Table Of Content0134196
231.765
E93
Evolution and Creation
GLORIA, GAINES MEMORIAL LIBRAHY
MARYMOUNT COLLEGE
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. 10591-3796
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
STUDIES IN THE
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Number 4
Evolution and Creation
ERNAN MCMULLIN, EDITOR
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA 46556
Copyright ® 1985 by
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Evolution and creation.
Bibliography: p.
1. Evolution —Congresses. 2. Creation —Congresses.
3. Evolution —Religious aspects —Christianity —Congresses.
I. McMullin, Ernan, 1924-
QH359.E89 1985 231.7’65 84-40818
ISBN 0-268-00917-1
In memory of
GEORGE N. SHUSTER
(1894-1977)
A man for all occasions
CONTENTS
Preface xi
Contributors xiii
Introduction: Evolution and Creation • Ernan McMullin 1
1. Two Notions 1
2. Evolution: Early History 3
3. Creation 8
4. Augustine’s “Seed-Principles” 11
5. Aquinas on Creation 16
6. A New Kind of Scientific Explanation 21
7. The Rise of Physicotheology 27
8. The Long Time Scale 32
9. Postscript 38
Evolution and Philosophy 38
Evolution and Physics 43
Evolution and Politics 45
Notes 48
PART ONE: EVOLUTION
The Theory of Evolution: Recent Successes and Challenges
• Francisco J. Ayala 59
1. The “Fact” of Evolution 59
2. Evolutionary History 61
3. The Molecular Clock of Evolution 68
4. The Origin of Genes 71
5. The Multiplicity of Genes 74
6. “Nonsense” DNA and “Horizontal” Transfer of Genes 76
7. Hereditary Variation 78
8. Natural Selection and Chance 82
9. Gradual and Sudden Evolution 84
References 89
Vll
Contents
Modern Cosmology and the Creation of Life • Jol?n Leslie 91
1. Some Alleged Weaknesses of Design Arguments 91
2. Why Many of the So-Called “Weaknesses” Could Fail
to Impress Cosmologists 94
3. Some Main Lines Which Further Research Could Take 107
4. One Way of Understanding ‘Creation by God’ 115
Notes 118
The Question of Natural Purpose • Phillip R. Sloan 121
1. Historical Review 122
1.1. Final Causation and Seventeenth-Century
Science 122
1.2. Nature and Natural Purpose in Eighteenth-Century
Biology 127
1.3- Buffon: Nature As Subservient to Divine Law 128
1.4. Hume: Nature As Profligate Mother 129
2. Natural Purpose in Darwin’s Biology 132
2.1. Nature As Selecting Demiurge 133
2.2. Post-Malthusian Darwin: Nature As Internal
System 135
2.3. Darwin’s Critique of Natural Purpose 138
3. Purpose and Evolution: Necessary Clarifications l4l
Notes 144
PART TWO: CREATION
Creation According to the Old Testament • Dianne Bergant,
C.S.A., and Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P. 153
Introduction 153
1. Creation in Genesis 155
1.1. Genesis 2 156
1.2. Genesis 1 159
2. Creation in Prophecy and Psalms 162
2.1. Prophecy and Creation 162
2.2. The Psalms and Creation 167
Conclusion 171
Notes 172
The Doctrine of Creation from Nothing • David Kelsey 176
1. Scope 176
God’s World-Relatedness 176
World’s God-Relatedness 177
Contents
IX
Creation As an Event 180
Interrelations 182
2. Theological Warrants 184
Appendix 192
Notes 195
God’s Action in the World • William P. Alston 197
1. The Problem 197
2. Determinism and Divine Agency 198
3. Is Direct Divine Intervention Possible? 206
4. Is Direct Divine Intervention Required? 210
5. Special Acts of God without Direct Intervention 214
6. Conclusion 218
Notes 218
PART THREE: EVOLUTION AND CREATION
Christians Get the Best of Evolution • James F. Ross 223
1. Introduction 223
1.1. A Question of Human Nature, Not Causation 223
1.2. A Question of Unity in Being 224
1.3- Evolution Suggests Emergence, but Emergence
Does Not Require Evolution 225
1.4. Prospects for Analogy of Being: Psychic vs.
Material 225
1.3. Initial Approximation 226
1.6. Humans Both Native and Emergent 226
