A Pitfall on Evolution Debate

[uther]

I believe we are facing the potential of another Humanae Vitae episode or perhaps a “spirit of Vatican II” re-visited.
I speak of the current escalation of expectation regarding the Pope and Evolution. Without getting deeply into the scientific discussion, it seems that the vast majority of scientists and intellectuals in the Catholic realm have decided that Evolution is a done deal. The case is circumstantial, but the evidence is vast.
In recent years however, there have been those who have attempted to take that circumstantial evidence and construct the theory of Intelligent Design, using only the evidence without reference to God specifically.

Whatever the relative merits of either theory scientifically speaking, there are several undercurrents in the discourse that have little to do with science. Catholics, in particular intellectual Catholics, wish to place as much distance as possible from the Fundamentalist Protestant types who assert a literal six day creation, ie. six 24 hour periods.
Thus, any hint at even the terminology of Six-day people, sets them off in barrages of evolutionary support in very condescending tones. This has been the fate of some of the Intelligent Design theories, on principle, rather than strictly scientifically on the merits.

Several things are clear.
If we are Catholics, we believe that God is the Creator of heaven and earth. That doesn’t say anything about how he did it, which has been open for discussion.
Secondly, from that initial position, we know that we cannot stray too far in the direction of un-planned accidental mutation because if we take an open-ended position as evolutionists, we eventually cross the line where we question if God was indeed the creator. If we take the theory of evolution that far, we become at some point no longer Catholic.
So we know that the Church will never take a position that denies God’s design or (name removed by moderator)ut at some basic level at least, if it ever does take any position. There are miles of territory between full-on evolution and hands-on design where it could be reasonable for a Catholic to take a stand. Nevertheless, evolution from the Church’s standpoint will be a truncated evolution.
It’s an ongoing debate whether pure theoretical Darwinian evolution is or is not antithetical to God as a first cause or first mover, in the Thomistic sense. But what we have seen in the last 40 or 50 years in our educational system and popular discourse and promoted by all manner of scientists, pseudo-scientists and educators, is an evolution that claims to have removed the need for God. That is what the average person knows about evolution if nothing else. As such it has long been popularly perceived as anti-God, anti-faith.
Intelligent Design, on the other hand, despite its protestations to the contrary, brings to mind God, inevitably, when we talk about the origins of the universe. Of course it does, because only God is big enough to intelligently design the universe.

So what are we faced with? The common man and the common priest will see and hear the headline, if the magisterium ever pronounces any kind of official acceptance of evolution as follows. “Vatican rejects creation, embraces evolution.” Sub-head, “Is God dead in Rome?”
If we look closely, we know that any evolution the Church would ever endorse would not contradict the creeds or Genesis, but it will be perceived that way if there is no serious effort to educate Bishops and Priests about it.

Sometime later we will wonder once more why people are losing their faith.

 

[Ghosty]

The major problem with Intelligent Design is that it’s NOT a scientific theory, but a philosophical one that’s trying to piggy-back as science.

The problems with this are manifold, but there are two very significant ones that are key, IMO. First, by trying to turn science into philosophy, rather than merely having philosophers do science, IDers are basically assenting to the fundamental error of “scientism” and giving WAY more credit and power to materialists than is due. Second, by bringing philosophical truths down to a level of material examination, rather than keeping them in the realm of philosophy, ID ultimately destroys the principles of philosophy and philosophical truth. People begin to expect philosophical truths to be deducible from purely material study, and will become disturbed or disenchanted when this turns out to not be the case.

The proper Catholic response, IMO, is to do science better than materialists, and do philosophy WAY better than materialists (which is, quite frankly, a slam dunk for true Catholic philosophy), and keep the two areas seperate without denying or minimalizing the truth of either. Mixing philosophy in with science is precisely where materialists and “dogmatic Darwinists” went wrong in the first place, and Catholics should not be following them down that road with “Intelligent Design Theory”.

The fact is that traditional Catholic philosophy is already better than Intelligent Design in every conceivable way. First, it allows us to approach material science with, well, scientific mind bent on exploring tangible material facts. Second, it recognizes the the validity, and even primacy, of philosophical deductions from the world around us. By keeping them seperate, traditional Catholic science was able to do science better, and traditional Catholic philosophy was able to do philosophy WAY better.

The real problem today is not that we’re lacking an alternative philosophical model to compete with “dogmatic Darwinism” in the science classroom, it’s that we have philosophy (whether ID or “dogmatic Darwinism”) in the science classroom at all, and we DON’T have a philosophy classroom. What we really need is a science class for studying how water is wet, and how genes and DNA shape our biological structure, and a philosophy classroom for teaching people how to process information and how (not what) to think properly. This needs to begin WAY before college too, because by the age of 18 the person’s way of thinking has already been practically cemented even without formal training.

The bottom line is that there ARE no scientific merits to Intelligent Design of any stripe because it is not science, but philosophy. The Catholic Church is simply trying to keep these two things distinct but integrated, even if some Catholics come across more reactionary than really necessary.

Peace and God bless!

 

[uther]

Ghosty,
I think you’ve summed up the reality quite well and I agree.

The issue still remains, however. How do we disengage these elements such that the average guy knows how to distinguish them? I think most people are quite capable of understanding, but most don’t have the time or inclination to follow the nuances and distinctions of the debate. That would include your average parish priest.

