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I just spotted this on CNN's website.

Arrchbishop against Creationism [edition.cnn.com]

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

PS The photo is enough to give one a fright!

As is well-known to readers of this forum, press reports on Church affairs are notoriously inaccurate. Assuming, however, that Archbishop Williams holds a position more or less as described, then that is very unfortunate. The whole evolution vs. creationism debate is quite polarized with the result that the most nuanced position, that of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, is neglected.

By "Catholic Intellectual Tradition" I mean the Hexaemerial tradition of the Fathers as well as its development by medieval theologians in both the Greek East and Latin West. Not only has this tradition provided a sophisticated interpretation of Genesis, but it also preserves the literal (in the Patristic, not Protestant, sense) meaning of the text along with the autonomy of the sciences. It is a shame that this "Catholic" voice is not often heard in our modern debates.

Dr. Michael

Perhaps the hubub is due to the fact that practicing Homosexuality is incompatible with Creationism.

Practicing homosexuality is incompatible with evolution, but a case (though highly inaccurate) could be made for it under the guise of creationism. I don't understand your post.

I am, however, intrigued by Dr. Michael's post. Please explain the differences between what you refer to as the "Catholic Intellectual Tradition" and the polarized sides of 6-day Creationism and atheistic evolution. I have not heard the term before and am curious if it is the middle ground most Catholic "intellectuals" I know hold or if it is a branch unto itself. Most Catholics I know believe that evolution has some degree of scientific truth to it while creationism (that we were created in the image and likeness of God, that God breathed a soul into the first man, etc) is a theological truth. Is this what you speak of Dr. Michael?

Dear Wondering,

As you know, the position of many secular materialists is that the physical universe is all that exists and all that is in it has come about from physical causes alone. As Carl Sagan put it, modern science explains everything in terms of mindless material causes and, therfore, "leaves nothing for a Creator to do." In other words, he denies the teaching of the Church that the universe is created ex nihilo. (Indeed, he denies theism in general, for not only do orthodox Christians hold that the universe is created by God from nothing, but so do orthodox Jews and Muslims.)

On the other hand, recently some Protestant creationists, called Intelligent Design Theorists, have argued that there is scientific evidence that some physical beings--for example, complex biological organisms--cannot possibily have been produced by physical causes alone and, therefore, must have been created directly by God. In other words, they directly contradict the claims of secularists that modern science shows that creation did not occur.

Now, many Christians today, especially evangelical Protestants, believe that Intelligent Design Theory provides scientific evidence supporting the claims of the Book of Genesis that the world is created by a Supreme Spiritual Being, God.

Now, on the face of it it might seem that Orthodox (that is, non-Protestant) Christians should welcome the claims of Intelligent Design Theorists. But a closer look at the matter shows that Intelligent Design Theory is really Protestant-inspired and contrary to both the teachings of Orthodox Christiantiy (which includes, of course, Catholicism) as well as what I call "the Catholic Intellectual Tradition." Another way of putting all this is that both atheistic materialism and Intelligent Design Theory are based on a fallacious understanding of the relation of faith and reason--one contrary to the understanding common in the Catholic tradition.

Briefly, the Catholic position on this debate is that both sides mistakenly confuse creation with natural cause--that is, that both hold that creation is a kind of change, just as natural causes in the universe are changes of one kind or another. Catholic intellectuals, however, hold that creation is not a change, although it is a cause. Creation from nothing is the total bringing into existence of the whole being of whatever is created. This happens all at once (simul totum) and without any pre-existing state (ex nihilo). God is totally responsible for the being of the universe and everything in it and his creative causality is always present to each and every creature. It is not as if God at one time created the universe and it now runs on its own, nor that God created the universe and later created some of the creatures in it. God creates in one complete unified act of his Divine Agency and this Agency is present to the created thing in all of its manifestations--causal, temporal, etc.

This means that no matter how much our natural science discovers about the causes of the universe, it will not show that the universe is not created by God. This is because the subject of our scientific research is natural cause, not Divine Agency. Yet, there must be some reason why the universe, with all its causal complexity, exists. The reason is God's creation of the universe from nothing--that is, the Church's traditional Doctrine of Creation ex nihilo.

The Catholic position is also contrary to Intelligent Design Theory. God did not get the universe going and then later "reach into it" and cause some of its beings--for example, complex organisms. God creates the universe all at once, in an eternal act of creation. Thus, the fact that the universe is created by God does not mean that there are individual creatures that can only be scientifically explained by God's creative action. God's creative action is the explanation for absolutely everything--the whole universe with all of its causal mechanisms that have the potential to cause new forms to exist within the universe. Moreover, God's creative causality is totally and constantly present to every physical being, even those beings as they are being caused to be by natural causes. God creates the whole universe in such a way that it works the way it does--the way our scientific research discovers that it does--and without God the universe with all its causal mechanisms would not exist.

The upshot is that the Catholic Intellectual Tradition preserves both the traditional Doctrine of Creation (God created everything from nothing) and the autonomy of natural science (the universe as a complex causal system is scientifically intelligible). God creates this universe that really works in the way it does and, if we do our research carefully, then we can slowly discover just how it works. But no matter how much we discover about how it works this will never replace the need to explain the existence of this complex physical system we call the universe by means of God's creation. Moreover, creation does not replace the need to scientifically explain the way in which the universe works, if we are to understand it. Thus, the Catholic position is a tertium quid, a third position, between secular materialism and Protestant notions of creation. As such the Catholic position both affirms creation as the explanation of the existence of the universe and affirms scientific research as a source of knowledge of the created universe.

Dr. Michael