Evolution Theory 'Absurd'
By Edward Razz
On April 6th, a Catholic News Service story was published containing the babbling of a Father George Coyne, SJ., the director of the Vatican Observatory[1]. He calls the concept of Intelligent Design "absurd" while in reality he has no clue what it is.
First, he confuses the Intelligent Design movement with Biblical creationism. The Intelligent Design movement holds the idea that natural organisms display unmistakable evidence of design in their composition without making any reference to the Bible. Biblical creationists agree with the deduction of Intelligent Design from nature but declare Who the Designer is. By using logic and observation - scientists conclude that the origin of some things can not be explained through time and chance. (For a thorough discussion of Intelligent Design see the article by Eric Bermingham on this web site.) Who would have thought that scientists concluding "God is Creator of Heaven and Earth" would be objectionable within the Church?
Second, Fr. Coyne concludes that we shouldn't look to science to find signs of God's existence but that we need to first establish a personal relationship with Him. How can somebody establish a personal relationship - with someone whom they are unsure exists? It requires much greater faith to believe in a personal God - one who counts the hair on our head and loves and knows us individually - than just believing in God's existence. Evolution doesn't necessarily eliminate the possibility of God's existence - but it does make God an unnecessary hypothesis and truly not discernible from the natural world. This is precisely the reason why evolution is so strongly associated with false religions such as pantheism and atheism, as well as the heresy known as modernism.
According to the First Vatican Council[2], design in nature must be affirmed by all the faithful - including Father Coyne.
"If anyone shall have said that the one true God, our Creator and our Lord, cannot be known with certitude by those things with which have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema." [Vatican Council Decree against those denying natural theology]
This unchanging dogma of the Church makes it clear that all Catholics must affirm that God can be discerned from the created world by human reason. The Intelligent Design movement is simply a modern expression of this truth.
[1] http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20060328.htm#head17
