Cardinal Dulles on God, Schönborn, evolution: "
From an article, 'God and Evolution,' from the October 2007 issue of First Things (ht: Egberto, for sending me the link), written by Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (author of numerous books, including A History of Apologetics):
The pope was interpreted in some circles as
having accepted the neo-Darwinian view that evolution is sufficiently
explained by random mutations and natural selection (or ‘survival of
the fittest’) without any kind of governing purpose or finality.
Seeking to offset this misreading, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the
archbishop of Vienna, published on July 7, 2005, an op-ed in the New York Times,
in which he quoted a series of pronouncements of John Paul II to the
contrary. For example, the pope declared at a General Audience of July
19, 1985: ‘The evolution of human beings, of which science seeks to
determine the stages and discern the mechanism, presents an internal
finality which arouses admiration. This finality, which directs beings
in a direction for which they are not responsible, obliges one to
suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator.’ In this connection,
the pope said that to ascribe human evolution to sheer chance would be
an abdication of human intelligence.Cardinal Schönborn was also able to cite Pope
Benedict XVI, who stated in his inauguration Mass as pope on April 24,
2005: ‘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.’Cardinal Schönborn’s article was interpreted
by many readers as a rejection of evolution. Some letters to the editor
accused him of favoring a retrograde form of creationism and of
contradicting John Paul II. They seemed unable to grasp the fact that
he was speaking the language of classical philosophy and was not opting
for any particular scientific position. His critique was directed
against those neo-Darwinists who pronounced on philosophical and
theological questions by the methods of natural science.Several authorities on these questions, such
as Kenneth R. Miller and Stephen M. Barr, in their replies to
Schönborn, insisted that one could be a neo-Darwinist in science and an
orthodox Christian believer. Distinguishing different levels of
knowledge, they contended that what is random from a scientific point
of view is included in God’s eternal plan. God, so to speak, rolls the
dice but is able by his comprehensive knowledge to foresee the result
from all eternity.This combination of Darwinism in science and
theism in theology may be sustainable, but it is not the position
Schönborn intended to attack. As he made clear in a subsequent article
in FIRST THINGS (January 2006), he was taking exception only to those
neo-Darwinists—and they are many—who maintain that no valid
investigation of nature could be conducted except in the reductive mode
of mechanism, which seeks to explain everything in terms of quantity,
matter, and motion, excluding specific differences and purpose in
nature. He quoted one such neo-Darwinist as stating: ‘Modern science
directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance
with deterministic principles or chance. There are no purposive
principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing
forces rationally detectable.’Cardinal Schönborn shrewdly observes that
positivistic scientists begin by methodically excluding formal and
final causes. Having then described natural processes in terms of
merely efficient and material causality, they turn around and reject
every other kind of explanation. They simply disallow the questions
about why anything (including human life) exists, how we differ in
nature from irrational animals, and how we ought to conduct our lives.
Read the entire piece. Cardinal Schönborn's book,
Chance of Purpose: Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith, will soon be available from Ignatius Press. I've not yet seen it, but am looking forward to reading it. On a related note, see Cardinal Schönborn's article, 'Reasonable Science, Reasonable Faith' (First Things, April 2007); other articles on faith, science, and evolution can be found on the Intelligent Project website. And some Ignatius Insight interviews/articles of note:
"• The Mythological Conflict Between Christianity and Science | An interview with physicist Dr. Stephen Barr
• The Mystery of Human Origins | Mark Brumley
• Designed Beauty and Evolutionary Theory | Thomas Dubay, S.M.
• The Universe is Meaning-full : An interview with Dr. Benjamin Wiker
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