The Syllabus of Errors
The notion that the publication of the Origin of Species initiated a world-changing scientific revolution by proving that the human species derives from nature rather than divine Creation is contrary to the voluminous literature on the history of science and philosophy. Darwin’s great book was but one more expression of the mechanist world view that blossomed in the Seventeenth Century and expanded its institutional strength continuously thereafter.
Of the many rebuttals of this opinion, the Holy See is especially instructive. The Church is a litmus because it had been identified as the Beast in the Reformation and French Revolution upheavals. If Darwin’s initiative introduced yet a third revolution, often compared with the Copernican switch from geocentrism to heliocentrism, the Church would have noticed; but it did no such thing.
The world-changing revolution, according the legend, is replacement of the religious providential world order by naturalism. Our kind is not the creature of a providential God whose plan culminates in the salvation (or damnation) of the individual’s soul. Instead, we are just another of the countless animal species, descended from the primate lineage. It’s just another outcome of blind materialist processes with no intrinsic meaning. Even so, Darwin’s incomplete escape from the aura of providence is visible in his description of the engine of evolutionary change, natural selection, which he believed was 'daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good: silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, as the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life'.
Thus, in some (by no means all) of his public pronouncements, Darwin endorsed a theist providence and in practical matters assembled with the progressives and optimists of Victorian England.
The Syllabus of Errors was decreed by Pope Pius IX. Eighty errors are enumerated under ten headings:
Pantheism, Naturalism, and Absolute Rationalism
Moderate Rationalism
Indifferentism and Latitudinarianism
Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Biblical Societies, Clerico-Liberal Societies
Errors Concerning the Church and Her Rights
Errors about Civil Society, Considered Both in Itself and in its Relation to the Church
Errors Concerning Natural and Christian Ethics
Errors Concerning Christian Marriage
Errors Regarding the Civil Power of the Sovereign Pontiff
Errors Having Reference to Modern Liberalism
Notice that Evolution is not one of the ten headings. Indeed, evolution is mentioned nowhere in the document. Nowhere at all.
Pope Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, 1792-1878) was the longest serving Pope (1846-1878) whose reign covered the most turbulent phase of church history in modern times. During this period the papal states were abolished as part of the unification of Italy under the kingship of Victor Emmanuel II in 1870. The prestige of the Church among Italians declined while nationalist fervor (the Resorgimento) dominated public feeling. Pius IX rejected Victor Emmanuel’s conciliatory overtures, excommunicated him, declared himself to be the king’s prisoner, and confined himself to the Vatican. In 1869 he summoned the First Vatican Council, which condemned the materialist and atheist beliefs enumerated in the Syllabus of Errors. The Council also declared the doctrine of Papal Infallibility and the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.
Under the first heading, Pantheism, Naturalism, and Absolute Rationalism, the errors are described as follows:
1. There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the universe, and God is identical with the nature of things, and is, therefore, subject to changes. In effect, God is produced in man and in the world, and all things are God and have the very substance of God, and God is one and the same thing with the world, and, therefore, spirit with matter, necessity with liberty, good with evil, justice with injustice.
2. All action of God upon man and the world is to be denied.
3. Human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil; it is law to itself, and suffices, by its natural force, to secure the welfare of men and of nations.
4. All the truths of religion proceed from the innate strength of human reason; hence reason is the ultimate standard by which man can and ought to arrive at the knowledge of all truths of every kind.
5. Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to a continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the advancement of human reason.
6. The faith of Christ is in opposition to human reason and divine revelation not only is not useful, but is even hurtful to the perfection of man.
Much of the document is concerned with ‘errors’ stemming from the doctrine of separation of church, and religion, from the state. It condemns the exclusion of religious instruction from education at all levels. It also condemns the secular curriculum that deems all nature, social relations, and individual life to be determined by, and oriented upon, ‘the ends of earthly social life’. It condemns civil law requiring that the appointment of ecclesiastical authorities be subject to approval by civil authorities. It condemns civil law that abrogates enforceable ecclesiastical authority in matters of marriage, property, education, civil association, and political office. All these positions are stated as absolutes, excluding negotiation and compromise.
