Diocesan Resources
Catechetical Sunday 2011 Supernatural Selection Evolution and Going to Church
“Supernatural Selection”: Evolution and Going to Church by Christopher T. Baglow, PhD, Director of the Master of Arts Program in Theological Studies and Professor of Theology Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans (in English and Spanish)
Dr. Baglow proposes a bold analogy: biological evolution and faithful participation in the liturgy follow parallel structures. Just as natural evolution develops life toward its fullness, the liturgy develops believers toward eternal life. Mass attendance, therefore, is not blind obligation but the environment necessary for a kind of “supernatural evolution.”
Dr. Baglow argues that understanding evolution helps Catholics grasp why the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life”. The liturgy is not merely obligation but the divinely designed environment for the emergence of eternal life, where believers say “Amen” to God and become fully who God created them to be.
Key Themes
- The Catholic Faith and Evolution Are Compatible
- The Church has long affirmed harmony between evolution and Christian doctrine (e.g., Wasmann, Catholic Encyclopedia; Pope Benedict XVI).
- Misunderstandings arise when people see God and nature as competing causes, rather than primary (God) and secondary (creatures) causality working together.
- Creatures act through natural processes because God empowers them; thus creation’s development is both God’s work and creation’s response.
- This mutual “yes” is expressed liturgically in the word “Amen.”
The "Amen" of Creation
- Evolution is creation’s long, slow "amen" to God’s creative Word and Spirit.
- Human beings give creation’s fullest “amen” through free, intelligent worship, especially in the Eucharist.
- Humanity becomes the “Great Amen” of creation.
2. Liturgy as "Supernatural Selection"
Dr. Baglow uses the analogy of evolution to illuminate why Mass participation is essential:
Liturgy = Christ's Work Made Ours
- The word liturgy originally meant a public work done by a few for the good of many.
- Christ’s saving work continues in the liturgy, and believers—incorporated into Christ—participate in this work.
- The liturgy becomes the environment in which the “new race” of the baptized grows into divine life.
Symmetry Between Natural and Supernatural Evolution
Just as natural evolution unfolds:
- Creation begins with simple forms leading to complexity;
- Redemption begins with Christ, who contains all eternal life and diffuses it sacramentally.
Both involve:
- gradual development,
- transformation through an environment suited to growth,
- cooperation of divine initiative and creaturely participation.
Where the Analogy Inverts
- In natural evolution, one becomes many; in the liturgy, the many become one Body in Christ.
- Natural diversity leads to divisions; the liturgy unites diverse peoples.
- Natural life spreads by surviving; divine life spreads through Christ’s self‑giving death and our Eucharistic communion.
3. Why Mass Attendance Is Necessary
- Just as creatures that fail to adapt become extinct, Christians who do not immerse themselves in the liturgy risk failing to adapt to the life of heaven.
- The liturgy slowly adapts believers to a supernatural habitat they cannot reach by natural powers.
- Growth in holiness is gradual—like evolution—often imperceptible but real.
- The Eucharist feeds the “new creature” within us, forming a “supernatural genome” (the Fathers called this divinization).