Well … the very next sentence of that document is this:
Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution.
and while that’s pretty positive about evolution it seems not to be saying that evolution is definitely right. I think what’s going on here is that the authors of that document are happy being very confident about common descent but not so happy being equally confident about evolution.
As to just what sort of evolution, here’s an extract from further on in that document:
It follows that the message of Pope John Paul II cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe.
As the section of that document that you quoted before makes clear, giving God a “truly causal role” doesn’t necessarily mean endorsing divine intervention. Section 68 -- the one before the one you quoted before—suggests what alternatives the authors had in mind, most notably the idea that he designed the universe in such a way that its natural operation would produce particular results.
This, again, is quite far from any view of evolution that would be endorsed by naturalists.
Even in section 68, I don’t see them saying that God necessarily “designed the universe in such a way that its natural operation would produce particular results,” in any sense stronger than the one which would be absolutely necessary for someone who believes that God is omnipotent and omniscient and the cause of everything that happens. In other words, given that you believe such things about God, then if you see a rock fall and land on the ground, you must believe that God wanted it on the ground. But that wouldn’t necessarily imply that it would have bothered God if it landed in the water instead.
Obviously naturalists would not accept God’s design even in this sense. But it is not a scientific theory one way or another and makes no differences in what you expect to find in nature. So that would still allow for someone to say that naturalistic evolution is definitely true with respect to every prediction that it makes.
Also, I agree that in practice, at least in other places, there is the implication that the world was designed (at least by initial conditions) for the sake of some results rather than others. This comes up especially in regard to marriage and sexuality. However, I don’t see that proposed in any dogmatic way, and it seems to be wishful thinking: if it is objectively by chance that reproduction works the specific way it does, then it becomes harder or impossible to justify Catholic sexual morality. For example, if human beings had developed by evolution in such a way that sexual reproduction required one partner killing the other, it would be obviously justified for them to make technological changes in the way they reproduce.
[...] in any sense stronger than the one which would be absolutely necessary [...]
I’m not sure what sense you have in mind. It seems to me that taking seriously the idea that God is omniscient and the cause of everything that happens more or less commits one to seeing everything as designed by God to achieve whatever his purposes might be.
It is fairly common to say: no, despite having that power God conferred free will upon some of his creatures, so that what they do is not chosen by him. I’m not sure that actually makes sense when looked at clearly, but in any case it seems hard to apply this idea to the laws of nature.
In any case, the document we’re discussing seems to me to be saying that God may guide natural processes like evolution by being a “cause of causes”, and setting up the web of natural causation so as to achieve his ends.
(I don’t mean to imply that it’s saying he did so in such a way as to predetermine everything that happens, by the way; one can imagine God setting up a world that operates at random, and optimizing for a particular probability distribution or something of the kind.)
I’m not sure if we’re disagreeing about anything. I’m not saying that any Church authority has said that “the process of evolution looks exactly like a naturalistic process”, but that what they do say is consistent with this being true. Even assuming God had some motive for setting up things the way they are, how would that imply something in the process of evolution that doesn’t look naturalistic?
I certainly agree that if you say God is relevant at all, that is not something that naturalism would say. But it also doesn’t seem to mean anything concrete about the process.
in so far as the RCC has a position on the actual facts of biological evolution (as opposed to a position on what the Catholic faithful are supposed to think about them):
it seems to me fairly clearly distinguishable from any position a typical atheist evolutionist would adopt, even as regards observable questions like how likely it is that clear evidence of non-natural processes in evolution will ever turn up, though it’s hard to be certain because the official documents carefully avoid being too definite on such matters, and
I bet the senior RC clergy responsible for these documents hold positions more clearly distinguishable from those of typical atheist evolutionists, even as regards etc.; but
I suspect many of them have at least a suspicion that the scientific evidence for naturalist-looking evolution is only ever going to get better, and that clear signs of any kind of divine design in natural organisms are never going to show up.
as regards the RCC’s position on what the Catholic faithful are supposed to think:
I don’t think they are forbidden to adopt positions that, as regards etc., are indistinguishable from those of a typical atheist evolutionist, but
those official documents seem intended to discourage them from holding such positions, and
such positions seem permitted only (I insist on saying!) grudgingly. In particular:
until recently the Catholic faithful were explicitly forbidden to adopt such positions (on account of, e.g., what Humani Generis says about not regarding evolution as definitely correct), and
I strongly suspect that if even a modest amount of credible scientific evidence pointing in the direction of “intelligent design” were to show up, the RCC would return to that sort of stance.
(Not all of those things are directly related to the questions we were discussing.) Does that help?
Ok. I think I agree at least mostly with this summary, although I might qualify a few points.
In itself it’s likely that someone who believes in God will estimate a higher probability of evidence of non-natural processes in evolution than for an atheist. But there is also the third point you mention, namely that even theists may notice that there is currently no such evidence and may suspect that there never will be any. So this might mitigate the difference in their expectations somewhat.
Regarding what is grudgingly permitted or what is encouraged, I think this is less about probability assignments about the facts at issue, and more about the probability that a belief will tend to keep people in the Church or to lead to them leaving the Church. I think this is true even when the Church authorities are explicitly aware that a belief is probably false, at least in some cases. They still will not discourage that belief if it makes it more likely for someone to stay in the Church, unless there is some other motive for discouraging it (e.g. if the belief is very obviously ridiculous, they may discourage it because it could make the Church look bad.)
