Creation or Evolution? A Catholic Dilemma

Creation or Evolution? A Catholic Dilemma To reconcile faith and science, is it enough to say “God could have used evolution”? Many Christians adopt this theistic-evolution point of view. It is now treated as the quasi-official Catholic position. Yet can it really harmonize Scripture, theology, and modern science? How does it align with the Bible read through the Church’s long tradition and in light of classical Christian philosophy? Does it resolve the tension between Genesis and the Church Fathers on one side and the grand evolutionary narrative embraced by atheists on the other? And what role should intelligent design play in Catholic teaching? Creation or Evolution? A Catholic Dilemma presents a searching dialogue between two Catholics—a layman with long pastoral experience and a Dominican priest-scholar specializing in the faith-and-science debate—who probe whether theistic evolution remains a viable option for believers or whether creation, rightly understood, offers the sounder foundation for understanding life, humanity, and the cosmos.

Advanced Praise for Creation or Evolution? A Catholic Dilemma “Fr. Chaberek is deeply steeped in the Catholic intellectual tradition while at the same time being more sensitive to the advances of modern science than almost anyone in the dialogue about science and religion. I cannot recommend his work highly enough!”

— Logan P. Gage , PhD, Franciscan University of Steubenville

“Fr. Michael Chaberek is offering fascinating information and suggestions that are very hard to find elsewhere. His research provides us with original insights very much needed in the Church right now—and in society as a whole.”

— Bruce Chapman , co-founder of Seattle's Discovery Institute

“Catholics who instinctively know that there is something fundamentally flawed with theistic evolution nevertheless have to work very hard to find the details for themselves. So they should be grateful to Fr. Chaberek for clearly setting out the problems and giving them confidence that the perennial teaching about the creation and fall of Adam and Eve is true.”

— Fr. Martin Hilbert , PhD, author of A Catholic Case for Intelligent Design

“Fr. Michael Chaberek breaks through the impasse between older, entrenched positions, and reaches instead for a new vision of how God created and fashioned our universe, and life on planet earth.”

— Robert Stackpole , STD, John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy

Fr. Michael Chaberek , SThD is a Dominican friar of the Polish Province, with a doctorate in systematic theology from Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. He directs the Steno Institute for Faith and Science. He has published three books in English (Catholicism and Evolution, 2015, Aquinas and Evolution, 2017, and Knowledge and Evolution, 2021) and many articles on the faith-science dialogue. He seeks to renew the Catholic theology of creation through a new intelligent-design and progressive-creation paradigm.

Steve Greene is Director of Holy Family Institute of Catholic Faith and Life and host of the Reasonably Rational YouTube podcast. He has taught philosophy, theology, and ethics for a variety of institutions, and presents regularly on issues of faith, science and culture.