Professor-Turned-Pope Leads a Seminar on Evolution

The Pernicious NY Times ^ | September 2, 2006 | IAN FISHER

[neverdem]

ROME, Sept. 1 — They meet every year, the eminent German professor and his old doctoral students, for a weekend of high-minded talk on a chosen topic. For years it was nothing more than that.

But now the professor, once called Joseph Ratzinger, has become Pope Benedict XVI. And this year, for three days beginning Friday, the topic on the table is evolution, an issue perched on the ever more contentious front between science and belief.

And so the questions rise as the meeting unfolds at a papal palace just outside Rome. Is this merely another yearly seminar? Or is the leader of the world’s billion Roman Catholics signaling that he may join in earnest the emotional debate over evolution, intelligent design and all that might mean for politics and faith, especially in the United States?

There is no way to know immediately, though many church experts believe that the pope has fewer problems with the science of evolution than with its use to wipe God more cleanly from a secular world. No document will be published afterward, no news conference given.

But the seminar comes after a year particularly fraught over the issue of evolution, in America — with the fight over intelligent design — and in the church. Last year a leading cardinal, who will speak at the meeting, expressed doubts that Darwinism and Catholicism were compatible, and the pope declared the creation of the universe an “intelligent project.”

And so scientists and believers from around the world, on all sides of an extraordinarily charged debate, are watching the meeting carefully.

Proponents of intelligent design, defeated in a high-profile court case last year in Pennsylvania, say they...

--snip--

The pope’s annual seminars do not shy away from difficult topics. Last year the issue under discussion was Islam.

[neverdem]

IMHO, last year's topic was far more pertinent as a practical matter. The physical and chemical evidence for evolution is impressive, from astronomy and geology to biology. Regardless, you still have the dilemma of explaining how does something like the Big Bang come from nothing.

[Cheburashka]

It's way cool when one of your former teachers winds up as both sovereign head of his own country and head of a major religion.

Me, all I have is a former teacher who became Acting President of Yale and President of the University of Chicago. Not nearly in the same league.

[NYer]

ZENIT NEWS AGENCY

---

Date: 2006-09-01

Evolution and Creation Are Not Foes, Says Priest

Comments on Current Debate

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 1, 2006 (Zenit.org).- As Benedict XVI begins a three-day symposium with his former students on creation and evolution, a philosophy professor in Rome says that the two theories are compatible.

The Pope's meeting, Sept. 1-3, is an annual one that the Holy Father has had with his doctoral candidates and former students for some 25 years, addressing various topics. This is the second one held at Castel Gandolfo.

Father Rafael Pascual, dean of philosophy at the Regina Apostolorum university, told ZENIT that "creation and evolution integrate one another, and do not exclude each other."

Father Pascual, who is also the director of the masters on science and faith, is the author of "L' evoluzione: Crocevia di Scienza, Filosofia e Teologia" (The Crossroads Evolution of Science, Philosophy and Theology) published in Italian by Studium publishers.

The volume is a collection of the minutes of an international congress on the topic held in Rome in 2002.

Father Pascual said that "the debate on evolution is open. A distinction must be made between the different levels: scientific-philosophical-theological, without confusing them or separating them completely."

In regard to the debate on intelligent design, Father Pascual pointed out that "it isn't a scientific question, but rather a philosophical one."

"But neither is the negation of finality, or recourse to pure chance and to necessity, scientific," that is why "it seems to be a mistake to present intelligent design as an alternative scientific theory to the theory of evolution," he said.

A theory

Asked if the theory of evolution should be taught in schools, Father Pascual replied "yes, but as scientific theory, with the arguments in favor but also recognizing the limits and still unresolved problems, and not as an ideology, as a kind of absolute, definitive and indisputable dogma."

He continued, "Whereas creationism and evolutionism are incompatible in themselves, this is not so of creation and evolution, which are, instead, on two different levels, and are compatible."

The dean of philosophy cited the book "Creation and Sin," written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, which states: "We cannot say: creation or evolution. The exact formula is creation and evolution, because both respond to two different questions.

"The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God does not tell us how man originated. It tells us what he is.

"It talks about his most profound origin, it illustrates the plan that is behind him. Vice versa, the theory of evolution attempts to specify and describe biological processes.

"It does not succeed in explaining, however, the origin of the 'project' man, his interior derivation and his essence. Therefore, we are before two questions that integrate one another but do not exclude each other."

