"non habetur evolutio ab una specie proprie dicta ad aliam..."
"corpus hominis non est per evolutionem brutorum formatum..."
Sed
"possibilis est evolutio intra plures inferiores gradus classificationis..."
- Fr. Carlo Boyer, S.J.
Evolutionem contra Metaphysicam
Fr. Chad Ripperger lays out the first cause principles which evolution contradicts:
(See Fr. Ripperger's article at - https://www.kolbecenter.org/metaphysical-impossibility-human-evolution-chad-ripperger-catholic-creation/ - for a complete explanation of each first cause principle).
"1. The principle of sufficient reason, ontological formula:
A) there is a sufficient reason or adequate necessary objective explanation for the being of whatever is and for all attributes of any being.
B) full formula: every being must have either in itself or in another being a sufficient reason for its possibility, actualities, origin, existence and the mode of existence, its essence (nature or constitution), its subjective potentialities, powers, habits, operations, changes, unity, intelligibility, goodness, beauty, end, relationships, and any other attributes or predicates that may belong to it. (Princ. 35)
Alternate: the existence of being is accountable either in itself or in another.
2. The principle of proportionate causality: the effect cannot be greater than the cause. (Princ. 87a)
Variant: the cause must possess, at least virtually but not necessarily formally, whatever perfection it gives to the effect. (Princ. 87b)
Variant: activities cannot surpass the perfection of the natures, forms, and powers which perform them. (Princ. 87d)
Variant: The cause always surpasses the effect somehow. The cause is nobler than the effect. That is, the cause of anything is that kind of thing in a greater degree. (Princ. 92)
3. The principle of resemblance: every agent produces a thing that is in some degree like its own form.
Variant: like begets like.
Variant: substance can only come from substance.
Variant: all life comes from life.
4. The principle of operation: agere sequitur esse (operation follows upon being). (Princ. 97)
Variant: as a thing acts, so it is. As a thing is, so it acts.
Variant: the mode of being determines the mode of operation.
Variant: actions reveal the essence.
Variant: each thing acts according to its own form.
Corollary: activities cannot surpass the perfection of the being (nature, form, power) which is the principle from which these proceed.
Corollary: the acts are like the nature.
5. The principle of finality: every agent or nature in acting must act for an end. (Princ. 127)
6. The principle of finiteness of received act: every act that is finite is limited by the potency receiving it. (Princ. 158)
Logical Principles and Evolution
1. The principle of evidence: the objective evidence of being is the criterion of the truth of assent in the motive for certain assent. (Princ. 155)
Variant: the thing in the condition of evidence is the measure of the truth of judgments.
Variant: there is no argument against the evidence. (Princ. 156a)
Variant: no inference contrary to the fact(s) is true. (Princ. 156b)
Variant: an explanation or hypothesis must take account of all the evidence. (Princ. 157)
This principle constitutes a real difficulty for certain scientists who support evolution. There is certain evidence which is incompatible with evolution that has not been adequately explained by the scientists who support evolution. The fallacy that is often committed is called the fallacy of over generalization, in which a person tends to ignore or is unaware of certain things and makes a generalization which appears to cover all of the evidence. The problem is that the principle of evidence cannot be denied.
What proof do we have that certain evolutionists are in fact ignoring evidence contrary to evolution?[43] There are no transitional links and intermediate forms between humans and sub-human primates in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that human evolution has occurred either in the past or is occurring in the present.[44] Areas of study which have been ignored by many of those supporting human evolution have been the area of stratification and sedimentology,[45] paleontology,[46]genetic entropy[47] and irreducibly complex biological systems.[48] Any theory or hypothesis to be seriously considered must take into consideration all of the evidence. This has become a fundamental problem for evolutionary theory since very often it must ignore certain kinds of evidence. Any true explanation of human nature must include all of the evidence; otherwise, the theory or hypothesis, as it stands, is unfounded. Furthermore, “an hypothesis must be probable (not in conflict with other truths and not leading to consequences against the facts), useful (as guiding and suggesting further research and experiment), and capable of being further tested” (Princ. 261) and “no argument or conclusion contrary to the evident facts is valid.” (Princ. 289) Conversely, we may say, “an hypothesis or explanation which contradicts evident facts is not rationally tenable.” (Princ. 290)
[43] It should be noted that the point of this paper is not to provide the scientific foundation for why evolution is problematic but here we simply provide cursory scientific evidence that pertains to the particular principle being delineated. Any cursory search on the internet will provide ample sources of scientific evidence contrary to evolution.
[44] Philip Johnson, in Darwin on Trial (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991), p. 50, observes: "...[one of] the outstanding characteristics of the fossil record is the absence of evidence for evolution." The entire chapter of Johnson’s book deals with this issue.
[45] See Guy Berthault, “Sedimentological Interpretation of the Tonto Group Stratigraphy (Grand Canyon Colorado River),” in Lithology and Mineral Resources (Russian Academy of Sciences, Vol.39, No. 5, 2004) .
[46] See Johnson, op. cit.
[47] See John C. Sanford, Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome (Ivan Press, 2005).
1. The principle of economy:
A. An explanation that accounts for all the facts in terms of a single or a few principles is preferable to the more complex theory. (Princ. 292A)
One of the problems with human evolution is that it ends up multiplying causes without a sufficient reason. In other words, the evolutionist ends up having to assert that a number of different mutations must occur in order for a sub-human primate to reach a stage where it is actually useful to a particular creature that displays the change for which the mutations are ordered. Each mutation must come generally from a different cause or from the same cause on a number of different occasions and this itself multiplies the number of principles and makes the theory more complex when we could simply say that God created the first human beings immediately.
