A pope for our times: why Darwin is back on the agenda at the Vatican

Times Online ^ | 11/7/5 | William Rees-Mogg

[Crackingham]

In the mid-1980s I was a member of a Vatican body with the impressive title International Committee of the Pontifical Council for Culture. Each year we had a meeting with Pope John-Paul II; on one occasion he gave us lunch and served a light white wine from, I think, a papal vineyard. The other members of the committee included a splendid Ibo lady, the head of the Catholic Women’s Movement in Nigeria, an Indian nun, a Japanese Jesuit and a Francophone president of an African nation who believed that French culture and a sound classical education would be the best answer to Africa’s educational problems. I enjoyed our discussions, which were almost always held in French.

The idea, which came from the Pope himself, was far-sighted. We foresaw what has subsequently been called the “clash of civilisations”; we tried to relate that conflict to the widely differing cultures of the billion members of the Roman Catholic Church. We discussed the impact of particular developments in modern science but so far as I can remember we did not try to deal with the central problem of the relationship between science and religion; that seems to have come now. Our chairman was Cardinal Paul Poupard, an admirable example of the cultivated French intellectual in the Roman Curia; he is still the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. Whether the council still has an international committee I do not know, since I left it nearly 20 years ago. Last week the cardinal was giving a press conference before a meeting in Rome of scientists, philosophers and theologians; this week they will be discussing the difficult subject of infinity. Cardinal Poupard had a beautifully trained French mind and inner loyalty to the Catholic faith. Nothing he says is said without careful thought. At the press conference he was discussing the issue of evolution, which is the critical dividing line between science and religion. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species shook religious belief when it was first published in 1859 in a way that Isaac Newton’s equally important Principia had not shaken the faith of 1687. In The Times Martin Penner reported the cardinal’s argument. He had said that the description in Genesis of the Creation was “perfectly compatible” with Darwin’s theory of evolution, if the Bible were read properly. “Fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim.”

He argued that the real message of Genesis was that the Universe did not make itself, and had a creator. “Science and theology act in different fields, each in its own.” In Rome, the immediate reaction was that this was a Vatican rejection of the fundamentalist American doctrine of “intelligent design”. No doubt the Vatican does want to separate itself from American creationists, but the significance surely goes further than that. This is not another Galileo case; the teachings of the Church have never imposed a literal interpretation of the language of the Bible; that was a Protestant mistake. Nor did the Church condemn the theory of evolution, though it did and does reject neo-Darwinism when that is made specifically atheist.

Indeed, one can go back nearly 1,500 years before Darwin and find St Augustine of Hippo, the most commanding intellect of all the early doctors of the Church, teaching a doctrine of evolution in the early 5th century. In one of his greatest works, De Genesi ad Litteram, he stated that God did not create an organised Universe as we see it now, but in the beginning created all the elements of the world in a confused and “nebulous” mass. In this mass were the mysterious seeds of the creatures who were to come into existence. Augustine’s thought does therefore contain the elements of a theory of evolution, and even a genetic theory, but does not have natural selection. St Augustine has always been orthodox. He did not foresee modern science in AD410, but he did have an extraordinary grasp of the potential evolution of scientific thought. Cardinal Poupard’s address to the journalists should not be seen as a matter of the Roman Church changing its mind and accepting Darwin after 145 years.

It is a precautionary statement, distancing the Church from the American attack on Darwinism that Rome considers to be neither good science, nor good theology. It will also be taken as an indication of the priorities of the present Pope Benedict XVI.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Then would you consider evolutionary psychology to be an illegitimate branch of Darwinian evolution?"

What does "evolutionary psychology" have to do with ethics???

[Heartlander]

What does "evolutionary psychology" have to do with ethics???

Ask Peter Singer…

He said his original view, published in his book "Practical Ethics," that the parents should have 28 days to determine whether the infant should live has been modified somewhat since the book's release.

"So in that book, we suggested that 28 days is not a bad period of time to use because on the one hand, it gives you time to examine the infant to [see] what the nature of the disability is; gives time for the couple to recover from the shock of the birth to get well advised and informed from all sorts of groups, medical opinion and disability and to reach a decision.

"And also I think that it is clearly before the point at which the infant has those sorts of forward-looking preferences, that kind of self-awareness, that I talked about. But I now think, after a lot more discussion, that you can't really propose any particular cut-off date."

…Singer defended his previous writings that humans and nonhumans can have "mutually satisfying" sexual relationships as long as they are consensual. When asked by CNSNews.com how an animal can consent to sexual contact with a human, he replied, "Your dog can show you when he or she wants to go for a walk and equally for nonviolent sexual contact, your dog or whatever else it is can show you whether he or she wants to engage in a certain kind of contact."
Animal 'Rights' Zealot: Christianity Harmful; Infanticide OK

Say when…

[csense]

What does "evolutionary psychology" have to do with ethics???

Yes, what does human behavior have to do with ethics....

Never mind, I'm sorry I bothered you.

[The Red Zone]

Oh yes, and scruples about killing termites.

