Q & A: Why Is There No Official Orthodox Position on the Issue of Evolution and Origins?
I received the following important question in an email recently for which I have been given permission to reprint, along with my answer, below:
Question:
I am having difficulties with a particular issue; the issue of understanding Evolution and its place in the Eastern Orthodox church today.
I am a "cradle" Orthodox and so my experience, through the Orthodox church, on this topic has been that "Christ is not a decendant of monkeys/apes". I have been taught to be loyal to these matters and I have always considered it disrespectful to even want to consider Christ as an ape. Infact, Elder Paisios has boldly stated that it is "blasphemous" to think in this way (this comment can be found in his Epistles). I place much trust in these Saints and Elders of our church, since I have also experienced their divine wisdom first hand and so this is the line of thinking I have comfortably adopted without questioning it using man's rational mind.
What I have come to understand is that our modern day Church is infact divided on this matter. There are two groups, those who are compatabilist or those who are incompatabilist (cf. OrthodoxWiki for an explanation of terms).
Not dwelling on Patristics (since I am not a theologian), I can think of a modern day example of Father Seraphim Rose who holds the position of an incompatablist (ie. he does not support the idea that Christ is a decendant of a monkey).
My dilemma is, and what is eating me I suppose, why does the administrative Orthodox church not hold a position on this matter when it is clear that many of our Saints do? Is there "room for everyone on this matter" (as a new convert boldly stated to me) when only one group can be right. In Orthodoxy (or even philosophy) there can only ever be One Truth so both groups can not be right and, like I mentioned I prefer to place my trust in divine revelation than man made proofs.
I understand from Scripture that, being challenged by the Pharisees as to whether he is from the devil or from God, that Christ announces that a house divided can not stand ... so then, why is our Orthodox church allowing itself to be divided on this topic please?
Further, for someone like myself, who places a huge trust and emphasis on the enlightened words of not just ordinary Orthodox but amazing saints like Elder Porfyrios ... am I sinning for standing up and defending Christ's image? I have been called an ideologist (which I am not).
I hope I make some sense, once upon a time the Church had no answers with regards to the Arian controversy and was divided. Then God revealed through miraculous means that their could only be "one truth" (on that matter) through miraculous means ... This topic for me IS a modern day controversy and though some people think - what does it have to do with salvation, I wonder how important it is to defend the "Tree of Life" from the "Tree of Death" (Darwinism and its variations).
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Answer:
I completely agree with your evaluation of this topic. It is true the Orthodox Church has no "official" position on this topic, but the reason for this is because the topic is within the realm of science and not theology. Scientific theories are adopted one day and dropped the next based on the evidence, and if the Church was to take a position on the topic it could lead to the same danger that condemned someone like Copernicus or Galileo in the West for disagreeing with an official position of the Church on a scientific matter. In the Orthodox Church, we have avoided such controversies and have always adapted with the scientific theories of the day. Both science and theology are in the business of teaching truth and its conclusions can never contradict one another. The former is based on the evidence while the second on revelation. The former deals with the creation while the latter deals with the Creator.
However, science is one thing and philosophy is another. The problem with modern science is that it has as its foundations not mere science but in fact a certain philosophical worldview. This is what Darwinism is precisely - it is a philosophical worldview through which scientific evidence is understood. The danger in using science like this is that it creates a story, or even myths if you will, that are not based on evidence but on mere conjecture and imagination. So if the Church were to take a position, I would encourage it to condemn the use of philosophical presuppositions when evaluating scientific evidence.
Unfortunately very few, if any, Orthodox theologians are studying this topic to be able to even write about it. The reason I make some posts on it in my weblog is because I do want Orthodox to be more aware of these issues. It is one of many topics I plan to tackle more formally, God willing. I feel very passionately about it because when I was in 9th grade I followed the logical conclusions of my High School Biology class and ended up being an atheist. When I finally came back to Faith I vowed that I would study the depths of this topic and unmask it, which I have been and will.
Regarding the theory of Evolution, I should mention that the great majority of Orthodox scholars believe in Theistic Evolution. In their fear of opposing the science of the day, they have in turn subjected our theology to the interpretations and conjectures of scientists by doing this. And as I mentioned earlier, what they are in fact doing is intermingling Orthodox theology with Darwinian philosophy - not science. This is very grievous to me, and as you mentioned, it is not the view supported by the Saints. St. Nektarios actually wrote a book on Darwinian Evolution and he is one of the first Christians to offer a critique on this topic in the early 20th century. I recommend also the booklet Biological Evolutionism by Dr Constantine Cavarnos, a former Harvard professor of Philosophy, who also evaluates Darwinian theory as a philosophy which contradicts Orthodoxy and lacks any scientific support.
Though I am sympathetic to Creationism, I would prefer not to be called a Creationist either. Creationism in some ways does also what Darwinism does, but instead of a philosphy, Creationism mixes theology with science. Thus this also limits both theology and science. It is also too literalistic when it comes to Scriptural interpretations and such exegetical methods are not adopted or endorsed by the Church Fathers in the strict sense. Creationism is basically a reaction against Darwinism and a product of Fundamentalist Protestantism.
If I were to put my support anywhere, though on a somewhat limited scale, it would be the Intelligent Design movement. Though very misunderstood by its critics and by Orthodox theologians like Metropolitan John Zizioulas who critiques it, it actually does not stray from Scriptural and Patristic interpretations of how we can evaluate our origins (it was actually the type of science adopted by the Church Fathers). It also does not take a theological position of any sort. What people don't realize is that before Darwinism, the scientific method was primarily one of Intelligent Design. It basically attributes the irreducible complexity of the universe to a designer, whoever that designer is. It does not make use of Scripture or any sort of revelation, since science should not draw upon any sources of revelation or even philosophy. Darwin actually set out to prove ID was wrong after the death of his daughter made him angry against God and caused him to become a skeptic. Darwinism thus became a critique of ID. Since the 1990's ID has been making a major comeback since the evidence in fact supports the theory of irreducible complexity, most notably at the cellular level. The Darwinist arguments these days are merely rhetorical.
So yes, when it comes to scientific issues, we are as fish swimming upstream as far as guidance from the Church comes these days. But if we separate science from both philosophy and theology, as well as separate theology from both science and philosophy, we can honestly evaluate where the evidence lies. What is most important is that the truths of Orthodoxy can never be compromised by true and honest science.
Hope this helps a bit.
Thanks to John Sanidopoulos:
No comments:
Post a Comment