Cardinal Schönborn on Creation and Evolution
"Borders Are Neither Recognized nor Respected"
VIENNA, Austria, DEC. 12, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation
of a lecture Cardinal Christoph Schönborn delivered in October
in Vienna on creation and evolution. The lecture was meant, in part,
to clear up misunderstandings that arose from an article he wrote that
appeared July 7 in the New York Times.
Go to lecture no. 2.
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Creation and Evolution: To the Debate as It Stands
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn's first catechetical lecture for
2005/2006:
Sunday, Oct. 2, 2005, St. Stephan's Cathedral, Vienna
It is with a measure of heartfelt trepidation that I begin the catechetical
lectures for this working year, for the topic with which I have resolved
to grapple is creation and evolution. I do not intend to delve into
the scientific details; in that domain I would doubtlessly not be qualified.
Instead, I shall examine the relationship between belief in creation
and scientific access to the world, to reality.
Thus, I begin with the first words of the Bible: "In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1). These should
be the first words of instruction as well. Belief in God the Creator,
belief that he created the heavens and the earth, is the beginning of
faith. It launches the credo as its first article. That already implies
that here is the basis of all, the foundation on which every other Christian
belief rests.
To believe in God and, at the same time, not to believe that he is
the Creator would mean, as Thomas Aquinas puts it, "to deny utterly
that God is." God and Creator are inseparable. Every other Christian
conviction depends on this: that Jesus Christ is the Savior, that there
is the Holy Spirit, that there is a Church, that there is eternal life:
They all presuppose belief in the Creator.
For that reason, the catechism of the Catholic Church emphasizes the
fundamental significance of belief in creation. In Article 282, it tells
us that here we are dealing with questions that any human being leading
a human life must sooner or later pose: "Where do I come from?
Where am I going? What is the goal, what is the origin, what is the
meaning of my life?" The belief in creation is also crucially related
to the basis of ethics, for implicit in that faith is the assumption
that this Creator has something to say to us -- through his creation,
through his work -- about the proper use of that work and about the
true meaning of our lives. Thus, from the earliest days of the Church,
creation catechesis has been the basis of all doctrinal teaching. If
you examine the patristic instruction given to the first catechumens,
you will see that this teaching stood at the very beginning. During
this year, we shall therefore endeavor to ponder the matter.
If it is true that the question of the origin (whence do we come?)
is inseparable from that of life's goal (where do we go?), then the
question of creation also concerns that of its purpose or end. Likewise
related is the "design" of the plan. God not only is the Maker
of all; he is also the maintainer of his creation, directing it to its
goal. That too will be a subject of these lessons, for the question
is quite an essential part of basic Christian convictions.
God is not only a creator who at the beginning set the work in motion,
like a watchmaker who has fashioned a timepiece that will tick on forever.
Rather, he preserves and guides it towards its goal. The Christian faith
further teaches that the creation is not yet complete, that it is in
"statu viae," in transit. God as Creator of the world is also
its guide. We call this "providence" ("Vorsehung").
We are convinced that all of this -- that there is a Creator and a guide
-- can also be perceived and recognized by us. Christian belief decidedly
and tenaciously clings to the human capacity to discern both these divine
aspects, though certainly neither "in toto" nor in every detail.
How do we know about it? A blind faith, one that would simply demand
a leap into the utter void of uncertainty, would be no human faith.
If belief in the Creator were totally without insight, without any understanding
of what such entails, then it would likewise be inhuman. Quite rightly,
the Church has always rejected "fideism" -- that very sort
of blind faith.
Belief without insight, without any possibility of perceiving the Creator,
of being able to grasp by means of reason anything of what he has wrought,
would be no Christian belief. The biblical Judeo-Christian faith was
always convinced that we not only should and may believe in the Creator:
There is also much about him that we are capable of understanding through
the exercise of human reason.
Allow me to cite a somewhat lengthy passage from Chapter 13 of the
Book of Wisdom, an Old Testament text from sometime at the end of the
second or the beginning of the first century B.C.:
1 "For all men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of
God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him
who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan;
2 "But either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circuit
of the stars, or the mighty water, or the luminaries of heaven, the
governors of the world, they considered gods.
3 "Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods, let
them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these; for the original
source of beauty fashioned them.
4 "Or if they were struck by their might and energy, let them
from these things realize how much more powerful is he who made them.
5 "For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their
original author, by analogy, is seen.
6 "But yet, for these the blame is less; For they indeed have
gone astray perhaps, though they seek God and wish to find him.
7 "For they search busily among his works, but are distracted
by what they see, because the things seen are fair.
8 "But again, not even these are pardonable.
9 "For if they so far succeeded in knowledge that they could speculate
about the world, how did they not more quickly find its Lord?"
(Book of Wisdom, 13:1-9)
This classic text is one of the bases for the conviction, subsequently
made dogma, i.e., affirmed as an explicit principle of faith as taught
by the Church, in the First Vatican Council of 1870: that the light
of human reason enables us to know that there is a Creator and that
this Creator guides the world. ("Dei Filius," Chapter 2; Catechism
of the Catholic Church, 36)
From the text I might first bring to the fore the following: The Bible
reproaches the Gentiles, who do not worship the true God, for deifying
the world and nature, for seeking mythical, magical power behind nature
and natural phenomena. Of stars, from fire, from light and air, they
make gods. They allow themselves to be deceived. Their fascination with
creation has led them to the apotheosis of creature. In this sense,
the Bible is the first messenger of enlightenment. In its own way, it
disenchants the world, strips it of its magical, mythical power, "de-mythologizing"
and "dis-deifying" it.
