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Can Catholics Embrace Intelligent Design?

Question:

I know that the Catholic Church supports "evolutionary creation". But what about "intelligent design"?

Answer:

The Church stays out of scientific arguments and debates. The Church only teaches that the human soul is created by God and is not a “natural process.”

The term intelligent design encompasses a wide variety of thought. Strictly speaking it is not a scientific theory but rather is a theological theory. The theories of intelligent design run the gamut from God directly guiding the evolutionary process like a sculptor to God merely setting it all in motion like a series of dominoes.

Catholic philosophers also caution against developing our theology using a “God of the gaps” mentality. This refers to the tendency to fill in whatever we don’t know with: “God did it!” The obvious problem being that once we are able to fill in that gap with a natural process we have caused damage to the idea of God in the world. After all, if we told someone that God makes the sun rise and set how long would they continue to believe in God once they learn that the earth rotating on its axis causes the sun to appear to rise and set? Our faith does not require God to fill in the gaps of our knowledge; we believe God exists for reasons beyond what we simply do not know about nature.

The intelligent design theories that assign God a direct guiding hand in the evolutionary process are considered by most Catholic philosophers and theologians to be a God of the gaps attempt at an explanation. However the Church has never officially condemned this form of intelligent design so Catholics could still argue and debate it.

Catholic theologians and philosophers have tended to embrace a looser concept of intelligent design that does not require God to continuously interject Himself into the process of evolution.

Suggested further reading: Aquinas vs. Intelligent Design by Michael W. Tkacz

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