EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE 



they share with no other creatures. Consequently, while he is 

 not a source of scientific information, he has something to say 

 about the beginnings of the race that does not fall under 

 scientific observation. 



As far as the Bible is concerned, evolution may have played 

 its part in the formation of the body into which God infused 

 a human spirit. God, when creating Adam and Eve, could 

 have utilized organic matter already living. Whether He did 

 so or not, is a question that pertains, not to exegesis, but to 

 sciences such as anthropology, biology, and paleontology. 

 Sacred Scripture neither teaches nor rejects evolution; it 

 observes strict neutrality. 



The same may be said of the Fathers, who simply repeat 

 what Scripture teaches. There is not a single patristic text 

 that may be alleged to support an evolutionist explanation of 

 human origins; on the other hand, there are no explicit texts 

 that oppose it from a theological point of view.i^ 



III. SOME ZONES OF OBSCURITY OR DISCORD 



Theories of theistic, finalistic evolution, even as extending 

 to man's body, are quite acceptable in Catholic circles. The 

 notion that God could have employed a long series of 

 secondary causes, operating according to fixed laws, eventually 

 to produce a body capable of being animated by a spiritual 

 soul, involves nothing incongruous. Theologians in increasing 

 numbers perceive that it is quite fitting for the Creator, if He 

 so elected, to have used for such a purpose the highest form 

 of living matter, that of an anthropoid morphologically closest 

 to man, rather than lifeless dust. The process of evolution, in 

 this supposition, would have been designed by the Creator 

 expressly to lead to, and issue in, the formation of the human 

 body. 



A. Adaptation of the Body 



Some theologians add that God would have had to exercise 

 a direct action on the organism, either of an adult animal or 

 in the initial embryonic stage, to cause the ultimate disposition 



^"^ Cf. E. Gonzalez, "El evolucionismo en los Santos Padres," in El 

 evolucionismo en filosofia y en teologia (Barcelona, 1956) ISS'—Sl. 



105 



