Theories of human origin. Creationism
1. Divine theory of human origin
Views based on the fact that man was created by God or gods arose much earlier than materialistic theories of the spontaneous generation of life and the evolution of anthropoid ancestors into humans. In various philosophical and theological teachings of antiquity, the act of human creation was attributed to various deities.
For example, according to Mesopotamian myths, the gods under the leadership of Marduk killed their former rulers Abaza and his wife Tiamat, the blood of Abaza was mixed with clay, and the first man arose from this clay. Hindus had their own views on the creation of the world and man in it. According to their ideas, the world was ruled by a triumvirate - Shiva, Krishna and Vishnu, who laid the foundation for humanity. The ancient Incas, Aztecs, Dagons, Scandinavians had their own versions, which basically coincided: man is a creation of the Supreme Intelligence or simply God.
Christian religious views on the creation of the world and man in it, associated with the divine creation of Jehovah (Yahweh) - the only God in the Universe, manifesting himself in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God - have become significantly widespread in the world. Holy Spirit.
The field of research aimed at finding scientific evidence for this version is called "scientific creationism." Modern creationists strive to confirm the texts of the Bible with accurate calculations. In particular, they prove that Noah’s ark could accommodate all “creatures in pairs” - given that fish and other aquatic animals do not need a place in the ark, and the remaining vertebrate animals - about 20 thousand species. If you multiply this number by two (a male and a female were taken into the ark), you get approximately 40 thousand animals. A medium-sized sheep transport van can accommodate 240 animals. This means that 146 such vans would be needed. And an ark 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high would accommodate 522 such wagons. This means that there was a place for all the animals and there would still be room left - for food and people. Moreover, God, according to Thomas Heinz from the Institute for Creation Research, would probably have thought of taking small and young animals so that they would take up less space and reproduce more actively.
Creationists for the most part reject evolution, while citing facts in their favor. For example, computer experts are reported to have reached a dead end in their attempt to replicate human vision. They were forced to admit that they could not artificially reproduce the human eye, especially the retina with its 100 million rods and cones, and the neural layers that perform at least 10 billion computational operations per second. At the same time, Charles Darwin’s statement is quoted: “The assumption that the eye ... could be developed by natural selection may seem, I confess frankly, extremely absurd.”
2. Creationism
human evolution theological worldview
Creationism (from the Latin creatio, gen. creationis - creation) is a theological and ideological concept according to which the main forms of the organic world (life), humanity, planet Earth, as well as the world as a whole, are considered as directly created by the Creator or God.
The history of creationism is part of the history of religion, although the term itself arose more recently. The term "creationism" became popular around the end of the 19th century, as a concept that recognizes the truth of the creation story set out in the Old Testament. The accumulation of data from various sciences, especially the spread of the theory of evolution in the 19th century, led to the emergence of a contradiction between new views in science and the biblical picture of the world.
In 1932, the “Protest Movement Against Evolution” was founded in Great Britain, the goals of which included the dissemination of “scientific” information and facts proving the falsity of the teaching of evolution and the truth of the biblical picture of the world. By 1970, the number of its active members reached 850 people. In 1972, the Newton Scientific Association was formed in the United Kingdom.
In the United States, quite influential creationist organizations managed to achieve a temporary ban on the teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools in several states, and since the mid-1960s, activists of “young earth creationism” began to seek the introduction of the teachings of “scientific creationism” into the school curriculum. In 1975, the court ruled in Daniel v. Waters that teaching pure creationism in schools was declared unconstitutional. This caused the name to be replaced by “creation science”, and after its prohibition in 1987 (Edwards v. Aguillard), to “intelligent design”, which was again prohibited by the court in 2005 (Kitzmiller v. Dover).
The Istanbul Foundation for Scientific Research (BAV) has been operating in Turkey since 1992, known for its extensive publishing activities. In February 2007, the foundation presented an illustrated textbook “Atlas of the Creation of the World” with a volume of 770 pages, which was sent free of charge to scientists and schools in the UK, Scandinavia, France and Turkey in their languages. In addition to “scientific” theories, the book touches on ideological issues. Thus, the authors of the book blame the theory of evolution for communism, Nazism and Islamic radicalism. “Darwinism is the only philosophy that values conflict,” the text says.
Currently, public associations, groups and organizations operate under the ideology of creationism in different countries of the world. According to available information: 34 - in the USA, 4 - in the UK, 2 - in Australia, 2 - in South Korea, 2 - in Ukraine, 2 - in Russia, 1 - in Turkey, 1 - in Hungary, 1 - in Serbia.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), of which Russia is a member, in its resolution 1580 of October 4, 2007, entitled “The danger of creationism for education,” expressed concern about the possible unhealthy consequences of the spread of creationist ideas within educational systems and that creationism could become a threat to human rights, which are of key importance to the Council of Europe. The resolution emphasizes the inadmissibility of replacing science with faith and the falsity of creationists' claims about the scientific nature of their teaching.
3. Creationism in various religions
Creationism in Christianity.
Currently, creationism represents a wide range of concepts - from purely theological and philosophical to those claiming to be scientific. However, what this set of concepts has in common is that they are rejected by most scientists as unscientific, at least according to Karl Popper’s criterion of falsifiability: conclusions from the premises of creationism do not have predictive power, since they cannot be verified by experiment.
There are many different movements in Christian creationism that differ in their interpretation of natural scientific data. According to the degree of divergence from generally accepted scientific views on the past of the Earth and the Universe, they are distinguished:
· Literalistic (young-earth) creationism (Young-Earth Creationism) insists on following the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament literally. That is, the world was created exactly as described in the Bible - in 6 days and about 6000 (as some Protestants claim, based on the Masoretic text of the Old Testament) or 7500 (as some Orthodox claim, based on the Septuagint) years ago.
· Metaphorical (old-earth) creationism: in it “6 days of creation” is a universal metaphor, adapted to the level of perception of people with different levels of knowledge; in reality, one “day of creation” corresponds to millions or billions of real years, since in the Bible the word “day” means not only a day, but often indicates an indefinite period of time. Among the metaphorical creationists currently most common are:
· Gap creationism: The earth was created long before the first day of creation and either remained in a “formless and empty” form for the very 4.6 billion years that scientific data speaks of, or was devastated by God for a new creation. Only after this chronological break was creation resumed - God gave the Earth a modern appearance and created life. As in young earth creationism, the six biblical days of creation are considered to be six literal 24-hour days.
· Progressive creationism: According to this concept, God continuously directs the process of change in biological species and their emergence. Representatives of this movement accept geological and astrophysical data and dating, but completely reject the theory of evolution and speciation by natural selection.
· Theistic evolutionism (evolutionary creationism): accepts the theory of evolution, but argues that evolution is the instrument of the Creator God in carrying out his plan. Theistic evolutionism accepts all or almost all the ideas generally accepted in science, limiting the miraculous intervention of the Creator to such acts not studied by science as God's creation of an immortal soul in man (Pope Pius XII), or treating randomness in nature as manifestations of divine providence. Many creationists who do not accept evolution do not consider their position to be creationism at all (the most radical of the literalists even deny theistic evolutionists the right to call themselves Christians).
