Could God have used evolution? A letter to his excellency Bishop Paolo Martinelli (AVOSA)
(Letter written and handed To His Excellency, Bishop Paolo Martinelli, The Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia (AVOSA) on the 07th May 2024)
(Reference: Click here to read the Background and Preface to my letter to Bishop Martinelli)
Your Eminence,
Greetings.
As you have begun your second pastoral visit to Saint Mary’s Catholic Church (SMCC), Dubai, I write this letter as a reminder and a follow-up to your first pastoral visit which took place in May 2023, where I met you personally and discussed the subject of evolution, and the prospect of the Kolbe Center for Creation hosting a seminar at SMCC Dubai. While I have not received a response or revert from you on the above seminar, I recall that during the discussion with you, that you made a statement: “God could have used evolution.”
I will divide my response to said statement (“God could have used evolution”) into two sections: The first, I will dedicate to addressing a primary or fundamental question which should be the forerunner in all respects; and the second section, to the original question or statement: 'Couldn't God have used evolution?'. I will try to present the information in a not-so technical manner, avoiding jargon and scientific terms as far as possible for our benefit.
First Section
To respond to your statement, and as part of the first section, it is all but necessary to address the following primary and fundamental question: 'What is evolution?'. The whole issue, in my humble view, pivots around this question.
Evolution is a word that has different meanings, like the word 'love'. In the English language this is a single word that encompasses many expressions of the interior emotion. There is God's love, paternal love, sibling love, love for family members, love for friends, romantic love between a male and a female before entering into the sacrament of matrimony, and love between married spouses (male and female) who have partaken of the sacrament of matrimony.
Evolution is a similar term or word. The word evolution is used fairly loosely today. One can talk about the 'evolution' of a city, or the 'evolution' of a mobile phone for example, and one can immediately know that what is being referred to is 'change' or 'transformation'.
But that is not the sense (at least not strictly) in which those in the scientific community use the word. Generally speaking, when the word evolution is used in the scientific domain, one needs to understand the 'context' in which it is being used. There are a few main contexts that the word evolution gets used often, which I list below:
1) Cosmic Origin/evolution: the Origin of space, time and matter: the Big Bang and its supposed after-effect, forming stars, planets, etc. from gas clouds and other such matter over a protracted period of time.
2) Origin of life: How life originated; This also encompasses chemical evolution for the basic building blocks of life to develop or combine into the first fortuitous and simple life form.
3) Biological evolution aka Macro (large) evolution: example - the supposed evolution of man from matter or from the first primordial chemical building blocks, or the evolution of man from supposed ape-like ancestors.
4) Biological evolution, aka Micro evolution - variations within a 'kind' (as described in the first few chapters of Genesis) of organism: examples - changes in beaks of birds, changes in color of fur of animals, changes in color of butterflies during certain environmental conditions, etc.
The long and the short of the controversy over evolution is this: From the above listed points, numbers 1 to 3 are never observed (only inferred or mainly speculated). Only number 4 above is factually observed. Since the word evolution encompasses all the above 4 broad subjects, it is easy for a Christian or Catholic to be confused why evolution is such a scientific hurdle. This is because, whenever those who reject, object, or cite doubts with evolution, they are talking about the first three points (Cosmic evolution, Origin of Life, and Macro evolution) - they have absolutely no problems with point 4 (Biological evolution in the context of Micro evolution (or minor changes and variations within a kind of animal) & agree that this happens and is real - however they will insist that these changes have limits (for example: a dog will remain a dog regardless of the breed/species of the dog, whether it is a Great Dane or a Chihuahua; they also accept that a dog, a fox, a coyote, wild dogs and the likes may have had a common ancestor which may likely to have been a wolf or a wolf-like creature. The crucial distinction lies in the organism’s ability to mate and reproduce - if they are able to mate and reproduce*, they are the same kind or type of organism).
Whereas those who unreservedly approve of evolution, usually (barring few exceptions) will see no distinction between the four points listed above. It is important to understand the above distinctions before we proceed to the next section.
