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: The Great PARTNERSHIP

The Great PARTNERSHIP

Science, Religion, and the

Search for Meaning

by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

The book is organized, well researched and fluently written. Three parts of the book are followed by a letter to the scientific atheist.  The first part "God and the Search for Meaning" asserts that man is a meaning seeking animal that science alone can not, by itself, satisfy.   The second part addresses the question of "Why it matters" ending in a chapter titled "A meaningful life".  Part three addresses "Faith and Its Challenges" which addresses the confusion brought on by the modern understanding of evolution, why religion goes wrong, evil and the answer that addresses our need for meaning: God.  One of the finest parts of the book is the letter to the scientific atheist.

The truths we hold for life are often metaphors we have to manage our view of reality. They approximate reality, but if we mistake them for the literal truth we can make a leap too far.  The book early and often uses the separate hemispheres of the brain which are called upon to explain how religion and science relate to each other.   We must come to grips with the limits of the metaphor for that metaphor to serve us.  The author warns us that this is the trap of fundamentalism in the faithful and materialism in the scientific.

The author reminds us throughout the book that science breaks things down and analyzes them.  Religion creates and builds meaning.  He systematically juxtapositions treatment of faith and scientific reasoning so that the reader can clearly see the contrast.   In the end science and religion address different questions and when they overlap an issue it may be that there is a misunderstanding of religion or of the science or of both.

Surprising to me was the extensive treatment of culture and politics.  Eventually it dawned on me, because of the book's careful development, that science flourishes where there is freedom.  Freedom only flourishes where there is the recognition of the divine dignity because we are all made in the image of God.  The connection between freedom and science had escaped me until reading this book.  

The greatest feature of the book is the large number of quotes.  The impressive array of thoughtful reflections on the the place of faith and science in our lives as humans make this book a real treasure.  It is the type of book put on the shelf to be reread well into the future.

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My highlighted quotes had to be redacted because there were so many.  In addition Rabbi Saks quotes a variety of writers and thinkers.

PART I: God and the Search for Meaning

   "Science takes things apart to see how they work.  Religion puts things together to see what they mean."                                                                                                                                   pg 2

    "When you treat things as they were people, the result is myth: light is from the sun god, rain from the sky god, natural disasters from the clash of deities, and so on.  Science was born when people stopped telling stories about nature and instead observed it; when, in short they relinquished myth.

     "When you treat people as if they were things, the result is dehumanization: people categorized by color, class or creed and treated differently as a result.  The religion of Abraham was born when people stopped seeing people as objects and began to see each individual as unique, sacrosanct, the image of God." 

                                                                                                                                     pg 3

    "Religion and Science [They] perform different functions and if one is damaged or the connections between them are broken, the result is dysfunction."

                                                                                                                                     pg 6

    "People who are confident in their beliefs feel no need to pillory or caricature their opponents.  We need genuine, open, serious, respectful conversations between scientists and religious believers if we are to integrate their different but cojointly necessary perspectives."

                                                                                                                                    pg 15

    "Faith begins with the search for meaning, because it is the discovery of meaning that creates human freedom and dignity.  Finding God's freedom we discover our own."

                                                                                                                                     pg 15

    "Science is the search for explanation.  Religion is the search for meaning. Meaning is not accidental to the human condition because we are a meaning seeking animal.  To believe on the basis of science that the universe has no meaning is to confuse two disciplines of thought: explanation and interpretation."

                                                                                                                                     pg 37

     "There is only one thing capable of defeating tragedy, which is a belief in God who in love sets his image on the human person, thus endowing each of us with non-negotiable, unconditional dignity."

                                                                                                                                     pg 38

     "Science takes things apart to see how they work.  Religion puts things together to see what they mean."

                                                                                                                                     pg 39
     "When the Hebrew Bible want to explain something, it does not articulate a theory.  It tells a story."

                                                                                                                                     pg 44

     "Europe lived with the heritage of Democritus and his successors who believed the physical universe was made up of atoms, and who thought in terms of the analysis of substances into the smallest component parts.  For the Chinese by contrast, 'Their universe was a continuous medium or matrix within which interactions took place, not by the clash of atoms but by radiating influences.'"