Are we aware that without this dis-deification, modern science would
be impossible? That the world has been created and is not divine, that
it is finite, that it is, to put in philosophical language, "contingent"
and not necessary, that it could also not exist, only this belief has
made it possible for that same world to be studied -- what it consists
of and who inhabits it -- as an end in itself.
There we encounter finite, created realities and not gods or divine
beings. In this disenchantment of nature there is, of course, something
painful. Behind the tree, behind the well, there are no longer any nymphs
or deities, mythical, magical powers, but rather that which the Creator
has endowed in them and which human reason can explore. Thus, already
in the Old Testament, the Book of Wisdom, in an astoundingly dry and
sober manner, that God has created everything according to measure,
number and weight. That is the basis of all natural scientific endeavor
to understand reality.
Behind everything in world stands the transcendent reason of the Creator.
All things are made by him and not of themselves. They are willed by
him, and that is the great mystery of the creation doctrine. They are,
so to speak, set free into their own existence. They are themselves,
not of themselves but rather because the Creator in a sovereign exercise
of his volition has willed them. In this sense, as we shall see in the
next lesson, they have their autonomy, their own laws, their independence,
their own being. It is the belief in the doctrine of creation that makes
it possible to grasp this.
Whereas pagan antiquity for the most part "divinized" the
world, made it a god, a philosophical movement reacting against this
idea, at the time that Christianity arose, was the so-called Gnosis,
which denigrated the world. The world, above all matter, was the product
of an "accident" ("Unfall") a "downfall"
("Abfall"). It is, in fact, nothing at all good. It is not
something that is willed, that ought to be; it is pure negativity. Christianity
just as decisively rejected the Gnostic vision as it did the deification
of the world.
It is precisely because the world has been created that early Christendom
emphasizes without any hint of ambiguity that matter too has been created,
that it is good, that is meaningful and is not simply, as the result
of an "accident" within the godhead, "debris" from
what was originally a single, monistic divine being, something driven
through, so to speak, an "excretion" ("Ausscheidung")
into the void. Matter is not something purely meaningless, which should
be overcome, put aside. Matter was created. "God saw that it was
good" (Genesis 1:10).
Man in this material world has not fallen into a region of darkness,
as the Gnosis teaches, a divine spark that has fallen into filth from
which he must extricate himself by returning to his divine origin. Rather,
he partakes of creation. He is willed by God, as a material but also
spiritual-physical being, as a microcosm, as an image of the macrocosm,
as a being on the border between two realms, combining the spiritual
and the material. The account of creation in Genesis tells us: "And
God saw that it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). Man belongs to creation
and yet transcends it. We shall make this a subject of discussion when
we come to the question: Is man the crown of creation?
Both Gnostic and divinizing visions are incompatible with the biblical
doctrine of creation. The greatest stumbling block for antiquity was
certainly the belief that God creates out of nothing, without prerequisite:
"ex nihilo." I think that this question is still today the
key question in the entire debate about creation and evolution. What
does it mean to say that God creates? The great difficulty that we have,
the point -- I am convinced and will also demonstrate -- at which Darwin
faltered and failed, is that we have no concept, no vision, no idea
of what it means is to say that God is the Creator.
That is because everything that we know is strictly a matter of changes,
alterations. The makers of this cathedral did not construct out of nothing.
They shaped stone and wood in marvelous fashion. All extra-biblical
creation myths and epics take it for granted that a divine being made
the world within a pre-existing framework. "Creatio ex nihilo,"
the absolutely sovereign act of creation, as the Bible attests, is --
and I believe one can also say this in terms of the history of religion
-- something unique. We shall see how fundamentally important this is
for the understanding of creation as something that God wills to be
independent. That will be our next topic of discussion.
Today I wish to point out that I am not the only one who is convinced
of this. The belief in creation stood like a godfather beside the cradle
of modern science. I shall not demonstrate this in detail, but I am
convinced of it and for good reasons. Copernicus, Galileo and Newton
were certain that the work of science means reading in the book of creation.
God has written that book, and he has given men the power of understanding,
in order than they may decipher it. God has written it in legible form,
as a comprehensible text. It is admittedly not easy to understand, and
the writing is not easy to decode, but it is possible. The entire scientific
enterprise is the discovery of order, laws, connections and relationships.
Let us say, using this book metaphor: It is the discovery of the letters,
the grammar, the syntax and ultimately of the text itself that God has
put into this book of creation.
The proposition that the relationship between the Church and science
is a bad one, that faith and science, since time immemorial, have been
in a state of interminable conflict, belongs to the enduring myths of
our time, indeed, I would say, to the acquired prejudices of our time.
And, of course, the notion that generally goes along with it, like a
musical accompaniment, is the notion that the Church has acted as an
enormous inhibitor, with science the courageous liberator.
Above all, the Galileo incident is usually portrayed in the popular
version in such a way that he is seen as a victim of the sinister Inquisition.
Such belongs to the chapter of "legenda negra," the "black
legend," which developed primarily during the Enlightenment but
which does not correspond entirely to the historical record. The reality
appears somewhat differently. Many historical examples demonstrate how
the creation faith served as the rational foundation for scientific
research. Of these, Gregor Mendel, the scientist of Bruenn, is but one
of a multitude whose endeavors remain indelibly with us today.
