Darwin and the Pope

9 March 2003

Since I am fond of trying to justify Christianity to evolutionists and evolution to Christians, I thought it might be a good idea to review once again what Pope John Paul II had to say about evolution to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 22 October 1996. His remarks on that occasion led to a flurry of headlines proclaiming that the Pope had endorsed the theory of evolution.Both the friends and enemies of the Pope and the friends and enemies of evolution (categories that overlap in both directions) attempted to explain the meaning of his remarks, some to explain them away, as if he had not meant what he appeared to mean, others to celebrate or decry a wholehearted endorsement of the theory of evolution as a fact.

I have found a great deal of exegesis of the pope’s words recognizing “dans la théorie de  l’évolution plus qu’une hypothèse.”  Some, friends of the Pope but skeptics concerning evolution, taking the lead from the statement later in the same address that “il convient de parler des théories de l’évolution” wished to translate this statement as “more than one hypothesis” thereby contending that the Holy Father was merely recognizing what he called the “plurality” of evolutionary theories.  This ignores the clear context of the remark, that is, that he was attempting to strengthen the earlier statements of Pius XII in Humani Generis to the effect that the theory of evolution was worthy of consideration.

The straightforward translation of the sentence is doubtless the correct one: he recognizes “in the theory of evolution more than a hypothesis”: that is, a developed scientific theory.

Remember that Pope John Paul II is not only a man of God, a pastor of the Church: he is a philosopher, probably the greatest philosopher to occupy the throne of Peter since Sylvester II (Gerbert of Aurillac), the pope of the last millennium.  Therefore what he says about scientific theories is essential to understanding his endorsement of evolution.  He says, “Une théorie est une élaboration métascientifique, distincte des résultats de l’observation, mais qui leur est homogène.”—“A theory is a metascientific development distinct from the results of observation, but one that is compatible with them.”  

A theory is not a fact; it is an explanation of the facts.  A scientific observation, such as the discovery of a skull resembling a human one but significantly different, is a fact.  How did the skull get there?   Is it the remains of some ancient creature whose kind no longer walks the earth, or is it a pastiche put together as a hoax, as the “Piltdown Man” was?   Either theory must coincide with the results of further observation.  In the case of Piltdown, further observation discredited the theory that the skull was the remains of an ancient race of hominids; in many other cases, it has supported the same theory.

When the Pope speaks of the plurality of evolutionary theories, he distinguishes between two kinds of plurality.  The first concerns the “mechanism” of evolution; that is, issues like the question of “punctuated equilibrium”; the second, and more important from a Christian point of view is from the “diverse philosophies” from which the theory “borrows its notions.”   The first issue is amenable to a great degree to testing by observation.  The second, however, is the one that falls into “the proper sphere of philosophy, and beyond it, of theology.”

John Paul II in particular relates this point to the question of human origins, reiterating Pius XII’s statement that it is part of the Catholic faith that human souls are directly created by God:

En conséquence, les théories de l’évolution qui, en fonction des  philosophies qui les inspirent, considèrent l’esprit comme émergeant des forces de la matière vivante ou comme un simple épiphénomène de cette matière, sont incompatibles avec la vérité de l’homme.

Consequently, theories of evolution which, by virtue of the philosophies that inspire them, consider the spirit as something that emerges from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of that matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.

The issue here is not, he argues, one that can be settled by scientific experiment or observation.  In fact the very faculty of reasoning that scientists use to determine the validity or applicability of theory is the object of this inquiry.  The materialist must demonstrate that the theory he advocates is compatible with observation, and the first object of his observation must be his own reasoning. 

The theory of evolution, however, concerns more than simply human origins.  Nor does the issue raised by the Holy Father, that is, that of the philosophical context of evolutionary theories, only touch the question of human consciousness.  Critics of evolutionary theory, especially from the Christian perspective, have focused on Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection as particularly odious.  Since this is the theory within which almost all evolutionary biologists work, and since it is the one most associated with attacks on Christian belief by those partisans who have been inspired by a materialist philosophy, this animus is understandable. 

Darwin, however, did not invent the theory of evolution.  His contribution was to provide a mechanism for evolution that accorded best with observable facts.  Indeed, the theory of natural selection has the quality of the best scientific theories: it reduces to a tautology.  Organisms suited to their environment survive and reproduce; those unsuited to their environment die without reproducing; the offspring resemble their parents; therefore as conditions change, the environment will be inhabited by organisms adapted to it, not because they made any effort or decision to be adapted, but simply because they were born that way.  How do you tell if an organism is adapted to its environment?  Because it is there.

Before Darwin, the popular theory of evolution was that of Lamarck, who believed that organisms developed traits that were adapted to their environment and passed those on to their offspring.  As each generation tried harder to adapt, it would develop these adaptive traits to a greater and greater degree.  Some Christian observers have argued that Lamarckian evolution by the inheritance of acquired characteristics is somehow more compatible with Christian belief than Darwinian evolution by natural selection. 

Just as Ptolemaic astronomy continues to appear even in the speech of the most committed Copernican (even astronomers speak of the sun rising), so even Darwinians sometimes talk as if they were Lamarckians.  Lamarck argued for evolution by desire or intention; Darwinians speak of organism pursuing “evolutionary strategies” when in fact they know perfectly well the organisms are just minding their own business.   We find it hard to dispense with some sort of innate intentionality to the development of life.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, perhaps the best-known example of an attempt to build a Christian theology on the theory of evolution, is a case in point.  While he discarded the Lamarckian notion of the intention of the individual organism, he transferred this intentionality to the whole of the universe, ascribing the direction of evolution to an impulse somehow inherent in matter, culminating in the emergence of human consciousness.   Teilhard would be an example of one evolutionist who believed that “spirit . . . emerges from the forces of living matter”; indeed he comes close to envisioning a Hegelian emergent Deity.  As poetry, Teilhard’s thoughts on the meaning of the natural universe are beautiful; however, they are bad science and even worse theology.

Evolution by natural selection, on the other hand, tends to preserve the distinction between the creature and the Creator.  Under Darwin’s theory, organisms have nothing whatever to say about their own destiny.  An organism’s legacy is entirely dependent upon its environment, that is to say, on something outside itself.  If God is the kind of God in Whom Christians believe, that is, one with intentions, then it is His intentions and not those of His creatures that shape their ends.   That all the events developing these intentions occur in an internally consistent manner merely testifies to His skill, as the internal consistency of a novel testifies to the skill of its author.  Natural selection is just another term for dependence on the will of God. 

Darwinism, like any scientific theory, is merely an explanation of how things happen.  It cannot provide of itself any meaning or purpose to the universe it describes.  The Darwinian materialist is not—though he may think so—a materialist because of his belief in evolution.  If the universe is not the thorough handiwork of God, a creation exhibiting His wisdom and love in every aspect of its design, then neither it nor anything in it, including the life of every living thing, every human being, even every scientist, has no meaning or purpose.  What Darwinism will not allow is a half-way materialism, whether of Hegel or Teilhard, in which some kind of immanent emerging consciousness is responsible for the ultimate shape of things.  Either we are made for a transcendent Creator, or we are made for nothing.