Kolbe Center: Pope Pius XI’s understanding of the Catholic Doctrine of Creation

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Pope Pius XI exposed the scientific and theological weakness of Darwin’s theory
Alongside a lack of scientific evidence for the evolutionary proposition of natural selection and ‘unknown internal causes’ supposedly driving transformations, Pope Pius XI shows the philosophical impossibility of Darwin’s theory.



Pope Pius XI
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Mon Feb 3, 2025
Life Site News Editor’s note: This article is Part 3 of a four-part study of Pope Pius XI’s understanding of the Catholic doctrine of creation as opposed to the modern scientific proposition of the evolution of mankind. Parts 1 and 2 can be found HERE and HERE.

(Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation) — Pope Pius XI’s close analysis of Darwin’s theory of the evolution of man by natural selection and the similarities between the species has shown how the thesis fails on an evidentiary basis.

The future pope proceeds to demolish the rest of the evolutionists’ principal arguments:

Given these conditions, what the transformists say about the unified animal type and about the universal common derivation on account of the uniformity of the embryonic structure can certainly, to say the least, be turned back against them.

Nor, in short, does the system prove anything from the rudiments [i.e. “vestigial organs”]. For, in the first place, Darwin contradicts and entangles himself. Indeed, the alleged reduction of the organs to a kind of rudiment is certainly a type of transformation; and the clear explanation of all transformations, according to Darwin is found in the theory of natural selection. But this kind of selection chooses only what is useful and is to be preserved; however, those rudimentary parts are said to be useless.

Hence Darwin, as if to excuse himself from such a weak explanation, reverts to non-use. He soon admits that even this medium is inept, and at last takes refuge in the supposition of one progenitor, who obtained these parts in a state of full development. But this is to base the argument on that very thing for which it had been invented to demonstrate. Secondly, the uselessness of the parts in question is falsely assumed. Indeed, in some cases, their usefulness is completely clear. And if their service is not always known, it is not therefore absolutely deniable; although there is certainly something useful in the fact that these parts correspond to the fundamental structure and harmony of the organism.

Nor, however, is the transformists’ argument helped in any way by such utilities; its very first foundation is false. For parts of this kind are only abusively called rudimentary. Why is it that, when the frontiers of both history and paleontology are widely explored, those parts are always found in the same state? You will say that in the lower animals they are found more developed. But this does not prove that in the human body there are only the remains or remnants of those same parts, but only that there are homologous parts, and that they are in that degree of perfection which befits the rest of the human organism.

Second, the means of transformism are in part absurd, in part arbitrary, but altogether insufficient. The means of spontaneous generation and effort due to necessity [i.e. struggle for existence] are absurd. For indeed the first utterly subverts the most certain idea of life itself, and posits an effect without any greater proportion to the cause, and, without being helped by the support of even a single fact, is perpetually contradicted by experience; especially after the observations made in recent times. Hence this kind of theory is rejected by the greatest naturalists themselves, although they admit on the other hand that no middle ground can be given between spontaneous generation and creation.

Nor is the other means any less absurd; for it is one thing for exercise to perfect the organs, and quite another for it to produce or completely transform them; which is almost the same as saying that the cause is produced from the effect. And why is it, ultimately, that no such transformation or production takes place? They assume a permanent law, but again, why is it that paleontology has revealed no trace of such transformation or production? And more about these below. But what is the benefit, what is the use of the organs during the very slow production or transformation?

The rest of the proposed means of the transformation of species, if not so manifestly absurd, must certainly be called arbitrary. These, in fact, the transformists reduce to one main principle which all the rest serve instrumentally, namely natural selection or election. But firstly, regarding this selection, the fundamental reasoning of Darwin himself is this: “If, as we see, artificial selection is possible in animals, what will not be accomplished by natural selection?”

Now, aside from the fact that this natural selection is not demonstrated, but is assumed, the modifications introduced by artificial selection certainly never affect the species itself.

The means of this selection belong either to external circumstances, or to the organism’s unknown and inner causes. But in neither hypothesis can they be admitted as means for the transformation of species. For external circumstances certainly pertain to the existential condition of living things; but the transformationists wrongly confuse the principles of condition and cause. Likewise, daily experience establishes that the influence of external agents never affects the species themselves. Hence, what reason suggests is confirmed, namely that the influence of such agents, as regards the final determination of the effect, is received in different organisms according to the manner of the recipient.

Now it is clear from the fact that they are called unknown that the internal causes of a specific transformation are arbitrarily set. Assuming that organisms have an intrinsic tendency to self-destruction is also an obstacle, however, unless it is falsely assumed that there is no substantial difference between different species.

All this being said, it is clear that all the aforementioned proposed means to the end of transformation must be considered completely insufficient: this Darwin himself acknowledged.

Third: The suppositions by which the whole theory of transformism is laid out are either gratuitous or false.

Gratuitous, to say the least, is the assertion of the transformists about the enormous, indeed indefinite antiquity of man. For the arguments they bring forward, whether from history, or from astronomy, or from geology, paleontology, and archaeology, together with theories about the progress of our species from a savage state to a more humane one, which the very guardians of antiquity admit, either prove nothing, or they even prove the opposite.

The second supposition concerning the variability of the species is not only gratuitous, but also manifestly false.

