[extropy-chat] Prelate: Catholicism incompatible with neo-Darwinism

[Damien Broderick]

Amazing scenes: just when you think Christian dogmatists have realized it's 
not safe to get in the ring with science, we learn that divinely directed 
evolution is the truth, and Darwin plus genetics is just plain wrong:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/opinion/07schonborn.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

July 7, 2005


Finding Design in Nature

By CHRISTOPH SCHÖNBORN [Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna, was 
the lead editor of the official 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church.]

Vienna

EVER since 1996, when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did 
not define) was "more than just a hypothesis," defenders of neo-Darwinian 
dogma have often invoked the supposed acceptance - or at least acquiescence 
- of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow 
compatible with Christian faith.

But this is not true. The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many 
details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of 
reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and 
design in the natural world, including the world of living things.

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in 
the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random 
variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies 
or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is 
ideology, not science.

Consider the real teaching of our beloved John Paul. While his rather vague 
and unimportant 1996 letter about evolution is always and everywhere cited, 
we see no one discussing these comments from a 1985 general audience that 
represents his robust teaching on nature:

"All the observations concerning the development of life lead to a similar 
conclusion. The evolution of living beings, of which science seeks to 
determine the stages and to discern the mechanism, presents an internal 
finality which arouses admiration. This finality which directs beings in a 
direction for which they are not responsible or in charge, obliges one to 
suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator."

He went on: "To all these indications of the existence of God the Creator, 
some oppose the power of chance or of the proper mechanisms of matter. To 
speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization 
in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent 
to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to 
us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. 
It would be to abdicate human intelligence, which would thus refuse to 
think and to seek a solution for its problems."

Note that in this quotation the word "finality" is a philosophical term 
synonymous with final cause, purpose or design. In comments at another 
general audience a year later, John Paul concludes, "It is clear that the 
truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of 
materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an 
evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity."

Naturally, the authoritative Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees: 
"Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the 
question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with 
certainty through his works, by the light of human reason." It adds: "We 
believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the 
product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance."

In an unfortunate new twist on this old controversy, neo-Darwinists 
recently have sought to portray our new pope, Benedict XVI, as a satisfied 
evolutionist. They have quoted a sentence about common ancestry from a 2004 
document of the International Theological Commission, pointed out that 
Benedict was at the time head of the commission, and concluded that the 
Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of "evolution" as used by 
mainstream biologists - that is, synonymous with neo-Darwinism.

The commission's document, however, reaffirms the perennial teaching of the 
Catholic Church about the reality of design in nature. Commenting on the 
widespread abuse of John Paul's 1996 letter on evolution, the commission 
cautions that "the letter cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all 
theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which 
explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the 
development of life in the universe."

Furthermore, according to the commission, "An unguided evolutionary process 
- one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence - simply cannot 
exist."

Indeed, in the homily at his installation just a few weeks ago, Benedict 
proclaimed: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. 
Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of 
us is loved, each of us is necessary."

Throughout history the church has defended the truths of faith given by 
Jesus Christ. But in the modern era, the Catholic Church is in the odd 
position of standing in firm defense of reason as well. In the 19th 
century, the First Vatican Council taught a world newly enthralled by the 
"death of God" that by the use of reason alone mankind could come to know 
the reality of the Uncaused Cause, the First Mover, the God of the 
philosophers.

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like 
neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid 
the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, 
the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the 
immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to 
explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and 
necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an 
abdication of human intelligence.