It is not true that belief in God the Creator in any way hinders the
progress of science! Quite the contrary! How could the belief that the
universe has a maker stand in the way of science? Why should it be an
impediment to science if it understands its research, its discoveries,
its construction of theories, its understanding of connections and relationships
as a "study of the book of creation"? Indeed, among natural
scientists there are numerous witnesses who make no secret of their
faith and openly profess it, but who also expressly see no conflict
between faith and science. Again, quite the contrary. The fact that
conflicts nonetheless have existed and continue to exist is an issue
that would require separate treatment.
Allow me to quote two short texts that express this fundamental conviction
of the Church. First, there is again the First Vatican Council of 1870,
where we read:
"Even though faith is above reason, there can never be any real
disagreement between faith and reason, since it is the same God who
reveals the mysteries and infuses faith, and who has endowed the human
mind with the light of reason. God cannot deny himself, nor can truth
ever be in opposition to truth" ("Dei Filius," Chapter
4; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 159).
The conclusion to be drawn is that neither the Church nor science should
fear the truth, for, as Jesus says, the truth sets us free (cf. John
8:32). The second excerpt comes from the Second Vatican Council. In
the conciliar constitution "Gaudium et Spes," there is more
particular emphasis on the question of "Natural Science and Faith":
"Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge,
provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not
override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the
things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.
The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is
being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it
is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are"
("Gaudium et Spes," 36:2; Catechism of the Catholic Church,
159).
Why then do we continually find ourselves caught up in conflicts --
or at least, as a consequence of my short article in the New York Times
on July 7, 2005, for example, though such can be quite productive and
further the discussion -- to vehement polemics?
Conflicts can arise from misunderstandings. Perhaps we do not express
ourselves with sufficient clarity; perhaps our thoughts and ideas are
not clear enough. Such misunderstandings can be resolved. I have just
mentioned one of the most frequent, that which concerns the Creator
himself. I shall soon touch upon this with reference to Darwin. Today
there seems to me no real danger of an attempt on the part of the Church
to take a dictatorial or patronizing attitude toward science. Yet again
and again the difficulty arises on both sides that borders are neither
recognized nor respected. Thus, they must constantly be assessed and
enunciated.
In this regard, the grand achievements of the natural sciences have
again and again encouraged the temptation to cross borders. The impression
arises that in the face of science's powerful advance, religion is constantly
retreating, being forced by the ever greater explanatory capacity of
science to yield ever more of its territory. Questions that previously
were elucidated in supposedly "primitive supernatural" terms
can now be treated in "naturalistic" terms, and that generally
means resorting to purely material causes.
When Napoleon asked LaPlace where in his theory there was still a place
for God, he is said to have replied: "Sire, je n'ai pas eu besoin
de cette hypothèse" ("Sire, I have had no need of that
hypothesis"). Such is the notion that God is a superfluous hypothesis,
a crutch for the infirm, incapable of standing on their own feet. Increasingly,
human beings win their freedom from ancient dependencies. They emancipate
themselves, no longer needing God as an explanation or perhaps in any
way at all.
When in 1859 Darwin's famous book "The Origin of Species"
appeared, the basic message was indeed that he had found a mechanism
that portrays a self-acting ("selbsttätig") development,
without the need of a creator. As he said himself, his concern was to
find a theory which, for the development of the species from lower to
higher, did not require increasingly perfective creative acts but rather
relied exclusively on coincidental variations and the survival of the
fittest. Here was thus the notion that we have found a means for dispensing
individual acts of creation.
With this, his major work, Darwin undoubtedly scored a brilliant coup,
and it remains a great oeuvre in the history of ideas. With an astounding
gift for observation, enormous diligence, and mental prowess, he succeeded
in producing one of that history's most influential works. He could
already see in advance that his research would create many areas of
endeavor. Today one can truly say that the "evolution" paradigm
has become, so to speak, a "master key," extending itself
within many fields of knowledge.
His success should not be attributed entirely to scientific causes.
Darwin himself (but above all his zealous promoters, those who promulgated
what is called "Darwinism") imbued his theory with the air
of a distinct worldview. Let us leave aside the question of whether
such is inevitable. What is certain is that many saw Darwin's "The
Origin of Species" as an alternative to what Darwin himself called
"the theory of independent acts of creation." To explain the
origin of species, one no longer needed such one-by-one creative activity.
The famous concluding sentence added to the end of the second edition
of the work certainly provides a place for the Creator, but it is substantially
reduced. It reads:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,
having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into
one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the
fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most
beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved"
(Charles Darwin, "The Origin of Species").
I believe that Darwin sincerely intended this in a spirit of reverence,
but it is a conception of creation that in the realm of theology we
call "Deism." In the very beginning there is an act of creation:
God breathed into a seed, a single form, the germ of all life. It developed
from this primeval beginning, according to the laws that he, Darwin,
had endeavored to discover, describe, and formulate. No more divine
interventions are required.
I think that we shall have to concern ourselves with this question
in particular from the aspect of faith. Does creation mean that God
does intervene here and there? What do we mean, after all, by the idea
of creation? One thing is certain: The conflict of worldviews about
Darwin's theory, about Darwinism, has kept the world intensively busy
over the years, now nearly a century and a half. Here I shall offer
only three examples of an interpretation that is indisputably imbued
with ideology.
1) In 1959, Sir Julian Huxley gave a speech at the centennial celebration
of the publication of the famous work: "In the Evolutionary pattern
of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural.