Indeed, although within the limits of each species we see almost innumerable varieties arise, the limits of the species themselves cannot always be defined ἐν ἀτόμῳ [literally “in an indivisible unit”], so to speak; yet each species always retains its own particular face, by which it is undoubtedly distinguished from the rest.

Additionally, there is the constant fact of fecundity between individuals of the same species, and infertility or hybridism between individuals of a different species. Also, there is a perpetual effort on the part of nature toward the purity of the type, so to speak, or to recover what has been lost through simple variations. Adding to these are all the facts mentioned below which overturn the very substance of the theory. Hence it is no wonder that all of the greatest cultivators of science, from the ancients to the most recent, except of course the transformists themselves, have held the stability of species to be the most certain truth of observation and experience.

But as regards the human species in particular, it is absolutely indubitable that it is and always has been one and the same, whatever the transformists may say. There are indeed differences both in color and in shape, chiefly in the head, and also in the tongue. But their conformity in substantial characteristics, whether physical or intellectual and moral, as well as the absence of hybridism, proves that all these things are contained within the limits of certain varieties of the same species. And those genetic variations which do exist are not difficult to explain from the primitive unity of the human family and its propagation throughout the world, without resorting to the transformation of species. This primitive unity and propagation is certainly evident from the histories and traditions of almost all peoples, from the comparative study of languages, and from the weakness of the objections against it.

The metaphysical impossibility of evolution

Continuing from Ratti:

Fourth: Finally, the whole assertion of transformism contradicts certain principles of philosophy and facts found in the natural sciences themselves.

There are three philosophical principles which transformism contradicts most.

The first is the principle of causality or efficient causes, which forbids positing an effect without a sufficient cause, under penalty of absurdity. And this is what the transformationists do; for they assign no cause, no means of transformation, which does not appear either arbitrary or absurd, as is clear from what has been said.

The second is the principle of final causes, or the teleological principle; which indeed, rightly understood, is absolutely irrefutable; nor are the Darwinists and transformationists able to overcome it, for they admit it in a universal way of speaking, but, having rejected the creative and intelligent cause, they cannot explain it in any way.

Finally, the third principle is the spirituality of the human soul and its essential difference from the soul of beasts; which can only absurdly be said to be derived through transformism, and the production of which must be explained solely through the immediate creative action of God. But our topic is the origin of man regarding the body.

And yet they do not commit themselves to this principle in the least, who, reserving the origin of the soul by creation, think that evolution can be admitted only of the human body. For by virtue of the principle of causality, the generative force, never going beyond using the vegetative and sensitive order, could not introduce into matter that ultimate disposition which is necessary for union, unless it acted as a kind of instrument of the rational soul.

But whatever the ultimate question of law may be, the question of fact must be considered resolved, both by those [facts] which consist of revelation and by those which demonstrate the intrinsic falsity of evolutionism.

Moreover, the facts which contradict the theories of the transformists can be recalled to a double order, as far as they are negative or positive, so to speak. Among the negative facts we list firstly that there is not even one example of the actual transformation of any species into another, which the leaders of the transformists themselves are forced to acknowledge reluctantly. For if varieties arise naturally or artificially day by day, they never pass beyond the limits of the species.

But if one wishes to have those monstrosities and deformities that occur here and there as evidence of evolutionism under the term “atavism,” and not as generally plain and morbid disorders of generation, this [argument] would descend into absurdity due to their nature and variety. To this end they resort to the law of permanence; what is this but the confession of the stability of species? They say that transformations can only be accomplished gradually and over long ages. But why is it that however long history and archeology extend themselves, we always see the same species represented without change? (1)47

Furthermore, not even geology and paleontology, in any or the remotest age of the world, have been able to reveal any trace of evolution, that is, intermediate forms between different species: in fact, the very hope of such a revelation disappeared for Darwin himself, although he admits that such forms should be very numerous according to his theory.

They try to solve the problem with sudden migrations or the destruction of fossil remains. But these gratuitous assertions, or rather falsehoods, are not demonstrated in a single case.

They appeal to a practical lack of knowledge. But this argument proves too much, as it can always be used against any hypothesis; on the contrary, there is no such general lack of knowledge, nor can the perfection of such knowledge ever consist in the destruction of preexisting acquired facts and unquestionable principles.

The contradiction increases if the facts are presented positively. In the first place there are some more general facts about the first successive appearance of living things. For contrary to what evolutionism would demand, it is evident that many forms abruptly appeared at the same time; and not the least in the sequence of organic perfection; nor was the appearance progressive, except in the highest divisions of organisms, but like a sudden leap.

Then there are specific facts, such as the progressive degradation and diminution of many forms, or their completely distinct existence in and of themselves, so to speak: the absolute extinction of many, or, on the contrary, their persistence in one and the same never-changing type, and many more others than can even be entered here.

Finally, there are some very technical facts which directly concern man himself, which show that he was never more akin to the beast than he is now. These include the bones and skulls of primitive men found in caves, which conform perfectly to the modern types. Here the lacustrine areas are noted, and the records of the three ages, that of stone, of brass, and of iron; which seem to have belonged to a fairly well-proportioned society of men.

After all that’s now been said, the famous Agassiz’s view, which presents the whole Darwinian theory not as a legitimate development from the data of modern science, but as a certain preconceived notion, will certainly seem justified.

READ: God’s character and Our Lady’s words show that evolution is impossible