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Genesis, Creation, and Early Man

Development, Not Evolution

I wish to make very clear to you: I do not at all deny the fact of change and development in nature. That a full-grown man grows from an embryo; that a great tree grows from a small acorn; that new varieties of organisms are developed, whether the “races” of man or different kinds of cats and dogs and fruit trees—but all of this is not evolution: it is only variation within a definite kind or species; it does not prove or even suggest (unless you already believe this for non-scientific reasons) that one kind or species develops into another and that all present creatures are the product of such a development from one or a few primitive organisms. I believe that this is clearly the teaching of St. Basil the Great in the Hexæmeron, as I will now point out.

In Homily V:7 of the Hexæmeron, St. Basil writes:

Let no one, therefore, who is living in vice despair of himself, knowing that, as agriculture changes the properties of plants, so the diligence of the soul in the pursuit of virtue can triumph over all sorts of infirmities.

No one, “evolutionist” or “anti-evolutionist,” will deny that the “properties” of creatures can be changed; but this is not a proof of evolution unless it can be shown that one kind or species can be changed into another, and even more that every species changes into another in an uninterrupted chain back to the most primitive organism. I will show below what St. Basil says on this subject.

Again St. Basil writes:

How then, they say, does the earth bring forth seeds of the particular kind, when, after sowing grain, we frequently gather this black wheat? This is not a change to another kind, but as if it were some disease and defect of the seed. It has not ceased to be wheat, but has been made black by burning.1

This passage would seem to indicate that St. Basil does not believe in a “change to another kind”—but I do not accept this as conclusive proof, since I wish to know what St. Basil really teaches, and not my own arbitrary interpretation of his words. All that can really be said of this passage is that St. Basil recognizes some kind of a “change” in the wheat which is not a “change to another kind.” This kind of change is not evolution.

Again St. Basil writes:

Certain men have already observed that, if pines are cut down or burned, they are changed into oak forests.2

This quote really proves nothing, and I use it only because it has been used by others to show that St. Basil believed (1) that one kind of creature actually changes into another (but I will show below what St. Basil actually teaches on this subject); and (2) that St. Basil made scientific mistakes, since this statement is untrue. Here I should state an elementary truth: modern science, when it deals with scientific facts, does indeed usually know more than the Holy Fathers, and the Holy Fathers can easily make mistakes of scientific facts; it is not scientific facts which we look for in the Holy Fathers, but true theology and the true philosophy which is based on theology. Yet in this particular case it happens that St. Basil is scientifically correct, because it often in fact happens that in a pine forest there is a strong undergrowth of oak (the forest in which we live, in fact, is a similar kind of mixed pine-oak forest), and when the pine is removed by burning, the oak grows rapidly and produces the change from a pine to an oak forest in 10 or 15 years. This is not evolution, but a different kind of change, and I will now show that St. Basil could not have believed that the pine is actually transformed or evolved into an oak.

Let us see now what St. Basil believed about the “evolution” or “fixity” of species. He writes:

There is nothing truer than this, that each plant either has seed or there exists in it some generative power. And this accounts for the expression “of its own kind.” For the shoot of the reed is not productive of an olive tree, but from the reed comes another reed; and from seeds spring plants related to the seeds sown. Thus, what was put forth by the earth in its first generation has been preserved until the present time, since the species persisted through constant reproduction.3

Again, St. Basil writes:

The nature of existing objects, set in motion by one command, passes through creation without change, by generation and destruction, preserving the succession of the species through resemblance until it reaches the very end. It begets a horse as the successor of a horse, a lion of a lion, and an eagle of an eagle; and it continues to preserve each of the animals by uninterrupted successions until the consummation of the universe. No length of time causes the specific characteristics of the animals to be corrupted or extinct, but, as if established just recently, nature, ever fresh, moves along with time.4

It seems quite clear that St. Basil did not believe that one kind of creature is transformed into another, much less that every creature now existing was evolved from some other creature, and so on back to the most primitive organism. This is a modern philosophical idea.

