“When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, / the moon and stars that you set in place — / What is man that you are mindful of him, / and a son of man that you care for him?/ Yet you have made him little less than a god, / crowned him with glory and honor.”  — Psalm 8:4-5 

Perhaps one of the most famous trials in the history of the United States began on July 10, 1925, in Dayton, Tennessee. Officially, the case was Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, a high-school biology teacher. Most people refer to it as the “Scopes Trial” or the “Scopes Monkey Trial” because Scopes was accused of violating the Butler Act, which made it illegal, in Tennessee, to “teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” 

Aided by the American Civil Liberties Union, Scopes was represented by the famous attorney Clarence Darrow, and the state was assisted by the former three-time Democratic nominee for president William Jennings Bryan. The trial was depicted then (and now) as a classic case of science and reason versus faith and superstition. This depiction is usually followed by an assertion that “science won” the trial and the argument.  

This is not actually true to the history of the case or the authentic relationship between faith and reason, science and religion. While public opinion at the time and subsequent retellings of the story (most famously in Inherit the Wind, the play and movie versions based on the trial) believe that Darrow won the day, his client was found guilty at the trial. His verdict was overturned on appeal because the fine imposed was considered excessive.  

The Tennessee law remained on the books until 1967. Similarly, laws in other states also remained until the Supreme Court struck them down by unanimous decision in 1968 (cf. Epperson v. Arkansas), ruling that they represented an establishment of religion prohibited by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

While there is little doubt that, rhetorically, Darrow made his case, the Scopes trial should not be viewed as a case of science versus religion but rather a case of an unreasonable law being challenged in court.  

Scopes’ teaching was based on a state-mandated textbook, A Civic Biology (1914) by George W. Hunter. This textbook, again, mandated by the state, taught, as Christopher Hammer pointed out in his paper “Reconciling Faith, Reason and Freedom: Catholicism and Evolution from Scopes to Dover,” that “simple forms of life on earth slowly and gradually gave rise to those more complex and that thus ultimately the most complex forms came into existence.” 

Thus, this straightforward statement summarizing an evolutionary worldview and process was in the mandated textbook but illegal to teach! 

Catholic Reponses to Scopes 100 Years Ago 

On the whole, Catholics in 1925 had little problem with the teaching of evolution. Most likely due to the teaching of Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus (1893) that “truth cannot contradict truth” that made Catholics cautious in not overstating what the Scriptures taught.  

The authors of Genesis 1-3 did not intend to teach science or history. The intent of these verses was to affirm God as the Creator and Sustainer of all things and to lay out a theological anthropology (a vision of the human person and community created imago Dei, in the image and likeness of God).  

Thus, Catholic intellectuals and leaders of the time tended to seek a via media between Scopes’ and the state’s case. For example, America magazine, as Hunter shows, editorialized against both sides of the trial: 

“Catholics are for Religion, for Science, and for Freedom all at once. If anyone thinks he can defend those three causes by allying himself with either of the two sides in the Scopes case, let him try it. The middle road, it is true, is not always an easy course to hold, especially in the face of our national tendency to take sides in a fight, but it is certain that Religion will be defended, Science advanced, and Freedom safeguarded, only by those who persist in calmly scanning all proofs put before them and in keeping passion out of it (‘The Middle Road to Dayton’).” 

For Religion, for Science, and for Freedom 

What was true 100 years ago is true today. When it comes to the question of scientific theories on the questions of our origins (the Big Bang theory, evolution, etc.), the Catholic Church is clearly for religion, for science, and for freedom. This is because the Church is firmly on the side of truth and recognizes the need for the rightful autonomy of earthly affairs and the wisdom of encouraging freedom of inquiry when it comes to matters outside the realm of faith and divine Revelation. This was clearly taught by the Council Fathers in Gaudium et Spes. 

“Now many of our contemporaries seem to fear that a closer bond between human activity and religion will work against the independence of men, of societies, or of the sciences,” the document states. “If by the autonomy of earthly affairs we mean that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own laws and values which must be gradually deciphered, put to use, and regulated by men, then it is entirely right to demand that autonomy. Such is not merely required by modern man, but harmonizes also with the will of the Creator.” 