The earth was not created, it evolved. So did all animals and plants
that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as
brain and body. So did religion. Evolutionary man can no longer take
refuge from his loneliness in the arms of a divinized father figure."
I am convinced that this is not a claim within the realm of the natural
sciences but rather the expression of a worldview. It is essentially
a "confession of faith" -- that faith being materialism.
2) Thirty years later, in 1988, the American writer Will Provine wrote
in an essay about evolution and ethics: "Modern science directly
implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with deterministic
principles or chance. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in
nature. There are no gods and no designing forces that are rationally
detectable." This too is not a conclusion derived from natural
science; it is a philosophical claim.
3) Four years later, the Oxford chemistry professor Peter Atkins wrote:
"Humanity should accept that science has eliminated the justification
for believing in cosmic purpose, and that any survival of purpose is
inspired solely by sentiment." Again, this is a "confession
of faith"; it is not a strictly scientific claim. These and similar
statements could be heard this summer and are one reason that I said
in my short article in the New York Times concerning this sort of "border-crossings,"
that they constitute ideology rather than science, a worldview.
But let us return to the Book of Wisdom, which elsewhere puts the following
words into the mouths of those who would deny God: "For we are
born of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been: for
the breath in our nostrils is smoke: and speech a spark to move our
heart" (Book of Wisdom 2:2). One could almost say that this is
a materialistic confession of faith that even at the time was not unknown.
Even my spirit is only a material product.
What prevents man from recognizing the Creator? What prevents us from
deducing the Creator from the greatness and beauty of his creatures?
Today, 2,000 years later, it ought to be much easier, to do so, for
we know incomparably more than we did two millennia ago. Who could have
had any inkling of the immeasurability of the cosmos?
Of course, it says in the Bible: "as the stars of the heaven,
and as the sand upon the sea shore" (Genesis 22:17), but could
men have known then that the number of stars does in fact correspond
to the grains of sands on the shore? There are so many suns in this
universe! Could anyone then have known how unbelievably complex, wonderful,
incomprehensible the atom is? Could anyone have conceived just how incredibly
fascinating can be a single cell and all its functions? Has this wealth
of knowledge nonetheless in some way forced us to abandon our belief
in the Creator? Has this knowledge driven him out, or has it, on the
contrary, rendered it all the more meaningful and reasonable to believe
in him -- with much better supporting evidence, through deeper insights
into the marvelous world of nature, so that faith in a Creator has really
become easier?
But perhaps it is simply this notion, one rightly rejected, that some
creator intrudes upon this marvelous natural work. Perhaps it is also
a matter of our knowledge about the faith not having kept pace with
our knowledge about the natural sciences. Perhaps some of us still have,
alongside an astoundingly developed scientific knowledge, only a "childish
faith." To that extent, I am glad that my short article has sparked
such a debate. Perhaps it will also lead to a deeper discussion of the
question of "creation and evolution," "faith and natural
science."
I see no difficulty in joining belief in the Creator with the theory
of evolution, but under the prerequisite that the borders of scientific
theory are maintained. In the citations given above, it is unequivocally
the case that such have been violated. When science adheres to its own
method, it cannot come into conflict with faith. But perhaps one finds
it difficult to stay within one's territory, for we are, after all,
not simply scientists but also human beings, with feelings, who struggle
with faith, human beings, who seek the meaning of life. And thus as
natural scientists we are constantly and inevitably bringing in questions
reflecting worldviews.
In 1985, a symposium took place in Rome under the title "Christian
Faith and the Theory of Evolution." I had the privilege of taking
part in it and contributed a paper. Then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope
Benedict XVI, presided, and, at its conclusion, Pope John Paul II received
us in an audience. There he said: "Rightly comprehended, faith
in creation or a correctly understood teaching of evolution does not
create obstacles: Evolution in fact presupposes creation; creation situates
itself in the light of evolution as an event which extends itself through
time -- as a continual creation -- in which God becomes visible to the
eyes of the believer as 'creator of heaven and earth.'"
But Pope John Paul then added the thought that for the creation faith
and the theory of evolution to be correctly understood, the mediation
of reason is necessary, along with, he insisted, philosophy and reflection.
Thus, I should like to remind you once more what I have said in various
interviews. For me the question that has emerged from this debate is
not primarily one of faith vs. knowledge but rather one of reason. The
acceptance of purposefulness, of "design" [English in the
original], is entirely based on reason, even if the method of the modern
natural sciences may require the bracketing of the question of design.
Yet my common sense cannot be shut out by the scientific method. Reason
tells me that plan and order, meaning and goal exist, that a timepiece
does not come into being by accident, even less so the living organism
that is a plant, an animal, or, above all, man.
I am thankful for the immense work of the natural sciences. Their furthering
of our knowledge boggles the mind. They do not restrict faith in the
creation; they strengthen me in my belief in the Creator and in how
wisely and wonderfully He has made all things.
It is in the next catecheses, however, that we may be able to see this
story in greater detail. There I shall attempt to address what the act
of creation means in light of the Christian faith.
[Copyrighted by Cardinal Schönborn; reprinted with
permission. Adapted slightly here.]
Cardinal Schönborn on God and
Creation
"It Is the Very Dignity of the Creature to Have
Received Everything From Him"
VIENNA, Austria, DEC. 19, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is a provisional
translation of a catechetical lecture given by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn,
archbishop of Vienna, last month on creation and evolution.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"In the Beginning God Created ..."
November 13
St. Stephan's Cathedral, Vienna
I hear that "March of the Penguins" is a wonderful film.
