I have recently read ‘The Metaphysics of Evolution’ by Fr Chad Ripperger. Fr Ripperger is or was a professor of philosophy at the Fraternity of St Peter’s North American seminary and is clearly at home in the scholastic tradition. The title of his book or pamphlet is a misnomer, since it would be more accurately called ‘Metaphysics against Evolution’.
The book is technical but short and can be summarised in two main claims: atheistic evolution is impossible and theistic evolution is unreasonable.
Atheistic evolution is impossible, he argues, not simply because God necessarily exists, but more specifically because of the principle that ‘an effect cannot be more perfect than its cause’. Of course change of any kind is impossible without the first, unchanging cause, but evolution, that is, the improvement and enrichment of living beings, is impossible for the extra reason that things cannot bestow perfections which they do not themselves possess.
Theistic evolution, he argues, is unreasonable because it postulates a vast number of miracles where it is unnecessary to do so. This fact is often obscured, since theistic evolutionists are prone to talk about God ‘working through evolution’ as if evolution were a natural process, only one which God directed for His purposes. But it cannot be a natural process, since natures cannot bestow perfections which they do not possess, for example natures that lack sight cannot bestow this perfection upon their offspring. For God to bring about evolution, therefore, would mean for Him to override the natural powers of creatures at every step so that they would produce effects that it was beyond their natures to achieve. This would be to introduced a vast number of miracles whereby an amoeba would gradually turn into an elephant, or maybe a giraffe. It is far simpler to suppose that God simply created giraffes and elephants in the first place, which would not in fact be a miracle at all, since miracles pertain to the divine governance of nature, not to the original establishment of natures themselves.
Laodicea 
April 20, 2013 at 9:42 pm
But every natural generation requires a universal cause. Even a fly is only the univocal cause of its offspring, it requires the equivocal causality of universal causes (the heavenly bodies according to Aritstotle and the angels according to St Th.). So why can’t those universal causes cause a higher nature?
“Since the mother was also generated and at one time was not, and since human nature is found in her, it follows that she is not the cause of that nature, either in herself or in Socrates ; if she were the sole causal explanation of the nature of Socrates, she would (since she also has that nature) have to be the cause of herself. It is the same with all univocal causality ; no univocal cause can be the cause of the nature of the species in which it participates. The mother is the cause only of the existence of human nature in Socrates. She is not the cause of the form, but of the informed composite, since it is the composite which is generated. It is necessary, therefore, if we wish to explain the nature as such, to seek a cause which transcends both son and mother. In other words, as there is a ‘per se’ relation between the generated singular and the univocal cause, so there must be a cause which is related ‘per se’ to the participated nature. The term of the generation is the existence of the individual, an accomplishment of many causes, each exercising a causality proper to its form. Since the univocal cause is not a species but a singular existing in a species, it is impossible that it be the cause of the species itself. The cause of the species must in a certain way contain the nature of the species within its form, while, of course, being superior to it… In other words the mother causes the’ fieri’ of Socrates, but not his nature or his existence. If she were the cause of the nature and , esse’ of Socrates, Socrates could not exist without the continued exercized causality of his mother. But, in fact, he does exist without it. Hence, there is necessary a cause which is anterior to the mother’s causality, which is responsible for Socrates’s nature and I esse’ and to which she is subordinated in causing him… In conformity with these principles, St. Thomas teacheS-that incorporeal agents direct the heavenly bodies, to which are subordinated the univocal causes ; together they act upon matter and effect a transmutation so that the desired form is educed therefrom. The order of the cosmos and the causality of the univocal causes is achieved through their cooperation and subordination to the more universal causes, such as the sun ; without their causality there would be no becoming.” http://www.scribd.com/doc/137090495/Ronald-McArthur-Universal-in-Causando
April 20, 2013 at 11:39 pm
Sancrucensis, I was thinking the same thing. Even some of the old manuals (Grenier, for example), have a section dedicated to this confusion. I’m surprised Fr. Ripperger doesn’t take note of it. Here’s an excerpt:
“[Objection 3] A new species is created or engendered. But a new species cannot be engendered. Therefore a new species is created, or, in other words, creationism must be admitted, and the evolution of the species rejected.
“Major–Either by creation or by equivocal generation, I concede; by univocal generation, I deny.
“Minor–It cannot be engendered by univocal generation, I concede; by equivocal generation, I deny.”
