CHAPTER IV. 



THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 

 Evolution and Faith. 



HAVING eliminated from our discussion the 

 forms of Evolution held by the divers schools 

 of monists and agnostics, there now remains but 

 the third form, known as theistic Evolution. Can 

 we, then, consistently with the certain deductions of 

 science and philosophy, and in accordance with the 

 positive dogmas of faith can we as Christians, as 

 Catholics, who accept without reserve all the teach- 

 ings of the Church, give our assent to theistic Evolu- 

 tion ? This is a question of paramount importance, 

 one which is daily growing in interest, and one for 

 an answer to which the reading public has long been 

 clamoring. And with it must also be answered 

 a certain number of cognate questions, of scarcely 

 less interest and importance than the main question 

 of Evolution itself. 



I have elsewhere 1 shown that the principles of 

 theistic Evolution the Evolution, namely, which 

 admits the existence of a God, and the develop- 

 ment, under the action of His Providence, of the 

 universe and all it contains were accepted and de- 

 fended by some of the most eminent Doctors of the 

 early Greek and Latin Churches. It was a brilliant 



1 ''Bible, Science and Faith," part I, chaps, in and iv. 



(279) 