Father Pascual said that "we must distinguish between theory -- or theories -- of evolution and Darwinism, and then, within Darwinism itself, between the elements of a scientific character and those of a philosophical or ideological nature."


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[GSlob]

"you still have the dilemma of explaining how does something like the Big Bang come from nothing." Quantum phenomena do not require explanations. They merely happen, and one could only speak of wave [probability] functions there.
“Each of us is the result of a thought of God."[from the article]
And who could think that God has so many dirty thoughts?

[jwalsh07]

Quantum phenomena do not require explanations.

Nonsense.

They merely happen, and one could only speak of wave [probability] functions there.

Quantume phenomena require certain small preconditions to occur. Like energy. A small thing but what the heck.

[RobbyS]

Father Pascual said that "we must distinguish between theory -- or theories -- of evolution and Darwinism, and then, within Darwinism itself, between the elements of a scientific character and those of a philosophical or ideological nature." As I recall, Newman had no problem with "origin of Species" as it fell into the traditional province of natural philosophy, seconday causes.

[RobbyS]

A further precondition" the existence of an observer. Or do we go back to the tree in the forest thing?

[etlib]

though many church experts believe that the pope has fewer problems with the science of evolution than with its use to wipe God more cleanly from a secular world.

The usual "Slimes" nonsense and innuendo. The Slimes is attempting to indicate that the Pope ought not to consider evolution and that to do so signals a BIG CHANGE in the Church's position.

The Catholic position is and has been for some time that evolution may (if not is likely to) be true and that, if so, it is guided by the hand of God. This is outside of the realm of science. In fact, a good way to interpret the term "random" in scientific explanations is that God has made the choice.

[GSlob]

"certain small preconditions to occur. Like energy."
They do not require even that. Vacuum is not quite empty with its virtual particle/antiparticle pairs. And the total energy remains the same.

[dsc]

"And the total energy remains the same"

Why? Why is it there, how did it get there, and why does it remain the same?

[Phantom4]

I am a chemist, and I have studied the claims for the alleged "chemical evidence" for evolution [properly called neo-Darwinism] for decades. The term "evidence for..." is useless in the origins debate. There is merely a body of raw facts available to everyone. Whether the facts are "evidence for..." this or that hinges on the way the facts are related to each other. In a court of law there may be an exhibit A, an exhibit B etc., but there are, by the very nature of the question, no eyewitnesses to the origins processes debated. [Revelatory theists would, of course, argue for the existence of a Divine Eyewitness.] In criminal trials one lawyer will argue for the the "guilty" hypothesis and the other for the "not guilty" hypothesis. After watching and hearing the controversy argued for most of my life (58 yrs), I must say that in the creation/evolution debate, one side has never been allowed a respectful chance to argue its case so that school children can hear both sides of the question set against each other. Those who oppose Intelligent Design in the public schools are like the District Attorney who points in court to the defendant and says, "Look, your honor, that fellow is obviously guilty. It's improper even to hear his defense in court!"

Of course, it may be true that many people who accept neo-Darwinism are at least thoughtful enough and fair enough to talk politely, and are patient enough to hear opposing ideas; but there are also the "closed-shop" scholars who close ranks when bedrock evolutionary doctrine is called into question, circling the wagons against anything other than the sacrosant evolutionary theory. These men are bent on excluding from respectful debate a Creator, or Designer, or whatever term you prefer. They would prefer that Intelligent Design be quarantined off in a corner labeled "fundamentalist rantings." I suspect that it is, more often than not, this latter approach that is used in deciding what does or does not go into a science textbook.

Lest anyone doubt that this closed-shop policy to science education exists, hear what one such "objective" well-known author, a Harvard paleontologist, has to say, and draw your own conclusions.

---

“It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” [Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review of Books, Jan 9, 1997, pp. 28-32.

Translation: "We must design our experiments, rigging them to favor evolutionary interpretations over Intelligent Design, no matter how absurd the former sounds, and no matter how good a case the latter can make for itself."

Such opposition to theism is, indeed, a "fundamentalism" all its own. Indeed, I actually found one secular biology book that had a chapter entitled "The Doctrine of Evolution."

[Wallace T.]

Be prepared for the onslaught of the FR tolerated troll patrol of Christian hating evolutionists.

[jwalsh07]

They do not require even that. Vacuum is not quite empty with its virtual particle/antiparticle pairs. And the total energy remains the same.

Energy is not required because "the total energy remains the same"?

Got it.

[jwalsh07]

But of course.

