There is something delightfully whimsical about a PhD toting, mac-and-cheese making Catholic mom who zooms off on a road trip (in her Mustang) with her gal pal to a conference of atheists!
Intelligent Dasein, hello. I am not at all sure what you are talking about. The Great Catholic Tradition as understood (for example) by St Cardinal Newman and our Scholar Pope Benedict XVI certainly propose evolution as quite real and not at all in contradiction with authentic Catholic Faith. World renowned Cambridge Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology, Simon Conway Morris agrees as well. Since biological evolution, as defined by well informed biologists, has actually been observed and documented in real time, your assertions are simply incorrect. By definition evolution takes place when brand new species emerge from known prior existing “parent species.” We are enabled to ascertain the validity of the newly established species if members of that species can successfully produce new viable members that can reproduce other new members of that species but don’t do so with any other members of a different species, especially the prior parental species. Again that has been observed and has been properly recorded, and recognized as valid. Furthermore, the known examples of speciation in nature, independent of human interference, helps us to understand how evolution of new species has occurred in the recent and distant past. Furthermore, please help me understand what you mean by the terms “matter”, form, soul and causality? Thank you sincerely, ☦️🛐🙏🛐☦️
Stanley Jaki is, of course, entirely wrong about everything, and the whole manner in which Thomism has been misunderstood by him and others like him is but one of the many symptoms of modernism infecting the contemporary Church. When properly understood, there is absolutely no account of St. Thomas with which evolution by natural selection is at all compatible, not even the theistically guided and providential evolution of which Jaki was so fond. The problem lies in the nature of living organisms themselves and it is very much a scientific problem, but also incidentally a theological problem.
The fundamental issue is the composite nature of organisms. A living being is a composition of matter and substantial form, with the form being, by definition, immaterial. It is the form which determines the matter to belong to a particular species. That which occurs to or otherwise affects a living organism in the world is accidental to it, including whatever causes its death. It is not possible for these accidental changes, acting through the medium of matter, to somehow get inside of and transform the immaterial soul, as that would be matter determining form rather than form determining matter. From such arguments it is clear that processes like allopatric speciation could not have occurred. Furthermore, the soul itself, being simple, unitary, and monadic, is not capable of any division or alteration whatsoever, since it is not composed of matter and does not contain parts.
Evolution is therefore impossible, not because organisms are irreducibly complex, but because they are irreducibly simple. The essence of any organism is a monadic soul that can only be created, generated, or annihilated, but never changed.
To argue the point from a different perspective, we can say that it is not possible for mechanical alterations in the arrangement of matter to produce a living organism. Organisms are not artifacts; they cannot be generated by “building” them. A machine, no matter how complicated it is, is always merely the orchestration of incidents; it is the arranging of dominoes so that they fall in a predictable pattern. Clearly, such an arrangement of dominoes can never be living, and this is the essential difference between living organisms and machines.
“Art is beloved of chance, and chance of art,” Aristotle quotes in the Nicomachean Ethics. Both chance and art operate in the same medium and produce the same things. Anything that art can do, chance can do and vice versa; therefore, even the most complicated machine designed by human beings might theoretically be produced of nature by pure chance; but a living being, never. Living beings cannot be produced in nature either by art or by chance, so Intelligent Design fails for the same reason that evolution fails. It does not matter if your machine was designed by the act of a rational agent or whether it fell together by chance over billions of years. In either case, it is still just a machine, and Intelligent Design has just as materialistic an outlook as evolution (Unintelligent Design) does.
Since living organisms cannot be assembled or essentially changed by accidental alterations to matter, that means that they can only be created (in the case of rational souls) or generated (in the case of the irrational souls of plants and animals). There is no possibility of evolution occurring in this scheme, except on a uselessly capacious reading of “evolution,” and there is no reason whatsoever to throw a bone to the scientific establishment on this point.
