The day has finally arrived here in Northern Kentucky. The Creation Museum that has been under construction off of Interstate 275 in Petersburg is set to open on Monday. I have many reasons to want to comment on this, the least of which is the fact that the museum is literally 10 minutes from my Mom's house.

Over the last few years I've watched the building go up, seen the construction delays, and even debated Ken Ham, the leader of Answers in Genesis, via e-mail. That people believe in young earth creationism doesn't bother me as much as the fact that media folks use this kind of information to beat all Christians over the head, without bothering to research what each group really believes. We are all lumped together and targeted for ridicule as simpletons, or people who need faith as a crutch because we are too weak to face reality.

I don't think there is any better time to clarify the Catholic Church's position on evolution. I'm sure that is what prompted our local Diocesan newspaper, The Messenger, to print an article on creation and evolution by Fr. Ronald Ketteler, who is a professor of Theology at Thomas More College here in Kentucky. The article was titled, "Faith and science: A Catholic perspective on the issue of creation and evolution" Fr. Ketteler writes:

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms a central tenet of the Christian doctrine of creation: 'We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance.' (CCC n. 295) Within that doctrinal perspective, contemporary Catholic teaching holds that there is no inherent conflict in principle between the science of evolutionary biology and the doctrine of creation"

English please! As Catholics we believe God is "Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen", we do not claim to know exactly how he did it. Evolution certainly could have been a part of the process, and given the scientific evidence in it's favor, it probably was involved. Catholics do not share the 'Sola Scriptura' mentality, that everything in the bible is literally true. We read literally when the text calls for it, and we read figuratively when it is called for. We rely on the Church and sacred tradition to guide us in how to interpret texts that were written thousands of years ago.

Our basic understanding of Genesis is that it is a framework for how God created the world, but it is figurative, and very short on details. There are many good books on this, and it is beyond my scope to go into it here. This issue confuses many good Catholics, and they have a knee jerk reaction that evolution must be wrong. I propose that what they are reacting to is not biological evolution, but what has been called "Evolutionism".

Evolutionary biology is almost certainly true. Fr. Ketteler writes, "the well known observation of Pope John Paul II in his 1996 message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on evolution, namely, that 'new knowledge leads to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis.'"

Evolutionism, on the other hand is a dogma of secular humanism championed by people like Richard Dawkins. It basically takes the science of evolution and extends it into the philosophical and metaphysical realm. It is the age old problem of reductionism. Evolutionism proposes to take God out of the equation as a causal force by claiming evolution is unguided. The problem is, this cannot possibly be proven by science.

Fr. Ketteler continues in his article, "From this doctrinal standpoint, Catholic teaching criticizes those 'neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided' for such an ideology strays 'beyond what can be demonstrated by science.' (C&S n. 69)"

So, we can see that the science doesn't conflict at all with Catholic teaching, but the dogma of Evolutionism is in direct conflict, and even attempts to supplant God. Evolutionists hide behind the science, but are actually taking part in a philosophical debate, which is always a matter of faith. Neither position can be proven by science, because we are dealing with the spiritual, which cannot be observed by the senses. Thankfully, we as Catholics know that God has revealed himself to us so that we may understand.

On the other end of the spectrum, young earth creationists put God in a box. They claim to know exactly how God created everything, and if even the science of evolution is true, it would destroy their faith as they know it. Personally, I don't think God would purposefully deceive us. If the earth was only 6,000 years old, why would he make it appear 4 billion years old? I also think that God setting in motion and directing a process like evolution to eventually bring about a creature he would give a soul and teach about love, is far more amazing.

If you are interested in further reading on this subject, I highly recommend Ken Millers book Finding Darwin's God. For a quick taste of his ideas, review his website here.