Evolutionism

In summary, evolutionism holds that some species derive from others through various processes that produce genetic changes. This theory provides a good argument for showing the existence of God, since it is impossible that such splendid modifications could be the product of chance. There must be a very powerful intelligence that has foreseen and organized this process.

If an intelligent process is observed, someone intelligent has designed it. Before a Phoenician vessel, nobody thinks it is clay casually joined together. That vessel speaks for itself of the existence of intelligent beings who built it.

There are things that are impossible no matter how many years pass: if there are no kings in the decks, no trio of kings can be obtained no matter how many millions of decks and years are used. A pen or a keyboard do not build themselves on the basis of millions of years. The existence of a keyboard speaks of an intelligent being who has designed it. If a pen is found on a planet, it will be a certain sign that there are people there. Evolutionism is a much more complex process than the making of a pen and manifests the existence of a very intelligent being who conceived it. Much wiser and more powerful than man.

No, no. Matter is certainly not intelligent and cannot be the designer of evolutionism. If a paper plane appears on a planet, everyone looks for the planet's inhabitants. Nobody thinks that the plane will have arisen by chance from the self-modification of rocks. And a paper plane is much easier to design than a finger or a rabbit. Among material beings only man reasons. Man is the most intelligent being in nature, and man has not organized evolutionism.

Who has conceived the photosynthesis of plants? Who has organized the water cycle and irrigation through clouds? Who has designed water itself? Creatures follow physical and biological laws arranged by an intelligent being who has thought it thus. One of these laws is evolutionism, and so evolutionism speaks to us of God.

Natural sciences call modern man homo sapiens sapiens, and place him within the genus homo, which has an ancient kinship with primates.

For some 15 million years, the great apes have been diversifying. First the orangutan line separates, then the gorilla, and then the chimpanzee about 5 million years ago. Finally the separation between homo and australopithecus occurs (an upright primate that became extinct).

Several species of the genus homo are known. All extinct, except the current one. Science is not entirely precise on these matters. A sketch of human evolution might be this:

• homo habilis.- Lived in Africa 2 million years ago. Made stone tools.
• homo ergaster.- Lived 1.5 million years ago. Was the first to leave Africa for Europe and Asia. From it descended homo erectus (Java) and antecessor.
• homo antecessor.- Lived a million years ago in Africa and Europe. In Europe it gives rise to homo heidelbergensis, from which Neanderthal descended. In Africa it evolves toward the current homo sapiens sapiens.
• homo neanderthalensis.- Lived in Europe 150,000 years ago. Used fire and buried the dead. Became extinct with the glaciations 35,000 years ago.
• homo sapiens sapiens.- Arose in Africa 200,000 years ago and spread throughout the world. 20,000 years ago there were no other homo species.

Reason provides us with a couple of important ideas:

• Man performs spiritual actions, so — in addition to being material — he is a spiritual being (see soul).
• The bodily content of man may derive from the evolution of other bodily beings, since capable matter can give rise to more perfected matter. But never spirit, which by definition is the absence of matter. The creation of the human soul requires a spiritual Creator.

Faith does not pronounce on this point. What God has revealed is that man was created by Him. But nothing is said about the animal the Lord took to breathe the spirit into. The bible speaks of clay, a symbolic clay that could have been an australopithecus, a homo antecessor... or simply clay. In any case, the Lord took a material being, shaped it to be capable of receiving a spiritual soul, created the soul, and united it to that body.