                                                                                                                                     pg 47

     "Argument appeals to verifiable truth, story appeals to verisimilitude, lifelikeness.  Argument comes together with theory, analysis, logical coherence and empirical testing.  Narrative speaks to imagination and the emotions."

                                                                                                                                     pg 53

     "There are truths we can express in systems, but others we can only tell through story.  There is a kind of knowledge for which we need detachment, but another kind of knowledge we can only achieve through attachment - through empathy and identification with an other."

                                                                                                                                     pg 54
     "Christendom drew its philosophy, science and art from Greece, its religion from Israel."

                                                                                                                                     pg 61
     "the rabbinic literature records a conversation between Rabbi Judah the Prince, head of the Jewish community in the early third century, and Antoninus, a Roman Sage, about when the soul enters the child. Rabbi Judah says, at birth. Antonius says, at conception.  The rabbi then astonishingly declares that Antoninus is right.  Thereafter, when he repeats the teaching, the rabbi is careful to say, 'Antoninus taught me this.'  This is a religious attitude to science both open-minded and willing to learn."

                                                                                                                                  pg 67

Genesis creation commentary:
     "It was as if from the outset Jews knew that science - what they called wisdom - was one thing, and religion another.  Natural laws are laws that predict and explain, moral laws are laws that command and constrain.  Science was about things, religion about people and their freely chosen acts."

                                                                                                                                     pg 68

    "Equally radical is the idea that, since God created everything, he is God of everywhere.  For the first time, God and religion are de-territorialised.  There is no longer a god of this place or that; a god of these people opposed to those.  Abrahamic universalism is born here. "

                                                                                                                                     pg 69
   "It is about a God who creates and makes a being, Homo Sapiens, able to create; a God who is free and bestows on his most cherished creation the gift of freedom.  Virtually everything that follows in the Bible is about this personal relationship between Creator and creation, at times tender, often tense."
                                                                                                                                    pg 70

  "Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty."

                                                                                                                                     pg 97
  "God lives wherever we open our eyes to his radiance, our hearts to his transforming love."

                                                                                                                                     pg 98
PART II:  Why it Matters

   "When religious faith goes five things happen , gradually and imperceptibly.  First there is a loss of belief in human dignity and the sanctity of life....
    The second sign is the loss of the politics of covenant, the idea that society is a place where we undertake collective responsibility for the common good....
    The third is a loss of morality....words that once meant a great deal begin to lose their force - words like duty, obligation, honour, integrity, loyalty and trust...
     The fourth sign is the loss of marriage....
     The fifth is the possibility of a meaningful life...I mean life with meaning that comes from outside us, as a call, a vocation, a mission"

                                                                                                                                     pg 102-04
   "The fact that we  occupy a small space in the universe and a small stretch of the totality of time says nothing about our significance or lack of it."

                                                                                                                                     pg 118
   "For the sake of human dignity, science must be accompanied by another voice.  Not in opposition to science, but as the humanizing voice of what we call the soul.  There is no greater defense of human dignity that the phrase from the first chapter of the Bible that dared to call the human being 'the image of God.' "

                                                                                                                                     pg 127

Plato talking about signs of decline in the democracy of Athens:
     " 'People lose a sense of shame.  Rudeness is taken as a sign of sophistication.  People pursue the pleasure of the moment.  They lose respect for their leaders.  The young no longer defer to the old, and the old behave as if they are young.  The difference between the sexes is blurred.  People get irritated by the least touch of authority and they dislike any rules that inhibit their freedom to do as they like.'  [The Republic by Plato 560-64]
                                                                                                                                     pg 161

     "Faith is about relationship sustained without the use of power."

                                                                                                                                     pg 169
     "The story of the first humans in Genesis 2 begins with God giving Adam the ability to use language to classify things. He names the animals..."

                                                                                                                                     pg 174
     "Faith for the prophets, was a kind of marriage.  Marriage is an act of faith."

