The analysis of creation and the distinctions Thomas Aquinas draws among the domains of metaphysics, the natural sciences, and theology can serve an important role in contemporary
The so called Sketch (1842) represents the first, 10-page summary Darwin wrote — using a pencil — as a memory of his theory of the biological evolution of species. The contents of
Op-Ed article by Roman Catholic Cardinal Christoph Schonborn on Catholic stance on evolution; says evolution in sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in neo-Darwini
Evolution in its contemporary meaning in biology typically refers to the changes in the proportions of biological types in a population over time (see the entries on evolutionary t
At a broad level, a Creationist is someone who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will. Such a deity is generally thou
This entry explores the various ways Darwinian evolution bears on traditional moral philosophical debates. Moral philosophers ask: Why are we moral creatures? It is often assumed,
It is not surprising that such discord and error should always have existed outside the fold of Christ. For though, absolutely speaking, human reason by its own natural force and l
During this Easter season, as we celebrate with great joy the mystery of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, I am pleased to have the opportunity to greet thos
According to traditional understandings of the Book of Genesis God created the world with human beings and other animals all in a short period of time. Even in the early middle ages this account began to be treated as allegorical, but for centuries it continued to be believed that the variety of living things, including humans, had been created in the form in which they existed thereafter. In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries this view came to be challenged by the discovery of fossils showing different but ancestral animal forms and by the development by Charles Darwin of the theory of speciation and evolution through variation and natural selection. His application of the theory to the origins of human beings in The Descent of Man (1871) proposed a natural account of human development though multitude of intermediary species. This posed two challenges for traditional believers. First, to the idea that human beings are radically different in nature from other animals; second, that the difference could only be explained by an act of special creation. The initial reply by Christians and others believers in the ‘uniqueness of man’ was to deny evolution. A later and more considered one was to suggest that the human body may be an evolutionary product, but that the human soul could not be accounted for naturally but was added by God. A third and now more common response is to reconcile evolution with creation by saying that the former is God’s chosen method of the latter. Finally, those who believe in creation point out that evolution requires and therefore cannot explain the phenomenon of reproduction and thereby shirt the ground of the debate for and against creation to the issue of the origin of life.