ID, I read your post several times, so don't take my short response to mean otherwise. I will try to reply more later. For now...I am familiar with this view, but it is not a view binding on Catholics. It seems to me that this view goes too far into Aristotelian pantheism. If nature is the form-giver, then you are correct. Genetic mutation and natural selection are accidents and not inherent in the living being. Aquinas parted ways with Aristotle here (shortly after his Five Ways) and named God as the Creator, the Form-Giver (my word). So, it is possible that the matter was being disposed for the forms of the diversity of life all along.
1. Regarding "the Creator," we should not forget that it was St. Thomas himself who was quite emphatic that the doctrine of the creation of the world in time, i.e. the question of whether the world had a beginning, is not answerable by the natural reason. It is only by faith that we hold to the creation of the world in time, as opposed to the other view that states that the world, while indeed deriving its being from the uncreated Godhead, always existed in a state of enduring and permanent creation. Since we have it set down de fide on the authority of St. Thomas that these two states of affairs are indistinguishable by the natural reason, it means that the universe created in time must look exactly like a universe that always existed. This conclusion has corollaries that have never been taken anything like as seriously as they ought to have been, chief among them being that the created universe evinces a condition of epistemological infinity. In order to appear not to have had a discernable beginning in time, the universe must appear to be infinite in duration, infinite in spatial extent, and infinite in divisibility (the latter also being a consequence of the fact that there can be no extended matter without parts and therefore no elementary particles). Indeed, the universe does appear exactly this way, as long as one is not hobbled by a too-prejudicial attachment to the errors of Enlightenment science. Epistemologically, which is the only domain with which natural science should be concerned, the universe is unbeginning and unending.
2. Popular notions attached to biomolecular genetics such as "genetic information" and "the blueprint of life" have confused many and are not supportable on a hylomorphic reading. We need to remember here that the immateriality of the substantial form (the soul) is absolute: there is no matter whatsoever in the form, and whatever is in the composite that is not the form, is material. Well, nucleic acids are material; therefore, they are not the form. They are simply part of "the body," and just as material as an arm or an eyeball is. They do not get to cheat and occupy some fuzzy middle ground between matter and form just because they are microscopic and invisible to the senses, and we can project all sorts of fantastic notions upon them. DNA is simply an organ of bodily life; it is a template for building proteins, to be sure, and it likely has other functions as well that we have not discovered, but "information" is not one of them. Information, HA! - the very word is a solecism. It is only the immaterial form that "informs" the body; the material DNA cannot inform anything. It, like the rest of the body, is itself informed by the soul. The very concept of information as abstract, intellectually meaningful content existing in a physical substrate is erroneous, and this is what truly harkens back to the Gnostic and Neoplatonic pantheism of old.
On a hylomorphic view, DNA or anything else like it can only be material and bodily, and modifications to the body cannot affect the essence of the informing principle, the soul. This is unarguable, and this is the reason why Thomism precludes evolution.
1. No, that does not follow that the universe created in time must look exactly like a universe that always existed. Aquinas said, “The articles of faith cannot be proved demonstratively, because faith is of things that appear not" (ST.I.46.2). Whether or not the universe has a beginning is not tied to how it appears either way.
2. Right. Form precedes matter. Matter is disposed to the form. Again, Aquinas: "God can move matter immediately to form; because whatever is in passive potentiality can be reduced to act by the active power which extends over that potentiality. Therefore, since the Divine power extends over matter, as produced by God, it can be reduced to act by the Divine power: and this is what is meant by matter being moved to a form; for a form is nothing else but the act of matter" (ST.I.105.1). The question you raised has to do with whether God creates more forms than we know about. You seem to think God cannot.
I’ll be seeing him in Newark, NJ! I’m currently reading his book The Greatest Show on Earth (it’s critical of Creationism, but not really religion in general) and really enjoying it. I have no love for Dawkins’ philosophical and anti-religious views (though I am agnostic), but his work on biology is excellent.
I also used to be involved in all those Facebook religion debates and always thought of Dawkins as the “leader” of the New Atheists, so it would be cool to see him before he retires to the UK!