I should tell you that I do not regard this question as being of particular importance in itself; I shall discuss below other much more important questions. If it were really a scientific fact that one kind of creature can be transformed into another kind, I would have no difficulty believing it, since God can do anything, and the transformations and developments we can see now in nature (an embryo becoming man, an acorn becoming an oak tree, a caterpillar becoming a butterfly) are so astonishing that one could easily believe that one species could “evolve” into another. But there is no conclusive scientific proof that such a thing has ever happened, much less that this is the law of the universe, and everything now living derives ultimately from some primitive organism. The Holy Fathers quite clearly did not believe in any such theory—because the theory of evolution was not invented until modern times. It is a product of the modern Western mentality, and if you wish I can show you later how this theory developed together with the course of modern philosophy from Descartes onward, long before there was any “scientific proof” for it. The idea of evolution is entirely absent from the text of Genesis, according to which each creature is generated “according to its kind,” not “one changing into another.” And the Holy Fathers, as I will show below in detail, accepted the text of Genesis quite simply, without reading into it any “scientific theories” or allegories.

Now you will understand why I do not accept your quotations from St. Gregory of Nyssa about the “ascent of nature from the least to the perfect” as a proof of evolution. I believe, as the sacred Scripture of Genesis relates, that there was indeed an orderly creation in steps but nowhere in Genesis or in the writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa is it stated that one kind of creature was transformed into another kind, and that all creatures came to be in this manner! I quite disagree with you when you say: “Creation is described in the first chapter of Genesis exactly as modern science describes it.” If by “modern science” you mean evolutionary science, then I believe you are mistaken, as I have indicated. You have made a mistake by assuming that the kind of development described in Genesis, in St. Gregory of Nyssa and in other Fathers, is the same as that described by the doctrine of evolution; but such a thing cannot be assumed or taken for granted—you must prove it, and I will gladly discuss with you later the “scientific proof” for and against evolution, if you wish. The development of creation according to God’s plan is one thing; the modern scientific (but actually philosophical) theory which explains this development by the transformation of one kind of creature into another, starting from one or a few primitive organisms, is quite a different thing. The Holy Fathers did not hold this modern theory; if you can show me that they did hold such a theory, I will be glad to listen to you.

If, on the other hand, by “modern science” you mean science which does not bind itself to the philosophical theory of evolution, I still disagree with you; and I will show below why I believe, according to the Holy Fathers, that modern science cannot attain to any knowledge at all of the Six Days of Creation. In any case, it is very arbitrary to identify the geological strata with “periods of creation.” There are numerous difficulties in the way of this naive correspondence between Genesis and science. Does “modern science” really believe that the grass and trees of the earth existed in a long geological period before the existence of the sun, which was created only on the Fourth Day? I believe you are making a serious mistake in binding up your interpretation of Holy Scripture with a particular scientific theory (not at all a “fact”). I believe that our interpretation of Holy Scripture should be bound up with no scientific theory, neither “evolutionary” nor any other. Let us rather accept the Holy Scriptures as the Holy Fathers teach us (about which I will write below), and let us not speculate about the how of creation. The doctrine of evolution is a modern speculation about the how of creation, and in many respects it contradicts the teaching of the Holy Fathers, as I shall show below.

Of course I accept your quotations from St. Gregory of Nyssa; I have found others similar to them in other Holy Fathers. I will certainly not deny that our nature is partly an animal nature, nor that we are bound up with the whole of creation, which is indeed a marvelous unity. But all this has nothing whatever to do with the doctrine of evolution, that doctrine which is defined in all textbooks as the derivation of all presently existing creatures from one or more primitive creatures through a process of the transformation of one kind or species into another.

