Charles Darwin startled many 19th century believers by claiming, from his observations on the Pacific island of Galapagos, that some forms of life evolved from others. The fittest survived by adapting. The less fit perished by failing to adapt. This meant not just salamanders but homo sapiens, people descending (or should we say ascending) from apes. Even those who seldom went to church took offense since Genesis seems to say clearly that God created each species one by one, in excellent order, with humans at the top of the system, on the final day of creation. Who did Darwin think he was?
It is little controversy for us now that we know how to read the two (somewhat conflicting) creation accounts, as the human author intended us to understand them: figuratively. Genesis wanted us to see that the one God of Israel created all the world. In that it is accurate and divinely inspired. But because it was common then to explain to adults difficult concepts using parables, we know not to interpret the creation accounts literally. Jesus, a good Jew, taught this way, having learned from the Hebrew Scriptures. Genesis teaches faith, not science.
All of which leads us to social Darwinism, which has higher forms of economic life evolving from lower ones. With this we have much more difficulty, especially if we are capitalists. This kind of “progress” sees wealthier types using their muscle to press ahead to ever greater wealth, usually at the expense of the poor who staff their factories and fields. The fittest survive. Ayn Rand, the atheist novelist who rhapsodized the beauties of greed long before Gordon Gecko, and told us to ignore the poor since they are lazy and incompetent, and stood for an anti-Christian view of life, has become the patroness of ruthless financial evolution. In this, it is a holy thing for the rich to dominate.
What is wrong with this? Are we not programmed to admire the successful and to scorn the unemployed? It rather depends on whether our religion is Christianity or capitalism. This is not to say that we cannot be both. But we have to be Christian before being capitalists. Christians believe that all people are created in God’s image even if they look different from us, even if they are poorer than us, even if they live in other countries whose products we sometimes steal at prices we the buyers set. The sellers do not get a voice in some pricing. This is where the economically fittest not only survive but prevail.
If everyone else is made as we are, in God’s image, they are equal to us and may not be treated the way we see economically oppressed people abused. As shocking as it sounds, we must treat them as sister and brother, not as serf or slave. In fact, Pope John Paul II went as far as saying that the poor enjoy a preferential option, a higher status precisely because they have been reduced to poverty.
At this point, many readers do not want to read on. They reflexively state with disgust that this is socialism. Not even knowing the technical definition of this economic term, some Americans with more loyalty to Adam Smith than to Jesus misuse the term, making a wrong accusation. Unaware that socialism seeks to have the government own all property, and to have government dictate (as they did in the failed U.S.S.R.) what each factory is to make, and what each employee is to do, they throw around the term erroneously. In fact, some go so far as to use the adjective “fascist” in the same sentence to derogate someone or something, unaware that fascism and socialism are at opposite ends of the scale.
Papal teaching tells us that government is to be a servant of the people. It should not be too big. But neither should it ignore the little people since they are equal in dignity to the wealthier. It has to create safety nets and police financial transactions to guarantee that the wealthier do not exploit the otherwise defenseless working people whose only commodity they have to sell in order to make a living is their work.
So often today we hear that safety nets and regulations to guard against things like sub-prime mortgage bundling cost us too much in taxes. So they should be dropped. I fail to see why anyone other than the 1 percent could agree.
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