintended consequence of his theory but a result of a willed obstinance.  His co-discoverer of the theory of evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace warned him that it was insufficient for explaining man and his friends, including Samuel Wilberforce, the son of the great British abolitionist, warned of the brutality his theory justified.  Darwin, in a moment of brutal honesty once wrote, “I have lately read Morley’s Life of Voltaire and he insists strongly that direct attacks on Christianity produce little permanent effect: real good seems only to follow the slow and silent side attacks.”  In short, he was willing to accept any collateral damage in his “slow and silent attack on Christianity.”

Even Evolutionary Ideas Have Consequences

If we look closely at the theory of evolution itself, we will see why racism necessarily follows.  The Theory of Evolution is based on the relatively straightforward principle of Natural Selection—“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.”  Colloquially known as “Survival of the Fittest”, Darwin’s model is rather intuitive until he posits that it explains everything.  The principle is without limitation and any species, given enough time and interaction with the environment, might evolve into any other species.  It is endless evolution with no room for distinctions between micro- and macro-evolution even though Darwin never uncovered evidence for the latter. 

Had he simply put forward the theory of Natural Selection to explain the origin of non-human species like he did in his first book On the Origin of Species, then it is very likely that the microevolutionary aspects would have been accepted and the macroevolutionary rejected, or at least severely modified.  But Darwin had intrinsically connected his scientific theory to a materialist worldview.  To consummate the wedding, he slipped humans into the theory in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.

After Evolving into a rock, Charles Darwin hangs out with the author at the Museum of Natural History in DC

Despite making numerous connections between the rudimentary forms of morality and intelligence in animals and human beings, Darwin was plagued by what appears to be an uncrossable chasm—the difference between the highest animal and the highest human.  But if he was to apply Natural Selection to the “descent of man” then he could allow for a slow and steady evolution which posits that there is not just a difference between animals and men, but between gradations of men as well.  As he puts it in The Descent of Man “Some of these, for instance the Negro and European, are so distinct that, if specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any further information, they would undoubtedly have been considered by him as good and true species.”

For Darwin evolution is an ongoing process.  This means that it continues down to our own day and that various species are continually fighting for survival; humans included.  Governed by the first evolutionary principle of Survival of the Fittest, Natural Selection has favored certain races over others.  Race is pitted against race and tribe against tribe so that the only way we know which is the most fit of them is by their continued survival and destruction of other races and tribes.  So then evolution not only scientifically justifies slavery and racism, but also genocide.  As Darwin himself put it in Decent of Man:

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes [like the gorilla, orangutan, or chimpanzee] . . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

An Inherent Contradiction

Modern men are unique in their ability to hold contradictions together in their head, but it is impossible to hold them together in practice.  Either racism, slavery, and genocide are wrong and Evolution is a false explanation for the origin of man or Evolution is true and racism, slavery and genocide are justified.  There can be no intellectual racism without actual racism emerging.  No amount of “sympathy” (to use Darwin’s term) or “woke” condemnation can overcome “scientific fact.”  When science is all you got for truth, then you have to accept the consequences of that.   

We have spoken on any number of occasions previously on why Evolution is both bad philosophy and bad science.  Nevertheless it is accepted as fact because it is the only explanation that eliminates God.  Darwin knew that and his intellectual progeny know it as well.  The problem is that any worldview that eliminates God ultimately ends up justifying the elimination of men.  If Man really came from below, then we might treat him as we see fit.  Might makes right.  But if man came from above then every man is intrinsically valuable regardless of whether he is a savage or civilized.  In fact, as history has borne out, it is Christianity and not some blind process of evolution that raises man from savage to gentleman.  

The Philosophy of Evolution

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Tomorrow will mark the 160th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.  Considered to be a formational tome in the field of evolutionary biology, it has in the last century plus become a foundation of the model world.  We find evolution, not just among plants, but races of men.  Survival of the fittest becomes political eugenicism.  We find it in not just animals, but among societies of men who reject the ideas of the past as extinct that needed to evolve to suit the changes in enlightened mankind.  The modern world is, in truth, all in on evolution.  And this might help to explain why it has devolved.  The theory of evolution is bad science and even worse philosophy.

