Evolutionary theory and speculation on the transmutation of one species into another isn’t something that one associates with medieval thought. The Middle Ages were, after all, the age of faith when the world was interpreted according to the Bible and Aristotelian philosophy, both of which stressed the fixity of species. Now it is true that the modern conception of an evolving universe is a uniquely modern worldview, alien to the philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless there was an awareness of change in the varieties of plants and animals, which for some, entirely orthodox philosophers and theologians was developed into a theory of micrevolution in which new breeds of animals had evolved from an ancestral type.
Evolutionary ideas had been developed in antiquity. The Greek philosopher Anaximander considered that humans had first evolved from fish. 1 Empedocles similarly believed that the world moved through periods of cosmic separation and differention, and blending and merging similar to the cycles of ‘Big Bangs’ followed by ‘Big Crunches’ proposed by the Oscillating Universe model in modern cosmology. He suggested that in the early universe, the various parts of human and animal anatomy had appeared separately and, through a process of trial and error, had become attached to each other to produce the characteristic modern lifeforms. This process had also generated monsters, which had been unsuited to survive and so died out. 2 Some of these ideas were taken over by the Church Fathers in their interpretation of Genesis. Noting the apparently different accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2, St. Augustine drew on the Stoic doctrine of the Seminal Reasons to suggest that God had implanted in matter the latent germs of future organisms, that developed in due course. 3
In the 13th century Albertus Magnus also discussed the appearance of new species through evolution based on the discussions of the ancients, particularly Theophrastus. Albertus believed that the appearance of new species was demonstrated by the domestication of wild plants, and the appearance of wild varieties from formerly domesticated types. Some of these were not the development of new species as such, but merely the actualisation of potential attributes in an earlier variety, such as when rye increased in size over three times and became wheat. He also believed that some species were generated from the corruption of existing forms, such as when a felled oak or beech tree allowed aspens or poplars to spring up in their place. He also believed that new species could be created by grafting. 4 These early speculations on evolution and speciation continued in the next century with the work of Henry of Hesse, who discussed the appearance of new diseases and the new herbs that would be required to treat them. 5 These early discussions of evolution also influenced Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon, Leibniz and the 18th century evolutionists. 6
Along with the literal interpretation of Genesis, theologians and religious scholars have also interpreted it allegorically since Philo in the 1st century AD. These scholars include St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed that Creation had been instantaneous, and that Genesis laid out the rational, but not temporal order of Creation:
‘If, however, we take these days to denote merely sequence in the natural order, as Augustine holds and not succession in time, there is nothing to prevent our saying … that the substantial formation of the firmament belongs to the second day.’ 7
Aquinas, like the other scholastics, believed that God also worked through secondary causes through the order He had given the cosmos. ‘the orderly teleology of nonconscious agents in the Universe entails the existence of an intelligent Orderer.’ 8 This notion of the universe as subject to and illustrating a divine order was a vital factor in the development of modern science in the 16th century, when scientists investigated the Book of Nature as a similar revelation to the Book of Scripture.
Thus, while the medieval philosophers and theologians did indeed believe in the fixity of types of species, some of them were interested in the possibility that new varieties could appear of existing types. Furthermore, the allegorical approach adopted by some ancient and medieval theologians meant that when Darwinism emerged in the 19th century many Christians were able to reconcile faith with evolution, whilst rejecting the atheistic implications of the theory.
Thus paradoxically evolution as an idea was partly the result of the Christian investigation of a rationally ordered creation, and the medieval discussion of the development of future varieties of existing types can appear very modern. This in itself can challenge the notion that medieval philosophy and theology was primitive and irrelevant to today. It can also lead one to wonder how far modern scientific views of evolution have actually progressed. Although biological knowledge has increased immeasurably since Albertus Magnus’ time, if ID theory is correct and macroevolution cannot be demonstrated, then science has progressed far less in explaining evolution since the Middle Ages than has been claimed.
Notes
1. A.C. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo: Science in the Middle Ages – Fifth to Thirteenth Centuries (London, Mercury Books 1959) p. 150; Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books 1987), pp. 72-74.
2. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, p. 150; Barnes, Early Greek philosophy, pp. 179-181.
3. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, p. 150; Gordon Leff, Medieval Thought: St. Augustine to Ockham (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books 1958) p. 43.
4. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, p. 150.
5. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, pp. 150-151.
6. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, p. 151.
7. Roger Forster and Paul Marston, Reason, Science and Faith (Crowborough, Monarch Books 1999), p. 214.
8. ‘Aquinas’ in Jennifer Speake, ed., A Dictionary of Philosophy (London, Pan 1979), p. 19.
March 14, 2008 at 12:21 pm |
“Thus, while the medieval philosophers and theologians did indeed believe in the fixity of types of species, …”
They didn’t use the word ‘species’ quite as we do today. ‘Species,’ after all, is the Latin for ‘kind’ or ‘type.’
“Thus paradoxically evolution as an idea was partly the result of the Christian investigation of a rationally ordered creation, …”
‘Evolution,’ the actual word in its derivation, implies a rational ordered/planned development (I understand the word was first used in reference to embryology) … this is why Darwin avoided, as much as possible, using the word ‘evolution,’ and instead used the clumsy locution “descent with modification.”
