The following is one is a series of articles we plan to post concerning the idea of evolution and its relationship to Orthodoxy.   It was written in 1998, when one of our former students read the article in a publication, The Christian Activist, and was confused because while Dr. Karomiros was an Orthodox Christian, he was in favor of an idea which she had been taught was contrary to Orthodox teachings.

    Many Orthodox parents are understandably confused about what to teach their children concerning creation and the idea of evolution. There are so many conflicting views and opinions - some in favor of the idea of evolution and some against it.  What are we to believe?   Often discussions about the subject become rather heated.  The answer is to soberly study the subject as much as possible and beware of being zealous without knowledge.  Hopefully the material we will be publishing will be of help in this endeavor.

    The Orthodox Church does not require one to “leave their brain at the door” as some have said, but it does require us to “be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  Since the idea of evolution is most often presented as a scientific fact, we have every right to analyze the evidence presented with scientific rigor and logic. Granted, this analysis does require some science education, but it does not really take a PhD.

    For an Orthodox Christian, a study of the subject also requires that we are knowledgeable about the Patristic writings concerning this subject.  The following letter covers some of the Patristic writings.  Subsequent articles will examine the idea of evolution from a scientific perspective.

   The following article was hardly the only one written to the editor concerning this matter.  In fact, The Christian Activist was so flooded with objections to Dr. Karomiros' prespective that they dedicated a good portion of the next issue to the writings of the late Fr. Seraphim Rose.




Editor
The Christian Activist
PO Box 740
Mt. Hermon, CA  95041

Dear Editor,

    I must make some comments on The Eternal Will, which appeared in the Fall\Winter issue of The Christian Activist.  My general impression is that Dr. Kalomiros had fallen into the same trap into which so many other Christians have fallen.  The trap is believing that the theory of evolution has indeed been substantiated by empirical scientific evidence.  It is therefore a "fact of life" that must be taken into account in one's thinking.  Given what most people have been taught and the perspective that permeates textbooks and the media, it is understandable how someone would absorb that belief.  A Christian who holds this belief feels constrained to understand and interpret the first few chapters of Genesis so that the "scientific truth" and the scriptural truth do not contradict each other.

    Darwinian evolution, or any other kind, is not an established, empirically shown "scientific fact", regardless of all the times it is stated to be.  Even evolutionary scientists are now beginning to admit that belief in evolution is a faith.  Some even admit that it is a necessary result of the philosophy of materialism.  It is a philosophical conclusion, not a scientific discovery.  Examining the evidence given for the idea of evolution from a scientific perspective, and showing why the premise of "evolution is a fact" is false, is a worthwhile study.  Our concern here is on the difference between the Patristic understandings of Genesis and the newly-created world and those presented by Dr. Kalomiros in his essay.

    Assuming evolution to be true, Dr. Kalomiros is forced to depart from a traditional understanding of Genesis.  He is constrained to select those writing of the Fathers which, when interpreted with an evolutionary bias, seem to support the idea.  He presents these writings in the context of his major premise (evolution happened), rather than in the context of the whole of the Patristic literature.  There are plenty of Patristic commentaries on Genesis which clearly do not support the idea of evolution. His interpretation of Scripture, other than the Book of Genesis, must also depart from traditional Orthodox understanding in order to be in line with this evolutionary premise.

    Dr. Kalomiros begins his essay by expressing his understanding of "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."  He states that "the heaven and the earth" refer to all the material universe.  Belief that the sun, moon and stars were not created until the Fourth Day is called as a "fundamental misunderstanding."  He proposes that the sun and stars were not actually created on the Fourth Day, but rather simply became visible because of changes in the atmosphere.  He must hold this view if he is going to conform to a modern perspective and avoid the problem of there being plants on the earth (Third Day) before the creation of the sun (Fourth Day). The Fathers of the Church did not hold this view.

    St. John Chrysostom writes: "He created the sun on the fourth day so that you might not think it produces the day"
(Commentary on Genesis, VI, 4, p. 45).