Evolution as Bad Science?

Science, in Aristotelian tradition is thought of in more general terms than we do today. The most general meaning of the term is an organized body of knowledge, resting on first principles, purposed to investigate causes.  This broad definition includes all fields of knowledge from metaphysics to the empirical sciences such as evolutionary biology.  This spectrum of sciences has a natural hierarchy in the sense that it studies not just individual beings (empirical science), but being itself (metaphysics).  Each science must accept certain first principles, givens if you will, upon which the investigation of the causes of things can proceed.  With no foundational truths to build upon, the scientific house is destined to crumble.  The hierarchy allows the lower sciences to draw from the higher to procure their first principles.  For example, physics, one of the lower sciences, depends on mathematics, a higher one, for its first principles.  A physicist in acting to quantify some aspect of reality, could not proceed if he doubted the laws of mathematics.  If he were question the laws of math rather than his own hypothetical law, then he would most certainly be wrong.  He is ignoring the first principles so that the truth can adapt to his theory.

Portrait of Aristoteles. Copy of the Imperial era (1st or 2nd century) of a lost bronze sculpture made by Lysippos

A science then can be bad not just in its method, but in its observance of first principles.  In this way evolution is bad science.  Evolutionary biology depends on the philosophy of nature for its first principles.  The philosophy of nature is concerned with principles of unity in the face of change.  Evolutionary biology, too, is concerned with change, but specific changes in individual species.  Any theory that explains the change in individual species must respect the higher science in order to maintain its connection to truth.  If the evolutionary biologist ignores these principles then he is no different than the physicist who ignores the laws of mathematics.

 The First Principles

What are the first principles that evolutionary biology borrows from the Philosophy of Nature?  There are a number of them, but three will suffice to show why evolution is bad science. 

All that exists is either substance or accident.  A substance is an individual existing thing, while an accident depends upon a substance to exist.  A tree is a substance, the green of the leaves is an accident.  Trees exist on their own, greenness does not exist except in the trees (and other green substances).  You could take away the green from the leaves and the tree would remain a tree.

Since evolution deals with change, we must also look at some of the first principles related to change.  Change consists in reducing potency to act; some specific potential that is dictated by a thing’s nature is brought into existence through some agent cause.  This agent cause must already have the power to cause the change.  That is, it must be in act.  Suppose a room is cold which means it is potentially warm.  Only something that is actually warm like a burning log can heat up the room.  A log that is only potentially hot could never heat up the room.  This is the principle of sufficient reason.  This principle, in all its variations, deals with cause and effect.  An effect must in some form be in the cause.  In layman’s terms, you cannot give what you do not have.  For an effect to come about, the cause must have the power to cause the effect. 

Third, there is the principle of hylemorphism.  This principle says that all material beings are composed of form and matter.  Form, which is ontologically prior to matter, determines what a thing is.  Matter is the individuating principle, it is what makes the thing “this thing” rather than “this other thing”.

There is also another principle related to the upward movement of evolution.  Material creation proceeds from simple to complex, from the lowest to the highest.  In philosophical terms, there is a hierarchy of being in which the higher beings exhibit perfections not found in the lower.  Stones are not alive the way that plants are.  Plants cannot move and sense the way animals can, even if they have the same vegetative powers.  Animals cannot abstract and communicate the way that man can, even if they can gain sense knowledge of individual things.  As one of the philosophical dictionaries puts it, “in material and living bodies we find an ascending order of perfection in which the higher beings have their own perfections as well as those of the lower level of being. In the unity of the higher being, the multiplicity of the lower beings is virtually present.”  What this means is that although the lower is contained within the higher, the higher is not contained in the lower. 

