Evolution, Creationism, and Cardinal Schönborn's new book

A number of related news articles have, by blind chance and the mysterious process of cyber-viewing-evolutionary selection, come to my attention. First, from CWNews, this brief note:

The Council of Europe has adopted a resolution calling upon nations to "firmly oppose" efforts to encourage the teaching of creationism in schools.

By a vote of 48-24, the Council approved a statement that said "creationism could become a threat to human rights."

The Strasbourg body based its resolution on a report that said the teaching of creationism and intelligent design, which "was for a long time an almost exclusively American phenomenon," has begun to make inroads in Europe. This trend is dangerous, the report said, because creationism is unscientific.

The resolution called upon education officials to resist appeals to put creationism or intelligent design in the curriculum alongside the teaching of evolution. These studies are fundamentally different, the Council of Europe proclaimed, because: "The theory of evolution has nothing to do with divine revelation but is built on facts."

An October 4th Reuters piece provides further details:

Europe's main human rights body voted on Thursday to urge schools across the continent to firmly oppose the teaching of creationist and "intelligent design" views in their science classes.

The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly approved a resolution saying attacks on the theory of evolution were rooted "in forms of religious extremism" and amounted to a dangerous assault on science and human rights.

The text said European schools should "resist presentation of creationist ideas in any discipline other than religion." It said the "intelligent design" view defended by some United States conservatives was an updated version of creationism.

Creationism says God made the world in six days as depicted in the Bible. Intelligent design argues some life forms are too complex to have evolved according to Charles Darwin's theory and needed an unnamed higher intelligence to develop as they have.

Anne Brasseur, an Assembly member from Luxembourg who updated an earlier draft resolution, said the report showed how creationists -- most recently a shadowy Turkish Muslim writer Harun Yahya -- were trying to infiltrate European schools.

"The purpose of this report is to warn against the attempt to pass off a belief -- creationism -- as a science and to teach the theses of this belief in science classes," she said. "Its purpose is not to fight any belief."

And from yesterday's edition of The Guardian:

The parliamentarians said there was "a real risk of a serious confusion" being introduced into children's minds between belief and science.

They added: "The theory of evolution has nothing to do with divine revelation but is built on facts. Intelligent design, presented in a more subtle way, seeks to portray its approach as scientific, and therein lies the danger."

They said creationism was affecting "quite a few" CoE member states, including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said creationism should not be taught in science lessons.

"Guidance for schools and teachers, published today, makes it clear that creationism and intelligent design are not recognised scientific theories, and therefore must not be taught as fact in science classes," he said.

"When questions about creationism and intelligent design come up in science lessons, it may provide the opportunity to explain or explore what makes a scientific theory. There is a real difference between teaching something and discussing something.

"It is important that young people learn about the world around them, and are aware of different beliefs. There is scope for discussions around different beliefs in RE, history and citizenship classes."

What always strikes me in reading stories such as these is the underlying assumption, made by nearly everyone who is quoted or doing the reporting, that there are two simple sides to this grand struggle for the scientific explanation of the cosmos: evolution or creationism. Both terms are usually thrown around as though everyone knows what they mean; there is Evolution, proposed and proven by scientific study, and Creationism, which is a fundamentalist fairy tale build upon a primitive and fearful reading of Genesis1-2. Those are the options, period. This simplistic presentation is effectively used by folks such as Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, who had this to say in a recent debate about these issues, as reported by The Christian Post:

"Science uses evidence to discover truth about the universe. It's been getting better at it over the centuries," said Dawkins to a public audience. "Religion teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding."

Dawkins was elaborating on one of six major theses presented in his popular book that faith is blind while science is evidence-based.

After discovering Darwinism in his mid-teen years, Dawkins left his Anglican faith, never to return. And he has been defending Darwinism ever since, earning him the label "Darwin's Rottweiler" from the media.

