Erich Wasmann, SJ: an Early Advocate for Theistic Evolution

Erich Wasmann, SJ, was born in 1859, in Tyrol, Austria, the same year Charles Darwin published his seminal work, “On the Origin of Species.” Wasmann is renowned for his efforts to reconcile the Catholic faith with Darwin’s theory of evolution, advocating the idea that the two were compatible.

In 1883, Wasmann was asked to contribute articles on eusocial insects to the Jesuit periodical “Stimmen aus Maria Laach,” later called “Stimmen der Zeit”. In 1884, he began studying ants, both in their natural habitat and by constructing artificial ant colonies. Over his lifetime (he died in 1931), Wasmann assembled a unique collection comprising over 1,000 ant species, 200 termite species, and 2,000 species of myrmecophiles, ultimately describing 933 new species.

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware: the Joy in God’s Creation

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware passed away on 24 August 2022. He was a renowned and popular Orthodox Christian theologian of recent decades, and was considered the most prolific and proficient communicator of patristic theology and Orthodox spirituality in our generation.

Frans Alfons Janssens: The Catholic priest who discovered chromosomal cross-over

Frans A. Janssens, Catholic priest and biologist

Frans Alfons Janssens (Sint-Niklaas 23 July 1865 – Wichelen, 8 October 1924) was Catholic priest and the discoverer of crossing-over of genes during meiosis, which he called ‘chiasmatypie’. His work was continued by the Nobel Prize winner Thomas Hunt Morgan to develop the theory of genetic linkage.

Janssens was ordained Catholic priest on 18 September 1886. Shortly afterwards he was sent to the Catholic University of Louvain to study Biology. In 1890 Janssens got his Doctoral degree in Natural Science. In 1891 he was awarded a scholarship for his thesis and was thus able to visit several laboratories of marine zoology abroad (Banyuls, Arachon, Den Helder, Naples and Roscoff). Also in 1891 he became a teacher in Math’s and Natural Science at the St. Lieven institute in Gent. Then he was sent by his bishop to the brewery school in Munich and the famous brewery institute, Carlsberg, in Copenhagen, with a view to founding a brewery school in Gent. Well educated, Janssens returned to Belgium, where he was a co-founder of the brewery school of the St. Lieven institute in Gent. In 1893 Janssens taught bacteriology there. Meanwhile he continued his scientific research in cytology.

John Polkinghorne (1930-2021)

John Polkinghorne, 1930 – 2021

John Charlton Polkinghorne, rest in peace. I learned a few days ago that he passed away on 09 March 2021. He was an amazing voice in the dialogue between science and faith. He was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest. He was Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest in 1982. He served as the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, from 1988 until 1996.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020): God’s Creation and building the Temple – From Genesis to Exodus

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks passed away yesterday, on 7 November 2020, at age 72. He was the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, and has spent decades bringing spiritual insight to the public conversation.

In the text below, shared in 2014 on our facebook-page, Rabbi Sacks brought to us the following words that for us Christians readers may bring some new perspective to the well-known text of Genesis 1-2.

The Israelites have finally completed the work of building the Tabernacle. We then read:

So all the work on the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was completed. The Israelites did everything just as the L rd commanded Moses …Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the L rd had commanded. So Moses blessed them. (Exodus 39:32, 43)

John Henry Newman: a patron saint for evolution?

“John Henry Newman was a theologian and clergyman inside and out, but already as an undergraduate he developed an interest in the sciences. He carefully wrote out and kept his notes from a course in mineralogy — they are still at the Birmingham Oratory. He was less impressed by geology, even though that course was given by the same professor, Rev. William Buckland. In the early 1820’s, Buckland defended the thesis that the earth had passed through several catastrophic geological events, the last being a global flood as described in Genesis. But by 1830 Buckland had abandoned this view and adopted the hypothesis of a great continental glaciation event. The idea that the earth was of vast antiquity had been proposed by James Hutton and others in the late 1700’s and further developed by Charles Lyell. These ideas were well-known to Charles Darwin, who began his career as geologist, and played a role in his development of the theory of evolution. They also influenced Newman, who learned to consider scientific theories and innovations with a degree of caution.”

