Some Catholic theologians see no contradiction between their belief in divine creation and the theory of evolution, according to Macy Hanson's column in The State Press last Thursday. Therefore, Hanson pronounces, "every other Christian denomination ought to be able to do the same."
The issue is not that simple. Evolution holds that all living things arose through an impersonal beginning, plus time, plus chance.
Can such a worldview provide a basis for morals, a concept of right and wrong, human personality or the value of human life?
I respectfully submit to you that it cannot.
Roman Catholic theologians who have tried to reconcile divine creation with the theory of evolution may feel that they have solved the controversy by asserting that God, at some point, infused man with a soul, as stated by Pope Pius XII in "Humani Generis" in 1950, and later by Pope John Paul II in his 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
The question is this: What is the basis for the notion that divine creation is compatible with evolutionary theory?
Surely it cannot be the acceptance of God's truth as taught in his holy word, the Bible. And therein lies the problem.
In Scriptures, the account of God's physical creation of mankind and the cosmos (Genesis 1:1-28) carefully notes that God created women and men in his own image (Genesis 1:26-27).
There is no separation here.
There's no distinction which implies that God's creation of nature and God's creation of human beings occurred in different epochs or eras.
The assertion that God created man's soul has no basis in the Bible apart from the account of the whole of creation--man, animals, plants, nature--as found in Genesis, referred to elsewhere in the Old Testament and affirmed in the New Testament as well.
As for Hanson's attempt to make evolution equivalent with gravity in terms of "scientific fact," it goes without saying that gravity is a physical law, observed as a rule and regarded as such.
Conversely, evolution is a theory with many diverse forms. It is not indisputable fact, the way gravity is.
That change and adaptation are observed within a species is no mystery. But this does not necessitate that the many species of life arose from a common ancestor.
Further, there is no need for a common ancestor regardless of how much time, chance or fortuitous mutations may have been involved.
There is something fundamentally different here between the physical law of gravity and the modern theory of evolution (as the explanation for the origin of the species); they should not be tossed into frivolous equivalence.
Finally, I find it interesting that Hanson has chosen gravity as the "scientific fact" with which to equate evolution in his piece.
The scientist who came to the conclusion that there is a universal force of attraction between every body in the universe and put this concept in writing in "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" in 1687, conducted his experiments on the basis that there are logical cause-and-effect relationships in nature because a logical God created nature.
That scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, was devoted to the Bible, and during the latter part of his life he wrote more on biblical topics than on science.
Regarding his work on gravity, Newton said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
Brandon Knott is a chemical engineering senior, and can be reached at: Brandon.C.Knott@asu.edu.