Unfortunately I haven't yet seen it. In just a few weeks it has become
a worldwide hit. In a fascinating way it portrays how these waddling
animals live, care for their young, and survive in extreme climates.
And yet we have once again a dispute over evolution. Some Christian
commentators in the United States are impressed by the virtues of the
penguins; they think that the ability of these animals to withstand
extreme temperatures, the ocean, and their natural enemies among the
animals, as well as to be exemplary and sacrificial monogamous parents,
is evidence against the theory of Darwin and in favor of "intelligent
design." It is evidence for a creator and against Darwin, as some
have recently said. The director of this film, a French director, emphatically
resisted being co-opted like this; he says that he was "raised
on the milk of Darwin" and simply wanted to make an animal movie,
nothing more.
It seems to me that this controversy is typical for the state of affairs
today. People get worked up over the issue, they are ready to quarrel
about it, to call each other names. The controversy reminds us of something
like a "culture-war." Thus Salman Rushdie, writing in the
New York Times as well as in Die Zeit, sharply attacks those religions
with which no peace can be achieved and no compromise can be reached.
He says, "Moslem voices all over the world declare that the theory
of evolution is incompatible with Islam." For him the theory of
"intelligent design" is "the theory that wants to project
into the beauty of creation the antiquated idea of a creator."
He even thinks that this theory deserves to be treated with scorn.
Just recently in Die Zeit one could read much polemic and aggressiveness
against "those who say that they have been created by God."
Those who think this way are stamped as fanatics. Maybe some of them
really are, or at least act fanatically, but just because people think
that they are created by God does not yet justify such a fanatical rejection
of their belief. In this article in Die Zeit we read that in Darwin's
time "most people accepted crude religious creation myths,"
whereas this is no longer the case today. Leaving aside all polemics
one might respond by asking whether the people who take delight in Haydn's
wonderful oratory, "The Creation," accept "crude myths."
It seems to me that the rude tone and the aggressive attitude in this
debate, especially on the part of those who hold out against any criticism
of Darwinism, is not a good sign. But let me add right away that religious
fanaticism is also not a good sign.
Are all who believe that they were created by God blind fanatics? Or
is delight in Haydn's "Creation" just a romantic swelling
of feeling? Can rational people still believe in a creator and see the
world as created? That is the theme of today's catechesis. I promise
to listen without any polemical spirit to all that faith and reason
have to say on this subject and to listen to all that is said about
it.
A scientist wrote me in response to my article in the New York Times
that he would like to believe in a creator but just cannot believe in
an "old man with a long white beard." I answered him saying
that no one expects him to believe this. On the contrary, such a childish
conception of a creator has nothing to do with what the Bible says about
the creator and with the article of the creed that says, "I believe
in God, the father almighty, the creator of heaven and earth."
In my response I wrote him that it would be a good thing if his religious
knowledge would not lag so far behind his scientific knowledge and if
his vast knowledge as a scientist did not go hand in hand with what
is after all childish religious conceptions. For an old man with a long
white beard is certainly not what is meant by the creator. I recommended
that he simply read what, for example, the Catechism of the Catholic
Church says on this subject.
Now there is another misunderstanding that is constantly found in the
ongoing discussion, and I have to deal with it right here at the beginning.
I refer to what is called "creationism." Nowadays the belief
in a creator is automatically run together with "creationism."
But in fact to believe in a creator is not the same as trying to understand
the six days of creation literally, as six chronological days, and as
trying to prove scientifically, with whatever means available, that
the earth is 6,000 years old.
These attempts of certain Christians at taking the Bible absolutely
literally, as if it made chronological and scientific statements --
I have met defenders of this position who honestly strive to find scientific
arguments for it -- is called "fundamentalism." Or more exactly,
within American Protestantism this view of the Christian faith originally
called itself fundamentalism. Starting from the belief that the Bible
is inspired by God, so that every word in it is immediately inspired
by him, the six days of creation are taken in a strict literal way.
It is understandable that in the United States many people, using not
only kinds of polemics but lawsuits as well, vehemently resist the teaching
of creationism in the schools. But it is an entirely different matter
when certain people would like to see the schools deal with the critical
questions that have been raised with regard to Darwinism; they have
a reasonable and legitimate concern.
The Catholic position on this is clear. St. Thomas says that "one
should not try to defend the Christian faith with arguments that are
so patently opposed to reason that the faith is made to look ridiculous."
It is simply nonsense to say that the world is only 6,000 years old.
To try to prove this scientifically is what St. Thomas calls provoking
the "irrisio infidelium," the scorn of the unbelievers. It
is not right to use such false arguments and to expose the faith to
the scorn of unbelievers. This should suffice on the subject of "creationism"
and "fundamentalism" for the entire remainder of this catechesis;
what we want to say about it should be so clear that we do not have
to return to the subject.
And now to our main subject: What does the Christian faith say about
"God the creator" and about creation? The classical Catholic
teaching, as we find it explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
or more compactly presented in the Compendium of the Catechism, contains
four basic elements.
1. The doctrine of creation says that there is an absolute beginning
-- "in the beginning God created heaven and earth" -- and
that this absolute beginning is the free and sovereign act of establishing
being out of nothing. This is the main theme of today's catechesis:
the absolute beginning.
2. The doctrine of creation also says that there are various creatures.
This is the distinction of creatures, "each according to its kind,"
of which we read in the first chapter of Genesis. This is the work of
the first six days as related on the first page of the Bible. I will
speak on this subject in the next catechesis, in which I will ask what
it means to say that according to our faith in creation God has willed
a multiplicity of creatures.