Orthodox churches currently (2014) do not have a single official position regarding the theory of evolution and, accordingly, creationism.
Creationism in Judaism.
Since the Koran, unlike the Book of Genesis, does not contain a detailed account of the creation of the world, literalist creationism in the Muslim world is much less widespread than Islam believes (according to the text of the Koran) that humans and jinn are created by God. The modern views of many Sunnis on the theory of evolution are close to evolutionary creationism.
Many representatives of Orthodox Judaism deny the theory of evolution, insisting on a literal reading of the Torah, but representatives of the modern Orthodox movement of Judaism - religious modernists and religious Zionists - tend to interpret some parts of the Torah allegorically and are ready to partially accept the theory of evolution in one form or another. Representatives of Conservative and Reform Judaism fully accept the basic postulates of the theory of evolution.
Thus, the views of representatives of classical Orthodox Judaism are close to fundamentalist creationism, while the views of modern Orthodox, as well as conservative and reformed Judaism, are close to theistic evolutionism.
Creationism in Islam.
Islamic criticism of evolutionary theory is much harsher than Christian criticism. Islamic criticism in many of its features resembles the ideas of the French post-structuralists, set out in such works as “Symbolic Exchange and Death”, “The Spirit of Terrorism” (J. Baudrillard), “Capitalism and Schizophrenia” (J. Deleuze, F. Guattari). Quite unexpected is the similarity of this criticism with some ideas of modern Neo-Marxism (A. Negri).
Currently, one of the most active propagandists of Islamic creationism is Harun Yahya. Harun Yahya's statements about the theory of evolution and the nature of his argumentation are often subject to scientific criticism.
A number of Islamic scholars also do not share the views of H. Yahya. Thus, Dalil Boubaker, president of the Muslim Union of France, commenting on the books of Harun Yahya, noted that “evolution is a scientific fact” and “the theory of evolution does not contradict the Koran”: “He tries to show that species remain unchanged, and cites as evidence photographs, but at the same time he cannot explain the disappearance of some species and the emergence of others."
Sociologist Malek Shebel also said in an interview with Le Monde in February 2007 that "Islam has never been afraid of science... Islam has no need to fear Darwinism... Islam is not afraid of the history of evolution and mutations of the human race."
Creationism in Hinduism.
Among non-Abrahamic religions, creationism in Hinduism deserves attention. Since Hinduism assumes a very ancient age of the world, in Hindu literalist creationism, in contrast to Abrahamic creationism, it is not the youth of the Earth that is asserted, but the antiquity of humanity. At the same time, like the fundamentalists of the Abrahamic religions, biological evolution is denied and, among other things, the simultaneous existence of humans and dinosaurs is affirmed.
Boston University Professor M. Sherman proposes a hypothesis about the artificial appearance of the “universal genome” in the Cambrian to explain the reasons for the so-called Cambrian explosion in the evolution of multicellular organisms. Moreover, he insists on scientific testing of his hypothesis.
Scientific creationism.
“Creation Science” or “scientific creationism” (English Creation Science) is a movement in creationism, whose supporters claim that it is possible to obtain scientific evidence of the biblical act of creation and, more broadly, biblical history (in particular, the Flood), remaining within the framework scientific methodology.
Although the works of supporters of “creation science” often contain an appeal to the problems of the complexity of biological systems, which brings their concept closer to creationism of conscious design, supporters of “scientific creationism”, as a rule, go further and insist on the need for a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, justifying their position as theological and, in their opinion, scientific arguments.
The following statements are typical for the works of “scientific creationists”:
· Contrasting “operational science” about natural phenomena in the present time, the hypotheses of which are accessible to experimental verification, with “historical science” about events that occurred in the past. Due to the inaccessibility of direct verification, according to creationists, historical science is doomed to rely on a priori postulates of a “religious” nature, and the conclusions of historical science can be true or false depending on the truth or falsity of the a priori accepted religion.
· “The originally created race”, or “baramin”. Creationists of past centuries, like C. Linnaeus, when describing various species of animals and plants, assumed that species are unchanged, and the number of currently existing species is equal to the number originally created by God (minus species that have already become extinct in the historical memory of mankind, for example, dodos). However, the accumulation of data on speciation in nature has led opponents of the theory of evolution to hypothesize that representatives of each “baramin” were created with a set of specific characteristics and the potential for a limited range of changes. A species (a reproductively isolated community as understood by population geneticists, or a static phase of the evolutionary process as understood by paleontologists) is not synonymous with the creationist "baramin". According to opponents of the theory of evolution, some "baramins" include many species, as well as higher-order taxa, while others (for example, the human one, which creationists insist on for theological, teleological and some natural scientific reasons) can only include one kind. After creation, representatives of each “baramin” interbred with each other either without restrictions, or in sub-baramin species. As a criterion for two different species to belong to the same “baramin,” creationists usually put forward the ability to produce offspring (even infertile ones) through interspecific hybridization. Since there are known examples of such hybridization between mammal species traditionally classified as belonging to different genera, there is an opinion among creationists that in mammals the “baramin” roughly corresponds to a family (the only exception is humans, which constitute a separate “baramin”).
· "Flood geology", which declares the simultaneous deposition of most of the sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust with burial and rapid fossilization of remains due to the global flood during the time of Noah and on this basis denies the stratigraphic geochronological scale. According to proponents of “flood geology,” representatives of all taxa appear “fully formed” in the fossil record, which refutes evolution. Moreover, the occurrence of fossils in stratigraphic layers does not reflect a sequence of floras and faunas that have replaced each other over many millions of years, but a sequence of ecosystems associated with different geographical depths and altitudes - from benthic and pelagic through shelf and lowland to lowland and highland. Calling modern geology “uniformitarian” or “actualist,” “flood geologists” accuse opponents of postulating extremely slow rates of geological processes such as erosion, sedimentation and mountain building, which, according to “flood geologists,” cannot ensure the preservation of fossils, and also the intersection of certain fossils (usually tree trunks) through several layers of sedimentary rocks ("flood geologists" call such fossils "polystonic").
· To explain the multibillion-year ages of the Earth and the Universe, which are given by geo- and astrophysics, in creationism attempts are made to prove the inconstancy in time of world constants, such as the speed of light, Planck’s constant, elementary charge, masses of elementary particles, etc., and also, in As an alternative explanation, gravitational time dilation in near-Earth space is postulated. A search is also underway for phenomena indicating a young (less than 10 thousand years) age of the Earth and the Universe.
· Among other statements, a frequently encountered thesis is that the second law of thermodynamics excludes evolution (or at least abiogenesis).