What set me thinking about all of this, was following the discussion in some of the blogs(while CAF was down), most friends of CAF , and quite orthodox as far as I am aware. For the most part there was concern about the coverage in the press right now, and that is a part of my concern. But occasionally I would see comments by some of those “reactionary” Catholics, as you describe them, in which they were throwing out words like “creationists” as epithets.
Certainly, I wouldn’t impune their motivation or faith, and I am fairly certain I know who specifically they mean, but I stepped back and thought, “Wow, if anyone walks into the middle of this discussion, they would have no idea these people believed in God.”
Terms need desperately to be defined in a way that anyone can grasp it at a glance, or nearly so. Believe me, if there ever is any kind of statement from Benedict XVI on all of this, there will be plenty out there who will want to deliberately misconstrue it, so we would not do the average layman any favour by facilitating that.

On the face of it, the average person would take the meaning of the word “creationist” in its simplist meaning, ie. someone who believes in a creator. Well, we as Catholics believe in a Creator. The nuances and distinctions come later. Certainly, there are some who would identify “creationist” as a six-day literalist, but they are usually the ones who follow the debate.
Likewise, as I said above, the vast majority of what we get from the scientific community on evolution, directly or tangentially, is that “dogmatic Darwinism” as you so aptly describe it, such that evolution equates with materialism, and feeds the secular humanism of the culture and the popular *God vs. Science *paradigm.

I guess what we need, IMO, is to get control of the debate and if necessary create some new neutral designations just to give the truth a chance to be heard. Other than that, I don’t have the answer, but I certainly can see a big issue down the road if we don’t get the the terminology clarified.

 

[Ghosty]

I think the best we can do is clear the waters by making matters more complicated, which is precisely what Catholics do best!

By this I mean we can start by raising these distinctions between philosophy and material science whenever we can, especially when the discussion comes up with “the man on the street”. I think a lot of our current problem has been that we HAVE been trying to “meet people where they are” in their understanding as opposed to trying to raise their understanding up a notch. The sad thing is that this is ultimately detrimental to both the outsiders looking in and for us. Worse is that most people really CAN understand these distinctions, they’re just not in the habit of doing so. Most of these distinctions are pure common sense, or darn close to it, but we live in a culture and time that seems hell-bent on destroying the faculty of common sense among people in general

By making things “more complicated”, we’re actually making things much simpler, it just takes a modicrum of effort. In the long run I’d love to see a turn towards basic philosophy in elementary and middle-schools (nothing like reading Plato and Socrates, just basic principles like “what is knowing” and “what can we know”?), but in the mean time we can just try and break through the ignorance on a one-on-one level. Unfortunately, combating the “sound-bite” mentality can’t be done by using it ourselves, and that means that for every one person we’re able to help by careful dialogue, ten will move away in favor of an “easy” answer (such as “Catholics are beginning to question whether or not God made the universe”). I don’t really see a way around that, sadly, but by addressing the matter carefully on as wide a scale as possible we have the best chance of reaching the most people in the long run.

We may not convert them, but we can at least get people thinking carefully again, and that’s a world of difference from where we seem to be now

Places like this Forum actually help prepare people for such work quite nicely, IMO, as it attracts all kinds of people and we are able to share information on almost all levels of detail, from “common sense” to doctoral dissertations, and everything in between.

Peace and God bless!

 

[trth_skr]

…By this I mean we can start by raising these distinctions between philosophy and material science …

That is an interesting quote, but contains a metaphysical ambiguity. How do you seperate philosophy from “material” science? The whole concept of materialism is philosophy. Is there a “material” or “natural” world seperate from God? No there is not. The whole conception of a material science is in itself highly charged with philosophical assumptions. What we need to do is to recognize, as Catholics, that there is no material or natural world seperate from God. In a sense we talk about God not being in this world, but I think we mean ‘not being limited by our [fallen nature] limitations’ and being the Infinite, rather than limited to our finiteness.

Evolution and Big Bang theories are philosophical arrangements which attempt to diepense with the need for God and creation. It is true that we can form predictive capabilities within the natural world (i.e., the finite world we experience) as well as attempt to explain the mechanism of some physical processes. I think that this is what you mean by a material science. Still when the significance of the mechanisms start to attack the tenets of our faith, we need to take that into consideration and examine if there are other possible solutions and mechanisms which do not do so. I am not saying let our philosophy blind us, but rather, at least consider the options.

As an example, let us consider our observations of the cosmos, which indicate that we are in the center of the universe. Cosmologists should consider two possibilities:

1. We are in the center
2. Everywhere looks like it is in the center

Well, science does not consider the simplest option. They reject the first possibility out of hand, with absolutely no scientific evidence to do so. This is the problem. Atheistic philosophies drive science, funding, etc. Here is what Stephen Hawking said in A Brief History of Time (as quoted in Galileo Was Wrong):

*…all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever *
*direction we look in might **seem to suggest there is something ***
*special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might *
*seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away *
from us, then we must be at the center of the universe.
…
*There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might *
*look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, *
*too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second *
*assumption. **We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this ***
*assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: *
*it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in *
*every direction around us, but not around other points in the *
universe.

The problem is not one of splitting hairs, but rather quite clear. I choose the modesty of siding witht the fathers, three popes, and the Scriptures rather than a false modesty (on this particular issue).

Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com

 

[uther]

we live in a culture and time that seems hell-bent on destroying the faculty of common sense among people in general

Amen.

In the long run I’d love to see a turn towards basic philosophy in elementary and middle-schools (nothing like reading Plato and Socrates, just basic principles like “what is knowing” and "what can we know

I quite agree.

I guess, from the Catholic point of view, I see a re-visitation of the Vatican II syndrome. For example, the Church holds a position, in tension, between Feenyism and syncretism. The “spirit of Vatican II” people promoted essentially an end to the Great Commission. You know it, “I’m cool, you’re cool, we’re all cool, so let’s jump in the pool!” Sounds like the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song.
And of course the backlash went to the other extreme. We have the remnants of both camps with us today.

I was hoping that we learned something from that experience. Perhaps it is only a function of human nature. But I will agree that critical thinking starts with the very young.