                                                                                                                                     pg 181
A Meaningful Life:
     "In the age of fiction - what has come to be called the postmodern condition - everything people once thought was true is now seen as merely constructed, invented, a fiction.  There is no truth any more, only the various stories humans devise to make sense of their lives...Of course, we can liberate oursleves from these naratives, but there is nothing to put in their place because we are now too sophisticated, too knowing."

                                                                                                                                     pg 195
     "Happiness is a state of being, not having, and still today, as it always did, it depends on a strong and stable personal relationship and a sense of meaning and purpose in life."

                                                                                                                                     pg 202
     "Love is what redeems us from the prison cell of the self and all the sickness to which the narcissistic self is prone - from empty pride to deep depression to a sense of nihilism and the abyss."

                                                                                                                                    pg 205
PART THREE:  Faith and Its Challenges

     "Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.  And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery we are trying to solve."
                                                                                                                              by Max Planck

                                                                                                                                     pg 209
     "The way of testing a scientific hypothesis is to do science, not read scriptures.  The way of testing religion is to do religion - to ask, in total honesty, and full understanding, is this really what God wants of us?  It is not to make assertions about the truth or falsity of some scientific theory...
For if science is about the world that is, and religion about the world that ought to be, then religion needs science bacause we can not apply God's will to the world if we do not understand the world."

                                                                                                                                     pg 214
"Darwinism has immense religious implications.
     First is tells us that God delights in diversity...

     Second, and this is Darwin's wondrous discovery, the creator made creation creative...
     Third, we now know that all life derives from a single source.  That is a remarkable unexpected fact....
     Fourth, science and Genesis have now converged, in an utterly unexpected way, on the same metaphor.  Life is linguistic....discovery of DNA. It has hardware and software.  The cell is an information processing system...
    Fifth, the interconnectedness of all life."
                                                                                                                                     pg 215-9
     "If we give up in belief in the God of justice, we relinquish belief in objective reality and categorical imperative of justice also.  In such a world there is no comfort for the sufferer, no rebuke for the oppressor, no hope, just the stoic endurance of hopelessness."
                                                                                                                                     pg 240

     "Bad things happen when religion ceases to hold itself answerable to empirical reality, when it creates devastation and cruelty on Earth for the sake of salvation in heaven.  And bad things happen when science declares itself the last word on the human condition and engages in social or bio-engineering, treating humans as objects rather than as subjects, and substituting cause and effect for reflection, will and choice."
                                                                                                                                    pg 265

     "Human self consciousness lies at the heart of all art, metaphysics, poetry; of all science, mathematics and cosmology; of everything that makes humanity different, distinct, unique.  The least significant fact about Homo sapiens is that we evolved to survive....What makes us different is that we are meaning seeking animal"

                                                                                                                                     pg 271
     "Science gives us a sense of wonder. It does not disclose the source and origin of that wonder."
                                                                                                                                     pg 273

     "Tested on attitudes, religiosity as measured by church attendance turns out to be the best predictor of altruism and empathy: better than education, age, income, gender and race."
                summary of R. Putnam, D. Campbell, S Garrett
                American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, Simon-Schuster 2010
                                                                                                                                     pg 278

     "To explain the world we have science.  To control it we have technology.  To negotiate power we have democratic politics.  To achieve prosperity we have a market economy.  If we are ill we go to a doctor, not a priest.  If we feel guilty we can go to a psychotherapist; we have no need of a confessor.  If we are depressed we can take Prozac, we do not need the book of Psalms.  Schools and welfare are provided by the state, not by the church.  And if we seek salvation, we can visit the new cathedrals -  the shopping malls at which the consumer society pays homage to its gods.
    Faith would seem to be redundant in the contemporary world. And yet far from disappearing it is alive and well and flourishing in every part of the world except Europe.....In Russia , where religion was exiled for seventy years, a poll in 2006 showed 84% of the population believed in God.   ANd as the Editor in the Economist writes, whereas in the past religion has been associated with poverty, today the growth in faith has coincided with a growth in prosperity. [Micklethwaite, Wooldridge God is Back (2009)]"
                                                                                                                                     pg 281-2
"The Bible is not proto-science, pseudo science or myth masquerading as science.  It is interested in other questions entirely. "