Although the Syllabus dates from 1864, its basic ideas were promulgated in a series of papal documents dating from Pius IX’s first encyclical, Qui Pluribus (On Faith and Religion), issued in 1846. It begins by observing that the Church is in great peril and danger, not least because of its weakness. There is a ‘bitter and fearsome war’ against the Church by men bound by no faith and no devotion or obedience. On the contrary,
'they teach that the most holy mysteries of our religion are fictions of human invention, and that the teaching of the Catholic Church is opposed to the good and the prerogatives of human society. They are not even afraid to deny Christ Himself and God'.
At the time of his papal election, Pius IX was perceived to lean toward liberalism. Yet his conduct of the Holy See soon took the color of Ultramontane conservatism that continued through the two world wars. This orientation was terminated by Vatican II--the Ecumenical Council convened by Pope John XXIII, 1962-1965.
I conclude this rebuttal that the Origin initiated a major transformation of modern thought by considering two claims to that effect. One is argued by Francisco Ayala in his book, Darwin’s Gift: To Science and Religion (Joseph Henry Press, 2007) and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).
Ayala, a distinguished biologist, argues that the allocation of explanation of living nature to Darwin’s mechanistic evolutionary scheme is indispensable for the objective comprehension of living nature, but at the same time frees religion to attend to its proper subject, meaning and values. By removing the natural world from the domain of religious understanding, the believer is no longer taxed by the problem of Providence—the reconciliation of divine Perfection with a world marred by conflict, malice, and suffering. This proposed solution is puzzling, coming as it does from one who was once a priest. He was presumably instructed that the source of evil is Sin, induced in Adam by Satan’s temptations. Ayala doesn’t mention Sin. It has no place in his replacement of Adam’s predicament by the secular interpretation of individuality as the search for meaning and values during his/her brief holiday on Earth. But is individuality exempt from an evolutionary interpretation? Not really: it’s on the evolutionary psychology activity list, which makes Ayala’s dualism a little precarious.
Dawkins, by contrast, is uncompromising. His militancy shines through his proclamation:
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
Alas poor Darwin, who remained unfulfilled. He was deeply grateful to Rev. Asa Gray for his thoughtful defence of his theory from accusations of atheism by American theologians. He also wrote that 'I see no reason why the views given in this volume [the Origin] should shock the religious feelings of anyone'.
Then there’s the co-discoverer of the natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, who argued the opposite of Dawkins’ point of view in his brilliant essay, An Answer to the Arguments of Hume, Lecky, and Others, Against Miracles. The materialist, he believed, deprived himself of the blessings of spiritualism and participation in paranormal experience. The materialist, for his or her part, is disturbed that scientific rationality isn't after all a homogeneous medium that expels all superstitious sand traps. Wallace was of course not alone in this vulnerability. Two of Britain’s distinguished scientists, Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge, were also spiritualists. Not to mention Arthur Conan Doyle.
If there is no irresistible flow from natural selection to atheism, might it also be off track to imagine that atheists are committed to rationality? One counter-example is the Marquis de Sade’s comico-aggressive satires of rationalism. Here are some samples from his treasury of joy:
Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humaneness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy.
Humane sentiments are baseless, mad, and improper; they are incredibly feeble; never do they withstand the gainsaying passions, never do they resist bare necessity.
All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost and most legitimate passion that nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one.
Wolves that batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth.
There are echoes of de Sade’s pleasure play in the popular music genre styled ‘thrash’ and ‘death metal’. Shrill blasphemy is expressed in lyrics, performance, and band names, like, EyeHateGod, Megadeath, Anthrax, Deicide, Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror, Neurotica, The Selfish Gene. Album titles also express the spirit: Countdown to Extinction, Angel of Death, Suffocation, Homage to Satan, etc. One of the high profile performers on this wicket, Marilyn Manson, says of himself:
Initially I was drawn into the darker side of life. But it's really just human nature. I started to learn that everything that's considered a sin is what makes you a human being. All the seven deadly sins are man's true nature. To be greedy. To be hateful. To have lust. Of course, you have to control them, but if you're made to feel guilty for being human, then you're going to be trapped in a never-ending sin-and-repent cycle that you can't escape from.