    St. Ambrose makes a special emphasis on this point:

    Look first upon the firmament of heaven which was made before the sun; look first upon the earth which began to be visible and was already formed before the sun put in its appearance; look at the plants of the earth which preceded in time the light of the sun.  The bramble preceded the sun; the blade of grass is older than the moon.  Therefore, do not believe that object to be a god to which the gifts of God are seen to be preferred.  Three days have passed.  No one, meanwhile, has looked for the sun, yet the brilliance of the light has been in evidence everywhere.  For the day, too, has its light which is itself the precursor of the sun. (Six Days, IV, 1, p.126).

    St. Basil teaches:

    The heavens and the earth had come first; after them, light had been created, day and night separated, and in turn, the firmament and dry land revealed.  Water had been collected into a fixed and definite gathering.  The earth had been filled with its proper fruits; for, it had brought forth countless kinds of herbs, and had been adorned with varied species of plants.  However, the sun did not yet exist, nor the moon, lest men might call the sun the first cause and father of light, and lest they who are ignorant of God might deem it the producer of what grows from the earth... If the creation of light had preceded, why, now, is the sun said to have been made to give light?... At the time (the First Day) the actual nature of light was introduced, but now this solar body has been made ready to be a vehicle for the first-created light... And do not tell me that it is impossible for these to be separated.  I certainly do not say that the separation of light from the solar body is possible for you and me, but that that which we are able to separate in thought can also be separated in actuality by the Creator of its nature..."Let them serve," He says, "for the fixing of days," not for the making of days, but for the ruling the days.  For day and night are earlier than the generation of the luminaries (Hexaemeron, VI, 2,3,8; pp.85-6,97).

    And again St. Basil writes:

    The adornment of the earth is older than the sun, that those who have been misled may cease worshiping the sun as the origin of life (Hexaemeron, V, 1, p.67)

    In support of his view that the sun was created before the Fourth Day, Dr. Kalomiros states that St. Basil also understands that "heaven and earth" means the existence of everything material, yet he gives no reference.  How does one reconcile Dr. Kalomiros' statement with the above quote from St. Basil?  Does it not appear that Dr. Kalomiros would consider St. Basil suffering under this "fundamental misunderstanding"?

    The quote from St. John Chrysostom concerning the hovering of the Holy Spirit is very interesting.  For one who already believes in an evolutionary process, this quote could easily be seen as Patristic evidence.  Dr. Kalomiros understands St. John in this evolutionary way and writes that life on earth was "not an instantaneous action, but developed and progressed in time..."

    The writing of the Fathers do not support Dr. Kalomiros' interpretation.  For example, the Holy Fathers are unanimous in emphasizing the miraculous nature of the creation of the Third Day.  St. Basil teaches:

    "Let the earth bring forth herbs."  And in the briefest moment of time the earth, beginning with germination in order that it might keep the laws of the Creator, passing through every form of increase, immediately brought the shoots to perfection.  The meadows were deep with the abundant grass; the fertile plains, rippling with standing crops, presented the picture of a swelling sea with its moving heads of grain.  And every herb and every kind of vegetable and whatever shrubs and legumes there were, rose from the earth at that time in all profusion... "And the fruit tree," He said, "that bears fruit contains the seed of its own kind and of its own likeness on the earth."  At this saying all the dense wood appeared; all the trees shot up, those which are wont to rise to the greatest height, the firs, cedars, cypresses, and pines; likewise, all the shrubs were immediately thick with leaf and bushy; and the so-called garland plants - the rose bushes, myrtles, and laurels - all came into existence in a moment of time, although they were not previously upon the earth, each one with its own peculiar nature (Hexaemeron, V, 5-6, p.74).

    St. Ephraim the Syrian states precisely:

    The herbs, at the time of their creation, were the production of a single instant, but in appearance they appeared the production of months.  Likewise the trees, at the time of their creation, were the production of a single day, but in their perfection and fruits, which weighed down the branches, they appeared the production of years (Commentary on Genesis, I, p. 298).

    St. Gregory of Nyssa also emphasizes that what was created by God was not merely seeds or a potentiality for growth, but the actual creations we know; seeds come from those first-created plants:

    We learn from Scripture in the account of the first creation, that first the earth brought forth "the green herb", and that then from this plant seed was yielded, from which, when it was shed on the ground, the same form of the original plant again sprang up.  In the beginning, we see, it was not an ear rising from a grain, but a grain arising from an ear, and, after that, the ear grows round the grain. (On the Soul and the Resurrection, p. 467).

    Plants and trees appear on earth, as the Fathers repeat again and again, before the very existence of the sun.  St. John Chrysostom writes:

    (Moses) shows you that everything was accomplished before the creation of the sun, so that you might ascribe the ripening of the fruits not to it, but to the Creator of the universe (Commentary on Genesis, VI, 4, p.44).

    Dr. Kalomiros' discussion of the meaning of the word "day" involves the various words in Hebrew or Greek which refer to time.  What is interesting is that I have read other articles which discuss the interpretation of the word used in Genesis.  According to these articles, the Greek/Hebrew word which is used means a short period of time.  There are other words which can refer to longer periods, but they are not used in the first chapters of Genesis.  Belief in an evolutionary process, of course, forces one to understand the days as extremely long periods of time - aeons.

    The Fathers may differ somewhat on the exact length of the day, but none of them speak of aeons of time.  St. Ephraim the Syrian, who understands the days of Creation to be 24 hours long, emphasizes that the creative acts of God in these days do not require 24 hours, but only an instant.  Thus, concerning the first day he writes:

    Although both the light and the clouds were created in the twinkling of an eye, still both the day and the night of the first day continued for twelve hours each (Commentary on Genesis, ch. 1).

    St. Basil the Great likewise emphasizes at various points of his commentary on the Six Days the instantaneous nature of God's creation.  On the Third Day of Creation, he writes,

    At this saying all the dense woods appeared; all the trees shot up...Likewise, all the shrubs were immediately thick with leaf and bushy; and the so-called garland plants...all came into existence in a moment of time, although they were not previously upon the earth (Hexaemeron, V. 6). "Let the earth bring forth." This brief command was immediately mighty nature and an elaborate system which brought to perfection, more swiftly than our thought, the countless properties of plants (Hexaemeron, V, 10, p.82).

    I would be interested in reading the reference to St. Basil in which he quotes St. Basil as saying, "Whether we say 'day', or whether we say 'aeon', we express the same meaning."   I have come to be skeptical of very short quotations of the Fathers in this matter, especially in light of many other quotations which indicate a very different time frame.  When someone starts with a belief in an evolutionary process, theistic or otherwise, he is forced to "expand" the days into much longer periods of time.  

    Dr. Kalomiros states that for those who understand the meaning of the Greek word used, and translated as "bring forth", it is clear that a developmental, evolutionary process is indicated.  Did not the Fathers know Greek?  Why did they not come to the same understanding as Dr. Kalomiros?  Why do the writings of St. Basil and others so strongly indicate that God created "kinds" (perhaps different from species and more closely related to genus) which reproduce faithfully?  St. Basil teaches that the "kinds" of Genesis (except, of course, for those that may have become extinct) maintain their nature to the end of time:

    There is nothing truer than this, that each plant either has seed or there exists in it some generative power.  And this accounts for the expression "of its own kind."  For the shoot of the reed is not productive of an olive tree, but from the reed comes another reed; and from seeds spring plants related to the seeds sown.  Thus, what was put forth by the earth in its first generation has been preserved until the present time, since the species persisted through constant reproduction (Hexaemeron, V, 2, p. 69).


    And further:

    The nature of existing objects, set in motion by one command, passes through creation without change, by generation and destruction, preserving the succession of the species through resemblance, until it reaches the very end.  It begets a horse as the successor of a horse, a lion of a lion, and an eagle of an eagle; and it continues to preserve each of the animals by uninterrupted successions until the consummation of the universe.  No length of time causes the specific characteristics of the animals to be corrupted or extinct, but, as if established just recently, nature, ever fresh, moves along with time.  (Hexaemeron, IX, 2, p. 137).

    Similarly, St. Ambrose teaches:

    In the pine cone, nature seems to express an image of itself; it preserves its peculiar properties which it received from that divine and celestial command and it repeats in the succession and order of the years its generation until the end of time is fulfilled (Six Days, III, 16, pp. 119-120).