(Note: *some organisms, though similar, through environmental pressures and isolation, may lose the ability to reproduce successfully - the inability to reproduce is an exception here (For example: The African and the Asian Elephant may not be able to reproduce although they are able to mate)
Second Section
Allow me to proceed to your statement that “God could have used evolution!”. This statement sometimes is presented as a rhetorical question, such as: “Couldn’t God have used evolution?” and it indicates a ‘possibility’ that evolution is a means of creation that God may or could have used. This statement has long been used by a section of Christians and Catholics alike, especially those who are in favor & support of evolution as a subject, and those who don't know any better (I was once in this latter category). The reasons are varied. Some, like the distinguished Christian Scientist Francis Collins, who has written many books on the reasons for God’s existence identifiable through science, or the famous Catholic Biologist Kenneth Miller (Ken Miller), who has contributed to many textbooks for schools and universities, and who is a vehement defender of evolution, seem to have an academic conviction on the subject. They seem to earnestly and sincerely believe that evolution is a fact of life. They seem to earnestly and sincerely also believe in the existence of God & that ‘perhaps’ God could have used evolution as a creative process for all creation; or that evolution kicked in as a process only after God had created the initial first semblance of life, whatever that initial first semblance of life may likely to be or have been. This is an academic view held by quite a few well-meaning Protestant Christians and Catholics alike who probably fear (subconsciously perhaps) that distancing themselves from such a widely-accepted ‘scientific’ premise or theory, can lead to rejection by the scientific community and by the world at large, similar to the criticism and ridicule experienced & suffered by Catholics in relation to the Galileo controversy, (side note: This was in spite of the fact that the head of the Pontifical Committee for the Historical Sciences (1998-2009), Cardinal Walter Brandmuller, after a thorough review of the history of the Galileo controversy, concluded that:
"The most recent scientific findings vindicate the Church of 1633."
- (Fr. Walter Brandmuller, Light and Shadows: Church History amid Faith, Fact and Legend, Ignatius Press, 2009, p.13)
These ‘modern’ academic scholars and intellectuals also likely fear that in order to retain the faith of the younger generation in God, and all that is spiritual, it is highly important to 'marry' the creation account in the Bible (in the first few chapters of the book of Genesis) with the subject of evolution, so as to save face in the light of archaeological, paleontological & genetic discoveries that increasingly make it ‘appear’ that evolution is ‘settled science’ and that there is no question that evolution is in doubt. In the minds of these men, there may be bits and pieces that have yet to be completely understood, a few aspects that may be disputed by different scientists; however, the underlying assumption shared by these distinguished academicians is that 'evolution' is an indisputable fact. The theologians like the academicians are also driven by a similar fear and phobia of the Galileo-syndrome alike.
The attempt to marry the subject of evolution with the Creation account in the book of Genesis, is usually called ‘Theistic Evolution’. This ‘attempt’, as I will try to demonstrate further in this letter, is akin to forcing a square peg into a round hole; a marriage that is not only incompatible theologically but is also baseless scientifically.
I begin with the theological and logical problems for the statement or argument that ‘God could have used evolution’.
(1) The statement ‘God could have used evolution’ is based on a fundamental fallacy (a wrong premise or understanding) known as ‘Begging the Question’. In this fallacy, one assumes the central theme, which is under dispute, to be already true. In the case of our statement, ‘God could have used evolution’, those making it, have already assumed that evolution is true & a scientific fact. There is no attempt by them to clarify what ‘context’ of evolution is being referred to (refer the points from the previous section from 1 to 4), but when they make the afore-mentioned claim, that ‘God could have used evolution’, they are usually assuming that the ‘context’ is that of the Origin of Life, the Cosmic origin (Big Bang), or Biological evolution in context with Macro evolution. In fact, theological doctrines, teachings, and other approved sources such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), crucially, contain no formal definition of what is meant by the word ‘evolution’. Without a clear definition of evolution, what it is, and what it isn’t, teachers, priests, theologians & prelates cannot give an adequate answer to the honest and genuine questions that young Catholics usually have about origins. After all, how does one, especially someone untrained to understand such an answer (that ‘God could have used evolution’), respond? God could have used origami paper, alphabet soup, or a trained pet Dodo bird to create the known or unknown universe. God can use anything, true. But is it a theological ‘conclusion’ through the last thousands of years of recorded timelines in the Bible, followed by the teachings of the collective doctors, saints, and councils of the Church, that evolution was the all-encompassing ‘tool’ that God used? The answer, if one studies the subject extensively, is resoundingly: No.