In my article for the Society of Catholic Scientists, https://www.catholicscientists.org/idea/saint-john-henry-newman-a-co-patron-for-scientists, I discussed his views on science in general and on the theory of evolution in specific.

Georges Lemaitre and Pope Pius XII

On 07 September 1952, Pope Pius XII gave a talk in Rome at the Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in which he did not mention any association between the Big Bang Theory and the initial fiat of creation. A few months earlier in 1951, while addressing the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he had seemed to link the two together. In the time that passed between the two talks, Georges Lemaître had met with Pope Pius XII to discuss the difficulties and limits of associating the Big Bang Theory with the theological notion of creation.

Read more on our previous blog post and on inters.org: Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, The Pius XII – Lemaître Affair (1951-1952) on Big Bang and Creation

Robert Busa, SJ: pioneer in using computers for linguistic and literary analysis

Robert Busa SJ in 2006. In the background the Index Thomisticus

Father Robert Busa died on 09 August 2011 at the age of 97; during his lifetime he took full advantage of how data-processing went from simple punch-cards to magnetic tapes and beyond. As a young Jesuit linguist, Father Busa wanted to find a way machines could take over the monumental task of generating a concordance — a kind of systematic index of every word used in a work.

In 1933, he had joined the Society of Jesus; he got a diploma in Philosophy in 1937 and one in Theology in 1941 and was ordained priest in 1940. From 1940 until 1943 he was an auxiliary army chaplain in the National Army and later in the partisan forces. In 1946 he graduated in Philosophy at the Papal Gregorian University of Rome with a degree thesis entitled “The Thomistic Terminology of Interiority”, which was published in 1949.

In the same year 1949, he approached IBM with the idea that computers could help scholars analyze literary works, an idea that first met with skepticism. Busa tells the story of meeting with IBM’s first CEO:

“I knew, the day I was to meet Thomas J. Watson, Sr., that he had on his desk a report which said IBM machines could never do what I wanted. I had seen in the waiting room a small poster imprinted with the words: “The difficult we do right away; the impossible takes a little longer.” (IBM always loved slogans.) I took it in with me into Mr. Watson’s office. Sitting down in front of him and sensing the tremendous power of his mind, I was inspired to say: “It is not right to say ‘no’ before you have tried.” I took out the poster and showed him his own slogan. He agreed that IBM would cooperate.“

John Paul II: Can Science prove God’s existence?

The Wednesday General Audience on 10 July 1985 was dedicated to the topic “Proof of the Existence of God.” St. John Paul II said:

“In speaking of the existence of God we should underline that we are not speaking of proofs in the sense implied by the experimental sciences. Scientific proofs in the modern sense of the word are valid only for things perceptible to the senses, since it is only on such things that scientific instruments of investigation can be used. To desire a scientific proof of God would be equivalent to lowering God to the level of the beings of our world, and we would therefore be mistaken methodologically in regard to what God is. Science must recognize its limits and its inability to reach the existence of God. It can neither affirm nor deny his existence.

From this, however, we must not draw the conclusion that scientists in their scientific studies are unable to find valid reasons for admitting the existence of God. If science as such cannot reach God, the scientist who has an intelligence, the object of which is not limited to things of sense perception, can discover in the world reasons for affirming a Being which surpasses it. Many scientists have made and are making this discovery.”

Read more on inters.org

John Stevens Henslow, a guiding light for his student Charles Darwin

John Stevens Henslow (6 February 1796 – 16 May 1861) was an English clergyman, botanist and geologist.

Henslow first came to Cambridge to study mathematics but it was his geological work in field studies of the Isle of Man and Anglesey that brought him fame. By the age of 27 he was elected Professor of Mineralogy and two years later became Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge, a post he was to hold until his death in 1861. Henslow’s research focused on the nature of species and between 1821 and 1835 he compiled a Herbarium of 3,654 sheets containing specimens from over 10,000 plants. He was renowned for his new teaching techniques. He used his own illustrations in lectures, introduced practical science classes, and led walks around the Cambridge district as he taught natural history. He fostered independent discovery and utilized unusual field trips for his students.