                                                                                                                                     pg 285
"Without belief in a transcendent God-the God of freedom who acts because he chooses - it is ultimately impossible to sustain the idea that we are free, that we have a choice, that we are made by our decisions, that we are morally responsible agents."
                                                                                                                                     pg 289

Letter to a Scientific Atheist

  "Science fulfils three functions...It diminishes human ignorance.  It increases human power.  And it exemplifies the fact that we are in God's image."
                                                                                                                                     pg 292
"We are desecularising in a destablilising age.  That brings fear, and few things are worse than the politics of fear.  It creates a sense of victimhood and a willingness to demonize those from who we differ...The best thing to do in such a circumstance is for moderates of all sides to seek and find common ground."
                                                                                                                                     pg 295 

Reflections on "Saving Darwin"

     I am glad to have read "Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution" by Karl Gibson.  The text started by identifying the author as a fundamentalist Christian who once believed strongly in creationism.  Initially I thought the text would not have a perspective useful to me (due to the fundamentalist perspective).  He rejected creationism in his sophomore year in college, obtained a Ph.D. in physics and retained (most importantly) his Christianity.  This text reveals a great deal about the historical and cultural factors that have been at work in elevating the false dichotomy of science (Evolution) vs. faith (Christianity).
     The analogy of a gathering storm and scientific discovery struck a harmonic chord (having seen the process from time to time).  "A cloud appears, here and there, in a deep blue sky.  A drop of rain is felt.  More clouds. More rain.  The sky becomes partially, then fully obscured.....the clouds begin to break, and the sun reappears.  But it is not the same sun, and everything looks different."  Clearly this storm (that has brought evolution) has been with us well over a hundred years and the sun is only beginning to emerge among the those who remain steadfast in the faith.
      Legal and cultural battles (particularly in the United States) are discussed in depth.  The false spectacle of science versus faith in the Scopes trial (and in the trials since) are examined in depth.  You can be sure that the media (consisting of those who are antithetical to small town life) went to great lengths to paint the trial as the enlightened versus those not so enlightened.  Those Christians, more fully informed about the theory of evolution and who had recognize the wonder of evolution were not called by either side and not reported on.  The full story is not usually revealed in these controversies and Dr. Gibson goes to great lengths to detail this fact.
      The question of why these battles take place is examined.  The author makes a number of observations that are related to this ongoing struggle (between creationism and evolution) in our culture.  First the author points to the fact that half of the population recognizes creationism in polls as the best explanation for the state of life (on Earth).  Secondly the author points to the use of evolution and natural selection to justify eugenics and murder at the largest scales in the history of mankind.  The United States, in particular, has fought costly conflicts against regimes that believed in extermination of others due to race, religion and nationality.  The pairing of evolution (as a guiding principle) with Marxism and Totalitarianism may be the undercurrent of resistance to adapting evolution as a valid explanation for biological species.
     The author details the failure of our culture to separate the science that explains how evolution differentiates life from the wrong use of power to "accelerate" and "optimize" the evolution of the human race.  This failure is at the heart, in the view of the author, of why creationism is still held so strongly by so many.
     This theme (acceptance of evolution) opened up a line of personal reflection.  The fact that classrooms are used to transport facts and knowledge but do not focus on students experiencing the process of science may be contribute to the resistance (of evolution).  The lack of understanding about what science is may contribute to the failure in separating the scientific explanation from the wrong use of state power (or use as a philosophical model).  Creationists, Socialists, Marxists and/or Nazis would all rather use "Darwinism" (or anti Darwinism fervor) rather than have students see evolution as truth formed using science that explains the complexities of emerging life forms.
     I wish I could have known more, from this text, about the reason for the two dissents in the most recent "Intelligent Design Case".  One dissent (by Scalia) may not be due too a belief in "Creationism".  The author cites a devout Catholic faith that may have influenced his dissent.  It may be more reasonable and consistent that he would oppose federal intervention in local school board matters because of the deference and limitations he thinks the court should display in such cases (and would be consistent with the someone who thinks the original intent of the constitution should impact government today).  If science class was about how to obtain and analyze data to draw valid conclusions then maybe the textbook content would not be such a huge issue.
     A bright spot for Catholics is found when the author reports that the Catholic Church has remained fully in support of the value of life of every individual and the right to pro-create despite being labeled as dim, criminal or wrongly conceived.
     The author certainly reveals a concern about the struggle that falsely places science at odds with faith.  Clearly he has good reason for concern.  If those fervent in the faith fail to see truth then there are consequences for those faithful.  This book is an attempt to help all of us see the truth.