Arguing that religion cuts through trying to understand the universe and provides an easy answer to its existence – attributing the cosmos to a maker – Dawkins says religion isn't really an explanation of how the world came about and "prevents further work on the problem." And he believes advances in science have achieved "an emancipation from that impulse to attribute these things to a creator."

Of course, Dawkins has to admit, in a roundabout way, that he lives according to a sort of faith as well:

Addressing the age-old topic of who created the Creator, Dawkins said as of now, science doesn't have an answer to the origin of the universe although Darwinism explains how life thereafter came about, he said.

"In a sense, you can say cosmology is waiting for its Darwin," said Dawkins.

Emphasizing that science is always making progress, Dawkins staunchly stated that the "creative designer cannot be a satisfying explanation."

"It's tempting once again to import the easy facile idea of a designer and to say that the designer twittled the knobs of the universe and the big bang and got them exactly right," he said, alluding to the physical constants (numbers) physicists assume to derive the rest of their understanding of cosmology. If the numbers were even slightly different, we wouldn't exist, he said.

"But it seems to me to be manifestly obvious that that is a futile kind of explanation because as the quotation says 'who designed the Designer?' You have explained precisely nothing."

Dawkins' laughable understanding of Judeo-Christian beliefs about the nature of the Creator brings me to the new book by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith, recently published by Ignatius Press. It cuts through the simplistic and skewed stereotypes and addresses, in an accessible fashion, the ongoing debates about religion and science, especially as relating to creation. He notes that "the alternative 'evolution or creationism' is too simplistic", that what is really at stake "behind the debate about creation and evolution" is "the great question, decisive for our future, of basic ethical guidelines capable of underpinning a high-technology civilization and its capabilities, which threaten our very existence. It is a matter of whether science can be combined with a sustainable responsibility for creation. For science, understood correctly, is a practical application of the first divine commandment to men: 'Subdue the earth.'" The truth of that remark is evident when considering stories such as this one out of California, which describes how that state's "stem cell research initiative" is being funded by billions of dollar's of public funds.

Early in Chance or Purpose?, Cardinal Schönborn writes the following about a proper understanding of creation (as opposed to "creationism"):

Belief in Creation as Fanaticism?

Is everyone who believes "a God created them" just a blind fanatic? Or is our deep pleasure in Haydn's "The Creation" just a romantic surge of the spirit? Can a rational person believe in a Creator at all? On this point, I just want to listen, without polemics, to what faith and reason say about it. In reaction to my article in the New York Times, a scientist wrote to me that he would like to believe, but he simply could not "believe in a Creator God, an old man with a long white beard". I replied to him that no one actually expected him to believe such a thing. On the contrary, that kind of conception of the Creator--perhaps child- like, but certainly childish--is a long way from what the Bible says about the Creator, and what the clause in the Creed "I believe in God, the Father, maker of heaven and earth", means. In my letter to him, I responded that it would be a good thing if his scientific knowledge and his religious knowledge were a little more nearly on the same level, and that his high level of knowledge as a scientist were not accompanied by a religious knowledge was still that of a child.

At this point we should also mention another frequent misunderstanding. It concerns so-called "creationism". Often nowadays in polemics, belief in creation is lumped together with "creationism". Yet believing in God the Creator is not identical with the way that, in some Christian circles, people try to understand the six days of creation spoken of in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis as if this had been literally reported, as six chronological days, and try by all possible arguments, even scientific ones, to prove that the earth is about six thousand years old. Attempts like that to take the Bible literally, as if it were making scientific statements at this point, are what is called "fundamentalism". To be more exact, in American Protestantism this view of the Christian faith has called itself "fundamentalism" from the start. Starting from a belief that every word of the Bible was directly inspired by God--that is, starting from an understanding of literal inspiration--the six days of the creation are also taken to mean what they say, word for word. It is understandable that many people in the U.S.A. are energetically opposed to this view--even so far as going to court and taking legal action against such things being taught in schools. There is, of course, also the legitimate concern with critical questions about teaching "Darwinism"--but that is a different matter.

