One of the oddest things about my evangelical upbringing was the catechesis I received in creationism. Because of a certain hyper-literalist interpretation of the Book of Genesis, the evangelical churches that my family attended periodically preached on the errors of Darwin, seeking to equip congregants with talking points on dinosaurs, carbon-14 dating, and various phenomena that evolutionary theory struggled to explain. All of us eager evangelicals, ostensibly trained to speak authoritatively on matters of science.
Of course, few of us could actually do so. The idea that an evangelical who learned his science at church would go toe-to-toe with a hard sciences major or professional scientist and tell them that, in fact, the earth was 10,000 years old is ludicrous. Indeed, as much as Christians criticize religious skeptics for various philosophical assumptions – such as that miracles do not happen – an anti-evolution stance derived from a peculiar reading of Genesis is equally unfounded.
The more I learned about the contentious history of religion and science, the more I realized that the battle was largely the result of colossal confusion, often perpetuated by atheists and fundamentalists. Science deals with empirical data, with what can be observed and tested in the natural world; religion deals with metaphysical realities, some of which can be logically deduced and articulated, but cannot be empirically tested. To claim that natural selection somehow disproves the existence of God is equivalent to claiming that because human behavior is sometimes predictable, there is no free will.
I was thus thankful to learn that the Catholic Church understands evolutionary theory not as a villainous bogeyman, but, like every other aspect of modern thought, something to be considered in light of philosophical truth and a proper understanding of divine revelation. Darwin and Doctrine: The Compatibility of Evolution and Catholicism, by biology professor Daniel Keubler, falls squarely in this fair-minded Catholic tradition, carefully parsing philosophical and metaphysical claims. He writes: “Over the years, I have gone from wrestling with how evolution might fit with Catholicism to exploring how an evolutionary understanding can enlighten our understanding of how God relates to his creation.”
The Catholic Church does not actually have a position on the science of evolution, because it is in the business of determining truth related to divine revelation, not adjudicating the validity of various scientific theories. When the Church has spoken on science, it has focused attention on what St. John Paul II called “[pseudo-scientific] theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter.”
Catholics are therefore free to hold a range of positions related to evolution, from rejecting it outright as incompatible with Genesis, to accepting just about all evolutionary theory except for what denies formal Church teaching, such as claiming Creation can be explained solely via natural processes.
Keubler is persuaded that the available data is sufficient to conclude that life on Earth has evolved over the last 3.8 billion years. Yet he also believes that God has created a marvelous natural order, “a rare universe in which evolution via natural processes is indeed possible.” Catholics, he argues, do not have to choose between the Church and evolutionary science, properly understood, particularly the elements that have strong evidentiary support, and those that remain debated within the scientific community. Keubler resoundingly succeeds on both counts.
He first presents an account of how the Church has understood Creation, and the philosophical confusion responsible for the common misperception that science and religion are incompatible. He explains the prevalence of scientism, the belief that science is the only means of acquiring real knowledge, and its fatal flaws. As Catholic philosopher Ed Feser argues, “the claim that scientism is true is not itself a scientific claim, not something that can be established using scientific methods.”
The Church’s concern with evolution thus stems not from the science itself, but from those who unite it with a materialist worldview that precludes the divine. John Paul II and Benedict XVI have offered Catholics a framework for understanding evolution and Creation as two complementary ways to consider realities. As the Catechism teaches, whatever our opinions of evolution, we must believe God is the Creator of an ordered universe; that He made man both a physical and spiritual being; and that the Creation directs us toward God and reflects His power and wisdom.
Keubler goes on to explain evolution in language that even the scientifically illiterate will find accessible. He explains how the genetic code is probably the best evidence for universal common descent. He notes that the Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding of primary and secondary causality serves as a useful way to understand how random changes can occur in the natural world (which, by the way, is in many respects highly ordered) while preserving a belief in God as Creator.
In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas — more than half a millennium before Darwin – considers the possibility that new species could emerge over time! Keubler’s presentation of the origin of man, in which he correlates what we know about the evolution of hominid species with theories about how and when man acquired a soul and then fell into sin, is important for preserving the doctrine of original sin and is especially fascinating.
A healthy intellectual humility should underlie these speculations, which allows for withholding judgment on theories of human development – or any other matter of evolution, for that matter – as new evidence and theories emerge.
St. John Henry Newman, our recently declared Doctor of the Church, was a contemporary of Charles Darwin, and wrote: “Mr. Darwin’s theory need not, then, be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill.”
Keubler’s excellent book, too, helps us understand how evolutionary science need not be an antagonist of religious faith, but can be a means of deepening our wonder at God’s creative brilliance over millions of years.
