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FATHER STANLEY L. JAKI : SOPHIST
Paula Haigh
In his book, The Savior of Science(Regnery, Gateway, 1988) Fr. Jaki deals with “creation science” in Chapter Six entitled “The Creator in the Dock”, under the subtitle of “Creation science: a strategicerror”, pages 198-203. It seems that Fr. Jaki is describing the empirical science of the Protestant creationists as a “strategic error“. What is the nature of this error?
The essence of that strategic error is that it distracts from what can be said about creation as a divine act and shifts attention to something concerning that act about which nothing can be said. About the act of creation one can meaningfully focus on its factuality, namely, that it happened, that it is an act whereby things that did not exist began to exist. This in a sense is not much.. The doctrine of creation out of nothing is possibly the starkest of all doctrines. It is like a huge infinite gap of which only the ramparts or edges can be seen. But those edges put us in contact with the infinite chasm of mere nothing on whose edge perches our puny existence, a gratuitous drop from the infinite richness of God’s existence that alone can arch over the infinite abyss of non-existence.
Is it possible that Fr. Jaki is speaking here of the Protestant creationist scientists connoted by the chapter sub-heading? There is no way of knowing. All that one can say with certitude is that his words make reference to at least two distinct disciplines:
1.The factuality of creation considered as the totality of existing things must be established by the philosophical discipline of epistemology; it must be established not only that we can know things but also how we know, that is, the acts of the mind vis a vis existing things must also be described.
2The study of God’s creative activity belongs properly to theology, and St. Thomas Aquinas treats of it in Questions 44 through 74 of his Summa -- hardly the “starkest of doctrines” in the work of the great theologians of the past.
According to St. Thomas, creation ex nihilo and in time is a truth of divine faith and cannot be known or demonstrated by unaided reason. It is a truth revealed in the first chapter of Genesis. Fr. Jaki knows this. But what is puzzling is that he should bring in the theological doctrine of creation against “creation science” which, as practiced by both Protestants and Catholics these days, does notpretend to construct a philosophy or a theology but concerns itself onlywith the empirical evidences for creation and, in the case of Catholic creationists, the empirical evidences along with papal pronouncements and Church documents supporting a literal interpretation of Genesis 1. What can the sciences of epistemology and theology have against these empirical evidences? Students and scholars of creation should not be chastised by Fr. Jaki for studying the empirical evidences, as long as these do not conflict with the truths of Faith. It is therefore difficult to see any kind of strategic error in the work of the creationist scientists. They are simply doing what all scientists do, only they do it in the light of divine faith. What we do see, however, especially we Catholics, is a scandalous rejection of traditional Catholic theology and philosophy in favor of a new false process philosophy/theology seeking to accommodate the truths of Faith with the error of evolution. Here is Fr. Jaki’s second paragraph:
For various reasons it is tempting to grow dissatisfied with that starkly naked vision of the fact
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of creation. One reason is philosophical shallowness, very characteristic of modern times increasingly engrossed with the how. This lopsided interest in the how is heavily fueled by science, which is always about the how or manner in which processes take place. One of the prominent victims of that lopsided scientific interest was Teilhard de Chardin. His superb poetry in prose made countless poetic as well as prosaic minds think that the supposed manner of creation was far more important than its fact. In the end, many of them ended up with a universe with no Creator and with a man that was not created.
At least Fr. Jaki has here given us an example of one kind of creation science that he might be talking about. And his point is well made. Teilhard de Chardin reduced everything that could be called “creation” to the evolutionary process, thereby rendering unrecognizable the face of God the Creator known to Christian doctrine. But it is impossible to see that Fr. Jaki could in any sense be speaking here of those scientists usually called “creation scientists” because creation scientists are not studying the how of creation in their empirical work: they are studying the products of the original creation as described in Genesis 1. And they study these contemporary products of the original creation with one aim in view: to disprove evolution, that is, to disprove the claim that the products of creation could in any way arise either by theistic or atheistic evolutionary processes. Fr. Jaki’s next paragraph brings us closer to the real target of his scorn:
The other reason for shifting attention from the fact of creation to its manner is a rather unenlightened engrossment with the Bible and especially with the creation story.