3. We come now to a point of fundamental importance for the Christian
belief about creation. It is also a point about which we will be speaking
later today. We believe not only in an absolute beginning of creation
but in the preservation of creation; God holds in being all that he
has created. We refer here to his continuing work of creation, which
in theology is called the "creatio continua," the ongoing
act of creation.
4. And finally, the doctrine of creation most definitely includes the
belief that God directs his creation. He did not just set it in motion
once at the beginning and then let it run its course. No, the divine
guidance of creation, which we call divine providence, is a part of
the doctrine of creation. God leads his work to its final end.
There you have the basics of this yearlong catechesis. I will not only
be concerned with the doctrines of the faith, but will try with each
aspect of my subject to enter into dialogue with the natural sciences,
at least as far as my limited scientific knowledge permits. What I am
of course especially concerned with is the question of how the belief
in creation is related to the theory of evolution.
Let us begin today with the question of the absolute beginning. The
scientific theory of the beginning of the universe that is now generally
recognized is the theory of the big bang. Seventy-five years ago the
American astronomer, Edwin Hubble, discovered that our universe is expanding
at an unimaginable speed, the speed of light. In the meantime it has
come to be assumed that the universe is expanding even faster.
It must, therefore, have once begun to expand at the big bang from
a highly concentrated and compact point of beginning. It began explosively
to expand. This theory is supported by observations and especially those
concerning the "background radiation" in the universe, which
is taken to be a kind of fallout from the big bang. Of course many questions
remain wrapped in mystery and probably cannot be answered at all by
the theory itself, but they surely remain as questions that invite the
rational inquiry of scientists.
There is first of all the quite simple question: Where did the universe
expand to? Did it expand into space? But there is no space "outside"
of the universe, beyond the gigantic dimensions of the cosmos, which
is 14 billion light-years in extent, as is generally assumed (light
travels 186,000 miles per second).
Our galaxy alone, the Milky Way, is 100,000 light-years across. Who
can imagine such a thing? Well, beyond these gigantic dimensions of
the cosmos there is no space. I recently read in Spectrum der Wissenschaft
that the space in which we live "emerged with the big bang and
has been expanding ever since." There is no space outside of the
universe.
The question of time is no less puzzling. For the big bang means that
the universe had one beginning and moves towards an end. We are strongly
tempted to ask what there was before the beginning. The answer can only
be: just as there is space only because of the expansion of the universe
-- there is space wherever it expands -- so it is with time. There is
no time before time; it comes about with the big bang, just like space
does. There is time only with the cosmos and within the cosmos.
In recent decades the natural sciences have tried to approach this
origin of the universe. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize laureate in physics,
wrote in 1977 a famous book called "The First Three Minutes,"
which dealt with the first three minutes of the universe. It is fascinating
to learn what the science of today says about the decisive first moments
after the big bang. Everything that developed later, the galaxies, stars,
planets, life on our earth, all of it was decided in the very first
moments.
Our well-known physicist, Walter Thirring, wrote in a book of his that
came out last year and was called "Cosmic Impressions: Traces of
God in the Laws of Nature": "Had the big bang been too weak
and had everything collapsed, we would not exist. Had it been too powerful,
everything would have dissipated too quickly," and again we would
not exist. He compares the origin of the world with starting a rocket
that is supposed to put a satellite in orbit around the earth.
He says, "If the rocket has too little push, it falls back to
the earth, but if it has too much, it escapes into space." He then
adds that with the big bang the precision needed for bringing about
our world was incomparably greater than for launching a satellite into
orbit. The precision of this event is "so far beyond man's power
to conceive" that Professor Thirring exclaims, "What an absurd
idea that this should have happened by chance!"
Do we have here the point at which we should insert our belief in a
creator? Do we introduce him as it were at the limit reached by science?
Does the creator begin to act beyond this threshold? Let us be careful!
We must not be too quick to assume that God produced the big bang, as
if in the smallest fraction of the very first second we come up against
the wall behind which we find the creator, or reach the point where
only the creator can explain what happened. This idea flits around in
many scientific and even in some theological discussions. It is defended
vigorously by some and attacked by others. Is God at work at the beginning
in the sense that he gave the signal for the great game of the universe
to begin?
I now invite you -- and I promise you that it will not be entirely
easy -- to take a look at what the faith really teaches about these
things. We will see that the Church's teaching on creation is at once
quite simple but also very deep and demanding, and that we have to get
beyond many of our ideas and images if we are going to enter into the
mystery of creation and to approach it by faith and also by reason.
Let us begin again with the first sentence of the Bible: "In the
beginning God created heaven and earth" (Genesis 1:1). "Bereschit
bara," says the Hebrew text. "Bara" is a word used in
the Bible only for God. Only God creates. The Hebrew word is used exclusively
for the creative activity of God. The Catechism (290) says that in these
first words of Scripture three things are being affirmed:
1) The eternal God has called into existence all that exists outside
of him. He has created everything, heaven and earth. The first sentence
of the Bible does not say that God gave a signal or a push in the beginning,
but that he called into being everything that in any way exists.
2) He alone is the creator. "Bara" always has God as its
subject. He alone can call into being.
3) All that exists, heaven and earth, depends on God who gives it being.
In order to understand these three affirmations we have to clear away
three misunderstandings.
