Evolution as Philosophy
Introduction
Fifth Week of Great Lent, 1974
Dear Dr. Kalomiros, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ.
At last I am writing my reply to your letter on “evolution.” This reply expresses the view of our Brotherhood on this question. I will repeat to you that I have written this reply not as an “expert” on the Holy Fathers, but as a “lover” of the Holy Fathers, which I believe you are also. Most of the citations I have made here from the Holy Fathers I have translated from the Russian Patristic translations of the nineteenth century, with some also from the English translations of the nineteenth century which are printed in the “Eerdmans” Nicene Fathers Series. I have given the sources as fully as possible so that you can read them in Greek. If you have questions about these or any other Patristic citations I will be glad to discuss them further with you. I am not at all concerned merely to find citations that “prove my point,” and in fact you will notice that I have also included some citations which do not seem to “prove my point”for I am interested first and only in finding how the Holy Fathers thought on these questions, for I believe that is the way we should think also. May Christ our God bless me to speak truthfully.
The question of “evolution” is an extremely important one for Orthodox Christians, for in it are involved many questions which directly affect our Orthodox doctrine and outlook: the relative worth of science and theology, of modern philosophy and Patristic teaching; the doctrine of man (anthropology); our attitude toward the writings of the Holy Fathers (do we really take seriously their writings and try to live by them, or do we believe first of all in modern “wisdom,” the wisdom of the world, and accept the teaching of the Holy Fathers only if it harmonizes with this “wisdom”?); our interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and especially the book of Genesis. In what follows I will touch on all these subjects.
Before one begins to discuss the question of evolution, one must have a clear idea of what he is talking about. I say this because I have had very surprising experiences with very learned people who speak as if they knew all about this subject and yet they make very elementary mistakes which reveal that there is much that they do not know about it. In particular, almost everyone who writes about evolution assumes that he knows what “evolution” is—and yet what he always reveals is that he has a very confused idea of it. The question of evolution is by no means a simple one, and there is so much confusion in people’s minds about it—including the minds of most Orthodox Christians—that we cannot even talk about it until we are quite sure that we know what we are talking about.
You have asked us to “clear your mind very carefully of all Western conceptions, whether these are theological, philosophical, or scientific.” I assure you that I have tried to do this, and throughout this letter I will constantly be on the watch not to think in terms of Western conceptions, because I agree with you that these conceptions falsify the subject matter, and by means of them one cannot understand the question of evolution. But in turn I ask you to try very carefully to cleanse your mind of whatever preconceptions about the questions of evolution you may have—what you have learned in school, what you have read in scientific books, what you may think about “anti-evolutionists,” what Greek theologians may have said about the subject. Let us try to reason together, not in the manner of Western rationalists, but as Orthodox Christians who love the Holy Fathers and wish to understand their teaching, and also as rational beings who do not accept the teaching of any modern “wise men,” whether they be theologians or philosophers or scientists unless that teaching accords with the Scriptural and Patristic teaching and does not come from some foreign philosophy.
Philosophy, Not Fact
First of all, I agree entirely with you when you say: “You must not confuse pure science with the different philosophical theories written to explain the facts discovered by science. Facts are one thing (pure science) and explanations of facts is another (philosophy).”
I must tell you first of all that at one time I believed entirely in evolution. I believed not because I had thought very much about this question, but simply because “everyone believes it,” because it is a “fact,” and how can one deny “facts”? But then I began to think more deeply on this question. I began to see that very often what calls itself “science” is not fact at all, but philosophy, and I began very carefully to distinguish between scientific facts and scientific philosophy. After many years I came to the following conclusions:
a. Evolution is not “scientific fact” at all, but a philosophy.
b. It is a false philosophy which was invented in the West as a reaction against Roman Catholic-Protestant theology, and which disguised itself as “science” in order to make itself respectable and deceive people who are willing to accept scientific fact. (In the West almost all modern errors do this same thing; even “Christian Science” claims to be “scientific,” so also Spiritism, various Hindu cults, etc.)
c. It is contrary to the teaching of the Holy Fathers on very many points.
I have deliberately given you my conclusions before explaining them to you, in order to make you stop and think: are you sure that you have put away all your preconceptions about evolution and are prepared to think clearly and dispassionately on this subject? Are you willing to admit that there may be some truth in what I will now have to say on this subject? I must tell you frankly that most “evolutionists” will stop at this point and say: this man is crazy, he is denying facts. I am trusting that your mind is at least open enough to read the rest of what I will say, which I try to base entirely on the Holy Fathers. If I make mistakes, I hope that you will tell me.
Footnotes
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See Editor’s note, Genesis, Creation, and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision, 2nd ed., p. 417: The following letter was written by Fr. Seraphim to Dr. Alexander Kalomiros, a Greek Orthodox medical doctor, church writer, and “Christian evolutionist.”Fr. Seraphim was responding to a letter from Dr. Kalomiros, in which the latter attempted to show that the Holy Scriptures and the teaching of the Holy Fathers were compatible with modern evolutionary theory. According to Dr. Kalomiros, Adam was an “evolved beast,” who at the appropriate point in his evolutionary development received the grace of God and thus became man. Dr. Kalomiros wrote: “When the Lord God breathed into Adams; face the breath of life, then the evolved beast became a logical creature…I would not be surprised if Adam’s body had been in all respects the body of an ape… Adam was probably biologically less evolved than man of present days… He was taken from the top step of the evolutionary ladder of anthropoids. Man does not come from monkeys but from another branch of anthropoids with a parallel evolution.We have nothing by which to conclude in which stage of evolution the breath of God was given to the animal.” Fr. Seraphim’s reply to Dr. Kalomiros, published posthumously in Epiphany Journal (Fall 1989-Winter 1990) and later in abridged form in The Christian Activist (Spring/Summer 1998), has become the definitive introduction to the Patristic doctrine of creation and the definitive Patristic refutation of the modern theory of evolution.We present it here with section titles added by the editor. For more about Fr. Seraphim’s correspondence with Dr. Kalomiros, see the editor’s preface (pp. 26-30, 35, 40) and the selections from Fr. Seraphim’s letters in Part V (pp. 514-15, 522-44). Not intending this letter for publication, Fr. Seraphim underlined and capitalized certain portions of it for emphasis to a much greater extent than he was wont to do in his published writings. In order to preserve the spirit of the original we have retained this emphasis, indicating the underlined portions in italics. All emphasis within Patristic quotations has been added by Fr. Seraphim. Section titles have been added by the editor. ↩