200 years of Darwinism

by Michael Shackleton · February 2, 2011

In 2009 the scientific world celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Since then there has been a flurry of comment about how the Christian world has come to terms with his theory of evolution.

When Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, it got a frosty reception from the evangelical British establishment. Respected scientists hesitated publicly to gainsay the biblical account of the creation in Genesis. Any thought of humanity gradually evolving from a lower form of life was something that could not be stomached, particularly by Protestant creationists.

The Catholic Church was also wary of subscribing to a theory that did not accord with the plain words of Scripture. Debate about Darwin’s thoroughly documented and undeniable evolutionary findings gathered from research done in many parts of the world, became intense. Yet the Church never placed Darwin’s writings on the Index of Forbidden Books, and Church members were free to study Darwinism. The prevailing attitude was seemingly that, since the truth cannot contradict the truth, there must be some way to reconcile belief in creation by God, as revealed in Scripture, with the results of penetrating research by leading anthropologists and other scientists in support of evolution.

The recent contribution to the ongoing debate by Raymond Perrier of Johannesburg’s Jesuit Institute, which we reported last week, illustrates how topical the discussion of Darwinism is. Darwin, Perrier says, was answering the question of how did we get here? The writer of Genesis was answering the question of why we are here. In other words, the Bible and science approach the issue of the phenomena of nature and humankind from different viewpoints, each respecting the other.

Popes in the last century have supported this kind of thinking. There has been an acceptance that scientists are pursuing a legitimate course in learning to understand the realities of the physical world. In his enclyclical Humani generis (1950), Pius XII conceded that the doctrine of evolutionism was a serious hypothesis worthy of investigation, just as its opposite hypothesis would be. In 1996 Pope John Paul II told the Pontifical Academy for Sciences that the theory of evolution was more than a hypothesis.

On the other hand fundamentalists who cling to the biblical account of creation as dogmatic, even accepting that the world was literally created in six days, are also having their say. A group of clergy of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk have just published a book entitled Trojaanse Perd in the NG Kerk: kanker van evolusie en liberalisme (Trojan Horse in the NG Kerk: cancer of evolution and liberalism), which thoroughly trashes the theory of evolution.

Scientific study does not relax. New evidence continues to strengthen the arm of evolutionists, and the Church respects this. However, the Church insists that humankind was created in the image and likeness of God, and has an intrinsic value unshared by any other creature. Man and woman have a dignity by virtue of their spiritual soul which is not created from pre-existing matter, as the human body is, but created immediately by God.

The Catholic view of Darwinism, of course, has its reservations, but the general attitude is that scientific and theological research will advance in their disciplines by serious study and analysis, drawing conclusions which, because of the indivisibility of the truth, cannot contradict each other.

The Pontifical Council for Culture has said that the Genesis story of God’s creation and the theory of evolution are perfectly compatible if the Bible is properly interpreted, that is, that the universe did not make itself but had a Creator. Updated from 2011