The First Principles Applied to Evolution

If we frame evolution first as a philosophical problem, then it becomes clear how the first principles apply.  Specifically, it deals with changes not in individual substances, but in the generation of offspring.  The law of generation allows for accidental differences between parent and offspring.  These accidental differences can be based upon both the mixing of genes of the parents and on mutations in the genetic information.  These differences result in an offspring with the same essential form, but accidental differences.  Some of these differences may be biologically advantageous such that the incidence in the population increases.  Still we are dealing with like substances.  Evolutionary biology has a term for such changes and it calls it microevolution.  Microevolution is on solid philosophical groundwork such that if the biological data supports it then we can conclude that it is at least highly probable.

Macroevolution, on the other hand, posits a different sort of change.  Based on random a series of random mutations the matter is changed to the point that a new form is brought about.  This hypothesis comes in conflict with our first principles stated above.  First, the direction of evolution is always upward towards greater perfections.  But this would violate the principle of sufficient reason.  An effect cannot exceed its cause.  If the cause does not include the effect, then it must be brought about by some other way.  A blind animal can give birth to an offspring with sight because she has sight in potency, but no amount of lightning and “primordial soup” can effect sight in the offspring of a being who does not have eyes.  You cannot give what you don’t have. 

This principle is also violated quite frequently when the fossil record is combed for the elusive “common ancestor” and “missing link” that the lower somehow caused the higher.  There is little actual biological evidence for this causal link such that it is much more plausible that are closely situated on the ladder of being.  If nature is a continuous hierarchy then we would expect to see beings that are closely related to each other.   

Secondly, and more fatal for the philosophical backing of macroevolution, is that it posits that matter is the cause of a new form.  It is saying that given enough changes in the matter, a new kind of form can come into existence.  But form always precedes matter.  Matter cannot exist without a form, even if a form can exist without matter.  Once the new form exists, the matter which is in potency to the form, can be reduced to act.  If the new form cannot come into existence without some immaterial Cause, then the only way that macroevolution could possibly be true is if this Cause intervenes at each evolutionary stage to create new forms.  This Cause, because He was capable of creating all forms, would have to be omnipotent and omniscient.  Most would call such a Cause God. 

We can readily see why microevolution often is used in an ideological sleight of hand to cover up what is going on with macroevolution.  If matter cannot bring about a new form, then in order for macroevolution to proceed, God must create new forms.  In other words, Macroevolution, if it is true, then offers proof for the existence of God.  Because it does not conform to the ideological agenda that most who support evolution have, this fact is kept quiet and only material explanations are allowed. 

Good science always requires good philosophy.  Darwin may not have realized the implications of his new theory, but once we apply the Philosophy of Nature to his theory, we quickly find that macroevolution needs not only Aristotle, but God.

Accepting Polygenism

Creation, Evolution, Magisterium, , , , , ,

Benjamin Franklin once quipped that nothing was certain but death and taxes.  If Mr. Franklin were alive today, he would add evolution to the list of certainties. The theory has become fact and has won uncritical acceptance from nearly everyone, Catholic or not.  Having become adamantine, this theory has broken Adam’s family into pieces with dire consequences both for the Faith and for the world because of one particular aspect, polygenism.  Polygenism, put simply, is the belief that, rather than tracing our human origins back to a single couple, we came from multiple couples.  Rather than look at each of the different theories in particular, we will examine the idea based through philosophical and theological lenses.

First it is worth mentioning that the Magisterium has cautioned the Faithful about accepting polygenism in any of its forms.  In his 1950 Encyclical, Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII spoke of the liberty the Faithful have in discerning the origins of the human body.  But,

“When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own”

Humani Generis, 36-37

It takes a bit of theological gymnastics not to read this as a blanket rejection of polygenism, but nevertheless some theological contortionists have posited that the door is still open.  What is clear however is that any polygenetic theory would have to maintain two truths about Adam.  First, that there are no men on earth that did not take their origin from him.  Secondly, we cannot see Adam as somehow an icon or symbol for a bunch of first parents.  Hard to imagine that any theory of polygenism could maintain this since it seems to assert its opposite, but even if the Pope did leave it open, there is no theory as of yet that meets this criteria.

