Adam, Eve, and Evolution
The
controversy surrounding evolution touches on our most central beliefs
about ourselves and the world. Evolutionary theories have been used to
answer questions about the origins of the universe, life, and man.
These may be referred to as cosmological evolution, biological
evolution, and human evolution. One’s opinion concerning one of these
areas does not dictate what one believes concerning others.
People
usually take three basic positions on the origins of the cosmos, life,
and man: (1) special or instantaneous creation, (2) developmental
creation or theistic evolution, (3) and atheistic
evolution. The first holds that a given thing did not develop, but
was instantaneously and directly created by God. The second position
holds that a given thing did develop from a previous state or form, but
that this process was under God’s guidance. The third position claims
that a thing developed due to random forces alone.
Related
to the question of how the universe, life, and man arose is the
question of when they arose. Those who attribute the origin of
all three to special creation often hold that they arose at about the
same time, perhaps six thousand to ten thousand years ago. Those who
attribute all three to atheistic evolution have a much longer time
scale. They generally hold the universe to be ten billion to twenty
billion years old, life on earth to be about four billion years old,
and modern man (the subspecies homo sapiens) to be about thirty
thousand years old. Those who believe in varieties of developmental
creation hold dates used by either or both of the other two positions.
The
Catholic Position
What
is the Catholic position concerning belief or unbelief in evolution?
The question may never be finally settled, but there are definite
parameters to what is acceptable Catholic belief.
Concerning
cosmological evolution, the Church has infallibly defined that the
universe was specially created out of nothing. Vatican I solemnly
defined that everyone must "confess the world and all things which
are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their
whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing" (Canons
on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5).
The
Church does not have an official position on whether the stars,
nebulae, and planets we see today were created at that time or whether
they developed over time (for example, in the aftermath of the Big Bang
that modern cosmologists discuss). However, the Church would maintain
that, if the stars and planets did develop over time, this still
ultimately must be attributed to God and his plan, for Scripture
records: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all
their host [stars, nebulae, planets] by the breath of his mouth"
(Ps. 33:6).
Concerning
biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on
whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However,
it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus
and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to
him.
Concerning
human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for
the possibility that man’s body developed from previous
biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special
creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "the
teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity
with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research
and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of
evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body
as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic
faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by
God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human
body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a
matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it
did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies
are.
While
the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental
creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in
atheistic evolution.
The
Time Question
Much
less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man
appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of
finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not
infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand
years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.
Catholics
should weigh the evidence for the universe’s age by examining
biblical and scientific evidence. "Though faith is above reason,
there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since
the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the
light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can
truth ever contradict truth" (Catechism of the Catholic Church
159).
The
contribution made by the physical sciences to examining these questions
is stressed by the Catechism, which states, "The question
about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many
scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the
age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the
appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater
admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him
thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives
to scholars and researchers" (CCC 283).
It
is outside the scope of this tract to look at the scientific evidence,
but a few words need to be said about the interpretation of Genesis and
its six days of creation. While there are many interpretations of these
six days, they can be grouped into two basic methods of reading the
account—a chronological reading and a topical reading.
Chronological
Reading
According
to the chronological reading, the six days of creation should be
understood to have followed each other in strict chronological order.
This view is often coupled with the claim that the six days were
standard 24-hour days.
Some
have denied that they were standard days on the basis that the Hebrew
word used in this passage for day (yom) can sometimes mean a
longer-than-24-hour period (as it does in Genesis 2:4). However, it
seems clear that Genesis 1 presents the days to us as standard days. At
the end of each one is a formula like, "And there was evening and
there was morning, one day" (Gen. 1:5). Evening and morning are,
of course, the transition points between day and night (this is the
meaning of the Hebrew terms here), but periods of time longer than 24
hours are not composed of a day and a night. Genesis is presenting
these days to us as 24-hour, solar days. If we are not meant to
understand them as 24-hour days, it would most likely be because
Genesis 1 is not meant to be understood as a literal chronological
account.
That
is a possibility. Pope Pius XII warned us, "What is the literal
sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and
writings of the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of
our own time. For what they wished to express is not to be determined
by the rules of grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the context;
the interpreter must, as it were, go back wholly in spirit to those
remote centuries of the East and with the aid of history, archaeology,
ethnology, and other sciences, accurately determine what modes of
writing, so to speak, the authors of that ancient period would be
likely to use, and in fact did use. For the ancient peoples of the
East, in order to express their ideas, did not always employ those
forms or kinds of speech which we use today; but rather those used by
the men of their times and countries. What those exactly were the
commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a
careful examination of the ancient literature of the East" (Divino
Afflante Spiritu 35–36).
The
Topical Reading
This
leads us to the possiblity that Genesis 1 is to be given a
non-chronological, topical reading. Advocates of this view point out
that, in ancient literature, it was common to sequence historical
material by topic, rather than in strict chronological order.
The
argument for a topical ordering notes that at the time the world was
created, it had two problems—it was "formless and empty"
(1:2). In the first three days of creation, God solves the formlessness
problem by structuring different aspects of the environment.
On
day one he separates day from night; on day two he separates the waters
below (oceans) from the waters above (clouds), with the sky in between;
and on day three he separates the waters below from each other,
creating dry land. Thus the world has been given form.
But
it is still empty, so on the second three days God solves the world’s
emptiness problem by giving occupants to each of the three realms he
ordered on the previous three days. Thus, having solved the problems of
formlessness and emptiness, the task he set for himself, God’s work
is complete and he rests on the seventh day.
Real
History
The
argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply
ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience
of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.
Even
if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still
records God’s work—things God really did.
The
Catechism explains that "Scripture presents the work of the
Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’
concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day" (CCC 337), but
"nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the
Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness;
all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in
this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was
constituted and time begun" (CCC 338).
It
is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere myth. They
are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style
of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.
Adam
and Eve: Real People
It
is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the
fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. The human race really did descend from
an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism)
rather than a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as
polygenism).
This
was made clear by Pope Pius XII: "When, however, there is question
of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the
Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace
that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on
this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural
generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam
represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way
apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources
of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the
Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin
actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is
passed onto all and is in everyone as his own" (Humani Generis
37).
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, "‘St. Paul
tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and
Christ.’ . . . Because of its common origin the human race forms a
unity, for ‘from one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the
whole earth’" (CCC 359–360, citing Peter Chrysologus and Acts
17:26).
The
story of the creation and fall of man is, therefore, a true one, even
if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism
states, "The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative
language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the
beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of
faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault
freely committed by our first parents" (CCC 390).
Science
and Religion
The
Catholic Church has always taught that "no real disagreement can
exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps
within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement .
. . it should be remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly
‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men
such truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not
help anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason, rather than
trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes
describe and treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative
language or as the common manner of speech those times required, and
indeed still requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst most
learned people" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus 18).
As
the Catechism puts it, "Methodical research in all branches
of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner
and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith,
because the things of the world and the things the of the faith derive
from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the
secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite
of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them
what they are" (CCC 159). The Catholic Church has no fear of
science or scientific discovery.
Source: The
Catholic Goldmine (www.catholicgoldmine.com)