Here's a question to contemplate:

Quantum fluctuations are a function of time and yet the really big fluctuation preceded time.

In the beginning, there were grapefruits

...and they were good!

[StJacques]

Before everyone goes off the deep end about what is really going on with Pope Benedict's seminar, let me say something about the general direction in which this entire episode is headed.

Pope Benedict is not holding a discussion with any idea to challenging the Theory of Evolution, nor to find a way to integrate that body of argument now collectively grouped under the heading of Intelligent Design within Roman Catholic doctrine.

This is the quote from the above article which gives the best indication as to what to expect when one asks where this is all going:

The dean of philosophy cited the book "Creation and Sin," written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, which states: "We cannot say: creation or evolution. The exact formula is creation and evolution, because both respond to two different questions.

It is within the response to the "two different questions" in which you will see the Catholic theological statement that arises from this seminar, if in fact any statement is given at all. In one way or another Pope Benedict is going to carry Pope John Paul II's pronoucement on the relevance of the Theory of Evolution to Catholic Doctrine forward, and what John Paul II had to say was that the distinctions between materialist and metaphysical philosophy are the basis for addressing this issue.

The following is an excerpted quote from Pope John Paul II's Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in November, 1996; generally entitled "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth" (italicized emphasis mine):

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection, while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator's plans. . . .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Remember that in November, 1996 then Cardinal Ratzinger was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and it is not likely that he was "out of the loop" of the philosophical debate that occurred within the Vatican in preparation for the Pope's address. His own statement, as I quoted earlier, that the exact formula is creation and evolution, because both respond to two different questions only emphasizes further the direction of the Pope's address. That is where this discussion is heading. If any statement comes out of this at all, it will be a response to the need to define the boundaries between materialistic and metaphysical inquiry when addressing the Theory of Evolution and the manner in which it is to be treated in theological discourse. It will not be any reconsideration of the Biblical story of creation and how we interpret it, nor will it be any affirmation or rejection of the scientfic validity of the Theory of Evolution, nor will it be any endorsement of the Theory of Intelligent Design -- certainly not as a "scientific argument" in the way its proponents present it. Pope Benedict will try to separate distinct modes of philosophical discourse and to confine scientific questions to materialist philosophy and theological questions to the most advanced form of metaphysical inquiry, just as Pope John Paul II did in November, 1996.

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping.

[PatrickHenry]

You might find this interesting, especially paragraphs 67-70, which bear on the science issue. Paragraph 69 discusses Intelligent Design. The document was developed during the period 2000-2001. A note at the end says that it "... was then submitted to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the President of the Commission, who has give his permission for its publication." COMMUNION AND STEWARDSHIP: Human Persons Created in the Image of God.

[GSlob]

Yes, it is the same zero.

[StJacques]

"You might find this interesting, especially paragraphs 67-70 . . ."

Thank you for that link. I remember seeing at least portions of this tract at a neighbor's house one day, over three years ago if I remember correctly, when he brought it out, remembering as he did that we had once discussed the topic.

I think the truly key paragraphs in that section you pointed me to are 68, and especially 69. I'd like to do a little quick excerpting if I may:

From Paragraph 68:

. . . In freely willing to create and conserve the universe, God wills to activate and to sustain in act all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order which he intends to produce. Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation. . . .

It's the part about all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order that creates a distance between materialistic science and metaphysical inquiry. The material is secondary to the metaphysical. And the use of the phrase God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation cannot be very comforting to Young Earth Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates, but really does show why the Theory of Evolution is not incompatible with Catholic Doctrine, since it does not see man as demeaned if the material causes of his physical origin -- Paragraph 70 makes very clear that God is the immediate cause of man's spiritual origin -- were of the natural world, since God caused the emergence of that natural world.

And from Paragraph 69:

. . . The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. . . . Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. . . .

For the Young Earth Creationists, and even for many supporters of Intelligent Design, the statement; true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence, is just too much to swallow.

And I didn't read anything in all of that which I would take to be supportive of Intelligent Design whatsoever, from the Catholic perspective.

[PatrickHenry]

And I didn't read anything in all of that which I would take to be supportive of Intelligent Design whatsoever, from the Catholic perspective.

Correct. And this has already been approved (or "consented to") by Cardinal Ratzinger, so I don't see any reasonable expectation of a change. That is, there won't be any endorsement of ID, and certainly none for creationism. Other denominations see things differently. But for the Catholic Church, one Galileo affair is quite enough. They're far too smart to make that kind of mistake again.