Science and Faith: Episode 2 – Creation or Evolution – Do we have to choose?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It’s very important for us to think about how God’s revelation relates to our natural understanding of reality. As Catholics we believe that two truths cannot contradict one another. Therefore, if the book of nature or the book of God’s revelation appear to contradict one another, then we need to investigate which book we are misinterpreting. Currently, most scientist in their interpretation of the book of nature would say that the claim “Everything had to be in good working order straight away otherwise life could not feed or breathe” is false and they would put forward counter arguments against this claim. This raises the question as the title of our Radio Maria episode suggests “Creation or Evolution: Do we have to choose?” Do scientists who dispute the above claim have to reject God’s revelation? Historically, Christians have been keen where possible to show that the ideas of non-Christians are compatible with God’s revelation – e.g. see Acts 17:28. As another example of engaging with non-Christian thinkers, St Augustine of Hippo in his work the “Literal meaning of Genesis” writes the following:

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Following St. Augustine’s advice, as Catholic believers, we should therefore be very cautious in putting forward hypotheses which contradict the established views of experts in various scientific disciplines, for we may be making it that much harder for them to discover the truth of God’s revelation.