Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution - NY Times

[Coastie for Truth]

ONLY EXCERPTS - THESE ARE TWO VERY LONG ARTICLES WITH NUMEROUS SUBTLETIES

LONG AND TIGHTLY WRITTEN - READ THE ORIGINAL - DON'T RELY ON THIS EXCERPT



An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith. The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, "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."

In a telephone interview from a monastery in Austria, where he was on retreat, the cardinal said that his essay had not been approved by the Vatican, but that two or three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI's election in April, he spoke with the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about the church's position on evolution. "I said I would like to have a more explicit statement about that, and he encouraged me to go on," said Cardinal Schönborn.

He said that he had been "angry" for years about writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church's position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process.

Opponents of Darwinian evolution said they were gratified by Cardinal Schönborn's essay. But scientists and science teachers reacted with confusion, dismay and even anger. Some said they feared the cardinal's sentiments would cause religious scientists to question their faiths.

LONG AND TIGHTLY WRITTEN - READ THE ORIGINAL - DON'T RELY ON THIS EXCERPT





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."

ONLY EXCERPTS - THESE ARE TWO VERY LONG ARTICLES WITH NUMEROUS SUBTLETIES

As a "Faith Based Leftie" of the "Unitarian Universalist - Reform Jewish - United Church of Christ" side of the political-theological spectrum, and a reader of Forrest Church and Michael Lerner and Jim Wallis -- I find this past distressing to frightening

[drduffy]

1. philosophy 101 from the church

this is the typical theistic creationist argument sans fundie biblical literalism. God's design 'clearly evident' when ya look out at the 'creation'. Simply the old 'argument from design.' Here arguing that god must exist because 'the work of his hand is clearly seen in the obvious design all around'. But the theist actually presupposes that God exists, therefore the deisgn we 'see' has to reflect his hand. The argument from design is specious. There is no necessity to presuppose god and the theist argument - parsed in any direction - is unprovable and unnecessary from the scientific and logical point of view.

Anytime theists get on a rant and try to 'prove' some idiocy with their call to reason it is helpful to remember that EVERY SINGLE argument for the existence of god has been debunked through the ages by philosophers. In the end, if you personally want to believe, fine and dandy. But don't pretend you can justify your belief through either evidence or reason - cause it just aint possible unless you change the meanings of the terms 'evidence', 'proof', 'science' and 'empiricism' etc. This whole issue is the background for the early example in philosophy of existentialism qua Soren Kierkegaard who talked about the necessity to make a "leap of faith' to believe in god.

And now we find possible neurological bases for differences among humans in the willingness to make such 'leaps'. Interesting thesis.

[fasttense]

3. You make some very valid points.

And your logic is sound. I have one area I disagree with you on.

The archbishop said in the article: "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."

Since when does the archbishop know how God works? What is so wrong about God working through a random process? What appears to us as random may not be. Don't theists believe that chance is actually the work of God? The child snatched away from the path of an out of control vehicle, the lost traveler is helped by a stranger in the knick of time. Don't people attribute these "rescues" to the hand of God? So why can't God work through evolution, a random process, natural selection?

I believe in a God because it is logical. Consider the big bang. Something had to set it off. No event in nature is perpetual. Something had to start the big bang. What could it be? It had to be outside our own space and time. It had to be something beyond our every day experiences. I claim that was God. Now is God worthy of worship and did God send people to earth to spread the Deity's message? I don't know, but I think the logic of a God is self evident.

Some people say the creation of the Universe was just a process of Nature. Great than what exactly is nature? People are all too willing to attribute biological processes to nature. Then I ask what is this powerful thing called nature? Could it be God?

This is why I believe the existence of a God is logical and why I believe science only explains the processes God uses.

I welcome disagreement. To me the logic of this argument is obvious, but I have had very little opportunity to discuss it with others. So if you see the flaw in my logic please help me to understand it.

[Spinzonner]

4. Nothing to do with logic

You postulate the existance of a god to substitute for lack of knowledge and a reliable theory. That's no more or less than man has done throughout history - gods were always invoked to explain the causes and processes of things that were otherwise unexplainable or uncomprehensible based on the facts and thinking of the time.

Your point about the Big Bang is itself revealing of a focus on Classical thinking. In Quantum Mechanics there is no necessity of a 'cause' as such - and so the concept of 'starting' it or 'setting it off' is meaningless. Stuff just 'happens' subject to laws of probability; so the universe we live in could have just 'happened'.

However, much of the story of the universe remains to be found and understood. Some parts of it may not be discoverable or provable. You are free to substitute supernatural, mystical explanations for more scientifically and mathematically rigorous ones if you so choose.

The 'logic' of a God is more 'self' than 'evident'.

[fasttense]

8. I'm not sure of what you mean about Quantum Mechanics and

Stuff just happens? Can you explain this, list a book, or post a website I could read that would explain it in layman terms. I've always thought everything occurred because of reactions to gravity, energy, light, chemicals etc... Newton's basic law of physics say for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Are you saying for every reaction there is not a necessarily an action?

I can't argue what we may know in the future. True, man historically uses God as an explanation for things unknown but there comes a time where you take it back so far and you have to point to a creator. For example, let's say we find out that what started the big bang was a molecule of energy. So what created this molecule of energy? Then suppose we find out this molecule of energy crossed space and time from another parallel universe. So who created this other Universe? Eventually there has to be something out there that started it all. That created something out of nothing.

Thanks for posting, this is very interesting.

[Spinzonner]

10. Try this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics

Who says you have to point to a creator? That's just a widely-held parochial view.

And you're just making up things with no scientific basis. What is a 'molecule of energy' ? And you're claiming it had to be created. That's another parochial view and a personal postulate.

And space and time is local to the universe, so even if there are other universes, something wouldn't cross it to get between them. In any case, most theories that consider multiple universes - which could be source of ours in a 'budding' process - imply that there is no way to pass between them.

And it's just a self-contradictory assertion that 'there has to be something out there that started it all. That created something out of nothing'. If there is such a thing then there wouldn't have been 'nothing', there would have been THAT something. Now where did that something come from, what/who created it? Ultimately, you have to give up this idea that there has to be a creator for existance because otherwise you have to create them ad infinitum. If you're going to claim that 'God just exists' or God 'came into existance without a meta-creator', then why can't you make that assertion about the universe and dispense with the extra baggage of a god ?

[fasttense]

13. Thanks for the website.

I have some reading and studying to do before I can argue Quantum Mechanics.

But I don't want to argue parallel universes. It was simply supposition to illustrate the loop of cause and effect.

You argue my point for me when you say, "Now where did that something come from, what/who created it? Ultimately, you have to give up this idea that there has to be a creator for existence because otherwise you have to create them ad infinitum."

Why give up the idea of a creator? Can't you just have one creator and be done with it? To may way of thinking, you are on the same loop of this caused this, which caused this, which caused this, which caused this ad infinitum. Unless Quantum Mechanics is saying something came out of nothing because...????? It's magic?

I have got to go but this has been interesting. I'll check back this afternoon after I've done some reading.

[Spinzonner]

14. I didn't argue your point for you

I just pointed out the futility of requiring a creator as a something that is required to manifest something because it raises the necessity of it having been created by another something, etc, etc, etc (to infinity)

And if you dispense with that and say the the so-called creator - God - didn't have to be created by something then you can easily, and more simply, say that is true of the universe also a eliminate the superfluous god component which makes the system arbitrary.

And yes, Quantum Mechanics does say that something can come out of nothing - at least from our narrow view of the physical universe. And if you insist this is 'magic', then how is that different from the introduction of the god entity who presumably works outside and above the laws of nature; is this not also 'magic' ?

[Dorian Gray]

7. But, isn't that what he is saying?

He's disagreeing with the "unplanned" part. The randomness may have been planned.

He is not dismissing the idea of an evolutionary process, but rather stating that it was actually created by a creator. It's an effort to allow science and religion to co-exist.

(By the way, I am Roman Catholic and I believe that a Creator sparked the evolutionary process. So, I have no problems with his statements. Just a little disclaimer.) :)

[fasttense]

9. I suppose you are correct.

After reading it a second time, he is saying that randomness is planned. Can't argue that but I still wouldn't want to teach it in schools because there is no empirical evidence. I might teach it in a philosophy class or a comparative religion class. Hmm, never thought I'd agree with Catholic bishop.

[shrike]

19. Science class in Catholic school -- see below post

Been a long time, but if memory serves me correctly, Sister Susan (my science teacher) taught evolution without much mention of the Creator. This was left for religion class. The bishop's statement is really not out of line from what I learned in her class. My brother went to Catholic school and went on to become a doctor. You can bet he learned about evolution in high school biology class.

I agree that the "God aspect" is better left to comparative religion or philosophy class.

[Spinzonner]

12. What is 'planned randomness' ?

And since if randomness is itself sufficient as a mechanism to drive evolution, than planning it is superflous and just a way of inserting a creator/controller where it isn't needed.

Yes, it's an artifice to force God back into the system.