In 1984, the Creation Evidence Museum was founded by Carl Boe in Texas. Carl Bo is famous for his excavations (he allegedly discovered dinosaur tracks next to human tracks, bones and skin of dinosaurs).
May 2007, a large museum of creationism opened in the American city of Cincinnati. Using computer technology, the museum has recreated an alternative concept of the history of the Earth. According to the creators of the museum, no more than 10 thousand years have passed since the creation of the world. The main support in creating the museum was the Bible. The museum has a special section dedicated to the Flood and Noah's Ark. A separate section in the museum is devoted to Darwin’s theory, and, according to the creators, it completely debunks the modern evolutionary theory of human origins. Before the opening of the museum, 600 academics signed a petition asking to protect children from the museum. A small group assembled a picket outside the museum under the slogan “Don’t lie!” The attitude towards the museum in society remains ambiguous.
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Introduction
The question of the origin of man arose in ancient times. Already in the most primitive religious beliefs an explanation was given of the structure of the Universe and man’s place in it. Gradually, these ideas became more complex, “overgrown” with a mass of details, and supported by evidence. For a long time, the dominant position was occupied by the religious explanation of this problem. The emergence of science, as a special branch of knowledge, became a serious impetus for studying the issue of human origins. Darwin's theory was confirmed for the first time by serious scientific facts. But it also had its weaknesses, which the opponents of this theory successfully took advantage of. Currently, many other explanations for human origins are emerging. Some theories are worthy of attention, others look absolutely fantastic.
Mythological theories of human origins
A review of the issue should begin with the very first mythological ideas that arose in the primitive era. When a person realized his difference from the surrounding animal world, he tried to explain this to himself. Despite the extreme primitiveness of these explanations, the attempt itself indicates enormous progress in human thinking. We had to operate with abstract concepts.
There are countless myths that explain the origins of man in their own way. Despite the enormous diversity, common features can be identified. First of all, people have clearly separated themselves from higher powers since ancient times. Most often this happened under the influence of the awareness of their powerlessness before nature. It seemed to the man that he was in the power of some omnipotent invisible creatures living in another world. Consequently, there is an ordinary earthly world and an inaccessible abode of the gods. The gods have always existed, which means they created the whole world. They populated this world with their creations, including people. Thus, the main idea of mythology is that man was created by a higher power.
There were other explanations. Totemism assumed the presence of a common ancestor (animal, bird or plant), from which a separate human race descended. But in any case, the common ancestor was also created by the gods.
Religious theories of human origins
The next stage can be considered the emergence of world religions. Although Christianity and Islam in explaining the origin of man are not far from mythological ideas. The One Creator also created man from the “dust of the earth” or clay and breathed a soul into him. The world's religions were distinguished by the fact that they drew a sharp line between people and the rest of living nature. Man is created “in the image and likeness of God,” therefore he is the king of nature. Thus the theory of creationism was substantiated.
The religious explanation gained dominance for a long time. In addition, any dissent was strictly punished.
Darwin's theory of human origins
A real revolution in science was caused by the publication of Charles Darwin's work "The Origin of Species..." (1859). He argued that the emergence of any new species occurs through natural selection, in which the strongest individuals adapted to external conditions survive. The English scientist did not specifically address the issue of human origins, but the conclusion suggested itself. Man was inexorably brought under the general laws of evolution. Soon, Darwin's colleague T. Huxley wrote an entire book in which he proved the origin of man from an ape-like ancestor. And in 1871, Darwin himself expressed his opinion: “From the monkeys of the Old World... man came.”
Darwin's theory did not immediately gain universal acceptance. It is now difficult to imagine the state of a person in the 19th century who was informed that his distant ancestor was an ordinary monkey. In addition, Darwin himself admitted that the main gap in his theory was the absence of the so-called intermediate link between ape and man.
However, the position of the church was dealt a serious blow. Anthropologists have long found stone tools and the remains of humanoid creatures. Now these findings were based on evolutionary theory.
Archaeological finds since the emergence of Darwin's theory have brought both new evidence and posed serious problems in the question of human origins. Currently, there is a synthetic theory of evolution that combines genetics and classical Darwinism. According to this theory, the origin of man is as follows: Australopithecus - Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus - Neanderthal - Cro-Magnon. The latter is called “Homo sapiens,” who appeared about 40 thousand years ago.
A huge problem with evolutionary theory remains the lack of many intermediate links in the origin of modern man. But it is the only theory based on strict scientific facts. For example, according to molecular biology data, it has been established that humans and chimpanzees have 91% similar genes and 369 common morphological characteristics.
Noah's Ark theory
On the basis of evolutionary theory, at the beginning of the 21st century, the “Noah’s Ark” hypothesis arose, according to which modern man arose about 100 thousand years ago in East Africa. Its supporters argue that Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus and Neanderthal are dead-end branches of development that were supplanted by newcomers from Africa. This hypothesis is indirectly confirmed by the presence of uranium rock outcrops in East Africa, which create increased radiation. Radioactive exposure led to accelerated mutations, which are the basis of evolutionary theory.
Cosmic theories of human origins
In recent years, so-called space theories have become very popular. It is worth immediately noting that the most substantiated theory is panspermia, according to which life arose with the formation of the Universe and spread to the planets as they appeared. The rest have no real evidence and belong to science fiction. Purely theoretically, it can be assumed that earthlings are alien colonists who, over time, forgot all their knowledge and embarked on a long path to the development of civilization. But scientific evidence turns all these assumptions into dreams.
In particular, opinions are put forward that many ancient monuments (for example, the Egyptian pyramids) could not have been built without the intervention of aliens. This only speaks of the incompetence of the “researchers” who have absolutely no idea of the possibilities of the physical labor of thousands of people, multiplied by the use of primitive mechanisms.
People who are confident in the existence of UFOs look for evidence in ancient written sources. Indeed, in them you can sometimes find mysterious messages about strange paranormal phenomena. But along with them there is information about people without heads, miraculous transformations and magic, but no one accepts this as indisputable facts.
Scientific creationism emerged in the mid-20th century. Its supporters argue that modern science is not yet sufficiently developed. Someday the existence of God will be scientifically proven.
Thus, today the evolutionary theory remains the most convincing and scientifically substantiated. Most likely, the gaps in it will be filled faster than the Martians or the inhabitants of the Alpha Centauri constellation arrive on Earth.
24-04-2017, 18:40
From the earliest stages of development, humanity has been trying to understand where it actually came from and what it is. A peculiar “human problem” was considered conditionally by two completely opposite “camps” - science and religion.
Theological theories
The religious point of view was formed, accordingly, earlier, because before reaching scientific research and accurate calculations, not having enough knowledge and skills for this, people developed faith, basing it on the interpretation of what they saw and various kinds of dreams, assumptions and what was classified , as a sign, being sufficiently unusual (for example, natural disasters, lunar and solar eclipses, a large gathering or strange behavior of animals or birds in one place for no apparent reason, and so on).
