How the Church learned to accept modern science
The discoveries of science and Catholic teaching are often presented as being incompatible. Yet this need not be so, argues Quentin de la Bédoyère
14 March 2008

The trial of Galileo

I may be the last person alive to believe that the condemnation of Galileo by the Church was justified. The authorities of the time had been quite happy for the Copernican heliocentric theory to be discussed as an intellectual speculation. But Galileo, using scientific methods which were novel and unconfirmed, produced his Dialogue in a tendentious form. Since the implication of this document was potentially a threat to the faith of many Christians, he rightly had his knuckles rapped. The fact that we now know that his conclusions were broadly correct has nothing to do with the decision made at the time.

Don O'Leary, who is currently employed in scientific research at the Biosciences Institute at University College Cork, might not agree. But his excellent and very readable book describes vividly the bleak aftermath of Galileo in which Catholic scientific scholarship suffered from self-censorship, with only the occasional adventurer daring to hazard his head above the parapet. The Dialogue itself was not removed from the Index until the 1830s.

The issue was between two ways of knowing truth: the inspired truth of Scripture and the truth emerging from scientific discovery. Since logic requires, and the Church accepts, that there could be no conflict between these truths, when properly understood, there was plenty of conflict about how they could be reconciled.

St Augustine had warned Catholics against the scandal caused by insisting on the literal interpretation of Scripture in the face of observable phenomena, but it was different when it came down to cases.

Another such case was that of Darwin's The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 and The Descent of Man in 1871. While both of these were inconsistent with Genesis read as a literal account, the situation was somewhat different from Galileo in that the scientific disputes about the truth of the theory were general rather than denominational. Darwin did not know the mechanism of inheritance through genes, and while the evolution of the separate species was plausible, the fossil gaps and particular difficulties were certainly sufficient at the time to cause doubt even in lay scientific minds. There was a separate body of geological evidence which demonstrated a far earlier date for creation than had been traditionally calculated from Scripture.

Many of the difficulties in Darwin's work have been resolved with further discovery, and evolution has grown from a plausible theory to a well-evidenced explanation. Meanwhile, the Church has moved through its usual sequence of "Initially regarded as heretical... then regarded as erroneous, rash, tolerable, and freely accepted - in that order," as Dom Cuthbert Butler put it. Certainly, in my Jesuit education some 60 years ago, the broad fact of evolution was accepted, and not seen to be in conflict with doctrine. On the contrary, the use of such an ingenious means, as seen from our limited perspective, seems further evidence of God's wisdom.

But certain issues remain live. The Church continues to insist that the spiritual element in man did not, and could not, have been generated from the material but only from God. To me that seems indubitable, and not accessible to science as such.

The question of whether we are descended from a single pair (monogenism) or from a group (polygenism) is rather more difficult. The scientific view prefers polygenism since this is the more likely way for a new species to evolve. But it conflicts with the traditional account of Original Sin, on which salvation history is centred. The point at which the first hominid (possibly a predecessor of homo sapiens) received the capacity to distinguish right from wrong, and so to recognise moral responsibility, is not to be found under the microscope, and could only be inferred from evidence of his customs. Nor should we assume that the granting of this capacity, being essentially spiritual, would necessarily have followed the usual patterns of evolution.

My own belief is that in fact polygenism could be reconciled with Original Sin, were it necessary to do so. Theologians I read today focus on the evident tension between good and evil in human nature rather than on its origins.

The last section of O'Leary's book is a very thorough discussion of modern biological possibilities, such as artificial methods of conception, stem-cell collection, cloning and genetic manipulation. It follows the methodology he uses throughout: summarising the science, discussing relevant ecclesiastical statements, and reviewing the variety of serious theological positions.

His final summary, followed by some 60 pages of reference notes, confirms the book as a first-class, readily available source which provides a background for well-informed discussion. I shall certainly make great use of it, and I unhesitatingly recommend it to anyone who wants a comprehensive introduction to such issues, or who would use it as a jumping-off point for further study.

I would also hope that Church authorities making statements on such matters would learn the long term dangers of allowing their science to be influenced by theology or of being over-protective. I wonder, to take one glaring example, how many Catholics know that even the small minority who dissented from the conclusion of the Papal Commission on Birth Control agreed that they were unable to substantiate the unqualified prohibition on the grounds of natural law. This difficulty is not reflected in the resulting encyclical.

Roman Catholicism and Modern Science by Don O'Leary,
Continuum £13