Review: THOMISTIC EVOLUTION

THOMISTIC EVOLUTION
A CATHOLIC APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING
EVOLUTION IN THE LIGHT OF FAITH

Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P.
James Brent, O.P.
Thomas Davenport, O.P.
John Baptist Ku, O.P.

This collection of 30 short essays by Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph guide reflection on the topic of  the biological phenomenon known as evolution  in the light the Christian concept of creation.  Unlike the claims of atheists and fundamentalists the thesis of this treatment is that there is no contradiction between evolution and the Judaeo-Christian concept of creation.  The writings frequently reference how Thomas Aquinas foreshadowed the understanding the underlies evolution as he struggled with the issues of good and evil he saw in the natural world. 

While accepting the idea of evolution completely the authors are fully invested in debunking "Intelligent Design".  The authors take exception to biological assertions of the "Intelligent Design" argument that there are irreducible complex components in biological systems AND the develop the idea that God would not need to "shortcut" his way to the present (or future) day.  New to me was the assertion that God is allowing his creatures to create. 

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Quotes of Interest:

  "...at face value, faith and reason can appear to be opposed to each other. Thus, human beings had to actually learn how these two ways of contemplating truth could work together.  The integration of the two does not happen by nature but by nurture."
                                                                                                                                   pg 2
  "A (second) reason faith and reason are widely perceived to be in conflict today is sin... Sin tears apart things that would otherwise go together peacefully in our lives..."
                                                                                                                                   pg 4
  "A third reason (faith and reason are widely perceived to be in conflict) is historical...The sixteenth century was a time that placed an unusual number of perplexing social and intellectual challenges before the Church.  The invention of the printing press, the Protestant reformation, the discovery of "the New World", the rise of modern science, the growing awareness of the great diversity of world religions and the development of new philosophies"
                                                                                                                                   pg 5
  "A fourth reason is found in our contemporary culture.  Our contemporary culture has an extremely impoverished understanding of what faith is and of what reason is.  On one hand faith is equated to religion.  It is commonly thought to be nothing but feelings on certain matters....At other times, faith is understood to be a set of private convictions based on evidence.  A person's faith can not be said to be true or false....
     Reason, on the other hand, is equated with science.  It is understood to be thinking based on experiment, critical analysis, and evidence. The results of science, it is widely thought, are verified facts and widely accepted truths. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 6
  
  "This choice is often called rationalism or scientism.  Its motto could be "Forget Faith.  Reason alone is the guide to life....
   ...(an) alternative is often called religious fundamentalism.  Its motto could be "Don't think.  Just believe."
                                                                                                                                   pg 7 
  "In sum it takes time, teaching and effort to learn how to integrate faith and reason.  Our sins and our weaknesses make it difficult to learn to fly with both wings of the human spirit.  
...Our contemporary culture does not teach people how to fly with both wings, and it is populated by vocal minorities who confuse people about even the possibility of synthesizing faith and reason.  Is it any surprise that for nearly all people today it seems that faith and reason are opposed to each other?"
                                                                                                                                    pg 8

"We want to illustrate our claim that one does not have to choose between two stories of the world, the world according to the Bible and the world according to science.  Rather there is one world.  It is God's World.  And it is a good world.  Created in love and wisdom, fallen and redeemed, God and the world are knowable by faith and reason together."
                                                                                                                                   pg 9 

  "Many are convinced that there is no universal, true, rational, accessible, verifiable answer to what life is all about.  The reduction of reason to science has left multitudes of people without a moral or spiritual compass.  Their lies become subjective journeys where they alone determine where they are going. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 14
  "Science is a good way to know facts, but science is only one way of knowing among many. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 15
  "Birds, we observe, learn to fly gradually and by practice.  So too, human beings learn how to fly with faith and reason gradually and by practice."
                                                                                                                                   pg 28
  "Whatever happens in the world, whether radioactive decay, biological mutation, a decision to sin, or a decision to praise Him, does not catch God by surprise."
                                                                                                                                   pg 96 
   "It can be a surprising and happy discovery to find that we, as a society, are not so isolated and alone in our struggles, and that many of these difficulties are but appearances of age old questions."
                                                                                                                                   pg 96 
  "God's goodness ultimately triumphs over any particular evil, whether physical or moral, that we face....Many of these, like the evil of extinction may be understood when considered from proper perspective.  Ultimately though, the Church's final answer to these problems, whether understandable or incomprehensible, is that Christ has won the victory over sin and death and that God wills to invites His whole creation to participate in that victory."