[shrike]

20. Maybe I'm terribly misinformed

But I always thought the survival of the species drove evolution. The best and fittest survived, and those species which could not adapt did not survive. Taking the god concept out of it, doesn't randomness itself have a certain purpose -- to sustain life? Let's assume there is no god. The earth and maybe the universe appear to be programmed for life. Isn't this so-called randomness the means by which life sustains itself?

I'm no scientist, and while I am Catholic, I've always thought evolution had a purpose above and beyond any religious concept.

[Spinzonner]

22. I don't know what you mean by evolution having a purpose

It's a process which seems to be inevitable with respect to natural laws. That is, the reality that there is change both in the environment and in the organisms - both of which derive from the physical world and its laws on the micro and macro level.

Survival of species doesn't drive anything. First of all, the notion of species is a categorical creation of man and somewhat arbitrary. Nature is indifferent to our taxonomic endeavors.

And 'best' is isn't required. Even fittest isn't necessary except in case of extreme environmental and competitive stress; being fit enough is sufficient.

Randomness has no 'purpose', much less one to sustain life, it merely is. You can't talk about taking God out of it and keep the notion of 'purpose', what/who will have a purpose ?

There's a similar problem with the statement about being 'programmed for life'. By what ? The reality appears to be that, given certain conditions and sufficient time, what we call life comes into existence, reproduces itself in various ways, and persists over time in various forms. Note that this view of life is rather parochial.

And randomness isn't really necessary for evolution, only change. It is possible to make a system evolve through applying change. However, this implies an agent (not necessarily sentient, however) to drive it. Randomness (ie unpredictability) does seem to be inherent in nature in given Quantum Mechanics and its implications and Chaos theory.

[shrike]

24. Well, it does have a purpose, if an unconscious one

The purpose is to sustain life. Again, I'm sure I'm just terribly misinformed about Darwin's theories. And I don't know a damned thing about Quantum Physics and Chaos Theory, although they sound fascinating.

This is probably just semantics, but if a trait is beneficial to the species (pardon the word) and those individuals continue to procreate bcause that trait makes them fit for survival, doesn't that trait serve a purpose to the species? I guess, to me, random means random. I always thought the universe would have a bit of order to it even without a divine being because order is so much more efficient. If everything were truly random, wouldn't some of us have two heads or three, and traits would appear and disappear, because they are there to serve chance, not purpose or survival?

I envy you if you can make head nor tail of Quantum Physics and Chaos. My husband gets all these scientific journals and I can't make head nor tail of them, though they sure look cool. Too mathematically challenged, I guess. I barely got through high school geomtery.

[BurtWorm]

27. That's not really how the mechanism works.

The species--or the genes--are not "consciously" trying to be the fittest to survive. Within each species, there are varieties. Some finches, for example, have inherited long, hard beaks. Others have inherited short, soft beaks. The long, hard beaks may be better for survival in times of drought, say, when the food sources literally dry up and it takes a good strong beak to crack them open. Over time, if the drought lasts, nature will select the finches with long, hard beaks among the next several generations. It's nature, in other words, doing the selecting.

Individuals in a species also do some of the selecting when they mate in a process Darwin called sexual selection. How conscious they are when they make their decisions is not totally clear to me. And I say that from experience. ;)

[BurtWorm]

25. The flaw is just this: if the something that set it off was not outside

our own space ands time, you would be fundamentally wrong. It is, in other words, not necessary to invoke a God of the gap to explain it. Best always to wait for more evidence and be content with the possibility that it may never come.

But if you want to comfort yourself believing God was the first cause, I don't see the harm in that.

[Spinzonner]

2. "Evidence for Design" is human nearsightedness at best

and wishful thinking at worst.

[mcscajun]

5. There's an old saying...

"The Lord works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform."
Now, this line can't be found anywhere in the Bible, but you'll hear it from the mouths of true believers and from religious extremists.

So how is it, if they're willing to believe that line, they cannot believe that their god might have chosen the complex process of evolution to achieve certain desired ends? Must they reduce their own god's workings to only those simplistic processes easily encompassed in the most ignorant mind? What a small god this must of necessity be.

Required disclaimer: I'm a collapsed Catholic (who spent a fair amount of free time as a child actually reading the Bible out of sheer curiosity), one time atheist, generally agnostic, part-time pagan, ask-me-next-week-what-I-believe-in-IST. :) I'm against organized religion generally; not against religious (or more properly, spiritual) people. I count the latter among my friends.

[HamdenRice]

6. Let's run this through our I-News 5000 Wi-Fi Headline Translator

"Vatican Next to Prepare Encyclical Rejecting Galileo's Sun Centered Solar System"

[opihimoimoi]

11. The man is stuck on Level One.....a primitive and ignoirant Level

The Poor things brain is addled.....

