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Dear friends,

Can an Eastern Orthodox Christian believe in theisitic evolution?

It seems that a Latin Christian can because they view the fall in terms of sin and disobedience.

I'm having trouble seeing how evolution could fit into the Eastern paradigm since their view of the fall emphasizes the entry of death and corruption in the world. If you were to grant that Adam and Eve arose by way of evolution, then the Orthodox Christian would have to grant that death and corruption existed in the world prior to the creation of man and the fall of man.

If you could point me to any essays or books on this subject from an Eastern point of view, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Marshall, very interesting question of which I have a great deal of personal interest. Like the Catholics, there is a fairly wide range of Orthdox opinion on this subject ranging from very traditionalist and literal to a lesser stressing of the six days but stressing rather the importance of the place of the Holy Spirit and the physical origin of creation of matter by God, which allows for a much lengthier creation process.

If one believes the fossil record there is certainly ample evidence of extinctions prior to the appearance of humans. Personally, for myself, I like to think the important focus is rather than trying to reconcile that issue of death prior to man is that God did indeed create, and that the Sophia of God was acting in the incredible diversity of creation and the created order.

Scientific evolution, whether the Darwinistic idea of a morphologic gradualism, or the ideas of Gould et. al. advocating a punctuated equilibria, all have the common aspect that in the end they deny any concept of a higher origin for not only creation but the evolutionary process itself.

Devoid of a theistic origin of creation, then there is no place for the soul since man is just a stopping place on the evolutionary train ride and end up with agnosticism at best and atheistic nihilism at the worst. Each theory, to a certain extent, also denies objective evidence which are in conflict with each theory.


One article from a more traditionalist perspective:
http://www.creatio.orthodoxy.ru/sbornik/sbufeev_whynot_english.html

This article, while taking less fundamentalist position, mirros very closely the Holy Father's position on evolution: http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Q-and-A_OLD/Evolution-and-Orthodoxy.html

There is also an interesting book which you can get from St. Vlad's on the subject by Gayle Woloschak, http://www.svspress.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1&products_id=2424 As a scientist this book didn't satisfy all of my questions or curiosities, but did make some very good points and brings in some good references.

And a recent outbreak of flack in Serbia over this issue: http://www.orthodoxbritain.gb.net/html/serbia.html

Also the book by Seraphim Rose on this subject, " Genesis, Creation and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision" is a very interesting read on this subject.

Considering the amount of discussion regarding Orthodox ideas about the fall and original sin, your question Marshall is an extremely interesting one; it would be nice to hear an Orthodox response to the problem that you pose.

Science cannot make any such denial. Some scientists, including Gould or Darwin might personal views that go beyond what is observable and subject to rational analysis, but such views could not be considered views on "scientific evolution". Neither could science make an affirmative claim. Science just stumbles allong trying to understand observation within a rational, physical model - which may work to some extent, but no matter how far-reaching that extent is, it could not answer questions outside of its rational framework and there, inherently, could never prove or disprove a higher origin.

From the OCA site.
Well this is interesting. There evidence for progression throught the species for "powers of reasoning, speaking, or the ability to act creatively" are pretty clear. What is the author's point?

PS Diak - I'm curious, since IIRC, you supported Peroutka - didn't the Constituional Party have a specific stand on these matters - vis-avis education?

Creation should at least be given some time in the curricula as an "alternative theory". Peroutka never said he advocated removing evolution, he advocated the right to discuss alternative theories including creation. Quite objective from a scientific perspective.

We finally got that reestblished here in Kansas after a long struggle. In spite of all the bad press back in '99, it doesn't seem to be setting the kids back too far.

Good objective science never excludes any theory when the base assumption is not provable with the current data, as is the case with any purely scientific theory of the origin of life.

Geologically in the "Cambrian" life literally exploded in diversity. That can't be explained adequately with any existing evolutionary theory. Especially with Darwinism, and even Gould falls far short of the mark in this regard. Creation science offers another theory with some merits regardless of where one is theologically.

As someone who works in natural science I find the strongarm tactics of the scientific community to remove any mention of creation fallacious to any idea of scientific objectivity.

The radical promotion of evolutionism at the exclusion of any other scientific objectivity is as much a "religion" (atheistic at that) and perhaps more so than just wanting creation to be mentioned as an alternative.

I would have no objection to the discussion of creationism in course on religion, philosophy, or something like "natural philosophy", that is, "science" in some Aristotleian sense.

But it is not science in the modern (say post-Renaissance) sense. It goes outside the realm of science, and thus has no business being taught in as part of a science course. However the kids in Kansas manage survive their education, it is a diservice to them to conflate science and religion - as though there were some competition between the two and a choice to be made.