This point of view is generally called creationism, and continues to exist today. There is also no unity on specific methods of creation. Adherents of one religion claim that people suddenly appeared on their own, preachers of another - that they were created by the gods (or God) from clay, reeds, breath, parts of their own body and simply by the power of thought. Worldviews in creationism also differ. There are orthodox and evolutionary approaches to explaining this issue.
Adherents of the orthodox version believe that no evidence is needed to prove that man was created by God. They believe, ignoring all scientific data and provisions. They, accordingly, do not perceive long-term biological evolution, or they also correlate it with religion, perceiving it as early, and perhaps not entirely successful, experiments of the Creator or made by him for a corresponding purpose. Some people recognize the possibility of the existence in the past of people who were not similar to modern people, but they do not consider them the ancestors of modern man.
Evolutionary creationists accept that biological evolution may have occurred. According to them, one type of animal can develop into another, but God directed all this. Humanity could have arisen from more primitive creatures with a lower organization, but its spirit did not change from the very beginning, and the Creator also controlled everything, changing anything at will. In particular, this is the worldview of Western Catholicism.
According to the official position, it is possible that God could not have created a person right away, but an ape, but with an immortal soul. In 1996, Pope John Paul II stated that a number of new discoveries had made it clear that “evolution may be more than just a hypothesis.” Orthodox Christians, in turn, are not inclined to agree on the origins of man, supporting both the orthodox and the evolutionary-creationist.
Modern adherents of creationism use scientific discoveries largely to provide evidence of the lack of continuity between people of the past and modern people, or to prove that there were modern people in ancient times. They interpret many materials differently or point out that since there are “blank spots” in certain areas that do not explain everything, it can clearly be noted that evolution is not based solely on evidence.
Scientific theories
The main one is considered to be the theory of Charles Darwin, which is also called the theory of evolution, the theory of anthropogenesis and the synthetic theory. He gave a rationale for the origin of Homo sapiens from a biological point of view. According to this theory, the main factors in the origin were natural selection, consisting of the struggle for existence, variability and heredity. The evolutionary concept assumes that, as humanity developed, it dissolved in the animal world, and all the qualities and characteristics of humans are many times strengthened and improved, developed animals. Later, when various genetic laws were discovered, the theory was developed to the maximum detail.
Complete evidence states that hereditary data is stored in the cells of living organisms, representing complex DNA or RNA molecules, the individual parts of which, which encode certain proteins or are responsible for their synthesis, are called genes. Genes change under the influence of mutations. Mutations that are significant for evolution are those that can be transmitted to offspring by occurring in germ cells. Most often, such processes are harmful or neutral, but when environmental conditions change, they help individuals, providing them with a kind of advantage. When the number of such advantages increases, then organisms become maximally adapted, having, in fact, more chances to survive, and also to leave offspring to whom they can pass on their genes.
The environment can continue to change, and then such characteristics remain that are most useful for different generations, transmitted further along the chain and gradually accumulating. Sometimes neutral or harmful mutations, with a change in the environment, can even become beneficial. Genes can be shuffled around to accommodate different parents of the offspring, and sometimes no new mutations appear at all, and sometimes even more appear.
Less conclusive as a theory, but no less interesting is the theory of the origin of man as a result of the intentional or unintentional activity of aliens. At the same time, there are different versions of it. One (the concept of panspermia) suggests that certain bacteria came to Earth from space, adapted to the new environment and further evolved. It is considered one of the most viable among the “alien” theories, but only without a sufficient evidence base, which may appear when it is possible to better study other planets and meteorites.
There is a second branch – ufological. According to him, aliens either from the very beginning were involved in controlling everything that happens on Earth, creating the first forms of life, or intervened in this later. The main “argument against” such a theory is that it is not clear why the aliens might need all this.
Lika Kharkovskaya - Correspondent of RIA VistaNews
Talk to the earth and he will instruct you,
And the fish of the sea will tell you.
Who does not recognize in all this,
Why did the hand of the Lord do this?
Job. 12:8–9.
The question of the origin of the world, the nature and nature of this origin is one of the most difficult, but at the same time one of the most fundamental and significant in the dialogue between science and religion in modern society. What is the origin of the world: creation or evolution? This is a problem that is extremely important not only for Orthodox dogmatic theology, but also for all Orthodox Christians, since the solution to this problem is related to many questions that directly affect our Orthodox teaching and worldview: about the relative merits of science and theology, about modern philosophy and patristic teaching , about the doctrine of man (anthropology), about our attitude to the writings of the holy fathers, to knowledge and serious understanding of their creations, about our attitude to modern philosophy, i.e. so-called “the wisdom of this age”, and about the Orthodox interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, especially the book of Genesis.
In this study, based on the experience of the Church, mainly the judgments of the holy fathers, and consideration of the theory of evolution in its scientific embodiment, I will try to resolve the question of the degree of legitimacy of the evolutionary theory in its claims to be presented as the only correct and true teaching about the origin and development of the world and person.
SCIENCE AND DIVINE REVELATION
What is the source of our true knowledge of the primordial world, and how different is it from science? The Orthodox Church teaches us as follows: “ Without any doubt, God is the Creator of all visible and invisible creatures. First of all, with His thought He produced all the heavenly Powers... After that, God created this visible and material world out of nothing. Finally, God created man, who was composed of an immaterial rational soul and a material body, so that from one man thus composed, it could already be seen that he is the Creator of both worlds, both the immaterial and the material." These words, coming from the lips of the Mother Church, are based not on the empty wisdom of the worldly mind, burdened with passions and sin, but on the basis of Divine Revelation and patristic experience, on the creations of the fathers of the highest spiritual life. Let us supplement the arguments we have begun with the words of St. Isaac the Syrian, who spoke about the ascent of the soul to God based on his own spiritual experience: “ And from here he already ascends with his mind to what preceded the creation of the world, when there was no creation, no heaven, no earth, no angels, nothing that was brought into being, and to how God, by His sole good pleasure, suddenly brought everything from non-existence into being, and every thing appeared before Him in perfection».
From this it is clear that the holy ascetics comprehended the primordial world, being in a state of Divine contemplation, which is beyond the limits of natural knowledge. So St. Gregory of Sinaite states that the “eight main objects of contemplation” in a state of perfect prayer are the following:
1) God;
2) The order and structure of life of intelligent forces;
3) Construction of existing(peace) ;
4) Economic descent of the Word;
5) General Resurrection;
6) The terrible second coming of Christ;
7) Eternal torment;
Why should he include “the order and structure of life of rational forces” and “the structure of the existing” with other objects of Divine contemplation that belong to the sphere of theological knowledge, and not science? Is it because there is an aspect and state of creation that is outside the sphere of scientific knowledge and can be seen, just as the Venerable Isaac the Syrian himself once saw God’s creation, contemplatively by the grace of God? The objects of such contemplation can be seen and understood. St. Gregory of Sinai says that, “He with his lips... speaks wisdom and the meditation of the heart - knowledge (Ps. 49: 4) who clearly... with his mind sees imprints of prototypes in things and with his lips, with the assistance of the living word, preaches wisdom from wisdom, but illuminates the heart with the power of renewed spiritual knowledge.”
CONFLICT BETWEEN DIVINE REVELATION AND HUMAN PHILOSOPHY
What is the reason for the dispute between the patristic understanding of the book of Genesis and the teaching of evolution? The latter tries to understand the mysteries of God's creation through natural knowledge and worldly philosophy, without even admitting that there is something in these mysteries that places them beyond the capabilities of this knowledge. After all, the book of Genesis itself is a narrative about God’s Creation, seen in Divine contemplation by the God-seer Moses, and what he saw is confirmed by the experience of the holy fathers who lived later. And although revealed knowledge is higher than natural knowledge, we still know that there can be no contradictions between true Revelation and true natural knowledge. But there may be a conflict between Revelation and human philosophy, which is often erroneous. Thus, there is no disagreement between the knowledge of creation contained in the book of Genesis, as it is interpreted to us by the holy fathers, and the true knowledge of creation acquired by modern science through observation. But here, of course, there is an insoluble conflict between the knowledge contained in the book of Genesis and the empty philosophical speculations of modern scientists, not enlightened by the Faith, about the state of the world during the six days of Creation. Knowing that there is a genuine conflict between the book of Genesis and modern philosophy, and striving to comprehend the truth, we must accept the teaching of the holy fathers and reject the false opinions of philosophers from science. After all, the modern world is so infected with vain modern philosophy posing as science that even very few Orthodox Christians are able or willing to examine this issue dispassionately and find out what the holy fathers really taught, and then accept the patristic teaching, even if it seems incorrect and “dark.” "for the empty wisdom of this world.
PATRISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE CREATED WORLD
Regarding the true patristic vision of the primordial world, the most surprising thing is that the holy fathers understand the text of Holy Scripture “as it is written,” but at the same time they do not allow us to interpret it freely or allegorically. “But many “modernly educated” Orthodox Christians are accustomed to associate such an interpretation with Protestant fundamentalism, and are afraid that they will be considered “naive” by sophisticated philosophers of science; but it is clear, on the one hand, how much deeper the patristic interpretation is in comparison with that of the fundamentalists, who have never heard of Divine contemplation and whose interpretation only sometimes accidentally coincides with the patristic one; and on the other hand, how much deeper is the patristic interpretation than that which uncritically accepts the speculations of modern philosophy as if they were true knowledge.”
The primordial world before Adam's crime was incorruptible, because... there has not yet been death in this world, for “ God did not create death"(Wis. 1:13). A modern Orthodox Christian can understand how the incorruptibility of the primordial world is beyond the purview of scientific research if he considers the fact of incorruptibility as it appears through God's action even in our present corruptible world. We cannot find a higher manifestation of this incorruptibility than in the Most Pure Mother of God, about whom we sing: “ Without the corruption of God the Word, we magnify You, who gave birth to the living Mother of God" The Theotokos of our Orthodox services are filled with this teaching. St. John of Damascus points out that in two respects this “incorruptibility” is outside the laws of nature: ... " and what is without a father is above the natural laws of birth... and what is painless is above the law of birth" What should the Orthodox say when the modern non-believer, under the influence of modern naturalistic philosophy, insists that such “incorruption” is impossible, and demands that Christians believe only in what can be proven or observed scientifically? One should adhere to the Holy Orthodox Faith, which is revealed knowledge, despite the so-called. “science” and its philosophy, and explain the act of incorruptibility as a supernatural work of God. Not in vain St. John Chrysostom closely connects the correct and strict interpretation of the Holy Scriptures (specifically the book of Genesis) with the correctness of the dogmas that are urgently necessary for our salvation. Speaking of those who interpret the book of Genesis allegorically, he writes: “ But we, please, will not listen to these people, we will close our ears to them, but we will believe the Divine Scripture, and, following what it says, we will try to keep sound dogmas in our souls, and at the same time lead a correct life , so that life testifies to dogmas, and dogmas impart firmness to life... if we... living well, we neglect the right dogmas, we cannot acquire anything for our salvation. If we want to get rid of Gehenna and receive the kingdom, then we must adorn ourselves with both - both the correctness of dogmas and the severity of life».
There is one more question regarding the state of the primordial world that may arise: what are these “millions of years” of the existence of the world that science “knows as a fact”? After all, the fallacy of the “radiocarbon method” and other “absolute” dating systems has already been proven, so it remains to admit that these “millions of years” are also not a fact at all, but again philosophy, some version of the duration of the prehistoric era. The very idea of a million-year existence of the Earth did not arise until people, under the influence of naturalistic philosophy, began to believe in evolution, and since evolution is true, then the age of the world should be calculated in millions of years. And here is the reason for the deception: since evolution has never been observed, it is conceivable only on the assumption that countless millions of years could have caused processes too “small” for modern scientists to record. If we examine this issue objectively and dispassionately, separating genuine evidence from assumptions and philosophy, then it is easy to notice that there is no factual data that would force us to believe that the earth is more than 7500 years old (I, as a historian by first education, was convincingly convinced of this even in the first year of the University). Therefore, scientists' views on the age of our planet completely depend on their philosophical attitude towards Creation.
It would be appropriate to sum up the review of the patristic teaching about the primordial world with the divine words of St. a father who shone so brightly in prayer that the entire Orthodox Church calls his third “Theologian.” This is St. Simeon the New Theologian. In his 45th Word he says from patristic tradition, and also, probably from his own experience, the following: “ God in the beginning, before he planted paradise and gave it to the primeval ones, in five days he created the earth and what is on it, and the sky and what is in it, and in the sixth he created Adam and made him lord and king of all visible creation. There was no heaven then. But this world was from God, like a kind of paradise, albeit material and sensory. God gave him into the power of Adam and all his descendants...“And God planted paradise in Eden in the east. And God grew from the earth every red tree for vision and good for food” (Genesis 2:9), with various fruits that never spoiled and never ceased, but were always fresh and sweet and gave great pleasure and pleasantness to the primeval ones. ... After Adam’s crime, God did not curse paradise... but cursed only all the other earth, which was also incorruptible and grew everything by itself... The one who became corruptible and mortal because of the crime of the commandment, in all justice, had to live on the corruptible earth and to feed on corruptible food... It is not fitting for the bodies of people to put on the glory of the resurrection and become incorruptible, first all creation was created incorruptible, and then man was taken from it and created, so it is necessary again, first of all creation, to become incorruptible, and then to endure and become incorruptible and the corruptible bodies of people, so that the whole person will again be incorruptible and spiritual and may he dwell in an incorruptible, eternal and spiritual dwelling... Do you see that all this creation was incorruptible in the beginning and was created by God in the order of paradise? But afterward it was subjected to corruption by God, and submitted to the vanity of men. Know also that what kind of glorification and radiance of creation will be in the next century? For when it is renewed, it will not again be the same as it was created in the beginning. But it will be such as, according to the word of the divine Paul, our body will be... All creation, according to the command of God, will be, after the general resurrection, not as it was created - material and sensual, but will be re-created and become some kind of immaterial and spiritual a dwelling that surpasses all feelings."
Could there be a clearer teaching about the state of the primordial world before Adam's crime?
ORTHODOX VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
NE. GREGORY PALAMA
Now we should come to the last and most important question raised before Orthodox theology by modern evolutionary theory: about the nature of man, and, in particular, about the nature of the first-created man Adam. This teaching about man - anthropology - touches theology most closely, and here, probably, it becomes most possible to identify the theological error of evolutionism. It is well known that Orthodoxy teaches in a completely different way than Roman Catholicism about human nature and Divine grace. In other words, the theological view of human nature implied by evolutionary theory is a non-Orthodox view of man, but a point of view close to Roman Catholic anthropology. This is only a confirmation of the fact that the theory of evolution, which no Orthodox father teaches, is simply a product of the Western apostasy way of thinking and even, despite the fact that it was originally a “reaction” to Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, deeply rooted in the papist scholastic tradition. This patristic view was very well expressed by the great hesychast father St. Gregory Palamas, when he was forced to defend Orthodox theology and its spiritual experience specifically from the Western rationalist Varlaam, who wanted to reduce spiritual experience and knowledge of hesychasm to something achievable by science and philosophy. Answering him, St. Gregory, in his famous work, Triads in Defense of the Sacred Silents, puts forward general principles that are quite applicable today, when scientists and philosophers think that they can understand the mysteries of creation and human nature better than Orthodox theology. He's writing: " The beginning of wisdom is to be wise enough to discern and prefer low, earthly and vain wisdom - truly useful, heavenly and spiritual, coming from God and leading to Him, and making those who acquire it pleasing to God».
He teaches that only the second wisdom is good in itself, and the first is both good and evil:
« Knowledge of various languages, the power of rhetoric, historical knowledge, the discovery of the secrets of nature, various methods of logic... all this is both good and evil, not only because it manifests itself according to the idea of those who use it, and easily takes the form it gives it is the opinion of those who own it, but also because studying it is good only to the extent that it gives insight to the vision of the soul. But it is bad for those who devote themselves to these studies so as to remain in them until old age».
Moreover, even " if one of the fathers says the same thing as the outside ones, this agreement is only verbal, and the thoughts are completely different. The first, according to Paul, have“the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16), and the latter express, at best, human understanding. “But as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts,” says the Lord (Isa. 55:9). Moreover, even if the thoughts of these people were sometimes the same as those of Moses, Solomon or their imitators, what benefit would it do them? What person in his right mind and belonging to the Church can conclude from this that their teaching is from God?».
From worldly knowledge, writes St. Gregory, “ we absolutely cannot expect any accuracy in the knowledge of divine things; for it is impossible to derive from it any definite doctrine of the divine. For "God fooled him" ».
And this knowledge can be harmful and hostile to true theology:
« The power of this understanding, which fools and carries, enters into battle against those who accept tradition in simplicity of heart; it despises the writings of the Spirit, following the example of people who treated them carelessly and set the creature against the Creator».
There can hardly be a better estimate than this of what modern "Christian evolutionists" have attempted to do by considering themselves wiser than the Holy Fathers, and by using worldly knowledge to pervert the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. Isn’t it clear to everyone that the rationalistic, naturalistic spirit of the views of the medieval heretic Varlaam is quite similar to the spirit of modern evolutionism?
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION: SCIENCE OR PHILOSOPHY?
It should be noted that St. Gregory speaks of scientific knowledge, which, at its level, is true, and becomes false only when at war with higher, theological knowledge. Is the theory of evolution even scientifically true? And here we must ask the question: why should we treat the works of modern scientists and philosophers “simply”, taking them at their word when they say something is true - even if accepting their statement forces us to change our theological views? On the contrary, we should be very critical when modern sages tell us how we should interpret the Holy Scriptures. We should critically perceive not only their philosophy, but also the so-called. "scientific evidence" which is considered to speak in favor of modern neo-pagan philosophy, for often "scientific evidence" is itself such a philosophy.
This is especially true of the Jesuit scientist Teilhard de Chardin, for “he not only built the most elaborate and influential philosophical and theological system based on the concept of evolution, but was also closely associated with the discovery and interpretation of almost all the fossil evidence in favor of “human evolution” , found during his life."
Now we ask ourselves a basic scientific question: what is the evidence for “human evolution”? While studying at the history department of the university, I had the opportunity to study the history of primitive society, and I remember how the teacher told us beautiful stories about various “human ancestors,” of which there were about two dozen. But I could not understand where the real evidence was of the actual existence in the distant past of all species of these animals: no one provided them to their students.
In fact, the scientific fossil "evidence" for "human evolution" consists of: Neanderthal fossils (many specimens); Sinanthropus (several skulls); the so-called Javanese, Heidelberg and Piltdown "people" and finds in Africa (all of which are extremely fragmentary) and from a few other remains. Thus, all fossil evidence of “human evolution” can be placed in a box the size of a small coffin, and they come from places far removed from one another, in the absence of reliable indications of at least relative (let alone “absolute”) age , and without any indication of how these different “people” are related to each other by kinship or origin.
Moreover, one of these “evolutionary ancestors of man,” “Piltdown Man,” was later revealed to be a deliberate fake. Interestingly, the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin was one of the “discoverers” of the “Piltdown Man” - a fact that can be found in most textbooks. He "discovered" the fang of this fabricated creature - a tooth that had already been tinted, with the intention of misleading as to the age of the find. This “discovery,” of course, was what was needed for the “missing link” between man and ape, which is why the Piltdown forgery consisted of human and ape bones. Teilhard de Chardin was involved in the discovery, and most importantly, in the interpretation of some of the “Java Man” finds, which were fragmentary. In fact, wherever he was, he found “evidence” that exactly met his expectations - namely, that man “descended” from ape-like creatures.
If you examine objectively all the fossil evidence in favor of “human evolution,” you will find that there is no convincing or even reasonable evidence for this “evolution.” All scientific work on this problem comes down to semi-fantastic speculation, with an implausible reconstruction of the structure and life of ancient human society, not confirmed by real archaeological finds and other documentary sources. But it is still generally accepted that there is evidence of evolution because people want to believe it; they believe in an atheistic materialist philosophy, which requires that man descended from ape-like creatures. Of all the fossil "people" only the Neanderthal (and, of course, the Cro-Magnon man, who is simply modern man) appears to be genuine; but he too is simply homo sapiens, no more different from modern man than modern people are different from each other. But the pictures of Neanderthal man in textbooks on the history of primitive society are the inventions of artists who have preconceived ideas about what a “primitive man” should look like, based on evolutionary philosophy.
As a result, we come to the following conclusions:
1) Evolution is not a scientific fact at all, but a philosophical system,
2) Evolution is a false philosophy (loving not wisdom, but the father of lies), invented in the secularized West, as a reaction to Catholic-Protestant theology, and disguised as science in order to deceive people who agree to accept a supposed scientific fact on faith.
PATRISTIC TEACHING ABOUT CREATION AND THE CREATION OF MAN
Where should an Orthodox Christian turn if he wants to learn the true teaching about the creation of the world and man? Saint Basil the Great clearly tells us: “ What to talk about first? Where to start the interpretation? Should we expose the vanity of the pagans? Or magnify the truth of our teaching? The Hellenic sages talked a lot about nature, and not a single one of their teachings remained firm and unshakable: because subsequent teachings always overthrew the previous ones. Therefore, we have no need to denounce their teachings; they themselves are enough for each other to their own overthrow».
Following the example of St. Basil, “ Leaving external teachings external, let us return to church teaching" Like him, we will become " to explore the composition of the world, to consider the universe not according to the principles of worldly wisdom, but as God taught this to His servant, who spoke with him“by reality, and not by fortune telling” (Num. 12:8).”
Returning to the holy fathers, we must admit that evolutionist views on the origin of the world and man in fact not only teach us nothing about the origin of man, but, on the contrary, speak falsely about man.
The Orthodox teaching on human nature is most concisely presented in the “Soulful Teachings” of Abba Dorotheus. “This book is accepted in the Orthodox Church as the alphabet, the main textbook of Orthodox spirituality; This is the first spiritual reading that is given to an Orthodox monk, and it remains his constant companion throughout his life, read and re-read. It is extremely important that the Orthodox teaching about human nature is set forth on the very first page of this book, since this teaching is the basis of the entire Orthodox spiritual life.”
What kind of teaching is this? Abba Dorotheos writes in the very first lines of his First Teaching: “ In the beginning, when God created man(Gen. 2:20), He placed him in paradise, as the divine and holy Scripture says, and adorned him with every virtue, giving him the commandment not to eat from the tree that was in the middle of paradise. And so, he dwelt there in the pleasure of paradise: in prayer, in contemplation, in all glory and honor, having sound feelings, and being in the natural state in which he was created. For God created man in His own image, i.e. immortal, autocratic and adorned with every virtue. But when he violated the commandment by eating the fruit of the tree, from which God commanded him not to eat, then he was expelled from paradise (Genesis 3), fell from the natural state and fell into the unnatural, and was already in sin, in the love of glory, in love to the pleasures of this age and in other passions, and was possessed by them, for he himself became their slave through crime...
(Lord Jesus Christ) took on our very nature, the firstfruits of our composition, and became a new Adam, in the image of God, who created the first Adam, renewed the natural state and made the feelings healthy again, as they were in the beginning...
And the children of humility are: self-reproach, distrust of one’s reason, hatred of one’s will; for through them a person is honored to come to his senses and return to his natural state through cleansing himself with the holy commandments of Christ.”
DAMAGE TO PRIMARY NATURE DUE TO THE FALL AND ITS RESTORATION BY CHRIST THE SAVIOR
The Holy Fathers clearly teach that when Adam sinned, man did not simply lose something that had been added to his nature, but rather human nature itself changed, became corrupted at the very time that man lost the grace of God. The divine services of the Orthodox Church, which are the basis of our Orthodox dogmatic teaching and spiritual life, clearly teach us that human nature is not natural to us, but is in a corrupt state: “ Healing human nature, corrupted by an ancient crime, the Child is born without ashes, and in Your bosom, as if on a throne, sits, Brideless, Do not leave the Fatherly proximity to the Divine"(Mineaion December 22, Theotokos 6th song of the canon at Matins). " To save at least from decay the Creator and Lord of the decayed human nature, who indwelled the womb cleansed by the Holy Spirit and was indescribably imagined"(Mineaion January 23, Theotokos 5th song of the canon at Matins).
And in such hymns our whole Orthodox concept of the incarnation of Christ and of our salvation through Him is connected with a proper understanding of human nature as it was in the beginning, and which Christ restored in us.
Professor of the Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville I.M. rightly writes. Andreev: “Christianity has always considered the modern state of matter as a result of the Fall... The Fall of man changed his entire nature, including the nature of matter itself, which God cursed (Gen. 3, 17).” Agreeing with this statement, we conclude that evolutionary teaching not only rejects the act of Creation described in the book of Genesis, but also rejects the idea of sin, sin itself, rejects the great experience of repentance accumulated by Christianity over two thousand years.
Therefore, it is logical to draw the following conclusion: evolution contradicts the teachings of the Holy Fathers, i.e. does not fit into the framework of the patristic teaching about Creation and the creation of man.
From the experience of cohabitation with our corruptible body, it is impossible for us to understand the state of Adam’s incorruptible body, which had no natural needs, as we know, ate “of every tree” in paradise without excreting any waste, and did not know sleep (until the direct action of God forced him to sleep so that Eve would be created from a rib). And how much less able are we to understand the even more exalted state of our bodies in the coming age! But we know enough about the nature of the primordial world and the life of the first people in paradise from the Holy Scriptures and Tradition, i.e. from the teachings of the Church, to refute all those who believe that they can understand these mysteries through scientific knowledge and worldly philosophy. The state of man in paradise and the primordial world is forever removed beyond the bounds of scientific knowledge by the barrier of Adam’s sin, which changed the very nature of primordial man and all creation, as well as the nature of knowledge itself.
CONCLUSION
According to Orthodox teaching, which comes from Divine contemplation, Adam's nature in paradise was different from the present human nature, both in body and soul, and this sublime nature was enlivened by God's grace. And according to the Latin doctrine, based on rationalistic deductions from the current fallen nature, man is by nature corruptible and mortal, as he is now, and his state in paradise was a special, supernatural gift. All this shows how the wonderful patristic vision of Adam and the primordial world is distorted when they approach it from the position of the wisdom of the fallen world. Neither science nor logic can tell us anything about heaven; “and yet many Orthodox Christians are so deceived by modern science and its rationalistic philosophy that they are afraid to read seriously the first chapters of the Book of Genesis, knowing that modern “wise men” find there so much that is “dubious” or “confusing” or that is subject to “new interpretation” “, or that you can get the reputation of a “fundamentalist” if you dare to read this text simply “as it is written,” as all the holy fathers read.”
The common sense of an Orthodox Christian prompts us to turn away from the “deep” fashionable point of view that man descended from a monkey or any other lower creature. Therefore it is fair when St. the fathers express their righteous anger at those who try to prove that man is the ape from which they boast they were descended. This is the point of view of Orthodox holiness, which knows that creation is not as the modern sages with their empty philosophy describe it, but as the Lord revealed it to Moses “not by fortune,” and as the holy fathers saw it in Divine contemplation. Human nature is different from monkey nature and has never been mixed with it. If the Lord God, for the sake of our humility, would have wished to carry out such a mixture, then the holy fathers, who saw the very “composition of visible things” in Divine contemplation, would have known this.
“How much longer will the Orthodox remain captive to this empty Western philosophy?” - the greatest ascetic of our time, Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), calls to us. And he's not the only one. Much has been said about the “Western captivity” of Orthodox theology; when will we understand that in an even more desperate “Western captivity” today lies every helpless captive of the “spirit of the times”, the prevailing current of worldly philosophy, dissolved in the very air we breathe in a God-apostate, God-hating society? An Orthodox Christian who does not consciously fight against the empty philosophy of this age, but simply accepts it into himself and is at peace with it, because his own understanding of Orthodoxy is distorted, does not conform to the patristic institutions.
Those sophisticated in worldly wisdom laugh at those who call evolutionism “heresy.” Indeed, evolutionism, strictly speaking, is not a heresy, but evolutionism is an ideology deeply alien to Orthodox Christian teaching, and it involves so many incorrect teachings and opinions that it would be much better if it were just a heresy that could easily be identify and expose. Evolutionism is closely intertwined with the entire apostasy mentality of secularized “Western Christianity”; it is a tool of the “new spirituality” and “new Christianity” into which Satan is now seeking to immerse the last true Christians. Evolutionism offers an explanation of Creation that is contrary to the patristic one; it brings the Orthodox under such influence that they read the Holy Scripture and do not understand it, automatically “adjusting” its text to the biased worldly natural philosophy. Having accepted evolutionism, it is impossible not to also accept an alternative explanation for other parts of Divine revelation, the automatic “adjustment” of other texts of the Holy Scriptures and patristic works to scientific “wisdom”.
Modern science knows only what it observes and what can be reasonably inferred from observation: its guesses about the earliest times of creation are no more and no less important than the myths and fables of the ancient pagans. True knowledge about Adam and the primordial world, as far as it is useful for us to know, is available only through Divine Revelation and in the Divine contemplation of the saints.
The human worldview is anthropocentric by nature. As long as people have existed, they have asked themselves: “Where are we from?”, “What is our place in the world?” Man is a central object in the mythology and religions of many peoples. It is also fundamental in modern science. Different peoples at different times had different answers to these questions.
There are three global approaches, three main points of view on the emergence of man: religious, philosophical and scientific. The religious approach is based on faith and tradition; it usually does not require any additional confirmation of its correctness. The philosophical approach is based on a certain initial set of axioms, from which the philosopher builds his picture of the world through inferences.
The scientific approach is based on facts established through observations and experiments. To explain the connection between these facts, a hypothesis is put forward, which is tested by new observations and, if possible, experiments, as a result of which it is either rejected (then a new hypothesis is put forward) or confirmed and becomes a theory. In the future, new facts may refute the theory, in which case the following hypothesis is put forward, which better corresponds to the entire set of observations.
Religious, philosophical, and scientific views changed over time, influenced each other and intricately intertwined. Sometimes it is extremely difficult to figure out which area of culture to attribute a particular concept to. The number of existing views is enormous. It is impossible to briefly review at least a third of them. Below we will try to understand only the most important of them, the ones that most influenced people’s worldview.
The Power of the Spirit: Creationism
Creationism (Latin creatio - creation, creation) is a religious concept according to which man was created by some higher being - God or several gods - as a result of a supernatural creative act.
The religious worldview is the oldest attested in written tradition. Tribes with a primitive culture usually chose different animals as their ancestors: the Delaware Indians considered the eagle to be their ancestor, the Osag Indians considered the snail to be their ancestor, the Ainu and Papuans from Moresby Bay considered the dog to be their ancestor, the ancient Danes and Swedes considered the bear to be their ancestor. Some peoples, for example, the Malays and Tibetans, had ideas about the emergence of man from apes. On the contrary, the southern Arabs, ancient Mexicans and blacks of the Loango coast considered monkeys to be wild people with whom the gods were angry. The specific ways of creating a person, according to different religions, are very diverse. According to some religions, people appeared on their own, according to others, they were created by gods - from clay, from breath, from reeds, from their own body and with one thought.
There are a huge variety of religions in the world, but in general creationism can be divided into orthodox (or anti-evolution) and evolutionary. Anti-evolution theologians consider the only correct point of view set forth in tradition, in Christianity - in the Bible. Orthodox creationism does not require other evidence, relies on faith, and ignores scientific data. According to the Bible, man, like other living organisms, was created by God as a result of a one-time creative act and did not change subsequently. Proponents of this version either ignore the evidence of long-term biological evolution, or consider it the result of other, earlier and possibly failed creations (although could the Creator have failed?). Some theologians acknowledge the existence in the past of people different from those living now, but deny any continuity with the modern population.
Evolutionary theologians recognize the possibility of biological evolution. According to them, animal species can transform into one another, but the will of God is the guiding force. Man could also have arisen from lower organized beings, but his spirit remained unchanged from the moment of initial creation, and the changes themselves occurred under the control and desire of the Creator. Western Catholicism officially stands on the position of evolutionary creationism. Pope Pius XII's 1950 encyclical "Humani generis" admits that God could have created not a ready-made man, but an ape-like creature, however, investing in him an immortal soul. This position has since been confirmed by other popes, such as John Paul II in 1996, who wrote in a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that “new discoveries convince us that evolution must be recognized as more than a hypothesis.” It’s funny that for millions of believers, the opinion of the Pope on this issue means incomparably more than the opinion of thousands of scientists who have devoted their entire lives to science and rely on the research of other thousands of scientists. In Orthodoxy there is no single official point of view on issues of evolutionary development. In practice, this leads to the fact that different Orthodox priests interpret the moments of the emergence of man in completely different ways, from a purely orthodox version to an evolutionary-creationist version similar to the Catholic one.
Modern creationists conduct numerous studies in order to prove the absence of continuity between ancient people and modern people, or the existence of completely modern people in ancient times. To do this, they use the same materials as anthropologists, but look at them from a different angle. As practice shows, creationists in their constructions rely on paleoanthropological finds with unclear dating or location conditions, ignoring most of the other materials. In addition, creationists often operate using methods that are incorrect from a scientific point of view. Their criticism attacks those areas of science that have not yet been fully illuminated - the so-called "blank spots of science" - or are unfamiliar to the creationists themselves; Usually such reasoning impresses people who are not sufficiently familiar with biology and anthropology. For the most part, creationists are engaged in criticism, but You can’t build your concept on criticism, and they don’t have their own independent materials and arguments. However, it must be admitted that scientists have some benefit from creationists: the latter serve as a good indicator of the understandability, accessibility and popularity of the results of scientific research to the general public, and an additional incentive for new work.
It is worth noting that the number of creationist movements, both philosophical and scientific, is very large. In Russia, they are almost not represented, although a significant number of natural scientists are inclined towards a similar worldview.