Keeping Faith: Evolution and Theology

Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Volume 13, Number 2, pp. 132-152.

 By Jayna L. Ditty and Philip A. Rolnick

Since 1859, with the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, biology has increasingly challenged comfortable theological assumptions. Being convinced, however, that evolutionary biology and theology have in common the desire to know truth, we have used Ian Barbour's models of interaction in order to investigate ways in which evolutionary biology and theology conflict, are independent, can be in dialogue, or might even be integrated in light of the quest for truth, goodness, and beauty. In our conversations (one of us is a biologist and the other a theologian), we have sought to uphold scientific rigor and reasoned faith, even though differences in methods and assumptions complicate the effort. In spite of these differences, meaningful conversation can take place between biology and theology if theologians do not question the data of scientific discovery but remain free to question the data's interpretation at the theological level. Likewise, biologists should not restrict themselves to hegemonic and reductionist interpretations that leave little or no room for nonbiological reality.

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