1) The first and most usual misunderstanding is that God is seen as
the first cause. He is indeed the first cause of all causes but he is
not as it were at the beginning of a long chain of causes, like a pool
player who hits a ball which rolls and hits another ball which in turn
hits yet another -- as if God were just the first cause in a long series
of causes.
Here is another analogy that has been eagerly used since the Enlightenment:
the analogy of a watchmaker, who produces a watch which then runs on
its own until it has to be wound up again or occasionally repaired;
the little thing runs as soon as it is made. The fact that Richard Dawkins
sees no use for such a watchmaker in explaining our world, is not the
point that makes him an atheist. Steven Weinberg, whom I cited above,
formulates as follows the usual assumption about scientific method:
"The only possible scientific procedure consists in assuming that
no divine intervention takes place and then in seeing how far science
gets on this assumption" (Dreams of a Final Theory). The scientific
method, as understood by Weinberg and many others, is thus a conscious
rejection of any "divine intervention." They want to see how
far we can get with this method without having to posit a watchmaker
or a pool player or a starter at the beginning of the game.
Sometimes the way in which the scientific method excludes any divine
intervention is called "methodological atheism." I do not
see it that way; this excluding is simply authentic scientific method
and has nothing to do with atheism. The scientific method should not
assume a watchmaker who intervenes; it searches for the explanation
of mechanisms, connections, causal relations, and events.
We believe in a creator, not in one cause among others, one which occasionally
intervenes when the limits of all other causes have been reached. God
does not intervene like a mother who intervenes when her children fight
but who otherwise lets them play with each other. Of course there are
wonderful interventions of God, as we will see later. God is sovereign
in relation to his creation and he can heal a cancer with his sovereign
creative power. This is what we call a miracle.
But at present we are talking about the act of creating the world,
and this is not just the first push in a long chain of causes but is
rather the more fundamental thing of sovereignly conferring being. "God
spoke and it came to be." All that exists owes its being to this
call, to this word, to this creative act of God. He created everything,
heaven and earth, and there is nothing that was not created by him.
He created everything in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible
(for we believe that there are also invisible creatures, namely the
angels).
Everything is created reality. This is the first and most important
affirmation to be made; later on we will inquire more exactly into how
it is to be understood. But before going further, let us raise the following
question: Is this affirmation a pure article of faith, or can each human
being understand it with his reason? The Catechism answers (286): "Human
intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the
question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with
certainty through his works, by the light of human reason, even if this
knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. This is why faith
comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of
this truth."
With our reason we can in principle know that the things of the world
are created, even though it is only revelation that fully illumines
our mind about creation. What can reason know? It can know that the
world and all of reality does not exist through itself. All is dependent.
Nothing made itself. I set aside for the moment the much-discussed question
about the self-organization of matter. At least this much can be said:
Matter does not exist through itself. We have made neither the world
nor ourselves.
Our very limited powers suffice only to change what already exists,
sometimes for the better, but unfortunately sometimes for the worse.
But we always work with something that is already given. Given is first
of all the fact that this world exists at all and we exist in it. It
may pain us to be so dependent and it may offend our pride, but the
teaching about creation tells us that there is no humiliation in acknowledging
our dependency. It is no humiliation to be dependent on the creator;
this rather opens for us undreamed-of possibilities. The other side
of this dependency is the very positive fact that the creator holds
everything, bears everything, encompasses everything, sheltering us
in his hand.
2. And so I come to the second affirmation about the creator and his
act of creating. For a start let me say it like this, surprising and
perhaps provocative as it may sound: From the side of God the act of
creating involves "no movement." Why? All making and producing
and acting that we observe in the world is a moving or changing of something
that already exists. A carpenter makes a table out of wood, he changes
the wood, he forms it, giving a new shape to some pre-given material.
Someone at home takes a bunch of ingredients and makes a wonderful meal
out of them, shaping pre-given elements into something new. But it is
not something absolutely new, it is not a real creating, it is only
a shaping. Things are changed so that they become edible.
It is the same way with the artist, with the technician, even with
intellectually creative people. Even my best ideas are not absolute
novelties. They always presuppose that others have already done some
thinking and that I have already done some thinking. My ideas come from
the exchange of ideas with others, and when I get some special insight,
it is only the forming of what is already at hand and already exists.
Perhaps something really new sometimes comes about. This raises a question
that we will treat later on in this catechetical cycle: What about the
emergence of novelty in the world, especially when new kinds of being
emerge in the course of evolution?
Now we see what is decisively different about the creative act of God:
It is without movement. It does not change that which already exists.
It does not form some pre-given material. In most of the creation myths
that we find in the world religions the gods create by transforming
something that already exists. They are demiurges, they form the chaos
or some primal matter that is already there, they fashion worlds; but
only the God who encounters us in the Bible is really a creator.
The early Christian writers oppose the many ancient creation myths,
or rather the many ancient myths about the emergence of the world. Thus
St. Theophilus of Antioch, writing around the year 180, says: "If
God had drawn the world out of some pre-existing stuff, what would have
been so special about that? If you give to a human worker some material,
he makes out of it whatever he wants. But the power of God shows itself
in the fact that he starts from nothing to make anything he wants."
This does not mean that "nothing" is something out of which
he produces things, but that God's creative act is a sovereign act of
bringing into being. We can also say: It is a pure act of "calling
into being." God spoke and it came to be. That is what is so wonderful
and so unique about the biblical belief in creation.
3. We have now to mention a third difficulty. The doctrine of creation
says that God did not create in time, at some point on a time line.