(2) Scripture, the Fathers, and the decrees on creation of Ecumenical Councils, especially Lateran IV and Vatican I, clearly teach that God created all things supernaturally, by fiat. In the words of the Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent:
[T]he Divinity ¬¬ created all things in the beginning. He spoke and they were made: he commanded and they were created.
(Part 1, Article 1, section: "Creator of Heaven and Earth")
Therefore, it becomes evident that the method adopted by God was speech. God spoke and it was created. Jesus is also known as the Word of God in the book of John (chapter 1). Therefore, Jesus was the Word spoken by God who created all things – not evolution. If the early Israelites or Jewish people wanted to say that God used a ‘process’ that changed one organism to another over a protracted period of time, there were other ways for them to do so. But no such records are forthcoming. This usually leads the theistic evolutionist to perform all sort of ‘scriptural gymnastics’. Suddenly, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is to be treated as an article of faith and belief by Catholics and Christian alike – but the first few chapters of Genesis that deal with the creation account? Oh - that must be read in ‘context’ with people of the ‘times’ who were writing it. They were far too simple & ignorant of greater scientific truths which are evident today, you see! Suddenly, (and strangely), Catholics are being told by their shepherds to NOT believe in miracles when it comes to the creation of all things as mentioned in Genesis!
(3) Another problem that is usually encountered when one attempts to marry evolution with the Bible, is that of ‘death’, ‘sickness’, ‘suffering’ and ‘deformity’. Now we know that ‘death’ entered the world only after Adam and Eve disobeyed God. However, we see that in the book of Genesis, the writer mentions that God, after ‘creating’ on every specific day, uses the phrase “and God saw that it was good”. I haven't found many who have been able to satisfactorily explain how the concepts of ‘death’, ‘sickness’, ‘suffering’ and ‘deformity’ can exist as ‘good’ in the eyes of God if He indeed did use ‘evolution’ in the beginning.
Why? Simply put, because if God used ‘evolution’ for creating, then death (and its friends) would have to come into existence through the evolutionary process as well. In other words, if God indeed did use evolution to create, then God is responsible for ‘death’. See, this is a heretical claim, because we all fully well understand that it was through sin that death entered the world. So how can one, especially a trained theologian, make the claim (that God could have used evolution)?
Now, a few ingenious theologians could object to this line of reasoning and make the same statement I made earlier with a minor caveat. i.e.: God could have used evolution first, but later, only through Adam and Eve’s sin, spiritual death occurred. In other words, physical death was never the point of scripture. This argument tends to ignore the fact that if evolution is true, then since the beginning of origin of the first living life-form, organisms would have been dying physically, either by natural causes, or becoming prey to other creatures, they would have been carriers of various sicknesses, they would have deformities and abnormalities, they must, in some sense, suffer in the struggle for life. All this would have been happening long before humankind appeared, and by direct corollary, before sin entered. This juxtaposition does not bode well, either theologically or logically. When thought through, no relevant explanation can be found for what God meant by ‘good’ if the concepts of ‘death’, ‘sickness’, ‘suffering’ and ‘deformity’ were introduced into the world by the Creator from the beginning.
Also, one needs to understand that the changes cited as evidence for biological evolution, like variation of beak size in "Darwin's finches," are almost always the result of a loss of functional genetic information (or entropy) caused mostly by a mutative process (mutations), which in stark contrast to every Marvel themed comic book/movie ever made, is detrimental (i.e: net-net, not beneficial) to organisms over a protracted period of time. This is a recorded scientific fact. That a good God would call such a degenerative process as ‘good’, is contrary to all that is revealed about Him and His nature.
(4) Another veiled attempt at marrying evolution with Genesis, began with Pope Pius XII, who (again perhaps as a result of the Galileo syndrome) allowed for a bit of ‘tinkering’ and ‘creative interpretation’ in his encyclical Humani Generis, which while deriding false science all throughout, suddenly allowed for an ambiguous and a rather novel interpretation of the creation of Adam and Eve in paragraph 36, such has never been interpreted or produced in previous writings of councils and Church fathers (in my humble opinion). Please note the specific passage from Humani Generis:
“…with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.”