The teleology inherently implied by the word’s actual derivation is, of course, quite the opposite of how the word is used today.
March 15, 2008 at 6:44 pm |
BR,
I know somewhere you probably answered this, but still. Curious, since I might have missed this. Speaking of evolutionary ideas, I mentioned once that while it is certainly possible to have a theistic evololution, this is NOT typically what is presented by the mainstream church OR mainstream science for that matter. The idea being, per Phillip Johnson among others, is that while it is possible the usual interpretation is that in the materialist version usually put forth the bolstering goes mainly to the atheists. The corollary idea being that there is nothing for God to DO if all can be explained by naturalistic processes acting over vast epochs of time by chance and gene recombinations.
Also, while not wanted to drill the whole “problem of suffering” issue again, it seems evolution does involve a lot of gore and blood and loss in order to further weed out the less survivable, etc, etc. See the problem here? either this is a “lazy” God with little creative ability OR a God of untold and unimaginable historical horror. Or so we are told by the atheists evolutionists who are NEVER on board with notions of “theistic evolution.”
This is not a critique so much as a query.
Second: On CS LEWIS:
My posting to you earlier about the Argument from Reason has a corallary also. In addition to what you pointed out, Lewis also pointed out that in the mind, if all IS (or could be) explained via some evolutionary descent and free will is illusion, then all bets are off regarding any knowledge. Up to and including knowledge about the brain, its evolution, and its inner workings. Thus even if evolution and the materialistic explanations of mind are true, we cannot know this for certain since an idea or theory or proposition MUST be held to be true QUA TRUTH, for its OWN truthfulness as said proposition. And NOT because we evolved to see things in a certain light or because of neural activity that leans in a certain direction. In other words this is The Problem of Induction–at least as explained by an aquintace of mine, Darek Barefoot over at Dangerous Idea. (Actually he’s just a regular contributor to the debates.) So words in themselves as forged by the brain have to have true free will to convince or not, as does the brain’s processes in thinking the notions through to a conclusion that sometimes COULD be counterintutive. In other words, without TRUE free will (which is doubted by many if not most materialist proponents of the evolution of the human mind’s abilities and reasoning), the notion that we can have true “knowledge” as explained by a process of reason is meaningless and just guesswork at most.
The only answer to this I’ve seen is something called “emergence”–if you’ve heard of that. The idea being that we DO have true free will that evolved but this is not a linear kind of thing from evolution, but rather as an accident of evolution the mind somehow happens to have forged an “emergent” property (like ice being vastly different from plain liquid water and unpredictable unless you know the chemistry of how the molecules bend in a different manner from most frozen materials, etc).
Just as ice is difficult to deduce from merely freezing H20 (unlike most solids, ice floats and actually expands, not contracts like all other frozen liquids) but has an “emergent” properties unknown and unpredictable until it happens.
March 15, 2008 at 7:22 pm |
Hi Ilion – yeah, you’re right – the medievals used the word ‘species’ to mean something different from the contemporary term. And I absolutely agree with you about Darwin’s dislike of the teleological connotations of previous ideas about evolution. The term ‘evolution’ originally appeared in the 17th century, and meant an unrolling – of a scroll or similar item. Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, formulated an early evolutionary theory in his 1799 book, Zoonomia , which was very strongly theistic, and which he felt made the existence of God ‘mathematically certain’. One of the arguments he used to support his theory was the gradual development from childhood to adult in individuals, which he felt was somehow comparable to the development of organisms as species. Darwin himself, however, rejected such teleology and I think you’re absolutely right about this being the reason he doesn’t use the term evolution in The Origin of Species .
March 15, 2008 at 7:50 pm |
Hi Wakefield – yeah, in the way evolution is usually presented there does seem to be little left for God to do. However, there has been a lot of stuff written on evolution and theology, and the explanation here is that God works through secondary causes and within the processes of the cosmos itself, as well as outside it. It isn’t a case of ‘either/or’ but ‘both/and’. The other point is that God supports the evolutionary process as part of an act of continuous creation. Now Leibniz saw the normal, continuing operation of the universe after its Creation as part of the same creative process, and preferred to call ‘creation’ ‘fulguration’ in order to stress creations continuing quality.
As for the gore and horror in evolution, I’ve come across that argument by atheist evolutionists and also seen its rebuttal. This comprises the notion that the limited amount of trial and error built into the evolutionary process gives creation a freedom and independence of God. It also allows a development of the concept of good and morality through experience to evil, while a limitation of supernatural involvement in the cosmos means that to intelligent beings the universe is comprehensible.
Now I do think Paul Johnson’s right about the way conventional attitudes to evolution stress the secondary causes to the point where it seems that God really doesn’t do anything except start the process off. That’s how Sagan presents it in Cosmos, though Sagan actually didn’t seem to know much about theology nor history. Going back through Cosmos , what strikes me is how much is wildly wrong and really little more than atheist polemic. I’ve seen the comments of some theo-evolutionists that roughly agree with Sagan’s analysis. Now Steven Jay Gould said that evolution actually didn’t disprove the existence of God, but didn’t prove it either. I have, however, seen arguments for the existence of God based on evolution used by Keith Ward in Pascal’s Fire . My guess is that a case for the existence of God can be constructed using evolution, but that the case for a Creator is strengthened immeasurably with ID and its exploration of the ‘edge of evolution’ to cite Michael Behe’s book.
