Exorcising the Filth of Evolution
We wish to state without qualification that it is in no way possible to believe in the truth of God’s Revelation while at the same time believing that man, in any way – either body or soul, is the result of an evolutionary process. This truth is established upon what is contained in both written Revelation and the Church’s infallible Magisterium.
From the perspective of Biblical Revelation, we have explored this subject in our article Receiving the Kingdom of God as a Little Child. It is impossible to consistently believe (in a non-contradictory way) in the infallibility of God’s Word in the Old Testament, and especially in the Book of Genesis, while believing in any sort of human evolution. In order for the reader to be convinced of this fact, we believe that this article deserves very careful study
From the perspective of the Church’s infallible Magisterium, we possess the doctrine taught by the Council of Vienne: “whoever shall hereafter dare to assert, maintain, or pertinaciously hold that the rational or intellectual soul is not per se and essentially the form of the human body, is to be regarded as a heretic“. As pointed out by Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, this dogma is de Fide (of the Faith) and therefore a truth of Revelation necessary to be believed by all Catholics, either explicitly or implicitly, for the retention of Catholic Faith. A human being is one essence, resulting from the substantial union of soul and body. Since the soul constitutes per se (in itself) the form of the human body, the human body cannot be said to exist previous to its reception of a human soul. To assert that any kind of body can exist without its specific form is nonsense. To believe therefore, as do many so-called “Theistic Evolutionists”, that God used an evolutionary process to first form an appropriate human body for the reception of a human soul is an impossibility. We repeat: the soul is in itself the form of a human body.
And if we should try to assert that God actually took a non-human, ape-like body (already possessing an animal “soul”), and somehow substituted a human soul for the existing animal soul, we are asserting the kind of stuff that makes for slapstick comedy. We might well imagine a newspaper cartoon depicting a Michelangelo-like image of God sticking a large hypodermic needle labeled “human soul” into the rear-end of an ape, while at the same time using a rather large foot to kick out an “ape-soul”. It is no wonder, therefore, that someone like Joseph Ratzinger dismissed any such comedic attempts at reconciling human evolution with Catholic doctrine as being “intolerable” (Credo For Today, p. 38). This is why, of course, he was forced into acceptance of Teilhardian Evolution: namely, that “matter is the prehistory of spirit” (Ibid., p. 45), and that the advent of a spiritual soul, and therefore a human being, in the history of evolution was the result of a process of material “complexification”. Thus , he writes:
“This would then lead to the insight that spirit does not enter the picture as something foreign, as a second substance, in addition to matter: the appearance of spirit, according to the previous discussion, means rather that an advancing movement arrives at the goal that has been set for it….The clay became man at that moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought ‘God.’ The first ‘thou’ that – however stammeringly – was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which spirit arose in the world. Here the Rubicon of anthropogenesis was crossed. (Ibid. p. 46-47).
As we have pointed out in previous articles, such a dimly-conscious and “stammering” soul is in complete contradiction to the Catholic doctrine that man was created in a state of original justice, possessing sanctifying grace and the full rationality and integrity of will to be responsible for his upright relationship to God. As a consequence of denial of this truth, out the window goes all the doctrines concerning the Fall, the necessity of Christ’s sacrificial restoration of man to friendship with God (the possession of sanctifying grace and charity), the sacrificial nature of the Mass, and the entire sacramental system. And much more. We must come to the full realization that although it is certainly true that such things as legitimizing a married priesthood, female deacons and priests, contraception, divorce and remarriage, the inclusion of pagan theology and worship, and liberation theology are all particular agendas for the upcoming Amazonian Synod, all of this is only the beginning for the planned victory of Teilhardian Cosmic Evolutionary Theology within the Universal Church.
This Teilhardian-inspired evolutionary destruction of all that is Catholic is implicit in any sort of capitulation to evolutionary theory. We believe that at least some sort of nebulous belief in evolution is extraordinarily widespread among not only the Catholic laity, but also among seminarians, priests and the Catholic hierarchy. We might tend to downplay this presence because such belief is most often not well thought out, and therefore does not represent a fully conscious rejection of Catholic truth. But it is in fact the very “nebulosity” of such a belief which constitutes its destructiveness. It reflects and embodies a spiritual state of soul which amounts to an ongoing prostitution to the findings of bogus, reductive science, and therefore a profound vitiation of that gift of the Holy Spirit which is called fortitude, and which is entirely necessary for any Catholic in his or her combat with the spirit of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
We must add that this “fuzziness” is especially tragic in the case of young seminarians and newly ordained priests who have a deep desire to be orthodox Catholics, and who possess a strong passion for the restoration of all things Catholic. Such “nebulous” lack of clarity and prostitution to the “science” of this world is bound to exert a corrosive effect upon the work of the Holy Spirit in their future ministry. Most important, it immerses them in a poisonous doubt and confusion concerning the “goodness” of man as originally created by God, and as described in the Genesis account. In so doing, it necessarily poisons their confidence in the purity of God’s goodness Himself. And in the face of the geometrically accelerating effects of such scientifically reductive thinking upon virtually all of contemporary mankind, it is almost certainly bound to immerse them increasingly in that poison which produces the bitterness and torpor of old men with old and disillusioned hearts. In other words, it almost inevitably produces that loss of spiritual childhood necessary for the inheritance of the Kingdom of God.
As a remedy, we propose that such persons enter more deeply into the heart of Mary. Such impurity and filth still existing in the minds and hearts of those who truly wish to be immersed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, cannot long continue to exist for those truly immersed in the purifying fire of her Immaculate Heart.
