bones << Try this on for size. Darwinism rejects the fact that Adam and Eve were the first human beings on earth. >>
Try this on too. Darwinism does not speak to that. So says Benedict XVI when he was Cardinal Ratzinger:
“Now, more reflective spirits have long been aware that there is no either-or here. We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the “project” of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary – rather than mutually exclusive – realities.” (Cardinal Ratzinger,
In The Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, 1986, 1995)
Get
Origin of the Human Species by Catholic philosopher Dennis Bonnette. He also says Darwinism (or what normal people call “evolutionary science”) cannot speak to Adam and Eve:
“Further, evolutionary science sees the broad picture of human origins taking place over a time-frame measured in hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years. It cannot focus on events affecting a single pair of humans at a given point in time. Anthropological data and theories are so general that they cannot oppose particular facts about an Adam and Eve, unless even the broad trends of such data are shown to oppose such particulars’ possibilities. Speculation based upon present data can, at best, indicate the nature and activities of early humans, pointing to largely undefined populations and imprecise time periods. It cannot address with precision the conditions of existence of a single pair of humans at a particular, distant-past time. It cannot exclude, a priori, the possibility of miraculous divine intervention whose reality falls entirely outside the fossil record.”
A paraphrase of his information on the topic. Very good book on theological and philosophical issues.
Finally, Mike Behe the main Intelligent Designer and Catholic himself has no problem with Catholic teaching and natural selection (or the mechanism of “Darwinism”):
“Although I think my arguments [on intelligent design] are nothing short of compelling, some other Catholic academics have disagreed with me and have published other views. Brown University biology professor Ken Miller describes himself as ‘an orthodox Catholic and an orthodox Darwinist.’ In his 1999 book ‘Finding Darwin’s God’ Miller defends the standard view that, despite the unexpected complexity uncovered at the molecular level, natural selection is the best explanation for life. While admitting that Darwinian explanations currently don’t exist for many molecular systems, he expresses confidence that explanations will be forthcoming as science progresses…”
“The point I’m trying to drive home here by discussing my own work as well as the work of [Ken] Miller and [John] Haught,
is that a very wide range of views about the mechanism of evolution is consistent with Catholic teaching, from the natural selection defended by Miller, to the intelligent design I have proposed, to the animated, information-suffused universe that John Haught sees. Those mechanisms are all proposed by persons who attach the same bottom-line philosophy to their ideas that Pope John Paul described: that ‘it is the God of Israel who acts’ and that ‘it is the one and the same God who establishes and guarantees the intelligibility and reasonableness of the natural order of things upon which scientists confidently depend, and who reveals himself as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Indeed, the range of possibilities that are available under a Catholic viewpoint is much wider than under a materialistic viewpoint.” (Michael Behe, from
“A Catholic Scientist Looks at Darwinism” in Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing edited by William Dembski [2004], page 143-144)
So both Ken Miller and Mike Behe agree that “Darwinism” (i.e. natural selection) doesn’t contradict Catholic teaching.
Phil P
