First, we as Catholics know that the universe was created out of nothingness (cf. Dei Filius, can. 2-4; Lateran Council IV). Some scientists claim that the universe was randomly created in what they call the Big Bang. Most people don't realize that the theory of the Big Bang was first conceived by a Belgian priest named Georges-Henri Lemaître although he did not give it the name "Big Bang".
At Vatican I, the Church infallibly stated that everyone must "confess the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing" (Canons on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5). So, we do not believe the world was created in a random order without God's role. To believe that we would believe a lie.
The Church does not have a position on whether or not the stars and planets were created at the same time as the universe. However, when they were created they were also done so under the guidance of God. "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host [stars, nebulae, planets] by the breath of his mouth" (Ps. 33:6). The Church has also infallibly stated that the universe is finite - it did not always exist. God alone is the only one that has always existed.
With biological evolution, the Church does not have a firm position on the matter, but again, the creation of all creatures is again attributed to God. No animal or plant lifeform developed without God's active guidance. He is the Creator.
Concerning human evolution, the Church is much more clear on its position. We must believe as an absolute truth that the human soul has never evolved and is never passed on from our parents. Our soul is unique to us, and the soul has never evolved. Also, it is an absolute truth that we have descended from one person - Adam, from whom Orginal Sin has been passed down to us. This must be believed.
Pope Pius XII wrote, "The Church does not forbid that...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." (Encyclical Humani Generis)The Church has neither accepted nor rejected the idea of some form of biological "evolution". But above all, if this theory is true, it is true only because God has willed it to be so. God is our Master and Our Creator. The world has come into being through Him, and that is the firm truth. We can learn about God from the created world. I personally do not believe in the theory because of inconsistencies.
In Encyclical Pascendi, Pope St. Pius X in 1907 condemned Modernism, which is based on Evolution. He called it the the "synthesis of all heresies". St. Pius X also condemned the idea that the Faith must be subject to current views of Science and History.
Ludwig Ott in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma stated the following points concerning science. These are all infallibly defined and consequently are true and must be believed by Catholics.
- All that exists outside God was, in its whole substance, produced out of nothing by God.
- God was moved by His Goodness to create the world.
- The world was created for the Glorification of God.
- The Three Divine Persons are one single, common Principle of the Creation.
- God created the world free from exterior compulsion and inner necessity.
- God has created a good world.
- The world had a beginning in time.
- God alone created the world.
- God keeps all created things in existence.
- God, through His Providence, protects and guides all that He has created.
Overall, the Church permits belief in special creation (the literal belief from the Book of Genesis) or in developmental creation, where God created us but we did evolve with the exceptions already mentioned above. The Church condemns belief in atheistic evolution, which claims God had no role in our creation. Atheistic evolution is a lie.
We above all can learn of God through the created world (Romans 1:20-23). If evolution is true, it is only true because God has willed it to be the method He used in the creation of the world.
Bibliography:
Catholic Answers
Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church
Where is Evolution in Catholic teaching?
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15 comments:
I don't have too much to contribute, except it was the fact that Catholics CAN believe in evolution that drew me even closer in. I came from a "NO EVOLUTION PERIOD!" mindset. And because I'm a geologist and studying anthropology, I can't NOT believe in evolution.
Although, I must admit it's funny to watch people go "you're Catholic...and a scientist? HOW?" (tee hee!)
How wonderful it is to be able to stand with the Church and say that we believe that God is big enough to use whatever means He wanted to create the world!
It makes me sad when people are so afraid of evolution theory (which they usually don't even begin to understand) that they say God COULDN'T have used it. Who are we to say what mechanisms He could or could not have used?
The Bible was written so that we might, in our tiny, finite, and dim minds, have some very small insight into the Mind of God. Doesn't it make more sense to believe that the six-day creation account in Genesis was written in that way to help our feeble brains understand the Infinite Glory of the Creator than to fly in the face of geology and other natural sciences (which God allowed us to develop so we might come to know Him more), demanding that God's six days be the same as our six days?
