Fr Billy Swan
A few months ago, former Church of Ireland member Brian Whiteside wrote an article in The Irish Times entitled ‘I do not believe God literally made heaven and earth…So why should I pretend I do?’ (The Irish Times, 14th July 2024). In the article, he outlines his disbelief in certain articles of the Apostles’ Creed including the first article that invites Christians to “believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth”. He explains: “I didn’t believe that God made heaven and earth… Later on, as I learned more about the universe and the evolution of man on our planet, it dawned on me that the whole Genesis story about Adam and Eve was just that: a story. Nobody really believed it”.
This binary choice he posits between on one hand faith in God as Creator according to the book of Genesis in the Bible and on the other hand the acceptance of the theory of evolution, is commonly presented today as an ‘either/or’ decision that people need to make. You must choose one but not both, because both are incompatible. You either believe that God made all creation as the Scriptures tell us or you accept the evidence of science and the theory of evolution that seems to contradict the simple explanation we have known for years, namely that God made the world. Or does it? Here I argue that this binary ‘either/or’ choice is unwarranted and that it is possible and reasonable to accept both the theory of evolution and still have faith in a Creator God. I also argue that Brian Whiteside’s choice of one over the other is only legitimate if the creation accounts in the book of Genesis are literal and scientific which they are not.
'Both/And’, Not ‘Either /Or’
The ‘either/or’ choice that Brian Whiteside describes, is based on two fundamentalist and irreconcilable positions that are pitted one against the other. The first is the theory of creationism that holds that God created human beings in their present form, less than 10,000 years ago. The timeframe of ten millennia approximately corresponds to the number of biblical generations, making the theory of creationism compatible with Scripture. The opposing theory is that of pure evolution where natural processes take place where one life form changes slowly into a higher life form over time, without any divine intervention.
These opposing and polarizing views are held by many. In a recent survey in the United States, 37% of American adults identify themselves as pure creationists, holding that God created humans in their present form less than 10 millennia ago. No doubt this is influenced by many Protestant and Pentecostal churches who interpret the Bible literally. This percentage, although still significant, has decreased since the beginning of the 2000’s and reflects the lowest level in four decades. On the other hand, 24% of American adults support evolution without divine intervention, a notable increase that has almost tripled since 1999. Finally, 34% of the population accept both theories, believing that human beings evolved with God’s guidance and that any changes in life forms is under the direction and guidance of the Spirit of God.
What this survey reveals is that an ‘either/or’ position is not the only one to hold and that more than a third believe in some form of evolution that is unfolding under divine providence. This is the position of the Catholic Church and is based on two distinct and clear principles.
Two Fundamental Principles
The first of these principles concern the misunderstanding that Brian Whiteside exhibits in his article – namely that the Bible is a scientific document. He dismisses the creation accounts in Gensis as stories that ‘nobody believes’ without making any effort to understand them as literary texts, the context of the time they were written and the truths they were trying to communicate.
The creation accounts contained in the Bible are works of theology and not science - a fact pointed out by Pope Leo XIII as far back as 1893 in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus. This teaching was repeated and developed by Pope Pius XII in 1943 with his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. In the light of reason alone, even if the authors of Genesis wanted to write a scientific account of creation, they did not have the tools to do so. Empirical mathematical science only came to the fore in the late 16th century with Francis Bacon and others. The mathematics we use in modern physics was developed by Isaac Newton and Leibnitz after that time.
Rather the authors of Genesis were doing theology. They were expressing their faith in how creation relates to the Creator – how it originates from its Creator, is independent of the Creator and yet is radically dependent on the Creator. These central truths are stated in the creation accounts but in a literary and not scientific way. They were clarified with Israel’s contact with other cultures where faith in multiple gods was common in ancient religions, as was the belief, and in some cases, that creation was corrupt. In contrast, the creation accounts in the Hebrew Scriptures state clearly the Judeo-Christian faith that God is One, just, good and that His goodness is reflected in what he has brought in being. They also state that the high point of creation is humankind, made in the image and likeness of God Himself and thus endowed with freedom and the ability to love. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way:
“The creation passages in Genesis’ express in their solemn language the truths of creation – its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation” (para. 289).
An important clarification needs to be made regarding the Creation account that the universe was made in six days after which God rested on the seventh. When the authors of Genesis state that God made all there is in six days, the expression of time was not in the chronological sense of six periods of 24 hours as we understand it today. Rather the number seven, including the day of rest, was (and still is – 7 days per week, 7 seven sacraments, etc.), symbolic of completion and wholeness. Even as early as the third century AD, Origen of Alexandria interpreted the number seven symbolically and not literally: “I don’t suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally” (De Principiis, 4:16). Similarly with St Augustine who held that the universe was created in an instant followed by a gradual process of development of the created order. This point is crucially important because a literal interpretation of six days to create the universe is widely ridiculed given that solid evidence exists that the universe is at least 13.8 billion years old.
