May Orthodox be evolutionist

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleМожет ли православный быть эволюционистом
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Saprykin, Dmitry
5. lemma category Scientific theories and disciplines > Biology:evolution - Various approaches to the problem of correlation between science and theology
6. Publication date 1999
7. lemma work Кураев Андрей диакон [Author]. May Orthodox be evolutionist
8. lemma manifestations Той повеле, и создашася. Современные ученые о сотворении мира. : He commanded, and it stood fast. Modern scientists on the world creation.
9. Keywords Evolution - Bible - interpretations - Genesis, Bible
10. Citations
    1. http://predanie.ru/kuraev-andrey-protodiakon/book/71839-chelovek-prihodit-v-mir-mozhet-li-pravoslavnyy-byt-evolyucionistom/
11. Lemma body

    1. In this article Kuraev debates with Orthodox creationists, arguing that emergence of life according to the book of Genesis is both evolution (because the earth "has produced" plants and protozoa), and at the same time, a "jump to life", which has happened due to God's command.

       Kuraev believes that the Orthodox scholars’ trend towards creationism is more novelty than tradition (which the author links with Zenkovsky, Ilyin, Soloviev, etc.) and it is rooted in reliance on Protestant sources. Kuraev describes three reasons of creationism to be popular in the Protestant environment.

       The author examines the most pressing topics in the debate of evolutionists and creationists. Creationists, for example, Jer. Seraphim Rose, are convinced that death is a consequence of human sin, and since the pre-human world had no sin, it is impossible in terms of theology to suspect the presence of death in it. Kuraev believes that the death of animals, their accessibility to decay is neither a violation of the Creator's Plan nor a sin or a distortion of the creative will, as "the Bible does not promise eternity to our world. Eternity is prepared only for the human soul”.

       The second argument of the Orthodox anti-evolutionists is based on the patristic texts that deny the existence of suffering and death (inevitably linked with the evolution) in the Garden of Eden, where humans and animals were in a blissful state. Kuraev however believes that the Garden of Eden was not the whole world before the fall, and even the Garden and the Eden was not the same, and it is possible that outside the fence of Eden there functioned all the laws of the struggle for existence. Furthermore, according to Deacon Andrey’s view, the world in which man has appeared cannot be the same world where people had to live and grow, because there is no creation without destruction in natural laws and in natural cycles, but for the human, destruction is dangerous. "A man has to be protected from the dominance of the cosmic laws, and only the cosmos Creator, an Above-Space being, can give him this protection,"- writes Kuraev.

       The third argument of anti-evolutionists is: before the fall of man there could be no predators in the world ("And to every beast of the earth I have given every green herb for meat" - Genesis 1.30). Kuraev suggests that if one in his interpretations related this God establishment to only the near-Eden world, it would not be controversial to the theory of evolution any more, as science cannot investigate Eden experience, it only deals with the out-of-Eden world.

       In general, the author makes a conclusion that there is no reason for the Orthodoxy to deny the thesis that the Creator created matter capable to benevolent development, unlike paganism demonizing the matter and Protestantism depriving the created world of the right to co-creation.