Finding Design in Nature( NY Times: The Catholic position on ID and evolution)

[David_Paul]

CHRISTOPH SCHÖNBORN
7/07/05
NY Times

EVER since 1996, when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did not define) was “more than just a hypothesis,” defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have often invoked the supposed acceptance - or at least acquiescence - of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow compatible with Christian faith.

But this is not true. The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things.

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science…

In the homily at his installation just a few weeks ago, Benedict proclaimed: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

Throughout history the church has defended the truths of faith given by Jesus Christ. But in the modern era, the Catholic Church is in the odd position of standing in firm defense of reason as well. In the 19th century, the First Vatican Council taught a world newly enthralled by the “death of God” that by the use of reason alone mankind could come to know the reality of the Uncaused Cause, the First Mover, the God of the philosophers.

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of “chance and necessity” are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence . . .

nytimes.com/2005/07/07/opinion/07schonborn.html

 

[Maranatha]

Each of us is the result of a thought of God.

This is an awesome and humbling statement.

 

[Richardols]

David_Paul:

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not.

True. John Paul II stated that the one non-negotiable in any discussion of this subject is that God is the Creator. How God brought us to our present state was His choice, and we may opt to believe in creationism or evolution as we choose as His method.

 

[barnestormer]

I think Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) said it best:

“That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of the atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet should fall into a most ingenious treatise on philosophy.”

 

[David_Paul]

Maranatha:This is an awesome and humbling statement.

Wonderful that the New York Times reported it. Rarely do we see the Catholic or even mainstream Protestant view of creation and evolution reported in the MSM.

What we see most are the views of a small number of fundamentalist presented as the views of all Christians.

 

[Digitonomy]

And now the article in the Times reporting about his op-ed piece (well, excerpts, anyway).

Leading Cardinal Redefines Church’s View on Evolution
By Cornelia Dean and Laurie Goodstein
New York Times
Published: July 9, 2005

…In a telephone interview from a monastery in Austria, where he was on retreat, the cardinal said that his essay had not been approved by the Vatican, but that two or three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI’s election in April, he spoke with the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about the church’s position on evolution. “I said I would like to have a more explicit statement about that, and he encouraged me to go on,” said Cardinal Schönborn.

…“Unguided,” “unplanned,” “random” and “natural” are all adjectives that biologists might apply to the process of evolution, said Dr. Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown and a Catholic. But even so, he said, evolution “can fall within God’s providential plan.” He added: “Science cannot rule it out. Science cannot speak on this.”

Dr. Miller, whose book “Finding Darwin’s God” describes his reconciliation of evolutionary theory with Christian faith, said the essay seems to equate belief in evolution with disbelief in God. That is alarming, he said. “It may have the effect of convincing Catholics that evolution is something they should reject.”

…[Schönborn] referred to widely cited remarks by Pope John Paul II, who, in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, noted that the scientific case for evolution was growing stronger and that the theory was “more than a hypothesis.”

In December, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, chairman of the Committee on Science and Human Values of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, cited those remarks in writing to the nation’s bishops that “the Church does not need to fear the teaching of evolution as long as it is understood as a scientific account of the physical origins and development of the universe.” But in his essay, Cardinal Schönborn dismissed John Paul’s statement as “rather vague and unimportant.”

 

[Digitonomy]

More on this:

Questions for Pope on Evolution Stance
New York Times
By Cornelia Dean
Published: July 13, 2005

Three scientists, two of them Roman Catholic biologists… asked the pope to reaffirm earlier statements on the subject by Pope John Paul II and others “that scientific rationality and the church’s commitment to divine purpose and meaning in the universe were not incompatible.” It is crucial, their letter says, “that in these difficult and contentious times the Catholic Church not build a new divide, long ago eradicated, between the scientific method and religious belief.”