Fr. Jaki is building a straw man. Creation scientists are not engrossed with the how of creation. They are engrossed, as all scientists are,with the how of the operations of nature, with the operations of secondary causes. This is legitimate scientific activity. But if we continue with Fr. Jaki’s paragraph, Catholics will be embarrassed, Protestants will be disgusted, and both with good reason. Still, it must be done in the interest of truth. I will interrupt Fr. Jaki’s discourse as occasion arises, not in great detail, for all that is done elsewhere, but just enough to let him know that he is not succeeding in his diversionary sophistry for those of us who hold to the constant teaching of the Church and who know the papal pronouncements that anathematize his views as modernist heresy. On the face of it, he says, Genesis 1 is about the manner, the how of creation..Genesis 1 has always been understood by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church as telling us, by divine revelation, just how creation happened, i.e., by direct Fiat of God in a series of acts during the first six days of the world. During Creation Week, God not only established the entire natural order of things, with its pattern of time, but also gave to mankind the model for him to follow in his own life: work six days and rest on the seventh. (Cf. Exodus 20: 8-11). Modern studies of biorhythms show that this pattern is the best for man and that he suffers if the work-week is lengthened or shortened. One frequently hears the comment that Genesis tells us that God created all things; it is for science to tell us how He did it. And this they refer to evolutionary interpretations of nature. The truth is otherwise: God has told us how He created all things. It is divinely revealed fact, in Genesis 1-3, for those who believe. Fr. Jaki continues:
Such is a self-defeating exegesis for two reasons. For one, it deprives one of seeing the true message of Genesis 1. According to that message, God is a supreme exclusive Lord over all, because all owes its being to Him. Because of this all is good in a most emphatic way.
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Fr. Jaki could not name one single creation scientist who does not admit and advertise this “true message” of Genesis l. Obviously, he has not read the literature of the Protestant creationist scientists. But let him continue:
According to Genesis 1, and it is there that it differs most from Babylonian and Egyptian cosmogonies, God, the Lord, can have no rival, let alone an evil rival.
Again, no creationist scientist would deny the truth of this statement. But now we come to the heart of the matter:
For another, the taking of Genesis 1 for an account of the manner of the how of creation leaves one hapless when it comes to explaining what really happened once Adam and Eve began their career, short-lived to be sure, in Paradise. One day they heard nothing less than Almighty God walk through the Garden of Eden in the afternoon breeze, Of course, God can produce the sensory impression as if He were walking. But this is beside the point. The point is rather that if the manner of creation as given in Genesis 1 is to be taken literally, the phrase of Genesis 3, “God walked in the Paradise Garden,” afternoon breeze or not, cannot be taken figuratively. Anyone with a modest respect for consistency will have to grant that. As to those unsure about the meaning of such a big word as “consistency,” the story about the gander, the goose, and the sauce may do the trick.
God is not mocked, nor is His Word rejected with impunity. But we leave that to Fr. Jaki’s Savior and Judge. As for the rest, I have not been able to find Fr. Jaki’s view of “what really happened”, but then, perhaps this, too, is beside the point. The main thing to notice here is that Fr. Jaki is not talking about creation at all, neither its fact nor its manner. Nor is he talking about creation scientists. He is talking about what he sees to be the incredibility of Genesis 1-3, and this, obviously, proves that he is unable to believe the creation story plus the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall. Fr. Jaki is simply our typical modernist whose scientism has destroyed his supernatural Faith.
Fr. Jaki notwithstanding, there is nothing unreasonable in the account of God walking in the Garden of Eden to talk with Adam and Eve. Nor is a sensible illusion at all necessary to account for the occurrence. There are other places in Scripture where God appears in sensible form to His servants: to Abraham before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:1-2); to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:2-14ff); to Elias on Mount Horeb (3 Kings 19:10-13), etc. All these appearances of God to His servants are foreshadowings of the Incarnation. Fr. Jaki speaks often of the Incarnation in his books, so we may hope that he does not doubt this truth of Faith. But now we do come to the open exposure of Fr. Jaki’s loss of Faith in Holy Scripture as the inerrant Word of God, no less an article of Faith than the Incarnation:
Once this modest amount of consistency is lacking, the Creator will be put in a miserable dock. Once there, God the Creator has to perform in a way that is most undignified not only for Him but also for any finite intellect created by Him and to His image. In that dock God has to perform miracles that are nonsensical, such as the making of light before making a sun. He also has to perform the minutiae of creating, and in a most meticulous sequence, millions of species of plants and animals. Heaps of miracles do exactly what mountains of banknotes do: in both cases the currency loses its trustworthiness.
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Fr. Jaki demands that God’s ways be the ways of modern evolutionary science and poor human logic. But the main error of this passage, and it is a theological error, is to think of creation by God as a miracle. Creation by God is the bringing into existence of the entire natural order upon which miracles are predicated and which they presuppose. Miracles are the setting aside or the transcending, by God’s own power, of the natural law and order created by Him in the beginning. Creation, being an act of God’s Will and Power, is as natural to Him as natural activity is to His creatures. And so, it is an error to speak of God’s creation as a miracle. Two points to remember:
- Miracles presuppose the natural created order.