His creative act is not a temporal act. I know that this is hard to
understand. All that we experience is experienced on the time line of
yesterday, today, tomorrow (there is the beginning of this catechesis
and the end of it). The creative act of God is not the first act in
a long stretch of time, it is not once done and then over with, as if
God has, as it were, done his job and can now put his hands in his pockets.
No, "in the beginning God created ..." This beginning is
always in God's eternity. For us creatures it is a temporal beginning.
Once I began to be 60 years ago. For God there is no temporal beginning.
Once the universe began to be 14 billion years ago, but God's creative
act is not in time, he rather creates time. He is eternal. And his act
of creating is not accomplished in this or that moment, but he calls
the world into being and holds it in being. Creation takes place now,
in the now of God.
In the Letter to the Hebrews we read: "He upholds all things by
the word of his power" (Hebrews 1:3). This is why we have to say
that if God would let go of us and of creation even for a second, we
would fall back into the nothingness from which we came and from which
he called us. I grant you that this is not easy to grasp. It requires
us to try to transcend our temporal and spatial ways of thinking. Then
we enter into a wonderfully coherent view of the world.
In conclusion I want at least to touch on two important points, and
this for the sake of completing what has been said, or providing further
background for it.
1. God creates in absolute freedom -- nothing forces him to it, nothing
requires it of him. He does not act out of need, as we do. We are always
in need of something that we lack, like food or sleep, because want
to realize something, to realize ourselves. God does not have to realize
himself. By creating he does not complete his being. Creation is not
a part of him nor are we a part of him, but we are freely set in being
by him, freely created. This means that we are willed by him.
2. This has immense consequences for our understanding of our world
and our ourselves. Since God has created in sovereign freedom, he has
given his creatures real independence of being. Creatures are themselves,
they really have their own being, their own power of acting, the gift
of their autonomy. This reaches all the way to the freedom of human
beings, to the fact that God has created freedom, which is the greatest
marvel of all in creation.
Before we look at the consequences of this, let us distinguish the
Christian position from three other interrelated accounts of the relation
between God and the world. a) There is the emanationist account according
to which the world is an emanation of God, a "piece" of him
that is of lesser value, an inferior form of God. b) The pantheistic
account sees everything in God and as God. God is in everything but
in such a way that everything is God, even the trees and the animals.
c) The monistic account says that there is only one substance or being
and that is God; all else either does not exist or is God.
All three of these accounts, which even today have many defenders in
the esoteric literature, commit this one fundamental mistake: They keep
God from being God and they keep creatures, which are only "parts"
of God, from having any being of their own. These three accounts seem
to be very "devout" and so they are always deceiving people.
They seem to exalt the creature, raising it to a divine level, but the
truth is the very opposite, as we will now try to see.
I said that creation has a real being of its own as a result of the
fact that God creates in sovereign freedom without having any compulsion
or urge to create, that he gives creatures their being and power of
acting as a gift. If creatures were an "emanation" of the
divine being, then they would not be independent in being, they would
not have their own being and reality. It is just because we are created
by God in complete freedom that we can really "be ourselves."
In the next catechesis I want to explain the far-reaching consequences
that this has. We will see that in evolutionism (remember that I distinguish
the scientific theory of evolution from the inflation of evolution into
the metaphysics of "evolutionism") one has a hard time acknowledging
the "being of their own" that creatures have.
Everything is blurred in the stream of evolution, nothing has a basis,
nothing stands in itself, nothing has its own reality. Everything is
just a transitory image in the flow of time. How different is the belief
in creation, according to which all creatures have their own being,
their own form, their own power of acting, and, in the case of human
beings, their own freedom. More about this in the next catechesis.
We have to draw the very important and essential conclusion that creatures
have their own being because God is utterly free in creating them. They
stand in themselves and exist on their own, for they are willed by God.
St. Thomas puts it like this: God gives things not only being but also
their own power of acting efficaciously. This principle finds its supreme
realization in man: We are creatures who have not only received being
but have also received spirit, will and freedom.
I know of no other teaching that combines in such an intelligible and
convincing way the dependency of all creatures on their creator with
the independence of these creatures. And the reason is simple: Since
God creates in sovereign freedom, he gives his creatures the sovereign
freedom to be themselves. Since he has no other reason for creating
than his own goodness, he gives his creatures a share in his goodness:
"And God saw that it was good."
I hope that I have been able to show a little that the Christian belief
in a creator is something entirely different from the belief in a deistic
watchmaker who only sets things in motion at the beginning with a push
from without. To be created means to have received being and existence.
It means to be supported by the giver of all being, of all motion, of
all life. It means to have received everything from his goodness and
to remain encompassed and held fast by his goodness.
This faith in a creator takes nothing away from creatures, as many
fear. It is a faith that unites both dependency and freedom, paradoxical
as that may sound. For to be dependent on God is not to be degraded
or to be treated like a child. God is not an arbitrary dictator nor
is his action as creator the whim of a tyrant.
It is the very dignity of the creature to have received everything
from him. Belief in the creator is thus the best way of guaranteeing
and protecting the dignity of his creatures. If everything is just a
product of accident and necessity, then we have to wonder why creatures
should merit any special respect or dignity.
But is there a dignity proper to creatures at all, "each according
to its kind"? This will be the question we ask in the next catechesis:
Are there different kinds of creatures, as implied in "each according
to its kind," and are they willed by the creator?
[Copyright by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn]
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