Awesome! It was really good to see him have the stage for almost two hours and review his life's work. He seemed to want to focus mostly on his work as a biologist and didn't really say much about atheism until the audience questions asked him about it. I agree with you that his work in biology was excellent. It's not a popular opinion among Christians, but if you just listen to what he's saying about the diversity and wonder of life, there is actually much we agree on. I kept thinking how Aristotelian his views are. (Plan to write it up.) We would part ways when it comes to the cause behind all of that, but ... obviously. Let me know what you think after you go!
Thank you for this great article, a lovely story. I have benefited from your “Particles of Faith” and as a Catholic middle school teacher gave a copy of it (student version) this year to one of the brightest students in the graduating 8th grade class. We weren’t able to get too deeply into such topics (mainly evolution) in my highly differentiated Religion classroom but perhaps the student will read it or at least keep it handy on the bookshelf through high school.
Parents and teachers contend not only with natural youthful rebellion and intellectual curiosities, but with a swirling mix of pride, hopelessness, and tribalism exacerbated by the internet and social media. Young people face a constant barrrage of nihilistic and atheistic content.
Simultaneously — the last four years have revealed this to many — we start to see the fruits of a blind trust in The Science and in The Technology that brings us an illusion of safety, fulfillment, and physical health and satisfaction…maybe even deliverance. One might call it the science delusion.
Creature comfort, convenience, entitlements, totalitarian safety regimes, tribalism, dehumanization of the other — these things are borne of a fundamental hopelessness that — although many nominal Christians will have lapsed into it — lies at the very heart of atheistic scientism.
But we are living for the next world. “Always be ready to give an explanation for the hope that is within you, but do it with gentleness and respect.” (1Pet3:15)
Thank you, Tom, for telling me that about the book and for wishing me the best in my next endeavor. Makes me soooo happy. I am with you on concern for the youth of today. They have it too easy and too hard both. I appreciate you leaving the comment.
I'm not sure if anyone has collected that data, but if you know of a source, that would be great. My intuition is that people of faith are in greater numbers than atheists.
There is something delightfully whimsical about a PhD toting, mac-and-cheese making Catholic mom who zooms off on a road trip (in her Mustang) with her gal pal to a conference of atheists!
That made me laugh! Thank you for saying it so eloquently.
Intelligent Dasein, hello. I am not at all sure what you are talking about. The Great Catholic Tradition as understood (for example) by St Cardinal Newman and our Scholar Pope Benedict XVI certainly propose evolution as quite real and not at all in contradiction with authentic Catholic Faith. World renowned Cambridge Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology, Simon Conway Morris agrees as well. Since biological evolution, as defined by well informed biologists, has actually been observed and documented in real time, your assertions are simply incorrect. By definition evolution takes place when brand new species emerge from known prior existing “parent species.” We are enabled to ascertain the validity of the newly established species if members of that species can successfully produce new viable members that can reproduce other new members of that species but don’t do so with any other members of a different species, especially the prior parental species. Again that has been observed and has been properly recorded, and recognized as valid. Furthermore, the known examples of speciation in nature, independent of human interference, helps us to understand how evolution of new species has occurred in the recent and distant past. Furthermore, please help me understand what you mean by the terms “matter”, form, soul and causality? Thank you sincerely, ☦️🛐🙏🛐☦️
Stanley Jaki is, of course, entirely wrong about everything, and the whole manner in which Thomism has been misunderstood by him and others like him is but one of the many symptoms of modernism infecting the contemporary Church. When properly understood, there is absolutely no account of St. Thomas with which evolution by natural selection is at all compatible, not even the theistically guided and providential evolution of which Jaki was so fond. The problem lies in the nature of living organisms themselves and it is very much a scientific problem, but also incidentally a theological problem.
The fundamental issue is the composite nature of organisms. A living being is a composition of matter and substantial form, with the form being, by definition, immaterial. It is the form which determines the matter to belong to a particular species. That which occurs to or otherwise affects a living organism in the world is accidental to it, including whatever causes its death. It is not possible for these accidental changes, acting through the medium of matter, to somehow get inside of and transform the immaterial soul, as that would be matter determining form rather than form determining matter. From such arguments it is clear that processes like allopatric speciation could not have occurred. Furthermore, the soul itself, being simple, unitary, and monadic, is not capable of any division or alteration whatsoever, since it is not composed of matter and does not contain parts.