“In univocal or proper generation, the being which engenders is of the same species as the being which is engendered, for generation is defined: the origin of a living being from a non-living being in likeness of nature, effected by a conjoined principle. But it is evident that a new species cannot be produced by this kind of generation.
“In equivocal generation, a living being is naturally produced by the reduction of matter to form, under the influx of a superior principal cause, which is either God or an angel.
“The possibility of equivocal generation is often affirmed by St. Thomas.”
In his footnote here, he quotes several texts, for example (De Potentia Q. 6 a. 6, ad 3): “Corpora coelestia etiamsi non sint animata, moventur a substantia vivente separata,cujus virtute agunt, sicut instrumentum virtute principalis agentis; et ex hoc causant in inferioribus vitam.”
April 22, 2013 at 4:36 pm
I agree that not considering equivocal causality is a flaw in Fr Ripperger’s book. For St Thomas, it is not only the angels but the angels via the heavenly bodies which seem to be the equivocal, universal causes (e.g. contra Gentiles, III,78 & 82) {incidentally, the passage quoted from De Potentia is ad 10 not ad 3.}
I wonder, though, what you think of this passage from Prima Pars 110, 3, corpus, about whether matter obeys the angels ‘ad nutum’:-
“Manifestum est autem quod factum est simile facienti, quia omne agens agit sibi simile. Et ideo id quod facit res naturales, habet similitudinem cum composito, vel quia est compositum, sicut ignis generat ignem; vel quia totum compositum, et quantum ad materiam et quantum ad formam, est in virtute ipsius; quod est proprium Dei. Sic igitur omnis informatio materiae vel est a Deo immediate, vel ab aliquo agente corporali; non autem immediate ab Angelo” {see also the ad 3.)
The angel thus cannot make the offspring to be of a higher nature than the parents by willing it: in ‘generatio’, the angel acts by applying the bodily generators to their proper act. These cannot act beyond their species.
So evolution would seem to require universal causes which are bodily, not angelic. I don’t know if there are any such, since the hypothesis of a celestial matter essentially different from corporeal matter doesn’t seem to be in favour at the moment…
April 27, 2013 at 4:32 pm
The question as to whether there are any bodily universal causes is, I think, open. Charles De Koninck thought that there must be, if if we can’t at present say what they are: “St. Thomas with the ancients thought he recognized in celestial bodies the instruments which spiritual substances use in acting on the cosmos. (See in De Pot. a. VI,a.6 ad 10) St. Thomas made exception for superior animals, the first of which, for him, had to be directly formed by a special intervention of God (although this intervention would be natural, as in the case of the creation of human substantial forms). Yet in this matter he departs from the tradition of the Fathers for purely experimental reasons (not philosophical): “…videmus enim sensibiliter quod aliquis debilis effectus producitur ab agente remoto, sed fortis effectus requirit agens propinquum…” (De Malo, XVI.a.9 c). If we today are incapable of identifying the instrument, we are none the less necessitated to affirm its existence.” (Le Cosmos)
What do you think the status of the fossile evidence for evolution (in the sense of common descent) is? Is it more reasonable to say “Such a developement probably took place, even though it requires positing bodily universal causes that I cannot identify” or “such a development probably did not take place since it would require positing etc.”?
April 29, 2013 at 5:21 pm
But if it is impossible for the animalia perfecta to be generated from decaying matter by the universal bodily causes, even as angelic instruments, can it be possible for them to be generated from slightly less perfect animals? I suppose one could argue that there is less distance to be crossed in the latter case. However, evolution seems to be contrary to this principle of St Thomas’, ‘primas creaturas statim Deus perfectas produxit, absque aliqua dispositione vel operatione creaturae praecedente, quia sic instituit prima individua specierum, ut per ea natura propagaretur ad posteros’ (1a 2ae, 5, 7, ad 2).
I don’t know anything much about fossils except that people seem to agree that there is a lack of ‘transitional forms’, which some people explain by saying that the intermediate forms wouldn’t have lived long enough to leave any.
I do like the idea of universal bodily causes from a philosophical point of view.
Evolution in the sense of common descent seems to me contrary to the dominant patristic interpretation of Genesis 1. The idea that the human body descended from the beasts I would definitely reject: I think Fr Brian Harrison has shown that the Church has infallibly taught the contrary in the case of Eve.
May 2, 2013 at 9:48 pm
I ordered the book. Thanks for the review.