[Bill McBlueState]

15. "neo-darwinism"

What on Earth is "neo-Darwinism"? And how is that different from regular Darwinism? It sounds like Schonborn's setting up a straw man in his column.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. 'Neo-Darwinism' is a fairly common term

see for instance, this Wikipedia article. Although Darwin's ideas of inheritance and natural selection made sense, they didn't have a specific mechanism for how inheritance happened - in particular, something that showed that it was genes, unchanged for a lifetime, that get inherited, rather than Lamarckian ideas of characteristics that change during a lifetime. But when the science of genetics developed, Darwin's theory became obviously superior to Lamarck's (and, of course, the discovery of the DNA structure clinched it).

I do think that the cardinal (why is an Austrian cardinal writing articles for a New York newspaper?) is attacking established science in a fundamental way. If this is going to be a widely held line at the top of the church, it will make the Catholics look foolish. To me, he really does seem to be saying you can't be a good Catholic while believing in evolution through natural processes - which means he thinks every single organism is specifically designed by God, including MRSA. What's God's idea with that? He wants to kill off some people for the sake of a population of bacteria?

[Bill McBlueState]

23. thanks for the link

I think, though, that the cardinal is using "neo-Darwinism" in a different way. He seems to be taking it to mean a particular philosophy that he thinks evolutionary theorists espouse, rather than a refinement of Darwin's scientific work.

[BurtWorm]

26. Why is an Austrian cardinal writing for the Times?

Because ID is more entrenched in the US than anywhere else in the world? Certainly more than in Europe (setting aside Vatican City, evidently).

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. I would think so - I'd be surprised to see that in a British newspaper

And the article says he did it through the Discovery Institute's PR firm, and the Discovery Institute encouraged him to write it.

[blindpig]

16. Back to the shadows again!

The Church leadership and the neocons would both be tickled by a return to the Middle Ages. And it looks as though they're both working hammer and tong to get there.

[Bill McBlueState]

17. I'm not sure what Schonborn's saying that's so odd.

He doesn't seem to be calling the process of evolution into question in his column, unless I'm misreading it. He's saying that his god is behind it, and setting up this strawman "neo-Darwinism" that apparently opposes that idea.

Obviously, the Catholic Church is going to claim that their god is the force responsible for evolution. That's the most we can expect from them. It would be different if they started advocating some variant of creationism that's at odds with scientific findings.

[shrike]

18. As someone who learned about evolution in Catholic school

From a nun, yet, I can tell you this idea has been around at least as long as I've been alive. God is responsible for the process of evolution; God set up the universe AND its natural laws, and the universe abides by them, therefore God does not personally send thunderbolts out of the sky, et al.

Benedict is a distressingly conservative pope. But this essay does not seem out of line with the Catholic thinking I'm familiar with. I'm wondering what actually prompted this essay and why it was picked up the media.

[Coastie for Truth]

30. An "order in the universe" theory

such as "an atom with eight protons always has 7-9 neutrons and always behaves like something mere mortals call oxygen" and "electrons are always arrayed in what mere mortals call s-p-d-f discrete energy levels" and within these Divine Rules that were present at Creation (which lasted billions of years starting with the "Big Bang" of Genesis) Darwinian evolution occurs.

Sort of a Twenty First Century Thomas Jefferson theology that would appeal to followers of the theologians Michael Servetus, Martin Cellarius, Faustus Socinus, and King John Sigismund.

Strange coming from a conservative Cardinal.

[bobbieinok]

29. I do not understand the fundamentalist attempt to deny evolution

in OK (not a terribly advanced state)in the late 50s, some of my Southern Baptist friends and I came to a decision on this that still makes sense to me........there is no conflict between evolution and belief in God........God can create the world however he wants; all the Bible really says about this is 'in the beginning God..'.....he's not limited to doing it by following some people's views

and, of course, if you don't believe in God, you have no problem trying to deal with this......

and we just would sit quietly and not say anything---but LOOK at each other---when an adult working with our youth group would say 'well, Darwin may have been descended from a monkey, but I'M certainly NOT'

[fasttense]

31. Seems to me people who use the word nature and natural law

are invoking a creator and that creator is nature. You could substitute the word god for nature in most arguments and come up with the same conclusions. Now is that god/nature worth worshiping? Is that god/nature all loving, knowing and powerful? I don't know and having seen some of the results of god/nature I tend to doubt it. This god/nature does not necessarily have to be sentient either. It is just logical that there was a start to this whole process of life and that start is the creator/nature/god or whatever you want to call it.