1.7. Human Being and Material Being Are Analogous
(Analogia Entis) 228
1.8. Is This Novel? 229
2. A Theological Reflection 229
Context Affects Content 229
3. Emergence and Inaccessibility 230
3.1. The Formality (the Formal Structure) of the Universe 231
3.2. The Cosmos Is Gddel-Incomplete 231
3.3. Now We Enter the Realm of Supposition 232
4. Emergent Systems 234
5. Physical Organization and Psychic Energy: Energy
Manifested in Meaning 238
What is Pivotal? 241
6. Special Creation? 241
Contents
X
7. Cosmic Comments 243
To Be Is To Continue To Be 243
8. Conclusion 245
Notes 246
Evolutionary Explanations of Religion and Morality:
Explaining Religion Away? • William H. Austin 252
1. Summary Judgment Denied 255
2. Wilson’s Account of Religion 258
3. Religion As Adaptive 264
4. The Alternatives of Scientific Naturalism 266
Notes 270
Production and Prospect: Reflections on Christian Hope
and Original Sin • Nicholas Lash 273
1. An “Aboriginal Calamity” 273
2. The Quest for Coherence 275
3. Anthropocentrism 277
4. Theology and the “Constituted Sciences” 280
5. “In the Beginning” 283
6. Darkness and Hope 285
Notes 287
Teilhard: Evolution and Creation • Christopher F. Mooney, SJ. 290
1. A Guarantee for the Future 290
2. Science, Philosophy, Religion 293
3. Christian Spirituality 298
4. Conclusion 300
Notes 301
Index 303
PREFACE
Modern natural science depends on a few simple organizing ideas, one
of these being the idea of evolution, according to which each natural kind has
come to be what it is along a path of gradual development that can be traced
backward in time. Theology in the Christian tradition likewise can be seen
as the working out of a few fundamental ideas, one of which is that of cre-
ation, according to which the universe depends on a transcendent God for
its being. These two ideas have interacted in complex ways over the ages and
continue to do so today.
In recent centuries the tendency has been to see them as opposed to one
another. They have been presented as mutually exclusive principles of ex-
planation. In the recent “creationist” debates in the United States the im-
pression has often been given by protagonists on both sides of the issue that
one is forced to choose, that one cannot admit both evolution and creation
at the same time as complementary approaches to the same natural reality.
The conference from which the core of essays in this book derived was in-
spired by the conviction that this opposing of evolution to creation betrays
a fundamental misunderstanding of one or both concepts. Plans for such a
conference go back as far as spring 1972, when George N. Shuster, then assis-
tant to the president of the University of Notre Dame, brought together a
group of faculty whose researches bore in one way or another on the interac-
tions of science and religion, to discuss the possibility of a major symposium.
The group was enthusiastic, but as often happens, enthusiasm did not translate
into immediate action. George Shuster’s death in 1977 took away the prime
mover, the man who more than any other had labored at Notre Dame to
break down the disciplinary barriers that impede the discussion of so many
fundamental issues.
The long-planned conference finally took place on March 24-26, 1983,
under the joint sponsorship of the Program in History and Philosophy of
Science and the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre
Dame. The Program in History and Philosophy of Science has as one of its
special concerns the interactions, both historical and philosophical, between
science and religion over the ages. It is one of the few degree programs in
history and philosophy of science to have this as a focus of its research and
teaching. Hence the topic was seen as a peculiarly appropriate one for the
first conference to be sponsored by the program.
XI
