New York Times
January 19, 2006
In 'Design' vs. Darwinism, Darwin Wins Point in Rome
By IAN FISHER and CORNELIA DEAN
ROME, Jan. 18 - The official Vatican newspaper published an article
this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in
Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a
scientific alternative to evolution.
"If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one
should search for another," Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of
evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, wrote in the Jan.
16-17 edition of the paper, L'Osservatore Romano.
"But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray
from the field of science while pretending to do science," he wrote,
calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion
between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or
religious."
The article was not presented as an official church position. But in
the subtle and purposely ambiguous world of the Vatican, the comments
seemed notable, given their strength on a delicate question much
debated under the new pope, Benedict XVI.
Advocates for teaching evolution hailed the article. "He is
emphasizing that there is no need to see a contradiction between
Catholic teachings and evolution," said Dr. Francisco J. Ayala,
professor of biology at the University of California, Irvine, and a
former Dominican priest. "Good for him."
[To read the rest, click here.]
_______________
mp
Here is a new paper, "Christianity and the (Modest) Rule of Law," by Professor William Stuntz and Professor David Skeel:
Conservative Christians are often accused, justifiably, of trying to impose their moral views on the rest of the population: of trying to equate God's law with man's law. In this essay, we try to answer the question whether that equation is consistent with Christianity.
It isn't. Christian doctrines of creation and the fall imply the basic protections associated with the rule of law. But the moral law as defined in the Sermon on the Mount is flatly inconsistent with those protections. The most plausible inference to draw from those two conclusions is that the moral law - God's law - is meant to play a different role than the law of code books and case reports. Good morals inspire and teach; good law governs. When the roles are confused, law ceases to rule and discretion rules in its place. That is a lesson that many of our fellow religious believers would do well to learn: Christians on the right and on the left are too quick to seek to use law to advance their particular moral visions, without taking proper account of the limits of law's capacity to shape the culture it governs. But the lesson is not only for religious believers. America's legal system purports to honor the rule of law, but in practice it is honored mostly in the breach. One reason why is the gap between law's capacity and the ambitions lawmakers and legal theorists have for it. Properly defining the bounds of law's empire is the key to ensuring that law, not discretion, rules.
I'd welcome others' reactions to what strikes me as a provocative claim. How consonant, do we think, is the argument advanced by Stuntz and Skeel with "Catholic legal theory"? On the one hand, I would think that Catholics can happily endorse the idea that the goal of law need not be moral perfection, that not every wrong should be a crime, and so on. We can, and should, take seriously the constraints that a commitment to "the rule of law" imposes on well-meaning actions by officials and judges. At the same time, it seems mistaken to divide too sharply the "moral law" which inspires and teaches and the law that "governs." In any event, check it out.
In a post on January 10, Tom gives the doctrine of purgatory as something that divides Catholics from Protestants. I wonder if it might depend on how purgatory is understood. Hans Kung in Eternal Life argues that purgatory is best understood not as a place or a length of time, but an aspect of the final judgment. That is, everyone (virtually everyone?) comes before God in less than a pure state. Purgatory according to Kung is an aspect of the encounter with God after death. Such an encounter with God will be humiliating and painful, but the encounter "judges and purifies, but also liberates and enlightens, heals and completes man." Kung refers to the "wrath of God's grace" as the essence of purgatory. I wonder if this conception of purgatory is acceptable to Protestants? To Catholics?
I also wonder about another purported difference between Catholics and Protestants put forth by writers who eloquently discuss the Catholic imagination. The argument is that Catholics are predisposed to see God's grace operating in the world while Protestants are more pessimistic, seeing a sinful world. I wonder if this is overinclusive and underinclusive on both sides.
But I do think it is a strong part of Christianity to see the workings of God in the world though Christians can, of course, disagree.
In this connection, I do not see the absence of Christian themes in the recent wave of Hollywood movies. The film about Capote is less about a jet setter going to the heartland than it is about the profound evil of among other things withdrawing financial support for a capital defendant in order to further a book project. Or more generally, even great artistic endeavors do not justify treating a human being as an object. In Brokeback Mountain, I agree that I would be in the minority (of millions) in seeing love between men (expressed sexually) as a Christian theme, but the film also shows the harm of adultery flowing from that relationship. Moreover, it exposes the ugly side of prejudice. Exposing the complexity of the human relationships in that film is a testimony to the value of truth. So, of course, more directly is the film about Edward R. Murrow which testifies in favor of truth against corporate greed. I could go on, but I will say this. I do worry that American television glorifies violence and promotes a materialist, hedonistic, sexist, consumer culture; many American movies can also be condemned. But there are often important themes consistent with the Christian tradition that are promoted by Hollywood, and, from that perspective, I think this has been an outstanding year.
Over at First Things, Russ Hittinger is skeptical about pronouncements of a flourishing Catholic intellectual life in this country given the lack of Catholic intellectuals in the academy.
Rob
This spring, I'll be teaching a course on CST at Yale, where I'm visiting for the year. Having taught the course only once before at Fordham (where I was covering for Amy), I certaintly don't hold myself out as an expert on the subject (particularly because I don't write in the field). Nevertheless, the interest in the course has been remarkable. I capped enrollement at 15, because I run the class as a seminar that is heavy on class discussion, but I had almost 40 people pre-enroll. Someone in the office of graduate admissions even mentioned to me that she had seen some applications to the law school in which the applicant had listed Yale's offer of CST as a reason for their interest in the school. (There is some irony in this, since the course has, as far as I can tell, never been offered before and will not be offered again any time soon.) In contrast to Fordham, where my class consisted of a fairly even mixture of active Catholics, disaffected Catholics, secular and religious Jews, and protestants of various persuasions, the class at Yale appears to be dominated by active Catholics. As the term goes on, I plan to blog my observations about how it's going, as well as the similarities and differences I encounter between teaching the course at Fordham and at Yale.
Thanks for the post, Rick. This paper is actually the first salvo in a larger project that we hope to turn into a book. It will focus on the role of lawbreaking in the evolution of both traditional property and intellectual property. Our focus in this paper is on traditional property. You raise very important questions that we try to address in the paper through our typology of lawbreaking. The sort of person you're referring to would fall within our "acquisitive" category. We contrast that sort of lawbreaking with "expressive" lawbreaking (such as the 1960 lunch counter sit-in protesters, who intentionally violated laws against criminal trespass) and "intersectional" lawbreaking (we use the example of the 1980s urban squatters), both of whom are seeking to express their desire for substantive legal change, rather than (or, in the case of intersectional outlaws, in addition to) reallocation of property entitlements.
We give the shortest leash to acquisitive outlaws because of (among other things) the problems you raise. By saying that the law should not overdeter, we mean that, at a minimum, the law should not aim at complete deterrence. That is, we think there is some value to some property law-breaking, even of the acquisitive sort. We point towards doctrines like necessity and adverse possession as evidence that the law already recognizes such value. Deterrence that aimed at zero property crime would sweep up valuable as well as value-less sorts of property lawbreaking.
The changes we suggest for existing law are fairly modest, I think. We talk about reducing the time period for adverse possession (in light of technological change making it easier to monitor and enforce property rights) and increasing the scope of the necessity defense to cover things like economic necessity (which is currently excluded in many jurisdictions), drawing on Aquinas and others for support. We expect a bigger doctrinal payoff in the IP area.
I tend to post things on SSRN fairly early in the revision process, because that seems to me to be the purpose of sharing unpublished work. So I apologize for the roughness in the paper, which we are continuing to rework on a daily basis. And comments are most welcome.
