GOD IN CREATION AND EVOLUTION

Father Hulbosch's book is one more in a steadily growing stream of works the purpose of which is to reconcile theological truth with the proved data of the empirical sciences. Relying to a large extent on the biblical account of creation and of man's pre-literary history, he succeeds in demonstrating quite clearly that the scientific fact of evolution -- i.e., of the coming into being of our planet from a mysterious primal condition several billions of years in the past, and of the continuing formation of ever more complicated chemical structures at every level -- is in no way in conflict with any basic tenet of traditional religious beliefs. The past conflict between science and religion on this point as on so many others, the author points out, lay not so much in the fact itself as in the way in which the fact was formulated. The solution, for the past as well as for the future, is to be found in the willingness of theologians, upon the establishment of relevant scientific hypotheses as proved fact, to re-formulate theological truths in such a way as to take such facts into account, while leaving intact the basic revealed truth underlying any theological formulation. Father Hulbosch writes for the general reador, avoiding confusing terminology as carefully as he does ad hominen argumentation. His book should be of great interest to students and to the adult Catholic.