Evolution
The Catholic Church's Official Position

Although the question of evolution is generally not considered a difference between Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants, many people still want to know: Does the Church have an official position on evolution?

According to Pope John Paul II, Pius XII "already stated [in Humani Generis] that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one [does] not lose sight of several indisputable points."[1] John Paul II himself stated, "the theory of natural evolution, understood in a sense which does not exclude divine causality, is not in principle opposed to the truth about the creation of the visible world as presented in the book of Genesis."[2] In a nutshell, Catholics are free to accept theories of evolution, within certain guidelines, but they are under no obligation to do so.[3]

To understand the Church's stance on evolution, one must first properly understand the concept of a scientific theory. Scientific theories are designed to relate and interpret observable natural data. Theories are accepted, modified, or even discarded depending on how well they fit known data. Acceptance of a scientific theory is, generally speaking, always tentative because new natural data may be discovered in the future. Good theories account for all known data[4] without incorporating logical fallacies.

But natural data is not the only available data. Christians must also take into account "supernatural data," the content of divine revelation. Because God is the Author of nature and revelation, these will never truly conflict (though some people's interpretations of them may).[5] Only theories which account for all known natural and supernatural data are truly worthy of Christian acceptance. A Catholic must never accept any theory which does not take both kinds of data into just consideration.

This statement, so to speak, "cuts both ways." Those who favor evolutionary theories must recall the words of Pope Pius XII: "If... conjectural opinions are directly or indirectly opposed to the doctrine revealed by God, then the demand that they be recognized [by the Catholic religion] can in no way be admitted."[6] But those who favor "special creation," the belief that things were created as they now are, must also bear in mind the words of Pope John Paul II:

It is important to set proper limits on the understanding of Scripture, excluding any unreasonable interpretations which would mean something it is not intended to mean. In order to mark out the limits of their own proper fields, theologians and those working on the exegesis of the Scripture need to be well informed regarding the results of the latest scientific research.[7]

As explained above, the Church has certain parameters within which theories of evolution may be considered acceptable. What are these parameters or guidelines? Generally speaking, acceptable evolutionary theories cannot, in the words of Pius XII, "directly or indirectly oppose" revealed truths. The Church has, on various occasions, provided concrete examples.

Catholics must affirm, for example, that God is the free Creator of all things, spiritual and material, and that any possible development or "evolution" occurring within His creation is guided by His providential action and ordered to His glory.

This one, true God, of His own goodness and "almighty power"... with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal...."[8]
By His providence God protects and governs all things which He has made, "reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well." For "all are open and laid bare to His eyes," even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.[9]
The truth that God is at work in all the actions of His creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause Who operates in and through secondary causes.... Drawn from nothingness by God's power, wisdom, and goodness, [the creature] can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for "without a Creator the creature vanishes."[10]

The Church is not afraid of scientific criticism. She distrusts only preconceived opinions that claim to be based on science, but which in reality surreptitiously cause science to depart from its domain.[11]

Catholics must also affirm that each human soul is specially created by God, and not descended from the bodies or souls of biological parents. Pope Pius XII was explicit on this point:

...the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter-for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.[12]

On the basis of divine revelation, Catholics must affirm that all human beings are descended from the same two parents, commonly called Adam and Eve. Some people have theorized that humans arose in several places independently, but the Church rejects the belief that not all humans are biologically related to each other. With regards to this theory, named "polygenism," Pius XII stated:

When, however, there is a question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents.[13]

Recognizing the provisional nature of scientific theories and the number of evolutionary theories in existence, the Church does not allow Catholics to "rashly... act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question."[14] Catholics must exercise the virtue of prudence, taking into account all the natural and supernatural data, and be willing to reform their acceptance (or rejection) of scientific theories according to the discovery of new natural data or the judgment of the Church.

Footnotes

[1] John Paul II's Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996, no. 3 (empahsis added).

[2] Excerpts from the General Audiences of January 24 April 16, 1986 (emphasis added).

[3] For more information on this topic and related ones, c.f. Catechism of the Catholic Church, particularly nos. 159, 279-421, 2293-2294.

[4] John Paul II's Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996, no. 4.

[5] Catechism, no. 159.

[6] Humani Generis, no. 35.

[7] Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996, no. 3.

[8] Vatican I document Dei Filius, no. 1.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Catechism, no. 308.

[11] Address on the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, April 28, 1993, no. 4. C.f. also Fides et Ratio.

[12] Humani Generis, no. 36.

[13] Ibid., no. 37.

[14] Ibid., no. 36.

For further reading

Catechism of the Catholic Church
Humani Generis by Pope Pius XII
Original Unity of Man and Woman by Pope John Paul II
In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Fides et Ratio by Pope John Paul II
Communion & Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God by the International Theological Commission

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