Evolution is therefore impossible, not because organisms are irreducibly complex, but because they are irreducibly simple. The essence of any organism is a monadic soul that can only be created, generated, or annihilated, but never changed.
To argue the point from a different perspective, we can say that it is not possible for mechanical alterations in the arrangement of matter to produce a living organism. Organisms are not artifacts; they cannot be generated by “building” them. A machine, no matter how complicated it is, is always merely the orchestration of incidents; it is the arranging of dominoes so that they fall in a predictable pattern. Clearly, such an arrangement of dominoes can never be living, and this is the essential difference between living organisms and machines.
“Art is beloved of chance, and chance of art,” Aristotle quotes in the Nicomachean Ethics. Both chance and art operate in the same medium and produce the same things. Anything that art can do, chance can do and vice versa; therefore, even the most complicated machine designed by human beings might theoretically be produced of nature by pure chance; but a living being, never. Living beings cannot be produced in nature either by art or by chance, so Intelligent Design fails for the same reason that evolution fails. It does not matter if your machine was designed by the act of a rational agent or whether it fell together by chance over billions of years. In either case, it is still just a machine, and Intelligent Design has just as materialistic an outlook as evolution (Unintelligent Design) does.
Since living organisms cannot be assembled or essentially changed by accidental alterations to matter, that means that they can only be created (in the case of rational souls) or generated (in the case of the irrational souls of plants and animals). There is no possibility of evolution occurring in this scheme, except on a uselessly capacious reading of “evolution,” and there is no reason whatsoever to throw a bone to the scientific establishment on this point.
ID, I read your post several times, so don't take my short response to mean otherwise. I will try to reply more later. For now...I am familiar with this view, but it is not a view binding on Catholics. It seems to me that this view goes too far into Aristotelian pantheism. If nature is the form-giver, then you are correct. Genetic mutation and natural selection are accidents and not inherent in the living being. Aquinas parted ways with Aristotle here (shortly after his Five Ways) and named God as the Creator, the Form-Giver (my word). So, it is possible that the matter was being disposed for the forms of the diversity of life all along.
Well, a couple of things with this.
1. Regarding "the Creator," we should not forget that it was St. Thomas himself who was quite emphatic that the doctrine of the creation of the world in time, i.e. the question of whether the world had a beginning, is not answerable by the natural reason. It is only by faith that we hold to the creation of the world in time, as opposed to the other view that states that the world, while indeed deriving its being from the uncreated Godhead, always existed in a state of enduring and permanent creation. Since we have it set down de fide on the authority of St. Thomas that these two states of affairs are indistinguishable by the natural reason, it means that the universe created in time must look exactly like a universe that always existed. This conclusion has corollaries that have never been taken anything like as seriously as they ought to have been, chief among them being that the created universe evinces a condition of epistemological infinity. In order to appear not to have had a discernable beginning in time, the universe must appear to be infinite in duration, infinite in spatial extent, and infinite in divisibility (the latter also being a consequence of the fact that there can be no extended matter without parts and therefore no elementary particles). Indeed, the universe does appear exactly this way, as long as one is not hobbled by a too-prejudicial attachment to the errors of Enlightenment science. Epistemologically, which is the only domain with which natural science should be concerned, the universe is unbeginning and unending.
2. Popular notions attached to biomolecular genetics such as "genetic information" and "the blueprint of life" have confused many and are not supportable on a hylomorphic reading. We need to remember here that the immateriality of the substantial form (the soul) is absolute: there is no matter whatsoever in the form, and whatever is in the composite that is not the form, is material. Well, nucleic acids are material; therefore, they are not the form. They are simply part of "the body," and just as material as an arm or an eyeball is. They do not get to cheat and occupy some fuzzy middle ground between matter and form just because they are microscopic and invisible to the senses, and we can project all sorts of fantastic notions upon them. DNA is simply an organ of bodily life; it is a template for building proteins, to be sure, and it likely has other functions as well that we have not discovered, but "information" is not one of them. Information, HA! - the very word is a solecism. It is only the immaterial form that "informs" the body; the material DNA cannot inform anything. It, like the rest of the body, is itself informed by the soul. The very concept of information as abstract, intellectually meaningful content existing in a physical substrate is erroneous, and this is what truly harkens back to the Gnostic and Neoplatonic pantheism of old.