(Paragraph 36, Encyclical Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII)
I am not sure what prompted Pope Pius XII to permit discussion of the possible evolution of the human body in a document that had all but pinned the naturalists to the ground by teaching, among other things, that all of Genesis is true history and that the Bible is inerrant in all that it teaches, whether in regard to faith, morals, history, natural science or anything else. As I trust you will agree, Your Excellency, there was no Apostolic or Conciliar precedent for such an arbitrary pronouncement that only the soul was created by God (and not the body). In fact, the Popes, Councils and Saints had taught the exact opposite (see annexure below). Regardless of the reason, Pope Pius XII's "permission" to discuss the hypothesis of human evolution ought not to be construed as permission to believe or teach it as "fact," or even as a probability, as is being done in most Catholic schools and universities throughout the world today. As regrettable as Pope Pius XII's permission to discuss the evolutionary hypothesis was, it leaves the very heavy burden of proof where it has always been-on those who challenge the literal historical truth of the sacred history of Genesis, NOT on those who defend it.
Scientifically speaking, let’s examine the problems for such a claim:
(1) The fundamental problem with such a claim (‘God could have used evolution’), is that it will eventually bring one to the question: How can one ‘scientifically’ prove that God used evolution to create, in contradiction to His Word revealed in the Bible, as understood in His Church from the beginning? The short answer is: You cannot.
A general understanding of the definition of science is as follows:
“Science: the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.”
There is absolutely and resolutely no evidence whatsoever, that if evolution (in context with cosmic evolution, Origin of life, and Biological Macro evolution), were even true (to begin with), that God was the cause of it. In fact, most scientists and naturalists today will argue that the very opposite proposition is true: that those who ascribe or agree with evolution cannot logically believe in a Creator or God, as the mechanism of evolution is primarily driven by natural forces – and they are quite correct. For those who have entered this arena (or war zone) late and who delve deeper into this subject, they will sooner or later realize that science is now ‘owned’ by the rationalists and naturalists. It has been hijacked and is now moderated and regulated by men in white coats. Gone are the days when the Church had science under its belt. Science, if one studies the definition I put up above, is the study of the natural world. As you can see, the owners of science, have reduced the definition of science purely to the ‘natural’ world. Why? Because they do not want ‘a divine foot in the door’, as a now departed naturalist had succinctly argued (see the below complete excerpt)
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Article titled 'Billions and Billions of Demons' ― Richard C. Lewontin
(emphasis mine)
No supernatural explanations are allowed or tolerated in the scientific arena today. I mean this quite literally. Scientists who have suddenly had a spiritual or divine experience, involving them changing their lives radically, who have begun believing in, and who dare to promote the God of the Bible as a creative entity rather than the natural forces that conjure evolution, are thrown out, ostracized, alienated, defunded, ridiculed, slandered, maligned, and labeled as ‘creationists’ (implying that they are academic pariahs in the scientific community).
Speaking from a neutral perspective, how does one test or demonstrate such a claim that a God used evolution? Simply put - no one can. There is no method where such a claim can be tested, let alone observed. Therefore, God using evolution becomes a ‘faith’ position and not a scientific one.
(2) Naturalists regard the ‘Origin of Life’ as a distinct subject by itself, separate from ‘evolution’. The understanding is that life got started ‘somehow’ (which if one were to scour the internet for the good part of their life on this subject in an unbiased manner, they will come to the realization that this is true – Literally No one understands how life got started). There are ‘theories’ and ‘hypotheses’, mind you, ranging from plausible sounding experiments like the 1952 ‘Miller-Urey’ experiment that usually gets shoved down the throats of students in schools all the time, to the more ludicrous: that life originated thanks to seeds sprinkled in the universe by aliens (a ‘dream’ that the great Francis Crick had, better known as ‘Panspermia’). These are all alternatives proposed purely as natural explanations, because as mentioned above, they do not want a ‘divine foot in the door’ no matter how implausible and unscientific the ‘theories’ they propose eventually are.
