Evolution and the Catholic Church

Many of you grad school students probably took freshmen biology in college. Some of you may have even pursued a career in such a field. Either way, your professor almost certainly preached to you the Theory of Evolution. Originally hypothesized by Darwin and as you learned in high school and college, evolution is the scientific theory that all life evolved over millions of years (that is, changed and adapted to their environment by way of natural selection, genetic mutations, and other key factors), including humans.

Wait a minute! Doesn't the Catholic Church teach that God created the plants, animals, and humans? In the Bible, weren't Adam and Eve created days after all other life forms? How could evolution possibly fit with Genesis? This could be one of the main objections you have against the Catholic Church, and it certainly deserves clearing up.

The Church allows for intellectuals like us to ascribe to a theory of intelligent design. Think of it as the theory that encompasses both Creationism and Evolution. The core of intelligent design is this: everything that scientists prove happened certainly happened (the Big Bang, evolution of life, etc), but God was behind it all.

So first about the Bible. The story of Genesis certainly happened, but not necessarily literally. The term days in creation may refer to different stages. Think about it: how could there even be days if the sun had not have been created? Also, the story of Adam and Eve could be more of a symbolic anecdote of whatever really happened after Creation. Literalists obviously rule out Evolution, but the Catholic Church is not literalist.

We can believe in evolution as long as we stay true to several core values. First, there were only two first humans that populated the Earth. Evolution supports this because a freak mutation from an ancient primate would have created the first humans (a mutation rare and distinct enough that it would not occur with multiple primates). Second, God created all life. This is pretty easy: God guided the "chance mutations" and natural selection to ultimately create all forms of life (as well as first arranged atoms to create an organic substance).
As long as you keep these in mind evolution is a legitimate, non-heretical belief.

If you're not about that evolution life, it's cool too. The Church doesn't say you have to believe life evolved; if you want to believe the Bible literally, that's fine. Personally, I think it'd be hard to truly believe the world was created 5000 years ago when there are fossils that can be carbon dated to millions of years ago...but that's up to you to decide.

Let's hope evolution and the Catholic Church do not contradict. If not, our Strake Jesuit Bio I classes would be pretty heretical...

-Shoe

Works Cited:

(for the image) Morris, Henry M., Ph.D. "Atheist-Fools.com." AtheistFoolscom. N.p., 21 Apr. 2007. Web. 07 Apr. 2013. <http://atheiststooges.wordpress.com/category/intelligent-design/evolution-cruncher/>.