Further, you should realize (and now I begin to approach the important teachings of the Holy Fathers on this subject) that St. Gregory of Nyssa himself quite explicitly did not believe in anything like the modern doctrine of evolution, for he teaches that the first man Adam was indeed created directly by God and was not generated like all other men. In his book “Against Eunomius” he writes:

The first man, and the man born from him, received their being in a different way; the latter by copulation, the former from the molding of Christ Himself; and yet, though they are thus believed to be two, they are inseparable in the definition of their being, and are not considered as two beings… The idea of humanity in Adam and Abel does not vary with the difference of their origin, neither the order nor the manner of their coming into existence making any difference in their nature.5

And again:

That which reasons, and is mortal, and is capable of thought and knowledge, is called man equally in the case of Adam and of Abel, and this name of the nature is not altered either by the fact that Abel passed into existence by generation, or by the fact that Adam did so without generation.6

Of course I agree with the teaching of St. Athanasius which you quote, that “the first-created man was made of dust like everyone, and the hand which created Adam then, is creating now also and always those who come after him.” How can anyone deny this obvious truth of God’s continuous creative activity? But this general truth does not at all contradict the specific truth that the first man was made in a way different from all other men, as other Fathers also clearly teach. Thus, St. Cyril of Jerusalem calls Adam “God’s first-formed man,” but Cain “the first-born man.”7 Again, he teaches clearly, discussing the creation of Adam, that Adam was not conceived of another body: “That of bodies, bodies should be conceived, even if wonderful, is nevertheless possible; but that the dust of the earth should become a man, this is more wonderful.”8

Yet again, the divine Gregory the Theologian writes:

They who make “Unbegotten” and “Begotten” natures of equivocal Gods would perhaps make Adam and Seth differ in nature, since the former was not born of flesh (for he was created), but the latter was born of Adam and Eve.9

And the same Father says even more explicitly:

What of Adam? Was he not alone the direct creature of God? Yes, you will say. Was he then the only human being? By no means. And why, but because humanity does not consist in direct creation? For that which is begotten is also human.10

And St. John Damascene, whose theology gives concisely the teaching of all the early Fathers writes:

The earliest formation (of man) is called “creation” and not “generation.” For “creation” is the original formation at God’s hands, while “generation” is the succession from each other made necessary by the sentence of death imposed on us on account of the transgression.11

And what of Eve? Do you not believe that, as the Scripture and Holy Fathers teach, she was made from Adam’s rib and was not born of some other creature? But St. Cyril writes:

Eve was begotten of Adam, and not conceived of a mother, but as it were brought forth of man alone.12

And St. John Damascene, comparing the Most Holy Mother of God with Eve, writes:

Just as the latter was formed from Adam without connection, so also did the former bring forth the new Adam, who was brought forth in accordance with the laws of parturition and above the nature of generation.13

It would be possible to quote other Holy Fathers on this subject, but I will not do so unless you question this point. But with all of this discussion I have not yet come to the most important questions raised by the theory of evolution, and so I shall now turn to some of them.

Footnotes

  1. St. Basil the Great, Hexaemeron 5.7, 5, Fathers of the Church vol. 46, pp. 78, 73 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1947-). ↩

  2. Ibid. 5.7, p. 77. ↩

  3. Ibid. 5.2, p. 69. ↩

  4. Ibid. 9.2, pp. 136-37 [H. de Lubac, J. Danielou et al., eds. Sources Chretiennes. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1941—., 26bis.484]. ↩

  5. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius 1.34, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, P. Schaff et al., eds. Reprint, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1952-1956; Reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994, p. 81. (Hereafter NPNF) ↩

  6. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book, NPNF 2 5, p. 299. ↩

  7. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 2.7, NPNF 2 7, p. 9. ↩

  8. Ibid. 12.30, p. 80. ↩

  9. St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 39: On the Holy Lights 12, NPNF 2 7, p. 356. ↩

  10. St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 29: Third Theological Oration-On the Son 11, NPNF 2 7, p. 305. ↩

  11. St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith 2.30, NPNF 2 9, p. 43b. ↩

  12. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 12.29, NPNF 2 7, p. 80. ↩

  13. St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith 4.14, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers vol. 2, part 9, p. 85b [cf. Fathers of the Church vol. 37, p. 364] (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1947—). ↩