[Heartlander]

Oh yes, and scruples about killing termites.

Killing? It is all just survival within the Darwinian paradigm. Killing, is by definition, natural selection – killing is survival and ethics are an illusion - show me ethics in nature.

[Heartlander]

Oh yes, and scruples about killing termites.

Killing? It is all just survival within the Darwinian paradigm. Killing, is by definition, natural selection – killing is survival and ethics are an illusion - show me ethics in nature.

[The Red Zone]

In fact, find human choosing in nature, which is a necessary antecedent to ethics. Otherwise yes, there isn't any wrong killing of termites by humans, it just robotically plays out.

[Heartlander]

First, I apologize for the double post and for not realizing that you were referring to the Singer article.

Do you agree with Singer? I do not want to misunderstand your statement again…

[The Red Zone]

No, I think he's nutz. Simply tracing where he would go. My guess he doesn't find a good place for "free will" so would have problems on that front.

[Palisades]

You keep missing the point.

Humans can always try to take a scientific theory and craft a moral or ethical system out of that theory. For many people, the theory of evolution is a popular source for moral systems because they believe, wrongfully, that the TOE tells them how things should be rather than how they are.

The theory of gravity does not make it okay to push people out of windows. And the theory of evolution does not justify death camps. Indeed, neither of these theories provide any moral or ethical guidance whatsoever.

[Flavius Josephus]

OK, I'll buy that. What I DO think is neat about the accuracy of the bible is that the more research they do the more it stands up to historical scrutiny. Maybe not every detail, but as the story of a people, leading up to US, yes indeed!

(p.s. I do believe it's a mystical religion and He said unless you eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood..., and I believe mystically, somehow that happens. Because he refused to entertain those who suggested he meant it symbolically.)

[metmom]

I remember reading about how the Bible was at one time ridiculed because it mentioned civilizations that no one knew about. Then archeologists found them. It turned out to be much more accurate than the skeptics gave it credit for. I also believe that it proves true for science. I think that because the Bible is Truth, that there is no conflict between what science discovers about the natural world and what the Bible teaches. If there is, then someone's interpretation is wrong and both science and Scripture need to be examined carefully to see where the error is, instead of blowing off the Bible as an inaccurate bunch of fairy tales. After all, how often is it that science changes it's theories when new data is found? Then it turns out that the Christians/religious people who were mocked and ridiculed for not believing science were right in the first place when they questioned the statements made by scientists. IOW, they were scorned for not believing something that was not true in the first place.

[Flavius Josephus]

You're exactly right. "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in All That Is, Seen And Unseen." Just because I don't understand how He made Heaven and Earth doesn't mean He didn't do it.

The fools that think we are the crown of creation and so much greater than those in Biblical times make me sick, because they are so dangerous. We are not so much further advanced. Maybe we understand some things they thought was magic, but there's plenty more that we don't understand. That's what Mysticism is all about -- not magic, but what we don't understand, but take on Faith.

Technologically, is it significant that Mankind's knowledge base exploded when we learned to exploit oil for fuel? Would it not have happened sooner if we had stumbled on that sooner? And look at the mess it's gotten us into. Mankind surely is too immature to play with fire.

[JasonC]

I deny your thesis. I claim evolution is fully compatible with Christian ethics. I claim I possess their full essential reconcilation, that all that goes are inessential past mistakes and metaphors on one side, and unfounded arrogance about things not actually known on the other. Show me I'm wrong or retract your claim.

[Heartlander]

The theory of gravity does not make it okay to push people out of windows. And the theory of evolution does not justify death camps. Indeed, neither of these theories provide any moral or ethical guidance whatsoever.

Here we have an equation that represents observable phenomena that causes no complaints from atheists, IDists, Creationists, Buddhists, conservatives, or liberals.

Neo-Darwinism is random wrt fitness; it has no goal, lacks any intelligence, and is the ‘current’ scientific explanation for the existence of life as we know it.

But we can look at the two theories and do a general comparison, such as - the theory of gravity does not become sociobiology – the theory of gravity does not have ‘memes’ – the theory of gravity does not worry itself with beliefs from any side of the id/evo/creo/ equation.

Now if anyone should equate gravity and neo-darwinism they should offer that we survive only because we now stick to the earth and those that did not, floated into space and died. This could then be tied into Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

There is no fundamentalism from a gravity/non-gravity perspective… Why? W.r.t. evolution, it is basically a conflict of worldviews and fundamentalism exists on both sides of the issue – a worldview with teleology and a worldview void of teleology in science.

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection had been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
Darwin, Charles. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin with original omissions restored. New York, Norton, 1969 (p.87)

Now, if you would like to protest the mixing of science and ethics due to evolution I would recommend starting with the NCSE, or Lesson Planet - Evolution, Population, and Humans . Or The National Association of Biology Teachers [NABT] in their 1995 Official Statement on Teaching Evolution:

"The diversity of life [all life] on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments."

According to evolution - All the world's a stage and life is just a metaphor for chemical acts – I don’t see gravity making this claim.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP