Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Catholic church's views on evolution Message-ID: Date: 16 Oct 89 03:50:03 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA Lines: 36 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article harrist@prism.cs.orst.edu (Timothy Bryant Harris) writes: > I'm currently enrolled in a class in which we discuss >evolution and have been assigned a report on evolution and the >Catholic church's views on it. This will make an interesting class paper. I wish I had many original sources to refer you to, but I don't. Pius XII in his 1950 encyclical, _Humani Generis_ states the definitive Catholic opinion. I frankly don't know what the Church's stand was, if it had any, when Darwin's theory was first promulgated. Briefly, the understanding of the Roman Catholic Church is that the theory of evolution is not intrinsically in opposition to the Genesis account of creation: God's mechanism of creation is not known to us, after all. Which is not to say that the Church embraces Darwinism; it is, like most scientific theories, adiaphora, and properly within the sphere of scholarly investigation. Within this apparent (and somewhat surprising) freedom, there is adequate room for doctrinal orthodoxy. The Church still teaches that Adam and Eve were the first humans, with immortal souls which were made by God, with all humans understood to be descended from them. This is called "monogenism", in distinction to "polygenism", the concept that "Adam" represents a group of humans. Pius XII rejected polygenism because it "did not appear reconcilable" with the revealed truth of a single Adam committing original sin, which was passed down to all men and women through his descendents. Theologians after Pius XII have been grappling with the reconciliation of polygenism with Church teaching, though I really don't know where this stands right now. It's probably fair to say that the question doesn't have much urgency. -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu