Darwin, Design, and the Catholic Faith

By Kenneth Miller Beliefnet
Published on August 1, 2005

Catholicism and neo-Darwinism worked it out. All they needed was
a little help from Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biology
professor and also a Catholic.

At Beliefnet, Miller leads readers to a
common
ground between God and evolution
in a response to Cardinal
Christoph Schoenborn’s New York Times Op-Ed piece,

‘Finding a Design in Nature.’
($$) The professor’s punchy retort
charges the cardinal with misrepresenting the widely accepted
definition of evolution as one that doesn’t leave room for divine
purpose and meaning. Neo-Darwinian theory isn’t inherently
atheistic, Miller argues; it just stays within its own purview.
‘Science is, just as John Paul II said, silent on the issue of
ultimate purpose, an issue that lies outside the realm of
scientific inquiry,’ he writes.

Miller fills such silence by pointing out that the official
Church document from the 2004 International Theological Commission
that Schoenborn used in his analysis actually rejects the
incompatibility of ‘contingency in the created order’ and
‘purposeful divine providence.’ In this way, Miller takes his stand
for ‘scientists who hold the Catholic faith’ and against ‘enemies
of science.’
Archie Ingersoll

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Darwin,
Design, and the Catholic Faith

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