So the notion is that life got started ‘somehow’ and then evolution took over from the simplistic form of life that then existed, flourishing into all the diverse life-forms in flora & fauna that we see today. The problem is that, even if one separates the Origin of Life and the subject of evolution, there are no ‘mechanisms’ that will allow organisms to make evolutionary jumps or transitions. Evolutionist will appeal to mechanisms such as ‘natural selection’, ‘mutations’, or invisible and non-existent processes such as ‘punctuated equilibrium’ as the primary mechanisms for such transitions & jumps. However, this can only be demonstrated and scientifically observed for point # 4 as mentioned in section 1 and not for points 1, 2 & 3 mentioned in the same section. Evolutionists will also appeal to lots of ‘time’ (in terms of indefinite & protracted periods which get sprinkled around today in pop literature and media like fairy-tale magic words: “billioooons and milliooooons of years ago”) and to no avail. Because ultimately, the more one appeals to more time to defend evolution, the more speculative and unobservable the process becomes – reducing it to, well, pseudo-science. Moreover, in reality, time is the enemy, not the friend, of the imaginary evolutionary process, because the trend in the biosphere is one of genetic entropy, or gradual loss of genetic information over time, just as the trend in the material universe is from order to disorder, in keeping with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
No matter how strong a person's emotional commitment to a belief in molecules-to-man evolution may be, the reality is that, in the words of Nobel Prize winning biochemist Sir Ernst Chain, evolution is,
...an hypothesis without evidence and against the facts
(Ernst Chain - Social Responsibility and the Scientist)
And one, that rests entirely on a dogmatic commitment to naturalism, on the part of people who want to provide a naturalistic explanation for everything so as to avoid having to face the reality of a Creator to Whom His creatures are morally accountable.
Now having said the above, why on earth would Catholic theologians and academics want to have anything to do with this hocus-pocus called ‘evolution’? In fact, if anything, they ought to be fighting tooth and nail against it. So why is the Catholic Church quiet on this issue, not only being bystanders and spectators, but having consecutive Popes since John Paul II, speaking favourably for evolution,
"Today, ...some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis.
(Message To The Pontifical Academy Of Sciences: On Evolution, Message delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 22 October 1996, Pope John Paul II)
and have had the Churches own historical teaching on Genesis (especially from chapters 1 to 11) arbitrarily and strangely reduced and termed as ‘allegorical’ or ‘not literal’ since the 1900s? Today, it isn’t unusual to find such ‘indoctrination’ on Genesis Chapters 1 to 11, in trainings, catechesis, seminars, and even ‘Bible Colleges’ of the Catholic Church to begin their educative discourse by qualifying and making disclaimers right at the very outset that: “Genesis Chapters 1 to 11 is not to be taken literally”, with some of the presentations and discourses containing further disclaimers that: “God could have used evolution”.
It is my own view, that human respect and the Galileo syndrome have paralyzed the evolution-believing leaders of the Church to such a degree, that the faithful must beg the Queen of the Angels to send her angels to carry our leaders of the Church to the roof where Jesus is, break some tiles, and lower the paralyzed down into the presence of Jesus so that He can free them from their paralysis. I only hope that when the Lord Jesus frees the shepherds of the Church from their paralysis, He will grant them the grace of true repentance, and does not cast them into the outer darkness for failing to preserve and teach the faith as it was handed down from the Apostles, as ought to have been the case.
Sincerely
A Concerned Catholic
Annexure: References of Popes, Councils and Saints who held that both the body and soul/spirit was created by God:
1)"(God is the) creator of all things invisible and visible, spiritual and corporeal; who by his almighty power at the beginning of time created from nothing both spiritual and corporeal creatures, that is to say angelic and earthly, and then created human beings composed as it were of both spirit and body in common." (Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 – Constitutions – Confession of Faith)
2) "For the body of Adam was made out of the four elements, and that of Eve out of the side of Adam." (St. Ignatius of Antioch CA 35-108, Chapter 4, Epistle to Hero, a Deacon of Antioch)
3) "We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep." (Arcanum: Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Christian Marriage, 1880, paragraph 5)
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