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F e a t u r e A r t i c l e
Mary, Evolution, and Michelangelo's Chisel
Another Example of Why Philosophy Matters
By Mark P. Shea
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Two of the most controversial topics among Catholics and Protestants are evolution and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Great quantities of ink and electrons are expended in print and on the Internet each day arguing about these things. "Catholics call Mary the cause of salvation!" complain our Evangelical friends. "Not only that, but their Pope caved in on evolution and thereby denied that God is the Creator!"
Meanwhile, secularists complain of the exact opposite thing against Catholics: Not only do we deny pure materialism and hold that God is the Creator, but we also credulously believe in the Virgin Birth despite the Richard Dawkinses and Carl Sagans of the world insisting that science has "proved" that there are no miracles.
How do Catholics manage with such frequency to be at the center of flatly contradictory accusations? In the case of Mary and evolution, it is paradoxically because of a common philosophical muddle shared by both secularists and many Evangelicals that lands them in opposing and contradictory difficulties with the faith. The muddle is caused by the failure to grasp the reality of primary and secondary causes.
What’s a primary cause? Just that: a first—but not a sole—cause of something else. Ultimately, God is the primary cause of everything. But he sovereignly prefers to involve his creatures in his work to various degrees, which makes them secondary causes.
To Be or Not to Be
So what’s a secondary cause? It is a dependent but real cause. It didn’t cause the thing all by itself, but without it, the thing wouldn’t have come to be.
Think of it this way: Michelangelo is the primary cause of the Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica. His chisel is the secondary cause. When Michelangelo carves the statue, is it he or his chisel that does the carving? The answer is both. Similarly (though with a significant difference), Michelangelo’s mom and dad were the secondary causes of Michelangelo (God, of course, being the primary cause). When Michelangelo was brought into the world, was it God or his parents that caused him to be born? Again, the answer is both. So what’s the significant difference between Michelangelo’s mom and a chisel? Mom is a person, not a mere tool. She chose not only to give birth to Michelangelo but to give herself in some way to his nurture and formation as a person.
When this relationship between primary and secondary causes is pointed out, it seems fairly obvious. Most Evangelicals, for instance, would not balk at the statement that "the apostle Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans," even though they affirm (as do Catholics) that God is the true author of Scripture. Like Catholics, Evangelicals understand that God, the primary cause of the epistle to the Romans, made Paul a secondary cause of the epistle. Yet, curiously, the idea of primary and secondary causes often gets ignored when the topic of conversation turns to the first or the second Adam. All of a sudden, everything becomes either/or instead of both/and. Humans, say many of our Evangelical friends, cannot owe their bodily origins to any kind of evolutionary process, because God created them. Philosophically speaking, that’s like saying, "Bread cannot owe its origin to wheat, yeast, salt, and water, because the baker made it."
All Worked Up for Nothing
In contrast, Catholics note that Scripture says man is formed from the dust of the earth. But they also note that there’s nothing necessarily contrary to Scripture in saying God took a really long time to form man from the dust of the earth and that he involved creatures in the process along the way. If we accept the idea of primary and secondary causes, there is nothing to get worked up about, especially since God still uses creatures called parents to bring brand new Adams and Eves into the world every minute of every day.
Similarly, many Evangelicals think it’s wrong to say that Mary’s fiat ("Let it be to me according to your word," Luke 1:38) was an active choice with real effects. They fear the idea that Mary was a real cause of the Incarnation and therefore of the salvation that flowed from it. The idea that Mary had a real say in the matter seems to impugn the sovereignty of God. They insist that God is not just the primary cause of the Incarnation but the only cause.
Mary’s having a say is the witness of both Scripture and common sense. Further, our having a say in how we respond to God is also the clear witness of Scripture. In the creative act of God, his sovereignty and our freedom are corollaries, not opposites. That is why Paul says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor. 3:17). That’s why Paul commends "self-control" (not God-control) as a virtue and fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23).
Does Paul therefore mean we are to all run off and be Stoics, "controlling ourselves" without relying on the Spirit? No. He means that submission to God as primary cause of our sanctity will make us into mighty secondary causes. This is why he says elsewhere: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling [i.e., be the secondary cause of your salvation], for God is at work in you, both to work for his good pleasure [i.e., God is the primary cause of your salvation]" (Phil. 2:12–13).
That is why Mary’s fiat really mattered and was not simply a piece of empty religious-sounding rhetoric. Her "Yes" to God really did, by grace, open the gate of salvation and give flesh to the Word.
Scientific Snickering
Meanwhile, pop science magazines abound with discussions that snicker at the Church’s belief in miraculous events while making equally dogmatic statements about the purely material origins of human beings. The result is lots of confusion for ordinary Catholics whose tradition, a moment ago attacked as "anti-biblical," is now attacked as "anti-scientific." How do we make our way through this puzzle?
The answer is the same: Give proper place to primary and secondary causes. The Church has made no official pronouncements about evolution, and it is unlikely it will, because the question is one of science rather than faith. Catholics are free to believe, as Pope John Paul II did, that evolution might be one of the major chisels in the heavenly toolkit by which God sculpted the first human beings. At the same time though, we shouldn’t fall for materialist philosophy. Materialists actually commit the same fallacy as Evangelicals, but in reverse: Materialists say that only the secondary causes matter. That’s what’s going on when a materialist tries to use evolution as a weapon to attack theism. When he says, "The cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be," he is stating a religious belief. When he states that "man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind," he is reciting a creed.
The materialist is simply the photo negative of the Evangelical who denies that Mary had anything to do with the Incarnation. Both are pitting primary and secondary causes against each other. The only difference is that the Evangelical believes only in the primary cause and the materialist believes only in secondary causes.
Catholics are free to affirm both—in their proper order. Indeed, they must affirm both, otherwise we get the chaos of believers chattering as though everything is directly done solely by God or insisting that everything is done solely by mindless natural processes. Like all heresies, both these ideas only give us part of the truth. But the gift of God is the fullness of truth in the Catholic revelation of Jesus Christ who is fully God (the primary cause) and fully man (the secondary cause). Settle for nothing less.
Mark Shea is author of Making Senses out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did (Basilica) and By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition (Our Sunday Visitor). He appears frequently on television and radio, including Catholic Answers Live. He lives with his wife and four sons in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.
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