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Please note that the views expressed here by me do not  represent the views of McGill-Toolen Catholic High School, Archdiocese of Mobile or any  part of the Universal Catholic Church.

Reflections on "Finding Darwin's God"

     "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth Miller is an impressive work that clearly supports the idea that science and faith are, in fact, mutually supportive (each benefiting the other). He does an especially good job at laying out (in lay terms) the radioactive dating methods and geological data that support the modern scientific estimate of the earth's age.  The treatment of biological understanding of species differentiation was done well (he is well respected biologist).  He has a burden for those faithful who find natural selection and evolution to be a disturbing contradiction. It is a refreshing work that recognizes the need for God's creation to provide us with a genuine choice about the purpose of life and specifically our lives.

     It was surprising nugget of information to read about a series of Schrodinger lectures in Dublin in 1943. The lectures detailed ideas about how modern quantum physics and developing chemistry could explain cellular processes and biological systems.  Schrodinger speculated that populations of atoms that would make up biological information and transcription systems would compensate for the individual quantum variation (providing reliability and certainty).  How quantum uncertainty plays out in biological systems helps explain the forces that drive the process of natural selection and, in the end, evolution.

    The text is full of great quotes but the one I think captures the theme of the book (and follows a detailing of how quantum uncertainty drives biological variation): "Things look diffferent today. Darwin's vision has expanded to encompass a new world of biology in which the links to molecule to cell to organism are becoming clear. Eveolution prevails, but it prevails with a richness and subtlety its originator may have found surprising".

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Please note that the views expressed here by me do not  represent the views of McGill-Toolen Catholic High School, Archdiocese of Mobile or any  part of the Universal Catholic Church.

Review: "Aquinas on Creation"

Aquinas on Creation

by Steven Baldner and William Carroll

     Read a book titled "Aquinas on Creation" which were translated by Steven Baldner and William Carroll. The book is basically the original writings of Thomas Aquinas on the text by his mentor Peter Lombard. The text and language is very dense and the reading is not recreational. It is amazing that the arguments posed by present day scientists and academics with genuine lives of faith still use the reasoning and assertions of this classic western thinker.

     In Physics during the last 50 years it has been noted that the constants that guide the behavior of our universe have values that happen to allow for the emergence of life. Gravity, as an example, is strong enough to induce fusion that powers our sun but weak enough to allow for planetary orbits at appropriate distances. The electrostatic constant, Plank's constant, nuclear force constants are seem to have values that are in the range that allows for life (some of these ranges are very small relative to possible values). This is the basis if the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle states that the universe has been formed with the possibility for life. This idea is consistent with the writing of Thomas Aquinas in the 1200's.

     I was especially impacted by the assertion that all things in the universe are good. "the divine power shines forth even among the wicked in the fact that they are held back and the divine providence shines forth through the fact that evil deeds are turned into good". The assertion by John Paul II that theology and philosophy need each other also is found in the writings of Aquinas.

     Thomas Aquinas also points out that creation is compatible with natural causes in nature. This continued to lay the groundwork for the the birth of science as an academic discipline in western culture. The tremendous support for science of all types by the church is fueled by the encouragement to understand all natural causes and links because they are certain to lead back to our creator.  This text confirms this ancient western tradition among the monotheistic faiths.