- Creation by God requires nothing that transcends or puts aside His nature, but quite the opposite: it is of God’s very nature to be able to create beings out of nothing because He is infinite Being, allActuality, the omnipotent source of all existence, upon Whom all things -- including Fr. Jaki’s impudence -- depend.
These are points of theology that Fr. Jaki should know. It is true that the Protestant creationists often fail to notice or make the distinction between creation and miracle. There is some excuse for them, being only empirical scientists, not theologians. But there is no excuse at all for Fr. Jaki,and he commits this error frequently in his books.
There is no difficulty for God to bring into existence, by an act of His Will and His Power, the “millions of species!" that were indeed brought into being on the third, fifth, and sixth days. As a matter of fact, the real sense of Genesis 1:20, for example, is Let the waters teem or swarmabundantly with the moving creature that has life. The ordinary translation of bring forth is not a good rendering of the original Hebrew.
There is sound exegesis for every one of Fr. Jaki’s objections. I leave for another place the hexameron of St. Thomas which sums up all the hexamera of the Fathers and Doctors that came before. I will turn, instead, for Fr. Jaki’s benefit, to one of those despised creation scientists about whom Fr. Jaki's chapter is ostensibly written.
Dr. Henry Morris, in his masterpiece The Genesis Record (Creation-Life, 1976), after an irrefutable explanation of the word day (Hebrew yom) in Genesis 1 as referring to a literal cyclical light-dark arrangement corresponding to our twenty-four hour day, goes on to explain the significance of the light created by God on the first day:
…it is obvious that visible light is primarily meant, since it was set in contrast to darkness. At the same time, the presence of visible light waves necessarily involves the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Beyond the visible light waves are, on the one hand, ultraviolet light and all the other short wavelength radiations and, on the other hand, infrared light and the other long wave phenomena.
…in turn, setting the electromagnetic forces into operation in effect completed the energizing of the physical cosmos. All the types of forces and energy which interact in the universe involve only electromagnetic, gravitational, and nuclear forces; and all of these had now been activated. Though no doubt oversimplified, this tremendous creative act of the Godhead might be
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summarized by saying that the nuclear forces maintaining the integrity of matter were activated by the Father when He created the elements of the space-mass-time continuum, the gravitational forces were activated by the Spirit when He brought form and motion to the
initially static and formless matter, and the electromagnetic forces were activated by the Word when He called light into existence out of the darkness. Of course, God is One, and all three persons of the Godhead actually participated in all parts of the creation and continue to function in the maintenance of the universe so created.
All of this was accomplished on the first day of creation. The physical universe had been created out of nothing and energized, and was ready for further shaping and furnishing in preparation for man, whose dominion it would be.
(pages 56-57)
Catholic theology can find no error in these words. Catholic philosophy will have much to add by way of harmonious and agreeable explanation. Only modernists like Fr. Jaki can object to an exegesis so fully in the tradition of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.
But Catholic theology has plenty of fault to find with Father Jaki’s exposition of Genesis 1. On pages 54-76of his book there is a section titled The Universe of Genesis 1, wherein he treats the creation story in a manner one would expect to come from the pen of an atheist like Bertrand Russell or Isaac Asimov. He compares God to a builder whose superiority over his raw materials is sneeringly suggested by his ability to construct first the upper structure of the “cosmic tent”, the vault separating the upper from the lower waters, and then the ground level or solid earth, “safely floating on unfathomable waters ..." This is an utterly false reading of Genesis 1 and displays an unaccountable ignorance of the original language. Here is what Dr. Morris says:
The word “firmament” is the Hebrew "raqia", meaning expanse or “spread-out-thinness.” It may well be synonymous with our modern technical term “space,” practically the same as discussed earlier in connection with the meaning of “heaven”. In fact, this passage specifically says that “God called the firmament Heaven. …
(page 58)
There is, of course, much more, but it need not be added here. The work of the Protestant creationists is there for Catholic theologians to read and correct if they wish. But it must be said in all honesty - that when one is acquainted with the work of men like Henry Morris, Duane Gish, Richard Bliss, and many others, and what these men have done by way of explaining the implications of Holy Scripture -- one is struck, literally impacted as by a blow, upon reading the likes of Fr. Jaki, by emotions of shock, pity, anger, that a Catholic theologian should be so willfully ignorant and so contemptuous of obvious truth.