Outside of Time

Before a new week and new edition of Time magazine get underway, I wanted to mention this past week’s cover story “God vs. Science.”

My first thought at seeing that cover was…why does there need to be a dichotomy? This tension has been pretty consistent for quite a while now, and now makes the cover of Time.

There are two great debates under the broad heading of Science vs. God. The more familiar over the past few years is the narrower of the two: Can Darwinian evolution withstand the criticisms of Christians who believe that it contradicts the creation account in the Book of Genesis? In recent years, creationism took on new currency as the spiritual progenitor of “intelligent design” (I.D.), a scientifically worded attempt to show that blanks in the evolutionary narrative are more meaningful than its very convincing totality. I.D. lost some of its journalistic heat last December when a federal judge dismissed it as pseudoscience unsuitable…

Journalistic heat does not constitute merit, and a federal judge’s opinion of pseudoscience does not determine or address truth.

But Pope Benedict addresses it all the time, and chose it as one of the main topics of discussion at his annual private gathering with former students, last September.

There’s still a lot of confusion out there, even within the Church, over what these arguments are asserting, and what the Church teaches. Sandro Magister has a good article on that teaching, and it’s a good backgrounder for coming up to speed on the finer points of the debate. Here’s a snip from somewhere around the middle of the piece:

What this all means is that the (hi)story of life suggests that its development required a combination of genetic factors and favorable environmental conditions that unfolded in a series of natural events.

This raises two questions: Can creation and God’s plan play a role in the greater scheme of things? And does humankind’s appearance constitute a necessary development in nature’s potential?

Thought provoking, isn’t it?

In his address to an international symposium on “Christian Faith and Theory of Evolution” in 1985, John Paul II said: “Neither a genuine faith in creation nor a correct teaching of evolution may pose obstacles. […] Evolution, in fact, presupposes creation. In the light of evolution, creation is an ever-lasting process – a creatio continua.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “creation […] did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator” (n. 302). God created a world that was not perfect but “‘in a state of journeying’ towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature” (n. 310).

When John Paul II spoke to the plenary of the Pontifical Academy of Science in October 1996, he acknowledged that evolution was a scientific theory because of its coherence with the views and discoveries of various scientific disciplines. Yet he also said that the evolutionary process had more than one theoretical explanation; among them theories that believers cannot accept because of their underlying materialist ideology. But in such cases, what is at stake is not science but ideology.

So, maybe it’s ‘ideology vs. God’ for those who want to put a catchy title on an ongoing and necessary scientific-theological discussion. Sandro’s is titled “Creation vs. Evolution? Here is the View of the Church of Rome.” And that’s just the clarity you get there. Questions and answers about eternal truths, outside of time.