a view of evolution from dr. alexander pruss i like

Goal: (1) Offer a logically possible Christian-Creationism view with evolution.

Some notable Catholic teachings: (1) According to HUMANI GENERIS, it forbids embracing polygenism (the thesis that humans derive from a multiplicity of first parents), (2) Catholics must hold that souls are “immediately created by God" (HUMANI GENERIS) (3) must hold to original sin

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Main Argument: 

  • Metaphysical assumption: hylomorphism = things are matter + form; form (soul) makes a bundle of matter really an organism. Matter without form is not a thing (i.e. substance, such as a dog, cat, horse, human, etc.).
  • Hypothetical story: God initially arranges matter so it behaves organism-wise, but the matter does not have organism-forms to be real organisms; evolution produces many organism-shaped bundles of matter and/or organisms that behave organism-wise without there being real organisms (no souls, no consciousness).
  • Later infusion: At a later point, God immediately creates the first real human being, Adam, with his soul. God gives forms/souls to matter that behaves organism-wise (or are organism-shaped) either during or after Adam's reception of his form/soul.
  • Wrapping up: Eve gets created immediately with a soul some time after Adam. They have children. Then, modern humans derive their ancestry from the first real human beings, Adam and Eve.
  • So, both Catholic creationism and evolution are consistent.


Merit of this argument: It avoids the moral problem of vast animal suffering in evolution: Solved by denying pre-human conscious suffering and locating suffering’s entry in human free choice and the withdrawal of divine protection. So, no real animal suffered prior to God immediately creating the first real human being, Adam, with his soul.

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An even more modest argument of the same kind: 

  • Suppose that evolution produces offspring that have dinosaur-like behaviors/shapes but with birdlike mutations. Normally these would be informed by a dinosaur form and so truly be dinosaurs. But God can instead withhold the dinosaur form and bestow a bird form. The result is that, while the physical matter came through evolutionary processes, the new being is really ontologically a bird—because God directly created it as such by giving it the bird form.

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  • More modest because (1) It does not require denying that past creatures (dinosaurs, birds, etc.) really existed as animals, and (2) Intervention is occasional and specific (at certain transitions), not sweeping (withholding all forms until late).
    • Possible downside: Moral problem of vast animal suffering in evolution remains

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N.B. Pruss may not accept this view of evolution. And I do not claim that he accepts this summary of his argumentation. Here is the actual article of his: https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-thomistic-creationism-of-sorts.html

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