Rejection of creationism in European schools
The Resolution approved by the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on 4 October urges the governments of the 47 member states to “firmly” oppose the teaching of creationism in European schools. The vote on the Resolution divided the assembly: 48 votes in favour, 25 against. The Resolution cited “cases” of support for creationism in many countries, including Germany, Belgium, France, Poland, Italy, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey. We publish a comment by Italian theologian, Marco Doldi , staff member of SirEurope, on the question. Europe is concerned that religious theories regarding the origin of the universe could cause harm to schoolchildren. That’s why the Council of Europe’s Commission of culture, science and education has prepared a draft Resolution with the title “The harm caused by creationism in education”. The text is ambiguous due to the fact that it uses without any distinction the terms “creation” and “creationism”. And this raises many doubts. For the first term indicates per se the activity of God who creates and preserves his creation, while the second term denotes a kind of fixity, a non-evolutionary scheme: God created things just as they are. The European draft Resolution confuses these concepts. That is clear right from the start: “for some, the creation, based on a religious conviction, confers a meaning on life. However, the parliamentary assembly is worried by the harmful influence that the spread of creationist theories could have on our educational systems and its consequences on our democracies. Creationism, if we fail to oppose it, could pose a threat to human rights, which are at the heart of the concerns of the Council of Europe”. The text thus uses very different terms without any distinction: creation, on the one hand, creationist theories and creationism, on the other. “Those who support creationism – continues the draft Resolution – place in question the scientific character of some factual knowledge and present the theory of evolution as just one interpretation among others. They accuse scientists of failing to furnish sufficient proof to confirm the scientific character of the theory of evolution”. It is clear that, almost two centuries after Charles R. Darwin, it is feared that someone might cast doubt on the theory of evolution. In short, apart from the contents, cultural conflict is feared. According to the European document, in creationism we are faced by a mode of thought that is born from some religious dogmas and that places in doubt all the knowledge we have patiently accumulated on nature, evolution, our origins, and our place in the universe. Now, it is well known that in Europe these conceptions, shorn of any reference to God, were born with the Enlightenment, which to this day does not tolerate debate. The Council of Europe is said to be seriously concerned lest “a serious confusion between convictions, beliefs and ideals of every kind on the one hand, and science on the other, be introduced into the minds of our children”. It further claims that creationist movements have real political power, on the far right, and that children are disturbed by the fact that “the first weapon of the creationists, whether they are Christians or Muslims, is teaching: the creationists are bent on ensuring that their ideas are included in the school science syllabus. Creationism, however, cannot lay claim to being a scientific discipline”. Yet, if man looks around him, he will discover that the universe is structured in an intelligent manner and speaks to his mind in a clear and unambiguous way. Two reasons come into conflict here: the subjective idea of man and the objective idea of nature. “It thus becomes inevitable – says Benedict XVI – to ask oneself whether there ought not to be a single original intelligence that is the common source of both the one and the other. Thus it is precisely the reflection on the development of science that leads us back to the Logos as creator” (Speech, 19/10/06). What existed at the origin? The creative Reason, the Creator Spirit that is the source and origin of everything and arouses development, or the irrationality that “is deprived of any reason and yet strangely produces a ordered cosmos in a mathematical way and also man and his reason? This reason, however, would then be merely a casual result of evolution and hence, basically, an irrational thing too” (Homily, 12/09/06). In the view of the Church there cannot be opposition between evolution and creation: evolution has prepared the human form capable of receiving the divine act that is the creator of the soul; but it is by virtue of this divine act that man is man. But there could only be opposition between them if we were to continue to consider evolution as a process in which blind and casual forces act. So, yes to evolution, but within the creation.