Pius XII mentions the theological interest in the question as it relates to Original Sin.  It leaves open the possibility and historical reality of an unfallen race at various time points throughout history.  Even if all mankind eventually fell, there would have been a time when unfallen and fallen men lived together.  That means there may have been unfallen men who were conceived of unfallen parents.  This would then call into question the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by which Our Lady is said to have received a “singular grace”.  It also leaves open the possibility that men died without falling and thus would not be in need of redemption.  If all men did not sin in Adam then all men are not redeemed in Christ.

This is not the only way that polygenism tugs at the thread of the seamless garment of the Faith in ways we do not initially grasp.  It also puts in jeopardy the dogmatic truth of the special creation of Eve.  It is a matter of dogma taught through the Ordinary Magisterium, and first affirmed Pope Pelagius I in 561 and reaffirmed by Pope Pius XII in the aforementioned Encyclical that Eve was literally created from the rib of Adam.  This belief is protective of the equal dignity of men and women because they come from the same origin.

It turns out that polygenism not only leads to inequality between the sexes but between races as well.  The evolutionary model rests upon a progressive view of beings.  Things are always adapting and getting better.  From a philosophical perspective, evolution is the tool by which the rungs of the Ladder of Being are being added.  Beings on the same rung are equal in dignity, those above or below have more or less dignity.  Human beings are equal in dignity because they occupy the same rung of the Ladder of Being.  Under the model of polygenism this ceases to be the case.  With different evolutionary origins, different races occupy different rungs on the ladder.  In short, it gives both biological and philosophical justification for some human persons being more equal than others.

This is why the Francis Galtons, Margaret Sangers and Hitlers of the world have always loved the Theory of Evolution.  It justified their eugenic madness.  Under polygenism, some races would necessarily be inferior to other races.  This would justify their extermination and there would be no disputing them.  This is why Pope Pius XII thought it necessary to safeguard not just Revelation, but man’s unique place within visible creation against the threat of uncritical acceptance of Evolution.  Ideas have consequences and all of us, especially Catholics, need to be more critical in their acceptance of the Theory of Evolution.

Before closing, it is worth mentioning that many well-meaning Catholics accept polygenism because it seems better than accepting incest among Adam and Eve’s children.  Rather than revisiting that question here, I will simply point you to a previous post that deals with that objection.

Happy Darwin’s Day

History, Science,

To mark his 209th birthday, the American Humanist Association has honored Charles Darwin by declaring today to be International Darwin Day.  The group praises Darwin and his theory of evolution for “unclasping scientific progress from theological limitations and paving the way for a fuller understanding of our place in the universe.”   While they mention “theological limitations,” one gets the sense that it is really any “limitations” to natural science, including those that are inherently part of its essence that humanists will not accept.  Natural science is limited in that it is designed to look for material causes as explanation for certain effects.  It can neither find nor detect non-material agents.  It is a valuable and reliable field of knowledge for sure, but knowledge is not wisdom.  As the name suggests, Homo sapiens (literally “wise person) as a species seek wisdom and therefore are necessarily philosophical.  Humanists forget that physics is always at the service of metaphysics.  What ends up happening is that physics becomes metaphysics and bad science follows.  Only when natural science respects it limitations can it truly pave the way for “a fuller understanding of our place in the universe.”

If one reads Darwin’s Descent of Man then it becomes readily apparent that Darwin starts with the assumption that the mind was entirely material and that humans had an ape-like ancestor.  In other words, he took the theory of evolution as he describes it in the Origin of Species and applied it to man without any scientific justification.  In other words, he first made a metaphysical assumption and then simply asserted what that would look like scientifically.  Of course, his metaphysics was not solid as I showed in a previous post.

But science also needs religion.  In fact, it is certain Christian fundamental ideas that allowed the emergence of scientific thought to begin with.  The study of science arose because of a belief in a transcendent Creator who endowed His creation with orderly physical laws.  Any good scientist knows that what you study is not only observable, but that it follows some known order.   No reasonable scientist would study what he truly believed to be random coin flips.  Furthermore, man must be capable of recognizing this order so as to study it.  In order to discover the order of the universe of which man is a part, he must also somehow transcend it.  In other words, Humanists must recognize that to reject either of these truths, undermines any attempts that they make to gather knowledge about the world.  In fact, the pioneers of modern science, such as Galileo, Kepler, Harvey, and Newton thought science was at the service of wonder so that it would give content to the praise of the Creator.

