YOUCAT Question n. 42 - Part II. Can someone accept the theory of evolution and still believe in the Creator?
(Youcat answer - repeated) Yes. Although it is a
different kind of knowledge, faith is open to the findings and hypotheses of
the sciences.
A deepening through
CCC
(CCC 282) Catechesis on creation is of major importance. It
concerns the very foundations of human and Christian life: for it makes
explicit the response of the Christian faith to the basic question that men of
all times have asked themselves (Cf. NA 2): "Where do we come from?" "Where
are we going?" "What is our origin?" "What is our
end?" "Where does everything that exists come from and where is it
going?" the two questions, the first about the origin and the second about
the end, are inseparable. They are decisive for the meaning and orientation of
our life and actions. (CCC 288) Thus the revelation of creation is inseparable
from the revelation and forging of the covenant of the one God with his People.
Creation is revealed as the first step towards this covenant, the first and
universal witness to God's all-powerful love (Cf. Gen 15:5; Jer 33:19-26). And
so, the truth of creation is also expressed with growing vigour in the message
of the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and the liturgy, and in the wisdom
sayings of the Chosen People (Cf. Isa 44:24; Ps 104; Prov 8:22-31).
Reflecting and
meditating
(Youcat comment)
Theology has no scientific competence,
and natural science has no theological competence. Natural science cannot
dogmatically rule out the possibility that there are purposeful processes in
creation; conversely, faith cannot define specifically how these processes take
place in the course of nature’s development. A Christian can accept the theory
of evolution as a helpful explanatory model, provided he does not fall into the
heresy of evolutionism, which views man as the random product of biological
processes. Evolution presupposes the existence of something that can develop.
The theory says nothing about where this “something” came from. Furthermore,
questions about the being, essence, dignity, mission, meaning, and wherefore of
the world and man cannot be answered in biological terms. Just as
“evolutionism” oversteps a boundary on the one side, so does “creationism” on
the other. Creationists naïvely take biblical data literally (for example, to
calculate the earth’s age, they cite the six days of work in Genesis 1).
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 289) Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the
first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint
these texts may have had diverse sources. The inspired authors have placed them
at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of
creation - its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation
of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation. Read in the
light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living
Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis
on the mysteries of the "beginning": creation, fall, and promise of
salvation.
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