As for the emergence of mind, rather than its creation, this actually isn’t a scientific explanation so much as a name for what occurs, or what is believed to have occurred. I was talking to two very philosophically literate friends the other day who remarked that a lot of scientific explanations aren’t explanations so much as names that have a particular philosophical stance. In the case of emergence, this just states that mind suddenly appears unpredicted from matter, but doesn’t really explain how except by analogy with water. Two different processes may be involved in both, so emergence really isn’t an explanation.
March 16, 2008 at 1:21 am |
I have to agree with that BR. The term of course is one of convenience and we’d probably be told that just as one might say “your taxes are done” (by what method) and you just rest that someone can somehow do this, likewise some processes are difficult or unknown or complex to the point of being unintelligible. For me I always revert to the issue of “intentionality” which D’Souza (bet he wished he got a shilling for every time someone uses his name!) mentions in the human body across the room who gets up and goes over to a bench that has a lighter and a pack of cigarettes on it. Actually he borrowed this from another philosopher. We can talk about nerves and nerve induction (the electrical kind) and balances of electrolytes and muscle movement and the ABILITIES of the brain, chemically, including the fact that brain scan might be able to tell who has a nicotine addition, or we could say that in a serious of chemical reactions the brain causes a cascade of chemical/nerve impuslses that cause this “body” to move.
The simplest explanation is that someone is itching for a cigarette break. In other words the everyday explanation for things, while not scientific per se, is better for clarity (and sanity) as the other explanation is not only unintelligable, it holds no possibility of being so. The issue here not so much complexity but that there is no good materialist explanation other than addition for this person’s movement. We can say someone has an addiction to cigs or coffee or whatnot, for example, but the intentionality of this decision making is unknown in the mind presently. There is still choice involved in getting out of the chair.
As to Gould, it IS notable that he was not the firebreather like some, but seemed to equivocate on some areas. That now famous book The Panda’s Thumb (and some rotton philosophers now filling in the gap on the website of that same title) pointed out “if God had made the Panda, surely He would have done a better job.”
A few problems here. First, Gould did join the chorus that he made no judgement on God but rather made sure we understood that the “God shouldn’t/would’nt/Couldn’t do X is not valid” kind of thinking. God cannot be part of a scientific theory any more than Zeus. Conversly, we can’t say of course that science or evolutionary processes have much to say about the G-word. On the OTHER hand Gould mocked people like Phil Johnson by asking “why would God deign to create one hominid after another–to confuse us or test our faith in Creation”?
And so it went.
March 16, 2008 at 1:30 am |
This comprises the notion that the limited amount of trial and error built into the evolutionary process gives creation a freedom and independence of God. It also allows a development of the concept of good and morality through experience to evil, while a limitation of supernatural involvement in the cosmos means that to intelligent beings the universe is comprehensible.
Actually, come to think of it, this is an approximation of William Demskis paper on one possible reason God used such processes in the anticipation of the Fall, or the presence of evil; giving us a taste of things and thus the contrast necessary to point out the very difference in good and evil. As Lewis pointed out you only see light as contrasted to darkness, and good via evil. So on the other one supposes that the lack of intervention is seen as the antidote to the “Protean” Universe of the old world mystics who saw demons and spirits under (or within, often) every rock and leaf and stone and tree, etc. Or what is called the Enchanted Realm. This WAS mentioned in Pearcy’s The Soul of Science”, and actually per this book at least, God as Creator was seen by many of the early scientists as one of regularity and order and predictability, etc.
March 17, 2008 at 8:01 pm |
Thanks for the comments, Wakefield. D’Souza’s surely right about intentionality explaining why someone would get up to have a smoke, rather than purely mechanical explanations such as an addiction to nicotine and so on. These provide a biochemical description of why someone would get up to have a smoke, but not a complete explanation. I’ve got a feeling I’ve read somewhere that that’s a general philosophical problem with accepting only scientific explanations as the truth – they’re incomplete, and can only be part of a greater picture about the world.
As for Steven Jay Gould, yeah, he didn’t have the hatred of religion that Dawkins and co had, but he was still very hostile to what he saw as religious attempts to encroach on science. He certainly had an argument with Philip Johnson over ID because he saw it as a form of Creationism, during which apparently he retreated to a position very similar to the traditional, gradualist interpretation of Darwinism.
As for Gould’s taunt to Johnson about why God would create so many different species of humans, I think Thomas Aquinas would have had an answer to that. Aquinas in his volume, Creation , of his massive work the Sermo Contra Gentiles adopts the position that God’s nature is reflected in the multiplicity of creatures, as a reflection of the divine beneficence. In short, if I remember the argument correctly, God’s goodness is most fully expressed in many creatures. Thus, as creation is good, and humanity is good, a diversity of human species would also be good as expressions of the divine creativity and the good of human beings.