Well … the very next sentence of that document is this:
and while that’s pretty positive about evolution it seems not to be saying that evolution is definitely right. I think what’s going on here is that the authors of that document are happy being very confident about common descent but not so happy being equally confident about evolution.
As to just what sort of evolution, here’s an extract from further on in that document:
As the section of that document that you quoted before makes clear, giving God a “truly causal role” doesn’t necessarily mean endorsing divine intervention. Section 68 -- the one before the one you quoted before—suggests what alternatives the authors had in mind, most notably the idea that he designed the universe in such a way that its natural operation would produce particular results.
This, again, is quite far from any view of evolution that would be endorsed by naturalists.
Even in section 68, I don’t see them saying that God necessarily “designed the universe in such a way that its natural operation would produce particular results,” in any sense stronger than the one which would be absolutely necessary for someone who believes that God is omnipotent and omniscient and the cause of everything that happens. In other words, given that you believe such things about God, then if you see a rock fall and land on the ground, you must believe that God wanted it on the ground. But that wouldn’t necessarily imply that it would have bothered God if it landed in the water instead.
Obviously naturalists would not accept God’s design even in this sense. But it is not a scientific theory one way or another and makes no differences in what you expect to find in nature. So that would still allow for someone to say that naturalistic evolution is definitely true with respect to every prediction that it makes.
Also, I agree that in practice, at least in other places, there is the implication that the world was designed (at least by initial conditions) for the sake of some results rather than others. This comes up especially in regard to marriage and sexuality. However, I don’t see that proposed in any dogmatic way, and it seems to be wishful thinking: if it is objectively by chance that reproduction works the specific way it does, then it becomes harder or impossible to justify Catholic sexual morality. For example, if human beings had developed by evolution in such a way that sexual reproduction required one partner killing the other, it would be obviously justified for them to make technological changes in the way they reproduce.
I’m not sure what sense you have in mind. It seems to me that taking seriously the idea that God is omniscient and the cause of everything that happens more or less commits one to seeing everything as designed by God to achieve whatever his purposes might be.
It is fairly common to say: no, despite having that power God conferred free will upon some of his creatures, so that what they do is not chosen by him. I’m not sure that actually makes sense when looked at clearly, but in any case it seems hard to apply this idea to the laws of nature.
In any case, the document we’re discussing seems to me to be saying that God may guide natural processes like evolution by being a “cause of causes”, and setting up the web of natural causation so as to achieve his ends.
(I don’t mean to imply that it’s saying he did so in such a way as to predetermine everything that happens, by the way; one can imagine God setting up a world that operates at random, and optimizing for a particular probability distribution or something of the kind.)
I’m not sure if we’re disagreeing about anything. I’m not saying that any Church authority has said that “the process of evolution looks exactly like a naturalistic process”, but that what they do say is consistent with this being true. Even assuming God had some motive for setting up things the way they are, how would that imply something in the process of evolution that doesn’t look naturalistic?
I certainly agree that if you say God is relevant at all, that is not something that naturalism would say. But it also doesn’t seem to mean anything concrete about the process.
Neither am I. I think that
in so far as the RCC has a position on the actual facts of biological evolution (as opposed to a position on what the Catholic faithful are supposed to think about them):
it seems to me fairly clearly distinguishable from any position a typical atheist evolutionist would adopt, even as regards observable questions like how likely it is that clear evidence of non-natural processes in evolution will ever turn up, though it’s hard to be certain because the official documents carefully avoid being too definite on such matters, and
I bet the senior RC clergy responsible for these documents hold positions more clearly distinguishable from those of typical atheist evolutionists, even as regards etc.; but
I suspect many of them have at least a suspicion that the scientific evidence for naturalist-looking evolution is only ever going to get better, and that clear signs of any kind of divine design in natural organisms are never going to show up.
as regards the RCC’s position on what the Catholic faithful are supposed to think:
I don’t think they are forbidden to adopt positions that, as regards etc., are indistinguishable from those of a typical atheist evolutionist, but
those official documents seem intended to discourage them from holding such positions, and
such positions seem permitted only (I insist on saying!) grudgingly. In particular:
until recently the Catholic faithful were explicitly forbidden to adopt such positions (on account of, e.g., what Humani Generis says about not regarding evolution as definitely correct), and
I strongly suspect that if even a modest amount of credible scientific evidence pointing in the direction of “intelligent design” were to show up, the RCC would return to that sort of stance.
(Not all of those things are directly related to the questions we were discussing.) Does that help?
Ok. I think I agree at least mostly with this summary, although I might qualify a few points.
In itself it’s likely that someone who believes in God will estimate a higher probability of evidence of non-natural processes in evolution than for an atheist. But there is also the third point you mention, namely that even theists may notice that there is currently no such evidence and may suspect that there never will be any. So this might mitigate the difference in their expectations somewhat.
Regarding what is grudgingly permitted or what is encouraged, I think this is less about probability assignments about the facts at issue, and more about the probability that a belief will tend to keep people in the Church or to lead to them leaving the Church. I think this is true even when the Church authorities are explicitly aware that a belief is probably false, at least in some cases. They still will not discourage that belief if it makes it more likely for someone to stay in the Church, unless there is some other motive for discouraging it (e.g. if the belief is very obviously ridiculous, they may discourage it because it could make the Church look bad.)