    And the same Father says even more decisively:

    The Word of God permeates every creature in the constitution of the world.  Hence, as God had ordained, all kinds of living creatures were quickly produced from the earth.  In compliance with a fixed law they all succeed each other from age to age according to their aspect and kind.  The lion generates a lion; the tiger, a tiger; the ox, an ox; the swan, a swan; and the eagle, an eagle.  What was once enjoined became in nature a habit for all time.  Hence, the earth has not ceased to offer the homage of her service.  The original species of living creatures is reproduced for future ages by successive generations of its kind (Six Days, VI, 3, p. 232).

    Dr. Kalomiros quotes St. Gregory of Nyssa concerning creation not taking place in an instant, but gradually. This quote, and one from St. Seraphim later in the article have been used by other Orthodox writers who attempt to give Patristic evidence for an evolutionary process. St. Gregory uses a few words and phrases which are close those used in evolutionary theory - "makes its ascent", "from the lesser to the perfect", etc.  Dr. Kalomiros uses St. Gregory's phraseology to support the evolutionary idea of "from the simple to the complex."  If this passage is understood in the light of the rest of the Patristic literature (rather than in the light of evolutionary theory), St. Gregory's meaning is revealed as quite different than that given by Dr. Kalomiros.

    St. Gregory the Theologian writes:

    To the days (of creation) is added a certain firstness, secondness, thirdness, and so on to the seventh day of rest from works, and by these days is divided all that is created, being brought into order by unutterable laws, but not produced in an instant, by the Almighty Word, for Whom to think or to speak means already to perform the deed.  If man appeared in the world last, honored by the handiwork and image of God, this is not in the least surprising; since for him, as for a king, the royal dwelling had to be prepared and only then was the king to be led in, accompanied by all creatures (Homily 44, On New Week, Spring, and the Commemoration of the Martyr Mamas).

    In the same vein St. John Chrysostom writes:

    The Almighty right hand of God and His limitless wisdom would have had no difficulty in creating everything in a single day.  And what do I say, in a single day? - in an instant.  But since He created everything that exists not for His own benefit, because He needs nothing, being All-sufficient unto Himself, on the contrary He created everything in His love for mankind and goodness, and so He creates in parts and offers us by the mouth of the blessed Prophet a clear teaching of what is created so that we, having found out about this in detail, would not fall under the influence of those who are drawn away by human reasonings...And why, you will say, was man created afterward, if he surpassed all these creatures?  For a good reason.  When a king intends to enter a city, his arms-bearers and others must go ahead, so that the king might enter chambers already prepared for him.  Precisely thus did God now, intending to place as it were a king and master over everything earthly, at first arrange all this adornment, and only then did he create the master, (man) (Homilies on Genesis, III, 3, p. 18; VIII, 2, pp.60-61).

    The theory of evolution requires that man be shown to be a descendant of the lower creation, to have "evolved" out of it.  St. Gregory of Nyssa not only says nothing whatever that indicates he believed such a view, but, in his other writings, clearly shows that he does not.  Thus, he agrees with the rest of the Fathers who have written on Genesis that while God's creation is "step by step", it did not involve an evolutionary process.

    A traditional Orthodox cosmology does not deny the interconnectedness of nature, including the body of man.  This relationship includes physical, biological similarities to be sure, but these similarities do not mean common descent.  All the man-made objects we see around us are related in that they are made of basically the same materials.  Works of art by an individual artist are readily recognizable by their similarities.  Lovers of art or music can recognize the style of Renoir or Bach in a piece they have never seen or heard before.  It is the common creator which accounts for the similarity, not common descent.  Modern science has tried to deny the Creator and therefore can see similarity only in terms of descent.  Why does an Orthodox need to see relationships only in terms of common descent?

    An atheist who believes in evolution does not have to be concerned with reconciling that belief with the Scriptures.  A Christian who believes in a "theistic evolution", (that is, a system in which evolution happens according to the mechanisms presented by secular scientists, but with God as the moving force behind it), must interpret many parts of Scripture in such a way as to fit within an evolutionary framework. This is why Dr. Kalomiros needs the sun to be created on the first day.  This is why he needs to understand "day" as "aeon".