The Catholic position on "creationism" is clear. Saint Thomas Aquinas says that one should "not try to defend the Christian faith with arguments that make it ridiculous, because they are in obvious contradiction with reason". It is nonsense to maintain that the world is only six thousand years old. An attempt to prove such a notion scientifically means provoking what Saint Thomas calls the irrisio infidelium, the mockery of unbelievers. Exposing the faith to mockery with false arguments of this kind is not right; indeed, it is explicitly to be rejected. Let that be enough on the subject of "creationism" and "fundamentalism". 

Cardinal Schönborn, like so many Catholics and other Christians, is not a "creationist" in the sense that word is often used, nor is he a Darwinist or a believer in what he calls "evolutionism." He is a noted theologian who believes—again, as so many Christians do—that belief in a Creator and acknowledgement of authentic scientific study are compatible and proper. So how do his views, shared by so many, fit into the ongoing debate? Into the educational system? Into the popular discourse?

• More information about Chance or Purpose?

Comments

[Mark Brumley]

Who designed the designer? Is he serious? If what theists say about God is true, the question is silly. Who designed the Undesigned Ground of all Design? A meaningless question?

Perhaps there is no God. But if there is, it is not meaningful to ask, Who made God?, because God is understood to be self-existing, the being the nature of whom is to exist, the being who, if we could comprehend him (fully understand what he is) we would see why he is and why he must be.

But if God is incomprehensible, does that mean that if we point to him as the ultimate explanation we explain nothing? But why should our inability to understand God completely mean we can't understand him partially?

In any event, we can conceive of the possibility of a reality the nature of which explains why it is--that is, a being whose nature is to exist. And we can conceive of the possibility of a reality the nature of which is that is might or might not exist, so that if it does exist, it exists because of something or someone else.

Now the question is, which of these kind of beings is the cosmos, a being the nature of which is to exist (necessary being or bare brute fact), or a being the nature of which is that it might or might not exist and its existence therefore is dependent on the existence of someone else or something else (contingent being)?

All of our experience of the cosmos thus far tells us that it is a contingent reality.

Paradoxically, if the cosmos is a contingent being, then we will never fully explain its existence in terms of a comprehensive cosmic theory because that theory would need to make reference to something beyond the cosmos to explain the cosmos. Only if the cosmos is a necessary being, a being the existence of which is wholly explicable in terms of the kind of being it is, would the attaining of a comprehensive theory of its existence be, in principle, possible. The cosmos does not appear to be that kind of being.

Thus far, nothing in the physical sciences has even hinted that a comprehensive theory of the cosmos is really possible. When Stephen Hawking, in A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, discusses the Theory of Everything, he points out that even if we had a set of equations that explained all the physical laws and particulars of the cosmos, we would still need to ask what breathes life into the equations to make a universe. Why does the universe bother to exist, as he asks. The "what" that causes the universe to bother to exist cannot itself be an aspect of the physical universe, but would need to be beyond it.

That would mean that physical reality, as sound philosophy maintains, must be seen as intelligible only as a subset of a larger category of reality. Unless that larger category is accessible to the mind by means other than knowledge of physical laws (and therefore the science of the physical, which we call physics), we would not have an all-encompassing explanation of the cosmos. Philosophy provides access to transphysical reality. Sacred theology purports also to provide access to that larger reality, including to aspects of that reality that philosophy cannot know. Whether sacred theology's claim can be shown to be reasonably ground is another matter, but the idea that it provides a way the mind can access aspects of that reality cannot rationally be ruled out from the start.

Is the cosmos self-explaining or does the explanation for it lie in something or someone else? The answer seems plain that the cosmos is not self-explaining, that even if we attain a successful Theory of Everything, that theory would in turn rest on principles of being (the knowledge of which we call metaphysics) that point to non-physical reality as the existential ground for the cosmos.

