Darwin’s view of an evolving nature is rightly interpreted as a completion of the Copernican revolution in science.¹ Attempts to define the philosophical consequences of that revolution give rise to sharp controversies even today. In contemporary polemics, references to the philosophical views of the creator of the theory of natural selection are only natural, but they are also insufficient, since Darwin himself consistently emphasized that metaphysical speculations were completely foreign to his thought. For this reason, in defending scientific theories, he never tried to force onto them any particular philosophical interpretation as the only one possible. In contemporary discussions, one...

In the dispute over the possibility of reconciling evolutionary and theistic interpretations of the world, substantive discussion is sometimes replaced with bombastic appeal for the rescue of the foundations of our culture. At least two opposite forms of appeal have been employed. When, in order to save religion and culture, war has been waged on the theory of evolution, a pseudoreligious fundamentalism results. When, however, in defense of a scientific picture of the world, theistic evolutionism has been attacked as unacceptable, atheistic fundamentalism has been the result.

Both fundamentalisms from the start exclude the possibility of elaborating a theory in...

The fundamentalist critique of evolutionism can appear to be well-grounded when we take as the statement of evolutionism the philosophical theses found in the works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Richard Lewontin, Carl Sagan, and Edward O. Wilson. A relatively large number of those sympathetic to Phillip E. Johnson got interested in his critique of Darwinism as a consequence of reading reviews in which he subjected the metaphysics of Dawkins and Lewontin, which they presented as a component of the biological theory, to a sharp critique. Such a combination of the natural sciences with philosophy has become quite common...

In his teaching, John Paul II consistently emphasizes that “the Church’s dialogue with culture has a decisive role for the future of humanity.” He has said, “More than once I repeated this with conviction and I appealed to all the Church’s institutions to see to it that their activity in regard to culture may always be more enlightened, lively, and fruitful.”¹ The natural sciences occupy a special place in contemporary culture. It would be hard to point to another pontificate in modern times in which dialogue with the world of science was as intense as is the dialogue conducted by...

To avoid raising what are only apparent conflicts between Christianity and evolutionism, it is necessary to distinguish those formulations inspired by the methodology of naturalism from formulations asserting ontological naturalism. The former, on the basis of the present paradigm of science, constitute a necessary component of the scientific method of research. The latter are an expression of metaphysics which, relying as it does on a different epistemological basis, cannot be a component of a scientific theory. Methodological naturalism is accepted both by those who accept a theological interpretation of nature and by those who do not. Ontological naturalism is in...

Modern science developed when scientists stopped thinking of the universe as a living organism in which all processes were supposed to serve goals defined by God the Creator. The critical discoveries occurred when, in place of teleology, they began to concentrate their attention on causal connections. That change in intellectual perspective is expressed in the generalizing thesis: Modern science replaced teleological interpretations (also called purposive or final) with deterministic interpretations (also called causal). As a consequence of the scientific revolution of Galileo and Newton, deterministic dependencies were introduced in place of previously presumed teleological processes, and that made possible the...

Consideration of the role of global supervenience in cosmic evolution makes it possible to overcome the methodological oversimplifications of the past, which prohibited the combination of evolutionism with any kind of formulation which applied either teleological categories or any directedness of the processes of evolution at the global or large-scale level. The introduction of new conceptual categories has made possible both analytic philosophical formulations in which the charge of anthropomorphism is avoided and new terminology for understanding the structural directedness of an evolving nature. The reconciliation of evolution and teleology requires great precision in the concepts both of law of...

The traditional opposition of a cosmic end or purpose and an inexorable determinism turns out to be an oversimplification. The process of evolution can follow a model in which the traditional concepts of end and cause turn out to be inadequate, since one can speak about the supervenience of certain processes at a given stage of development. One should not understand the process of supervention, however, as the realization of one possible scenario of evolution, since non-linear and discontinuous properties play an important role in the development of nature. A consideration of analogies from thermodynamics is important to a more...

As our ideas about the structure and laws of nature develop, our ideas about the presence and role of God in the processes of nature also undergo significant change. Before the emergence of modern science, nature—in Greek mythology and in the homilies of leading theologians— was understood to be a domain of Divine presence. The description of that presence combined poetic reverie with commonsense philosophy, contemplative wonder about the world, and an experience of awe in which God also reveals His hidden presence. In places where Christian thought was an important influence, that view was shaped by biblical passages...

In contemporary discussions on the theme of the operation of God in nature, much attention is paid to “top-down” operations, in which extraordinary interventions of God into the order of nature occur, as well as to “bottom-up” interventions in which God acts through the laws of nature and their limitations.¹ In the second of the above-mentioned groups, particular attention is given to stochastic processes or limitations connected with the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle, which create the physical possibility of Divine cooperation without the characteristic of explicit determination. Works on this topic join an extensive literature dedicated to the immanence of God...

Philosophical treatments of the harmonious evolution of the cosmos, of God’s immanence in nature, and of the program of development directed to Divine ends contrast sharply with the reality of the struggle for survival. This reality manifests itself not only in the tooth and claw of biological survival, but also in the experience of psychic struggles, which attain a special status in human suffering. The question of how to reconcile the reality of human suffering with faith in the meaning of evolutionary development is much more difficult than any biological question about the mechanisms of evolution. It connects the great...

The thesis about the biological bonds connecting the species Homo sapiens with our animal ancestors has become the subject of a heated emotional critique on the part of the opponents of evolutionism. One can understand its cultural and psychological context, which has caused them to emphasize the feeling of the special cultural position of man more than biological genealogy and has led them, in extreme cases, to question that genealogy itself. The domination of culture over biology is an essential trait of the human species. That domination does not, however, authorize us to question our biological roots or to touch...

The essential discontinuity in the evolutionary view of development appears at the level of human culture. The moral consciousness of man, our experience of a comparative freedom of will, religious experiences, aesthetic appreciation, abstract thought (expressed both in mathematics and in metaphysics), and theoretical reflection in the particular sciences seem to go far beyond the level of biological struggle for existence and authorize statements about the unique dignity of the human species. Michael Ruse, who had been trying for a long time to give an evolutionary explanation of the origin of science, now admits “[N]o Darwinian is claiming that grasping...

The attempt to provide an evolutionary interpretation of the truth about original sin has already seen an extensive literature in which a wide variety of opinions continue to be maintained. Neither entering into biblical hermeneutics nor appealing to detailed elaborations of theological anthropology,¹ I would like to limit myself to philosophical reflection on the biblical description of the drama which marks the beginning of humanity. From that perspective, programmatically accepted methodological limitations do not allow the raising of many of the questions which attract the attention of theologians. There is, however, the possibility of raising the question of the cultural...