The second principle that allows Christians to accept both the theory of evolution and faith in a Creator God, is stated clearly in another encyclical by Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, published in 1950. This magisterial document accepts the evidence of evolution as seen in matter but since the human soul is immaterial, it could not have arisen from a merely material process (para. 36). As the giver of life, God infuses a soul and life principle directly into every human being, thus safe-guarding the uniqueness of every person on earth – a truth also borne out scientifically with no two people having an identical DNA profile.
This understanding takes into account what we know now from science and yet allows for a Creator transcending the universe and time itself. It also allows for the unfolding of creation, for development, movement and change. In terms of the Christian life, we understand ourselves as sharing in God’s very life which calls us forward and upwards to a higher form of life – the life of God has made attainable through Christ.
It may come as a surprise to many that the Church accepted evolution as far back as the late nineteenth century and has wisely chosen not to go to war with science. In fact, in 1996, Pope St John Paul II moved the Catholic Church closer to an endorsement of evolution proclaiming it to be “more than a hypothesis” (Message to Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996). Also worthy to note is that the great Christian apologist C.S. Lewis accepted evolution as does evolutionary biologist Kenneth Miller and geneticist Francis Collins who are both practicing Christians.
Do Processes Create?
Having clarified these two principles, I would like to outline a difficulty with the argument of Brian Whiteside that appears to supplant faith in a Creator God with acceptance of evolution. Here he seems to follow scientists such as Terence Deacon, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking, who are so accepting of and enthusiastic for the evolutionary process that they suggest it gives rise to creation itself. According to Terence Deacon: “Evolution is the one kind of process able to produce something out of nothing…an evolutionary process is an origination process…Evolution is the author of its spontaneous creations” (The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain, 1997). This is also the position of Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker: Why Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design.
Similarly, the late physicist Stephen Hawking answers the question of why there is something rather than nothing with this answer: “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist” (The Grand Design). He continues: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing” (The Grand Design). He concludes: “I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science”.
These philosophical conclusions from otherwise brilliant scientists appear weak at best because they suggest that processes themselves are responsible for the objective realities and things that precede them. When they speak about ‘self-creation’ and ‘spontaneous creation’, they move beyond the domain of biology and physics to make broad claims that apparently don’t need to appeal to a source of existence of animate and inanimate things. But this position is impossible to accept. It is like explaining the Big Bang with the laws of physics only to discover that the laws of physics were created with the Big Bang; or trying to explain the existence of gravity without the interaction of objects (such as planets) that gives rise to gravity in the first place. With respect to these scientists, here is ideological indoctrination masquerading as science that is determined not to let a divine foot in the door.
First Cause and Secondary Causes
The fear of many scientists is that any causality attributed to a Creator must be denied to creatures, thus undermining scientific evidence. Yet as St Thomas Aquinas pointed out, while God is the cause of all things (Summa Contra Gentiles, II, 15), He does not compete with the causation of creatures, but rather supports and grounds it. In other words, the autonomy of natural processes is not an indication of some reduction in God’s power or activity. Therefore, when it comes to evolution, the Church accepts that there was a long period in which natural processes gave rise to life and that life changes over time from one generation to the next. As life changes and adapts in changing environments, new life forms begin to emerge according to the theory of evolution. Yet while evolution explains how life developed, it is unable to answer the question why there is a universe with natural laws that allow evolutionary processes in the first place.
It is here that Christianity proposes faith in a Creator God who transcends matter, space and time, and is the Cause of causes - the First cause who created a world of secondary causes. Therefore, while evolution progresses by a complex series of secondary causes, the First cause of evolution must be something or someone outside the process itself. The best and clearest explanation of this comes from the late Joseph Ratzinger. He writes:
“What response shall we make to this view of evolution? It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow, and how new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith… More reflective spirits have long been aware that there is no either/or here. We cannot say: ‘creation or evolution’, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God (Creation accounts in Genesis) does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the “project” of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary – rather than mutually exclusive – realities” (Joseph Ratzinger, In the Beginning, A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, 1990).
Speaking years later, he repeated that “the Christian picture of the world is this - the world in its details is the product of a long process of evolution but that at the most profound level it comes from the Logos. Thus, it carries rationality within itself” (Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald, May 27, 2003). Therefore, while the universe we inhabit remains a mystery, the intelligibility of the universe for human beings is only possible because of our share in the divine mind that has created all there is including the evolutionary processes that are part of it.
Conclusion:
Brian Whiteside is one of many, I suspect, who have rejected faith in a Creator God because of their acceptance of evolution. This is indeed tragic but understandable. Nor are the churches themselves absolved of blame for this. We need to do a far better job to educate our children and communities that the question of evolution and faith in a Creator God is not a choice of ‘either/or’ but ‘both/and’.
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