    There are other Scriptural texts that need to be adjusted from traditional understandings.  For instance, in Romans, Paul writes that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin"  (Rom.5:12).  The traditional understanding of this passage is that there was no death (animal or man) until Adam sinned. In an evolutionary framework, there is a lot of death before the sin of Adam, since Adam is not even created for millions of years.  I have heard a couple explanations of this passage which allow for death before Adam, but never have I heard the one Dr. Kalomiros gives.  Essentially he is saying that all of creation was subject to death before the fall of Adam, as if in anticipation of the fall.  He calls Adam's sin "an ontological fact which penetrates time in both directions."  He starts that "Creation, as we know it, is in the Fallen state, from the beginning of its history..."  How, then, could God look upon his creation at the end of each day and see that it was good?  St. Symeon the New Theologian teaches:

    God, in the beginning, before He planted Paradise and gave it over to the first-created ones, in five days set in order the earth and what is on it, and the heaven and what is in it.  And on the sixth day He created Adam and placed him as lord and king of the whole visible creation.  Then there was not yet paradise.  But this world was from God as a kind of Paradise, although it was material and sensuous...God gave it over to the authority of Adam and all his descendants, as the divine Scripture says (Gen. 1:26-30)...God gave over to man at the beginning this whole world as a kind of Paradise.... Adam was made with a body that was incorrupt, although material and not yet spiritual, and was placed by the Creator God as an immortal king over an incorrupt world, not only over Paradise, but also over the whole of creation which was under the heavens....This whole creation in the beginning was incorrupt and was created by God in the manner of Paradise.  But later it was subjected by God to corruption, and submitted to the vanity of men (Homily 45, 1 and 4, The Sin of Adam, pp. 64, 67, 75).

    This passage is very different from Dr. Kalomiros' view:

    "Let us not forget that Paradise was but a restricted and well-circumscribed place on earth while the rest of the earth was in the state of corruption that we know.  The Paradise described in Genesis was an island of God's grace on earth.  Outside Paradise animals continued to devour each other, plants continued to die and decay, and life was as it always has been from the beginning..."

    Several other Fathers could be quoted to show that Dr. Kalomiros' understanding is not the traditional understanding.  Is not the Orthodox Church the "Church of the Holy Fathers"?  Why then does he dismiss so much of the Patristic writings concerning Genesis?

    Dr. Kalomiros' sympathy with the idea of evolution is, unfortunately, poorly examined.  The whole of page 10 is simply his reiterating what can be found in any secular biology textbook.  This part of the essay is a good example of an attempt to combine Genesis with what so many think has been empirically demonstrated.  What is actually happening is that the Scriptures are made to play second fiddle to human speculation.  There is no real evidence of beneficial genetic mutations, although we do have plenty of examples of detrimental mutations.  Contrary to common assumption, there is no fossil evidence of one kind animal gradually changing into another kind of animal.  He assumes the human speculation to be true, then re-arranges and reinterprets Genesis to fit the human reason.  What he is presenting is not part of a traditional Orthodox world-view.

    Near the end of the center column on page 11, he writes of a distinction between what he calls the "fact" of evolution and the theories explaining how it took place.  He says that "people often confuse the two and speak of both as if they were one."  This is a very common semantic retreat, usually taken when the lack of evidence and the contradictions in evolutionary theory are exposed.  I have heard atheists take this stand.  It is painful to see an Orthodox take it.

    In the realm of science, a "fact" is something which can be observed, demonstrated, used as a basis for certain predictions. We may not know how a certain phenomenon works, but we must have real evidence that it does, indeed, exist.  There is no scientific evidence that evolution ever really happened.  If, in a court of law, a lawyer presented the quality of evidence and reasoning comparable to that which is given as "proof" of evolution, he would be laughed out of court.  Closely examined, the “evidence” presented supports an evolutionary process only if interpreted by someone who already believes in an evolutionary process.

