Hey Deacon!

If you follow the daily Mass readings, you are aware that the first readings over the last two weeks are from the Book of Genesis. We heard the creation story, Adam and Eve, their great fall, Cain & Able, Noah and the great flood, and the covenantal sign of the rainbow. To no surprise of mine, the PSR instruction in Forsyth, Craig Pollard, recently chose to lead our PSR discussion on the topic, “What does the Catholic Church teach and believe about Evolution? Does the Church ignore science?” 

First, there is no inherent opposition between faith and scientific evidence that life evolved from lower forms to higher forms over many millions of years. Pope Benedict XVI, in his papal address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in October 2008, clearly affirmed the Church’s understanding that evolutionary science does not contradict belief in God’s creative action when he stated, “My predecessors Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II noted that there is no opposition between faith’s understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences.”

That’s because the Catholic Church does not hold a strictly literal interpretation of the Genesis story of creation, as do some Protestant denominations. According to the Catechism (CCC 337), the book of Genesis “symbolically” presents God’s work of creation. In other words, the biblical story of creation is like a parable in that the plot does not have to be literally true (e.g. six-day creation) in order for the story to convey profound religious truths. The idea of evolution seems to be supported by Genesis 1:24, which states, “Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures.” Genesis does not say that God directly created plants and animals in their final form, only that they came forth from “the earth.” 

Second, even though our material bodies may be the product of evolution, the Catholic Church holds that our immaterial and immortal soul, which makes us truly human, is directly imparted by God. Pope St. John Paul II stated in his 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, “If the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God.” The Catechism (CCC 366) also states that “every spiritual soul is created immediately by God.” 

The Church supports the relationship between creation and evolution. The Catechism (CCC 308) states, “The truth that God is at work in all actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes.” 

The Church doesn’t ignore science. She says we can accept the theory of evolution as long as we do not fall into the heresy trap of evolutionism, which views man as the random product of biological processes. Moreover, the Church makes clear that natural science cannot dogmatically rule out the possibility that there are purposeful designs in creation.

 I believe Pope Benedict XVI said it best at his papal installation ceremony; ”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.”

Author Bio:
 Deacon Dan Vaughn