                                                                                                                                   pg 108 

  "Thomas (Aquinas) clarifies, all the senses of scripture must be based on the literal sense, and all theological arguments can only be drawn from the literal sense.  Aquinas identitifes four possible divisions of literal sense as: the historical, the etiological, the analogical and the parabolical (also known as metaphorical)"
  "In the historical sense, something is simply reported as having happened...."
  "The etiological sense 'assigns the cause said' in the Bible such as when Jesus gave the reason why Moses allowed wives to be divorced..."
  "In the analogical sense, "the truth of the one Scripture is shown not to contradict the truth of another..."
  "The parabolical sense refers to the authors use of symbols.  That is the literal sense includes the symbolic and metaphorical usage of words...."

                                                                                                                                  pg 123-5 

  "Conflicting assertions between the first and second creation stories in Genesis with respect to the order of events manifests that the literal sense of those details cannot be scientific reportage-if the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God."
                                                                                                                                  pg 137 

  "Augustine presciently adds that we only damage Scriptures credibility-especially in the minds of unbelievers who are educated in science-if we draw wrong conclusions about science from the Bible"

                                                                                                                                  pg 146 

  "Since divine revelation and scientific discovery are both gifts that come from God and that can guide us back to God, they can not contradict each other."
                                                                                                                                   pg 168 
  "...the theory of evolution is justified by a web of evidence that together support the claim that all lif on our planet has evolved from a common ancestor."
                                                                                                                                   pg 175 
  "The theory of evolution is the best explanation we have for the characteristics and the timing of the fossils found in the rocks of our planet."
                                                                                                                                  pg 177
  "God not only causes, but also creates creatures who are in themselves true causes."
                                                                                                                                  pg 191 

  "I [Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austrico, O.P. is a priest scientist that supervises NIH funded research investigating molecular regulation of cell death] propose that it was fitting for God to have created via evolution rather than via special creation because in doing so, he was able to give his creation-the material universe and individual creatures within it- a share in his causality to create."

                                                                                                                                  pg 192 

  "To sum up, why did God choose to create via an evolutionary process rather than via special creation?  Because it better reveals his glory and his power.  Because it reveals better that he is God."
                                                                                                                                  pg 197 
  "'Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, published in 2004 [by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI], the commission acknowledges that the scientific evidence points to a polygenic origin for our species...This suggests that both monogenism and polygenism remain viable theological opinions for Catholic Theologians seeking to be faithful to the doctrinal tradition."
                                                                                                                                  pg 217-8 
  "...human beings by their very nature are prone to interior disarray because what we are inclined to know, what we are inclined to choose, and what we are inclined to desire often do not coincide."
                                                                                                                                  pg 223 
  "...human beings by our very nature are inherently limited in knowledge because we know things through contingent realities and we learn about them in gradual fashion"
                                                                                                                                  pg 223 

  "Finally why is this transformation from anatomically modern to behaviorally modern humans so important for our discussion of the historicity of Adam and Eve?  It is critically important because, philosophically, this transformation can be understood to be archaeological evidence for the appearance of the rational soul in human evolution.  Theologically, this transformation would be a sign of the arrival on the stage of world history of the imago Dei, the creature made in the image and likeness of God with intellect and will."

                                                                                                                                  pg 235

  

Review: PARTICLES OF FAITH

by Stacy A. Trasancos

A scientist is drawn to the Catholic faith as a result of the deepening of scientific insight? This book details the faith journey of a modern scientist involved in the latest nano technology research. Her deepening scientific insights derived during research lead her to a deeper faith. Such a story, similar to Augustine of Hippo 17 centuries ago, is happening even among scientists today. It is a story not often told in our popular modern media. This books tells the story of a scientist seeking truth being led to a deep and genuine faith. Then she adds to that story to persuade us that faith and science are culturally linked, mutually beneficial and interconnected approaches to truth that together raise the dignity and value of human life.

Any person, trained in science or untrained in science, can read this book and be brought to the realization that the often repeated mantra (in popular media) that science is in opposition to faith is patently untrue.   There are real scientists (like the author of this book) who come to see that Christian faith and science as truly complimentary pursuits of the truth.  The often assumed popular media assumption that scientists are always led away from religious faith as their expertise in science increases is debunked.