B. An explanation of any phenomenon is to be regarded as better and truer in which the minimum number of factors, the fewer steps in the process, and more immediate causes are included. (Princ. 292A continued)
This variant of the principle of economy connects with what we stated immediately above in a more explicit way. Since in some theories of evolution there are hundreds of thousands or millions of years required to gradually produce a particular set of human characteristics in a particular living thing, steps are added in a process which are not necessary to postulate to give an adequate explanation. Sometimes this principle is stated in the form of: “in an explanation, one is not to multiply causes without a sufficient reason.” Following this formulation, we can see how creation constitutes a more perfect fulfillment of the principle of economy than does any theory of human evolution. This is because God suffices to account as the primary causal principle of the whole of creation.[49] This would indicate that even though God often uses secondary causes to bring about certain things, this is in the order of accidents rather than substances. Since a species pertains to substances having the same essence, we can see how God immediately creating each species by creating individuals within that species fulfills the principle of economy more perfectly than any evolutionary theory.
Nor is it necessary to appeal to any kind of revelation in order to actually come to this conclusion. For the Scholastics, St. Thomas being preeminent among them, every essence is immediately created by God and could not be caused by any created substance.[50] The essential reason for this is that to create a substance requires the ability to bridge the gap between nothing and something. The gap between nothing and something that is being actualized requires an infinite power since the ontological distance between nothing and something is infinite. This requires a being of infinite power and therefore can only pertain to God, since every created substance is not infinite but finite according to its mode of being. Therefore it is impossible to state that a created thing can be the cause of a new species.
C. In identifying an unseen cause of a phenomenon, the least cause capable of explaining the phenomenon must be accepted. In other words, a proportionate cause is required and suffices. For example: miracles must not be postulated as an explanation of an event when a natural cause suffices in the circumstances.
Variant: a demonstration of the necessary truth of some unseen cause, reason, or theory requires both proof of the necessity and the suitability of the explanation offered and the exclusion of the other attempted explanations. (Princ. 292B)
It is here that we begin to realize that even theistic evolution has difficulties. In this case, we run up against a bit of a problem in the literature. Some theistic evolutionists hold that evolution is just a natural process used by God to bring about the various forms of life up to and including the bodies of the first human beings. Other theistic evolutionists hold that evolution is a case of constant miracles being used to bring about the various forms of life culminating in man. As to those who hold it is a natural process, they introduce God into the issue to provide what might be lacking in the order of nature, such as the order that one finds in the universe, which may not be accounted for by purely natural causes and this introduces the above philosophical difficulty where only God can create a substance as well as a whole host of other difficulties. Some theistic evolutionists may even be motivated by religious reasons in order to give credibility to the Scriptures or to make sure that God is not completely excluded, as we see in the case of theistic evolutionary theory.
Theistic evolution in this sense succumbs to different difficulties. If the evolution of a human body is a natural process used by God, then all of the above violations of principle would likewise apply in this case. If God is used to supply on the side of the principle of sufficient reason, it ends up violating the principle of economy because God must intervene to supply the sufficient reason at each step. This indicates that it is not strictly a natural process but requires the introduction of God into each step to be able to achieve the next higher species in the evolutionary process. This violates the principle of economy because what is ultimately being stated is that nature does not suffice in order to produce each individual species on its own. This is a true enough principle but theistic evolution requires God to be involved in each individual step since the laws of nature do not suffice. At each step, therefore, God must suspend the laws of nature and add what is lacking in the order of nature. The definition of a miracle is: “something occurring aside the whole created nature”.[51] Theistic evolution, whether it states that it is a natural process, which is really just a covert way of introducing constant miracles, or asserts outright that miracles are constantly necessary for the process, violates the principle of economy. It violates the principle of economy because it posits a number of causes, in this case God intervening as a cause on repeated occasions, without a sufficient reason. In this sense, God creating directly all of the individual species including man in a short period of time without a large number of secondary causes more perfectly fulfills the principle of economy than any theory of evolution, theistic evolution included.
We already know that God must be part of this on a purely metaphysical level since to go from nothing to something requires an infinite power. Regardless of whether one holds to the Aristotelian theory that the world has always existed, or whether one holds to what we know by revelation that God created these things out of nothing from the beginning, does not matter as it pertains to this particular issue. While we know from revelation that God did create everything ex nihilo, St. Thomas points out that even if one holds that the world always existed, God still has to be the cause in relationship to essences which come into existence through substantial causation.[52]
In light of the principle of economy, the metaphysical principle of final causality offers an additional, decisive argument against the hypothesis of human evolution in a “theistic” guise. According to the authoritative teaching of the Council of Vienne in 1312, the human “soul is the form of the body.” In other words, it is the human soul that meaningfully arranges and coordinates all of the physical organs and systems of the human body so as to make it a human body. It follows that it would be impossible for a sub-human primate to possess the body necessary to receive a human soul, since it is precisely the human soul which, according to the teaching of the Council of Vienne, must be present in order for a human body to exist in the first place. The absurdity of God-driven human evolution becomes apparent as some Catholic theologians attempt to overcome this problem by supposing that God destroyed the animal soul of an “evolved” sub-human primate to replace it with the rational soul of a human and, so, “created” the first human being!"
[49] That this is not just a deus ex machina explanation, read below in relationship to the creation of substances.
[50] See ST I, q. 45, a. 5 and De pot., q. 3, a. 4, among the numerous places St. Thomas says this.
[51] ST I, q. 110, a. 4: aliqua fiunt praeter ordinem totius naturae creatae. This would include the laws of nature and so one may say that a miracle is a suspension of the law(s) of nature. See also SCG III, c. 103.
[52] See above.
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