On a hylomorphic view, DNA or anything else like it can only be material and bodily, and modifications to the body cannot affect the essence of the informing principle, the soul. This is unarguable, and this is the reason why Thomism precludes evolution.
1. No, that does not follow that the universe created in time must look exactly like a universe that always existed. Aquinas said, “The articles of faith cannot be proved demonstratively, because faith is of things that appear not" (ST.I.46.2). Whether or not the universe has a beginning is not tied to how it appears either way.
2. Right. Form precedes matter. Matter is disposed to the form. Again, Aquinas: "God can move matter immediately to form; because whatever is in passive potentiality can be reduced to act by the active power which extends over that potentiality. Therefore, since the Divine power extends over matter, as produced by God, it can be reduced to act by the Divine power: and this is what is meant by matter being moved to a form; for a form is nothing else but the act of matter" (ST.I.105.1). The question you raised has to do with whether God creates more forms than we know about. You seem to think God cannot.
Outside of animal biology, Dawkins is good for a laugh. His pretensions on materialist reductionism become absurd the further you read.
I’ll be seeing him in Newark, NJ! I’m currently reading his book The Greatest Show on Earth (it’s critical of Creationism, but not really religion in general) and really enjoying it. I have no love for Dawkins’ philosophical and anti-religious views (though I am agnostic), but his work on biology is excellent.
I also used to be involved in all those Facebook religion debates and always thought of Dawkins as the “leader” of the New Atheists, so it would be cool to see him before he retires to the UK!
Awesome! It was really good to see him have the stage for almost two hours and review his life's work. He seemed to want to focus mostly on his work as a biologist and didn't really say much about atheism until the audience questions asked him about it. I agree with you that his work in biology was excellent. It's not a popular opinion among Christians, but if you just listen to what he's saying about the diversity and wonder of life, there is actually much we agree on. I kept thinking how Aristotelian his views are. (Plan to write it up.) We would part ways when it comes to the cause behind all of that, but ... obviously. Let me know what you think after you go!
Thank you for this great article, a lovely story. I have benefited from your “Particles of Faith” and as a Catholic middle school teacher gave a copy of it (student version) this year to one of the brightest students in the graduating 8th grade class. We weren’t able to get too deeply into such topics (mainly evolution) in my highly differentiated Religion classroom but perhaps the student will read it or at least keep it handy on the bookshelf through high school.
Parents and teachers contend not only with natural youthful rebellion and intellectual curiosities, but with a swirling mix of pride, hopelessness, and tribalism exacerbated by the internet and social media. Young people face a constant barrrage of nihilistic and atheistic content.
Simultaneously — the last four years have revealed this to many — we start to see the fruits of a blind trust in The Science and in The Technology that brings us an illusion of safety, fulfillment, and physical health and satisfaction…maybe even deliverance. One might call it the science delusion.
Creature comfort, convenience, entitlements, totalitarian safety regimes, tribalism, dehumanization of the other — these things are borne of a fundamental hopelessness that — although many nominal Christians will have lapsed into it — lies at the very heart of atheistic scientism.
But we are living for the next world. “Always be ready to give an explanation for the hope that is within you, but do it with gentleness and respect.” (1Pet3:15)
Thank you again! Best wishes in your PHD studies.
Thank you, Tom, for telling me that about the book and for wishing me the best in my next endeavor. Makes me soooo happy. I am with you on concern for the youth of today. They have it too easy and too hard both. I appreciate you leaving the comment.
What percentage of "scientists" (from every discipline) are atheists?
I'm not sure if anyone has collected that data, but if you know of a source, that would be great. My intuition is that people of faith are in greater numbers than atheists.