    In several places in the essay, Dr. Kalomiros reveals his ignorance of, or perhaps he is simply ignoring, the absence of such evidence.  The first column of page 12, he claims that "there are no gaps in the continuous chain of creatures, which are born one from another.  Life is a tree with many branches which are, however, continuous and connected, the one to the other by a trunk."  He is obviously referring to the fossil record which those believing in evolution present as a tree.  Anyone who has actually studied the fossil evidence knows of the great gaps that do exist.  This has been a problem since Darwin's time.  He was very aware of the problem, saying it was a serious matter and a valid objection, and writes of his concern in The Origin of Species.

    The lack of continuity is still a major problem and has given rise to much speculation, including the theory of punctuated equilibrium presented by paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge and the "hopeful monster" theory of geneticist Otto Schindewolf.  If the fossil record were as beautifully continuous as Dr. Kalomiros describes, there would no need for these speculative modifications to Darwin's idea.

    Niles Eldredge has admitted that those in his profession find themselves in a difficult position.  His comments are worth quoting at length.

    We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports the theory of gradual change, all the while really knowing that is does not...Each new generation, it seems, produces a few young paleontologists eager to document examples of evolutionary change in their fossils.  The changes they have always looked for, of course, have been of the gradual, progressive sort.  More often than not their efforts have gone unrewarded - their fossils, rather than exhibiting the expected pattern, just seem to persist virtually unchanged... This extraordinary conservatism looked to the paleontologist keen on finding evolutionary change, as if no evolution had occurred. Thus studies documenting conservative persistence rather then gradual change were considered failures, and, more often than not, were not even published.  Most paleontologists were aware of the stability, the lack of change, which we call stasis...But insofar as evolution itself is concerned, paleontologists usually saw stasis as "no results" rather than as a contradiction of the prediction of gradual, progressive evolutionary change. Gaps in the fossil record continue (to this day) to be invoked as the prime reason why so few cases of gradual change are found. (from a paper entitled "Evolutionary Tempos and Modes: A Paleontological Perspective")

    Dr. Kalomiros writes about cross-breeding and cross-pollination, saying that these are "mechanisms of evolution".  Plant and animal husbandry have often been cited as being analogous to evolution, but they are not "mechanisms of evolution".  It takes just a little thought to realize these practices involve neither genetic mutations nor natural selection.  These techniques can indeed produce many varieties of plants or animals, but these varieties are not new species.  Animal husbandry has produced many varieties of dogs, but they are still dogs.  Geneticists have tried many ways to induce genetic mutations in fruit flies.  These efforts have produced some strange looking fruit flies, but never anything beside fruit flies.  There is no "evolution" in the Darwinian sense.

    His discussion of mutations is convincing only to someone who knows little about genetics.  Our actual experience with genetic mutations is that they are detrimental.  An evolutionary process also requires that new genetic information be obtained through these mutations but our actual experience with genetic mutations is that no new genetic information is provided.  The belief that mutations could be beneficial and that new genetic information could arise from these mutations is part of the faith of evolution. It is not a scientific fact.

    One of the ways we get drawn into a sympathy with the idea of evolution is when the term "evolution" is used to describe a phenomena we can not deny.  Either Dr. Kalomiros is trying to deceive the reader or he has been deceived himself when he uses the term "evolution" to describe the development of the body in the womb.  The development in the womb does not require genetic mutation, natural selection, or any other proposed mechanism.  This shifting definition of the term "evolution" is a very common practice in textbooks and related articles in the media.

    Remember the Peppered Moth in industrial England?  This is another example of the term "evolution" being applied to a situation which had nothing to do with Darwinian evolution.  The relative numbers of the white and dark varieties of the Peppered Moth shifted with environmental changes.  It is still in textbooks as an example of evolution although there was, in reality, no change in the moth at all.  The only change was in the relative numbers of each color.
 
    Dr. Kalomiros notes that "Orthodox Christians are not afraid of free, true science".  This should be true.  There is no reason to fear what is true.  However, Dr. Kalomiros is asking the wrong question.  The question is not "Are Orthodox Christians afraid of science?"  The question to ask, "Is belief in evolution a result of true science?"