Dr. Trasancos begins with a chronicle of her personal experience.  First she moves away from the Christianity as she was raised with as she reaches young adulthood, then her abandonment of her faith by the start of her doctoral studies and then her religious awakening as a research chemist.   She comes to recognize Catholicism is fully compatible with science.  Her awe and logic reminds one of similar arguments posed by Augustine of Hippo 18 centuries earlier.  She comes to recognize that her God is pleased with the scientist's pursuit of truth.  She also shares at the end of the book how science can be wrongly used (in the absence of faith) to demean human life.Following the personal experience the book goes on to describe a variety of science principles along the way.  She reviews the basics of chemistry.  Dr. Trasancos reconciles the scientific origin of man with the Judaeo-Christian biblical account of Adam and Eve.  She addresses the always difficult issue (for some) of human evolution.  She ponders quantum mechanics and free will.  She reasons about Big Bang as proof of a God.  Finally she also addresses the controversial question of when does human life begin and how science is needs a fuller understanding to answer that question.

This is a fabulous reference with chapters that neatly segmented, details in an organized way how scientific pursuits can lead to genuine faith and how faith can deepen the understanding of our purpose and why both faith and science lead us to a fuller understanding of truth.
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Quotes of Interest:

"What I have to say i snot profound, it is rather simple.  It is a plea to fellow Catholics to return to the child like awe and wonder with an unwavering confidence in Christ and his Church when we approach the subject of modern science."
                                                                                                                                   pg 3
     Einstein wrote "in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people."
                                                                                                                                   pg 12
     "...what so much of the discourse about faith and science omits is that conducting scientific research does not instill in a person the broad knowledge traditionally associated with intellectuals.  The work is more like grunt work at times.  The intellectual aspect is brief and takes a budding scientist from broadly absorbing scientific literature in a specific area of research into narrower and narrower, exceedingly specialized scientific method cycles to hypothesize and test exceedingly specialized scientific method cycles. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 23
      "Scientism  is the belief that only knowledge obtained from scientific  research is valid, and beliefs deriving from religion should be discounted.  It is an extreme or escessive faith in science or scientists."
                                                                                                                                   pg 36
     "The idea hat faith is separated from, or subject to, reason has arisen relatively recently, due mostly to the fast advance of science and to the exaggerated rationalism of certain thinkers."
                                                                                                                                   pg 41
     "But for Christians science is a way of knowing God better through the study of his handiwork.  Our faith can light the entire discussion.  I have seen both sides, and this is may main message in this book.  We have to tell people what science is in the bigger system of reality."
                                                                                                                                   pg 42
     "We need faith and reason equally, but when it comes to science, we must view the universe through a confident lens of faith in the Creator."
                                                                                                                                   pg 43
     "A believer views creation as the handiwork of God, all of it in consistently interacting, as an act of faith."
                                                                                                                                   pg 73
 "Models are used in science to probe the unknown, and mental pictures fill in the rest of the realms we cannot see directly.  The models and mental pictures continually need to be updated with the acquisition of new data.  Models are like scaffolding that go up before walls, rooms and decor are built around them, necessary frameworks for gaining new knowledge. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 93
 "Catholics are both-and people.  We can hold that God created an ordered universe down to the smallest particle, and we can also hold that He created rational creatures with free will."
                                                                                                                                   pg 100
 "if students are not prepared to understand science in the light of faith, they will be left in confusion.....if we leave the question of our existence at materialism's door, we shut out any deeper meaning or purpose."
                                                                                                                                    pg 1o7
  "In the light of faith, I can look into the chasm and not fear it.  I can see that it is too vast fro me or for any other human to ever discover all its mysteries, but I can appreciate that discovering a little more truth is better than not even trying."
                                                                                                                                   pg 118
  "We place ourselves, as any good scientist ought to, as observers seeking to understand (literally 'to stand under') the truth that life exists one it exists.  We are observers, not dictators commanding fantasies.  The proclamation that life begins at conception is a tautological statement.  That truth belongs to anyone who will accept it.  As Mother Mary taught us, life is a fiat."
                                                                                                                                   pg 162
  "When we say life begins at conception, we uphold the simplest unity of faith and science."
                                                                                                                                   pg 166