Does the Church Accept Evolution?

The Short Answer

Yes, within limits. The Church does not oppose the scientific theory of evolution, and Catholics are free to accept it as an account of how living things, including the human body, developed over time. St John Paul II said in 1996 that new findings lead “toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis.” What the Church does not accept is evolution turned into a philosophy: the claim that nature explains itself, that human beings are only clever animals, or that the soul is a by-product of chemistry. “Every spiritual soul is created immediately by God” (CCC 366).

The objection comes from two directions. Some sceptics say evolution has made God unnecessary. Some Christians say evolution contradicts Genesis and must be rejected. The Catholic position is different from both.

What the Church Does and Does Not Claim

The Church does not claim:

That Catholics must accept evolution. It is a scientific question, to be settled by evidence. But the Church does not forbid it either.
That Genesis is a science textbook. It teaches that God created, and what human beings are, not the mechanics of biology.
That God and evolution are alternatives. God is not one cause among others, competing with natural processes. He is the reason there are natural processes at all.
That science can tell us when or how the soul is given. That lies outside what biology can measure.

The Church does claim that God is the Creator of all things, that each human soul is created directly by God, and that the human race has a real beginning and a real history, including a real Fall (CCC 366, 390).

What the Church Has Said

Pius XII, in the encyclical Humani Generis (1950), wrote that “the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter,” adding, “for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (n. 36).

St John Paul II, in his 1996 message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, spoke of evolution as “more than an hypothesis,” while insisting that theories which “regard the spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter” or as a mere epiphenomenon “are incompatible with the truth about man.”

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, wrote: “We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are” (In the Beginning, 1995).

Pope Francis told the same Academy in 2014: “Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve.”

The Truths No Theory Can Override

God is the Creator of everything

Evolution describes how living things change over time. It does not explain why there is anything at all, or why nature has laws that make change possible. “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all” (Psalm 104:24). God works through natural causes; He does not compete with them.

The human soul is created directly by God

Genesis says that “the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). The body comes from the earth; the spiritual soul comes from God. The Church teaches that the soul “is not ‘produced’ by the parents” (CCC 366), and no process of matter could produce it. That is why human beings can know truth, love freely and seek God, in a way no other creature can.

There was a real Fall

The Catechism says that the account of the Fall “uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man” (CCC 390). Pius XII held that Catholics cannot embrace the opinion that “either after Adam there existed on this earth true men” who did not descend from him, or that Adam stands for a number of first parents, because “it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled” with the doctrine of original sin (Humani Generis 37). How this fits with what population genetics says about human origins is a question Catholic theologians and scientists continue to discuss. The Church has not settled the details. The principle, a real first human sin with real consequences, stands.

Common Objections

”Evolution proves there is no need for God.”

Evolution explains how species develop. It does not explain why there is a universe with stable laws, why there is anything rather than nothing, or how mind and freedom arise. Turning a scientific theory into the claim that nature is all there is goes beyond the science. It is a philosophy, and an unproven one.

”Evolution contradicts Genesis.”

Only if Genesis is read as a scientific report. The Church does not read it that way, and neither did many early Christian writers. St Augustine, writing The Literal Meaning of Genesis in the early fifth century, did not take the six days as ordinary days, and warned Christians against making claims about the natural world from Scripture that would make the faith look foolish to those who knew better (De Genesi ad litteram I.19.39).

”If humans evolved, we’re just animals.”

Our bodies share a great deal with other animals, and Scripture itself says we were formed “of dust from the ground.” But human beings are also spiritual: we reason, love, create, pray and grasp moral truth. Those capacities point to a soul that matter alone does not explain. The Church’s claim is not that we are less connected to nature than biology says, but that we are more than nature.

”Evolution is random. A random process can’t be God’s plan.”

“Random” in biology means that mutations are not directed towards the needs of the organism. It does not mean uncaused or outside God’s providence. God can bring about His purposes through processes that look random to us, just as He governs history through free human choices. Scripture is full of outcomes that seem like chance and turn out to be providence.

In Summary

The Church does not ask Catholics to choose between faith and biology. She leaves the science of evolution to scientists, and she has said for seventy years that it is compatible with the faith. What she rejects is materialism dressed as science: the claim that nature explains itself and that human beings are nothing but matter. God is the Creator of all things; each human soul comes directly from Him; and the human story has a real beginning and a real Fall. Within those truths, Catholics are free to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

This article follows the method St Robert Bellarmine used in his Controversies*: state the question fairly, clear away misunderstandings, make the case, then answer each objection. Bellarmine himself wrote, in his 1615 letter to Paolo Foscarini about Galileo, that if a true demonstration were found, Scripture would have to be explained with great care rather than the demonstration denied. See How We Answer Objections.*

Sources

Scripture: Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Press). Genesis 2:7; Psalm 104:24.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 159, 283–284, 337, 362–366, 390.
Pius XII, Humani Generis (1950), 36–37. nd.edu
St John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution, 22 October 1996. ewtn.com
Joseph Ratzinger, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (1995).
Pope Francis, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 27 October 2014. vatican.va
St Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram (c. 401–415), I.19.39.
St Robert Bellarmine, Letter to Paolo Antonio Foscarini, 12 April 1615.