    He writes "every time science becomes affiliated with some philosophy, it ceases to be a real study of nature."  He is absolutely correct; yet he does not realize that his entire essay is defending what St. Paul called a "science, so called" (I Tim. 6:20).  It is materialistic philosophy with a scientific veneer, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

    Dr. Karomiros writes about Galileo and Charles Darwin, and states that Orthodox are scandalized by evolution because they have been perverted by the West.  He presents Darwin in a very good light, noting his study of theology.  Dr. Kalomiros must not have read much about the life of Charles Darwin.  When Darwin traveled on The Beagle, he had already graduated from Cambridge in Ministerial Studies, but never functioned as a minister.  He first studied medicine, found that "boring", then studied theology, "after quieting his doubts concerning all the dogmas of the Church".  His family was what we would call "Deists."  They believed in a God, but a God which had essentially nothing do to with man in his daily life.  It certainly was not the same belief as the Orthodox.  His wife was very troubled and concerned about her husband's turn away from the Christian faith.  To present him as a representative of a traditional Orthodox world-view is ludicrous.

    This perversion of Orthodoxy, according to Dr. Kalomiros, came "with the help of rationalistic, scholastic, pagan philosophy and cosmological conceptions of the ancient world so esteemed by the culture of the Renaissance."  He writes as if Charles Darwin helped save us from this rationalistic philosophy.  Does he not realize that Darwin was a product of that Renaissance culture?  He came from a wealthy, nineteenth century, English family.  He was as rationalistic as they come.  Darwin knew that his theory of evolution could not be tested according to the demands of the scientific method, but insisted that such testing was unnecessary because the idea was "so logically persuasive."

    Dr. Kalomiros wonders why Christians are scandalized by this idea of evolution and attributes our dismay to our human reasoning.  He writes "we are scandalized by evolution to the degree that we have departed from the mind which is behind our Scriptural and Patristic literature."  What he is saying is that the idea of evolution is divine revelation, divine thinking, and that the idea of creation taking place in a short time is fallen human reasoning.  He apparently believes that belief in an evolutionary process has been part of Orthodox thinking for centuries and that what is called "Creationism" these days is an aberration.  In the same paragraph, he writes

    "The higher studies of Orthodox students at Western universities and cultural centers in these last centuries and the general atmosphere of admiration for the achievements of Western technical civilization brought this calamity into the world."

     Does he think really that Western universities teach a young earth, and a seven short "day" creation model in science classes?  Does he really think our western culture is permeated by a belief in a non-evolutionary model of origins?

    On the one hand, he writes "we do not measure our Holy Scriptures by science", yet also writes
"so also, understanding Genesis was not easy without a better knowledge of nature itself. God gifted us our mind and science, and expects us to use our God-given faculties without spiritual laziness, so that we might arrive at the true comprehension of His word."

     He says the Church Fathers write that, in the end times, many things which are unclear in the Scriptures will come clear.  He thinks this clarification applies to "the beginning of time and of man, as revealed in Genesis."  He writes  "With the investigation of science, creation opens new dimensions to our eyes, unknown till recently.  And this makes us better equipped to understand what Genesis is telling us."

     If we do not measure the Scriptures by science, how is it that modern science is able to give us a better understanding of Genesis, and thus of our origins?

    Further, he refers to "examining science with the light of the Holy Scripture."  Read the article again and then ask the question, "what is being examined, science or Holy Scripture?"  Does he not place modern philosophy (in the guise of modern "science") in the role of examiner of the Scriptures?

    We could probably go on and on, but this should be enough for now.  Dr. Kalomiros' article is an excellent example of why it is important to know how the idea of evolution measures up from a scientific perspective.   Without an awareness of the scientific vacuum which exists around this idea, it is easy to be swept away by smoothly worded writing, especially by someone who is held in high esteem.  Given the current atmosphere, our tendency will be to believe in evolution (perhaps a theistic kind) and partake of its evil fruit unless we study the whole picture - scientific, Patristic, and Scriptural.


       Yours in Christ,


       Deacon James Hughes
       Holy Dormition Orthodox Church
       Santa Rosa, CA