Historically speaking, religious faith and science thrived side by side until the start of the eighteenth century.  For various reasons, some of which were valid such as wars within Christianity itself, many Enlightenment intellectuals became disillusioned with Christianity.  In response to this, they proposed a “religion of reason” that would replace the dogmas of faith.  This co-option of science by the Enlightenment was characterized by its claims that science must be “value free”.

Creation of Man Sistine

It should be noted as well that Darwin was not the first to posit a theory of evolution.  One of the questions that theology has long been trying to answer was where Adam’s body came from.  Some posited that it came about instantly while other said it came through some stages of development.  For example, St. Augustine in his commentary on Genesis (De Genesi ad Literam) thought that Adam came into the world in full maturity.  But he left it open to the idea that his body could have come about through long process similar to embryonic development (or evolution of some sort).

So what does Divine Revelation have to say about the “Origin of Species?”  First that God created the world ex nihilio.  This does not preclude Him using something like the Big Bang as the mechanism, although this particular theory has some serious flaws scientifically that need to be worked out.  When you are using a theoretical construct that cannot be measured like Dark Matter to explain 5/6 of the matter in the Universe, it is far from a complete explanation.  Regardless of whether it is true or not, one still has to explain how the point of infinite density and temperature at time zero ever got there.  In other words, scientists may be able to answer the question as to how things come about, but they will never be able to answer the question as to why there is something instead of nothing.  That is a question for metaphysics and religion.  To pretend natural science could answer that question or to pretend that is not the more important question is to delude yourself.  Metaphysical questions are always the most important questions because we crave purpose and meaning and not mere explanation.

Regarding the “Descent of Man”, Pius XII in his Encyclical Humani Generis, offered three specific truths from Revelation that must be safeguarded.  The first is that man, because of his spiritual soul, could not be a direct product of evolution.  There is nothing contrary to Revelation to say that man’s body came through evolution, but the soul must be believed to have been directly infused into that body by God.

Second, we must hold that the first woman came directly from the first man.  At first this seems unnecessary or even superfluous, but Pius XII was reaffirming that which had been taught as part of the Ordinary Magisterium going all the way back to Pope Pelagius I in 561 (“together with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created: one from the earth and the other from the side of the man”).  The reason why this truth is of particular importance is because it affirms the essential equality (in dignity) of man and woman.  An unchecked theory of evolution always leads to justifying inequality between people because one group is always somehow inferior to the more evolved one.  It was Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin’s who applied Darwin’s arguments for Natural Selection to improved breeding of human beings.  He is the first to coin the term eugenics, to which the likes of Marx, Hitler and Margaret Sanger all devoted their time.

Finally, Pius XII said that Adam and Eve were two real people from which the entire human race has come (this is called monogenism).  The Pontiff said that “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

This is why a wholesale adoption of evolution is problematic.  Evolution without Revelation would require that in the transition from animal to man, there would necessarily be a multitude of men and not just two.  What is at stake in this is Jesus and His Mission.  If there is no Adam and no Original Sin as separation from God then there is no need for the Incarnation and Redemption.  While we may not be immediately aware of the implications of this belief, humanists certainly are.  In an article entitled, “The Meaning of Evolution,” the author says that, “[E]volution destroys utterly and finally the very reason for Jesus’ earthly life, which was supposedly made necessary, for if you destroy Adam and Eve and original sin, then you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God. Take away the meaning of his death, and if Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, then Christianity is nothing.”

Ultimately, the battle between science and revelation has a direct bearing upon science itself.  As Pius XII said, “truth cannot contradict truth” so that   those places where modern science contradict revelation will ultimately lead to dead ends.  No amount of faith in scientific fudge factors like dark matter, dark, energy, inflation, and missing links will ultimately lead to truth.  It certainly is not at the service of reason to continue to create hypothetical constructs to fill in the gaps when Revelation has a perfectly reasonable answer—I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.