Philosophers debate whether an infinite series of causes is possible. Probably most philosophical theists deny that it is. But whether or not such a series is possible, the existence of the cosmos as a physical reality requires principles of explanation that ground physical reality and therefore the existence of the cosmos. Physics and indeed all physical science looks for physical explanations, but when it comes to ultimate explanations of the universe physical science comes up short.

[Ressourcement]

I am going to have to start asking these questions:

Q. Is this a "book"?

By book I mean: written from beginning to end with one coherent thesis that is supported, and written for the purpose of being published, from beginning to end, as a "book". Or, to look at it another way: "Is this a compilation of multiple individual lectures, writings, homilies, sermons, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. that were originally not intended to be published as a single volume?"

If it is a "book", I am interested. :)

jn

[Sandra Miesel]

Menawhile, Philip Pullman is teaching a generation of kids that the universe always existed and that consciousness just happened to happen with in it as the universe tried to "understand itself."

But as St. Ansselm said, "Si Deus est deus, Deus est."

[rich]

Leon Kass has written a very nice piece available as a .pdf download. It is entitled "Science, Religion and the Human Future."

It reads in part:

Nevertheless, despite its universality, its quest
for certainty, its reliance on reason purified from
all distortions of sensation and prejudice by the use
of mathematical method, and the reproducibility of
its findings, science does not—and cannot—provide
us with absolute knowledge. The reasons are
not only methodological but also substantive, and
not merely substantive but also intrinsic and permanent.

The substantive limits of science follow from
certain fundamental aspects of scientific knowledge
and from science’s assumptions about what sorts of
things are scientifically knowable. They stem from
science’s own self-proclaimed conceptual limitations—
limitations to which neither religious nor
philosophical thought is subject. This is not because,
science being rational, it is incapable of dealing
with the passionate or sub-rational or spiritual
or supernatural aspects of being. It is, on the contrary,
because the rationality of science is but a partial
and highly specialized rationality, concocted for
the purpose of gaining only that kind of knowledge
for which it was devised, and applied to only those
aspects of the world that can be captured by such
rationalized notions. The peculiar reason of science
is not the natural reason of everyday life captured
in ordinary speech, and it is also not the reason of
philosophy or religious thought, both of which are
tied to—even as they seek to take us beyond—the
world as we experience it.

[Dan]

Mark Brumley's thesis can be put more simply when applied to the question of whether we ever can fully understand our own being: if the brain were simple enough to be understood, it would be too simple to understand itself. (I got this line from Mark Shea; I think he got it from elsewhere, but I'm not sure where.)

[Brian John Schuettler]

(I got this line from Mark Shea; I think he got it from elsewhere, but I'm not sure where.)

"If the brain were simple enough for us to understand it, we would be too simple to understand it."
Ken Hill, British playwright

[Mark Brumley]

Ressourcement: It is a book derived from Cardinal Schoenborn's monthly catechesis on creation, which was given with the intention it would be polished up and published as a book. It is not a compilation of diverse things.

[Catholic]

Great Catholic Website!

[Ressourcement]

Thanks Mark! BTW, I just used "How Not To..." for a class I am teaching. Thanks!

jn

[Rick]

Agree or disagree with creationism or ID , I think that the EU and its subsidiaries aim at severing any notion of the Creator from ethics and law, if this hasn't already been done. Institutions that use the terms "marriage and family" in their names are facing political pressure to remove them.

[Steve Golay]

Europw has a difficult time dizzing Islam, period; at times, they must be swimming in night sweats. The anxiety, though, must come out somehow.

Along comes the threat of an American brand of 'creationism' with its supposed theocratic imperialism - now its time to sweat.

At times I wonder if Europe's recovery will only arrive when Islam has reached its critical mass in certain cities, going full bore in its campaign to cleanse it of falsehood.

But would even that get the sweat going? No, because hope comes only upon the certainity that the enemy fighting its arrival is defeated: llike hope that is eternal whose foreverness rests upon the certainity that sin and death is eternally bound in hell.