Orthodox Christianity and western science

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I am a Roman Catholic, and I have always been taught that the Catholic church takes a contextualist, and often a literary approach to interpreting scripture. I was thus taught that science and evolution are acceptable, and my copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church acknowledges natural science as the best and most reliable way to understand the workings of nature. Basically, there’s no problem with evolution. Is this also the case in the Orthodox Church? Can someone be an Orthodox Christian and also believe that evolution does indeed take place and that our bodies are the result of evolution by natural selection?

I’m interested in the Orthodox Catholic Church, and becoming Orthodox is not off the table for me. It is something I am looking into and discerning. But I am very uncomfortable with a rigid, literalist interpretation of scripture.
 
The Orthodox Church does not accept Darwinian evolution,

but like you say, it also does not interpret Genesis literally.

-From an account with an Orthodox theologian.
 
GaryTaylor said:
The Church teaches evolution is Gods plan.
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No it doesn’t. All it teaches is that some forms of evolution is are not contrary to Church teaching. That is a long way from blanket approval. Linus2nd
 
The thing is that there isn’t a uniform response to Evolution within the Eastern Orthodox Communion. Until a new Ecumenical Council is called, there won’t be one and thus each particular Church sort of goes its own way. Heck, even within each Church you have diverging opinions between bishops.

Short version: The Eastern Orthodox Church neither (officially) accepts nor rejects the Theory* of Evolution

** “Theory” in the scientific sense, which is different from “hypothesis”. Kind of like the “Theory of Gravity” or the “Theory of Relativity”.*
 
Linusthe2nd said:
No it doesn’t. All it teaches is that some forms of evolution is are not contrary to Church teaching. That is a long way from blanket approval. Linus2nd
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God precedes being the basis no? Creator/Creation
 
Well if you want an actual Orthodox to answer…

There is a lot of freedom for personal belief on some issues in Orthodoxy, even if you’ll find some people (particularly online) claiming otherwise. We do not define and regulate everything as does a lot of Western Christianity. This is one of those issues.

As far as evolution goes, I’ve met Orthodox Christians of the Theistic Evolution flavor, and of the Creationist flavor, and everything in between. My wife and I are actually at these two extremes in our marriage. The general Orthodox opinion, in the real world from my experience, is “God did it. How He did it is not really any of my concern. I am told to believe in Him and work out my salvation. Whether or not He created the world in six literal days or millions of slow years does not effect my duties in the here and now.”

I mean, they wouldn’t say it in those exact words, but that’s the Orthodox opinion on a lot of things.
 
There is no set belief other than God did create mankind and we fell, we were in a state different than we were now. Whether that means a literal genesis or a metaphorical genesis is up for discussion. I have seen orthodox adamently opposed to evolution of any sort, I’ve also seen Orhtodox who support evolution viewing it as consistent with their faith. There is room for difference of opinions on this subject within the church.
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
There is no set belief other than God did create mankind and we fell, we were in a state different than we were now. Whether that means a literal genesis or a metaphorical genesis is up for discussion. I have seen orthodox adamently opposed to evolution of any sort, I’ve also seen Orhtodox who support evolution viewing it as consistent with their faith. There is room for difference of opinions on this subject within the church.
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Mankind didn’t fall, we actually rose.

We rose above God’s word, and he was angry because of that. Jealous.
 
Gaerteuth said:
Mankind didn’t fall, we actually rose.

We rose above God’s word, and he was angry because of that. Jealous.
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uh huh, we rebelled against God and had something fundamentally taken away from us, but God in his grace through his son has allowed us to become more holy than Adam and Eve were before they fell.
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
uh huh, we rebelled against God and had something fundamentally taken away from us, but God in his grace through his son has allowed us to become more holy than Adam and Eve were before they fell.
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A jealous God doesn’t seem like a role model I would follow.

Let’s not also forget that the classical interpretation Adam and Eve did not physically exist.
They represent human nature as a whole, not two physical beings.
 
Gaerteuth said:
A jealous God doesn’t seem like a role model I would follow.

Let’s not also forget that the classical interpretation Adam and Eve did not physically exist.
They represent human nature as a whole, not two physical beings.
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Why is jealously on God’s behalf bad? Why should he put up with his creation whom he loved worshipping other gods?
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
There is no set belief other than God did create mankind and we fell, we were in a state different than we were now. Whether that means a literal genesis or a metaphorical genesis is up for discussion. I have seen orthodox adamently opposed to evolution of any sort, I’ve also seen Orhtodox who support evolution viewing it as consistent with their faith. There is room for difference of opinions on this subject within the church.
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I’m an anthropologist. Interestingly, there were a number of human species that inhabited Africa, Eurasia, and south-east Asia before modern Homo sapiens sapiens proliferated. These humans were every bit as human as you and I, but they were a bit different. It isn’t even that they weren’t as intelligent as us, but the archaeological evidence indicates they clearly had a very different disposition than us. Us “modern humans” have a tendency towards exploiting one another and our natural resources beyond what is sustainable, and this is evident in our archaeological record as well. But the people who proceeded us did not. They largely lived in harmony with one another, and with their environment. Was there interpersonal violence? Yes, almost certainly. But there was not genocide, terrorism, or unabated, unadulterated horrific violence and exploitation of what the Father had afforded them. As a result, these people lived on the face of the earth for hundreds of thousands of years longer than we have, without damaging it or killing themselves off. We killed them off. Once we came about, we exploited our resources, killed ourselves and other kinds of people, and we’re now in a downward spiral after only ~200,000 years on the planet, when other human groups had existed for millions of years.

There is a major parallel. Human kind was created in God’s image. Those humans proliferated, diversified, and many slightly different variations evolved, but all were more similar to one another than they were different (Homo habilis, Homo erectus,* H*. antecessor, H. heidelbergensis, H. neandertalensis, etc) and all shared a basic human nature. Then, we came along. We weren’t better or smarter. Instead, we committed the original sin, and through us sin entered the world, and through sin entered evil. This is why we exploited and killed the other human groups, and this is why we exploit and kill one another. This is why we sin.

My interpretation of Gensis is indeed metaphorical. Food for thought.
 
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