Theology Today Series. 6 The Theology of Evolution by Ervin Nemesszeghy, S. J., John Russell, S. J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 618 epistemology, (p. viii) the philosophy of nature, (pp. ~5~, ~53) and then as epistemology again, (p. ~55) the possibility of a clear statement about the proper subject-matter of the philosophy of being seems to have been precluded in advance. Prof. Deely and Fr. Nogar would be the last to claim that God and evolution are incompatible. Yet they seem to neglect the fact that the great divide today is not between evolutionists and anti-evolutionists but between those who claim evolution is totally undirected chance process and those who say that God is somehow at the source of all the changes that have and are taking place. The front line of the battle has been moved for some time now. If the main point of the book is to drive home the fact of gradual change in the world from lower to higher forms with perhaps some largescale changes, the work is an anticlimax; that argument was won on a wide scale back in the 1950's, and the time for works which keep redoing the subject has gone. If the intent is to open the door to a more extreme form of process philosophy, which seems to be the case at times, the task was hardly begun. If, however, the 1973 problems of specific theories of evolution are to be tackled, then the work has missed its opportunity. The work includes statements about the still current issues of the literal truth of common descent by some specific means, the quantity-quality leap, the problem of universals, etc., but these are not given the systematic, integrated, all-sides, dialectical treatment they deserve. What the work does do is to pull together some good readings, extensively annotated, on some of the biological, cultural, philosophical, and religious aspects of the non-problem of evolution. The book itself is a well made and printed hardback. St. Jerome's College University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario Canada F. F. CENTORE Theology Today Series. 6 The Theology of Evolution. By ERVIN NEMESSZEGHY, S. J. and JoHN RussELL, S. J. Pp. 96; ~6. The Theology of Confirmation. By AusTIN P. MILNER, 0. P. Pp. 1~7; 37. The Theology of Mission. By AYLWARD SHORTER, W. F. Pp. 9~. It is possible to have a theology of evolution because reason and faith, though different orders of truth, are related to each other. As the authors of The Theology of Evolution put it: " The fact that several scientific 614 BOOK REVIEWS theories of cosmogony and biology are compatible with the biblical notion of creation does not warrant the conclusion that none is incompatible with it. " (p. 38) The task of a theology of evolution, then, will be to determine under what form the theory of evolution will be compatible with faith. It has been accomplished admirably here, with special reference to the doctrines of Original Sin and the special creation of the soul. Polygenism is seen to be a necessary ingredient of evolution and at the same time theologically acceptable. From Genesis to Humani Generis the relevant texts are analyzed with the help of a number of simple principles, e. g.,: " Council texts should always be interpreted strictly ... ," (p. 59) and: non-infallible documents such as Humani Generis decide" not whether a teaching is ture or false, once and for all, but whether it is safe from the pastoral point of view at a certain point of history." (p. 62) The book ends with an account, sympathetic but by no means uncritical, of the essentials of Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard's vision, as set out in The Phenomenon of Man, is to be regarded neither as science nor theology but as a successful myth for the twentieth-century man. The Theoloogy of Confirmation is valuable because of the author's broad knowledge of the history of the rite of this sacrament. As far as Confirmation is concerned, that is the chief interest of the theologian. Especially interesting is the long quotation from a sermon of Abbott Faustus of Lerins, also Bishop of Riez, preached at Pentecost between 451 and 470. For him it is the sacrament of the spiritual life of the adult Christian. In...