“For by the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order. Man must respect these as he isolates them by the appropriate methods of the individual sciences or arts. Therefore if methodical investigation within every branch of learning is carried out in a genuinely scientific manner and in accord with moral norms, it never truly conflicts with faith, for earthly matters and the concerns of faith derive from the same God,” it also states. 

Gaudium et Spes adds, “Indeed whoever labors to penetrate the secrets of reality with a humble and steady mind, even though he is unaware of the fact, is nevertheless being led by the hand of God, who holds all things in existence, and gives them their identity. Consequently, we cannot but deplore certain habits of mind, which are sometimes found too among Christians, which do not sufficiently attend to the rightful independence of science and which, from the arguments and controversies they spark, lead many minds to conclude that faith and science are mutually opposed.” 

“But if the expression, the independence of temporal affairs, is taken to mean that created things do not depend on God, and that man can use them without any reference to their Creator, anyone who acknowledges God will see how false such a meaning is. For without the Creator the creature would disappear. For their part, however, all believers of whatever religion always hear His revealing voice in the discourse of creatures. When God is forgotten, however, the creature itself grows unintelligible” (36). 

In the footnotes to this paragraph, the Council Fathers made clear reference to the mistakes made in the case of Galileo.  

Rightful Autonomy of Earthly Affairs 

The Church respects all who genuinely attempt to discover the truth. She respects, encourages and supports scientists and the scientific method. She values their discoveries and recognizes that we can learn much about ourselves, our world, and even God from examining “God’s first book,” creation. 

Furthermore, she rejects those who reject scientific truth or downplay its importance. As Pope Francis told scientists gathered for the second conference of the Vatican Specola, “science and faith follow two different and parallel paths, between which there is no conflict. … These paths can harmonize with each other, because both science and faith, for a believer, have the same matrix in the absolute Truth of God.” Francis did go on to urge the participants to ensure that “science is put at the service of the men and women of our time, and not distorted to their detriment or even destruction.” 

When Science Becomes Unethical 

Science must be conducted, and the fruits of our scientific discoveries used, ethically. The real scandal of the textbook used by Scopes was not that it taught evolution. For believing Catholics, the theory of evolution should not be a problem. As the International Theological Commission wrote in 2002: 

“According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the ‘Big Bang’ and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on Earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5-4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on Earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: With the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution” (63). 

Of course, Catholics are free to reject evolution if they have a better scientific theory that matches the historical and biological facts. The Church’s teaching competence is reserved to faith and morals. Science must be judged on its own terms.  

However, when science and scientists leave their discipline and venture into the realm of ethics, a different standard and competency must be applied.  

The textbook used by Scopes was not necessarily wrong about evolution but was absolutely wrong in its promotion of eugenics. Like many scientific texts, schools and journals of the 1920s and 1930s, Hunter’s A Civic Biology advocated for the most barbaric forms of eugenics. Christopher Graney from the Vatican Observatory notes the textbook was “very explicit about eugenics”: 

“There you can see, if you have the stomach for it, that the book was very explicit about eugenics. It uses the word eugenics. It openly cheerleads for eugenics.  It describes the poor, handicapped, and insane as ‘true parasites’ and adds, regarding a ‘remedy’ for these parasites: ‘If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race.” 

Scientists can be tempted to advocate for the grossly unethical. Many feel that if it can be done, it should be done. But often this is incorrect. When science is applied to human endeavors, the measure should be: Is this in accordance with the will of God, God’s plan for the universe? Ought this to be done? Now, we find ourselves in the realm of theology, philosophy and ethics. 

What About Today?  

The reigning view of many in the academy today is a daunting combination of radical materialism and a dogmatic postmodern relativism. This reductionist combination excludes almost all theology and ethics and fails to describe reality as it really is. 

An authentic search for the truth using the classical methods associated both with ethics and science liberates us from this narrow and constricted ideology. Truth can never contradict truth so we as Catholic Christians have nothing to fear and much to gain in a disciplined and rigorous pursuit of truth in all fields and disciplines.  

Let the hard work begin.