This was a good post, Moneybags. Thank you for bringing attention to this wonderful aspect of Church teaching.
Here's Chesterton on the subject:
Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought.
[GKC, Orthodoxy CW1:237-8]
For an excellent overview see Chesterton, a Seer of Science by S. L. Jaki.
Thank you moneybags!
So this would mean that if homo sapiens exsisted, they had souls as well?
Layla, I believe the answer is yes.
I don't understand how we can simultaneously affirm that (it is possible that) humans evolved by natural selection, and also that Adam was the first man. Could you clarify this for me? It seems clearly contradictory.
We can believe that God created Adam as the first man. And following this act of creation, man has slightly changed through natural selection. He never changed from ape to man. He merely slightly adapted to conditions of his area. This would seemingly be in accord with Catholic Doctrine.
I don't want to insult you or any other commentor. I wouldn't deny God, or mock, blasphem Him or anyone from his family nor any holy men and women of the Church of God.
I'm not posting obscene or impure images or words here. Neither would I advertise, nor link anything anti- Chatholic. I simply wat to say how contradictory is everything I have read here.
Please elaborate to defend and explain your position.
Thank you. I feel that this is one of the most important issues facing Christianity in the 21st century. "Closed minded" Christians that reject science outright are causing many to leave the Church and the rest of the world to mock us. It's one thing to be persecuted because of our faith, but many are "persecuted" for their ignorance and make Christians look like fools. Haven't we learned our lesson with Galileo and so many other scientists who loved and sought truth? All truth is God's truth.
As declared by Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus, science cannot contradict the Faith:
There can never… be any real discrepancy between the theologian and the physicist, as long as each confines himself within his own lines, and both are careful, as St. Augustine warns us, "not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known.”
Even today, many commonly-held tenets of natural science are merely theories, not certainties. This is not the case with the Catholic Faith, which is a certainty.
The Church’s magisterium authoritatively teaches on the correct interpretation of Sacred Scripture. As Pope Pius XII taught in Divino Afflatu Spiritu:
"The Holy Ghost, Who spoke by them [the sacred writers], did not intend to teach men these things—that is the essential nature of the things of the universe..."; which principle "will apply to cognate sciences…”
Providentissimus Deus also states that Scripture does not give scientific explanations and many of its texts use “figurative language” or expressions “commonly used at the time”, still used today “even by the most eminent men of science” (like the word “sunrise”). Such expressions are not scientific teachings about the cosmic world.
So Catholics should not use the Bible to assert explanations about natural science, but may in good conscience hold to any particular cosmic theory. Being faithful to the Church’s magisterium, the Society of St. Pius X holds fast to these principles: no more and no less.
His Holiness Pope John Paul II recognised that evolution is a viable theory. I believe you are mistaken in your belief that all Catholics MUST recognise that all humans came from one ancestor, Adam. This is untrue. Catholics are not implored to read scripture in a literal context. Contextual criticism is key, and in today's Catholic schools it is taught that the creation story was simply a cultural story with very important moral lessons included in it.
There are many outside of our Church that think It to be this strict, conservative entity. So many don't realise that Catholicism is a social justice religion, or that it recognises many biblical stories as metaphors.
It is good of you to educate those that don't understand Catholicism, as this lack of understanding so often leads to fear.
We are NOT a social justice religion. If you think we are, you have yet to grasp what being Catholic means.
And if you do not recognise that all humans came from one ancestor, Adam, then you disobey Vatican I and the popes for centuries. You are then a heretic and outside of the Church of God.
Perhaps Adam was the evolved man...who God made from dust. Beast came before man in the creation story. And in evolution, life evolved from particles, single celled organisms... All part of God's plan. The different days of creation must represent the eveloutionary steps. They coincide. But theirs no way to ever fully understand Gods plans until we are with him and our eyes are open
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