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that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory. [Note: John Paul II’s address was published on October 22, 1996, as a translation into English from French. In the November 19, 1996, edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the editor, Father Robert Dempsey, explained that the paper’s original translation was overly literal and that instead of “more than one hypothesis,” John Paul II’s intent was to say that the theory of evolution is “more than a hypothesis” (plus qu’une hypothèse, where the indefinite article une should be read as “a” not “one”).]

John Paul II showed the depth of his reading in the evolutionary sciences by his awareness of the plurality of levels of evolutionary analysis: “And, to tell the truth, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution. On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based.” It is in these philosophies where the “Church’s Magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man: Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God.” Since “truth cannot contradict truth,” and since both the Bible and the theory of evolution are true, how does John Paul II reconcile the existence of body and soul? He finds a solution in Aristotle and Aquinas, in their belief that the body and soul are ontologically separate. Evolution created the body, God created the soul:

With man, then, we find ourselves in the presence of an ontological difference, an ontological leap, one could say. However, does not the posing of such ontological discontinuity run counter to that physical continuity which seems to be the main thread of research into evolution in the field of physics and chemistry? Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again, of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection, while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator’s plans.

Catholics, says the Pope, can have faith and reason, religion and science.

A THREE-TIERED MODEL OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Implied (but not directly stated) in John Paul II’s address is his division of knowledge into types: empirical (science), reason (philosophy), and faith (religion). The Pope’s blending of these epistemologies places him squarely in the second tier of what is here proposed as a three-tiered model of the relationship between science and religion.

1.

Conflicting-Worlds Model. This “warfare” model of science and religion, in its modern incarnation dates back to the 1874 publication of John William Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, and the 1896 publication of Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, for three-quarters of a century considered the definitive histories of the relationship. In his preface Draper explained the difference between two ways of knowing: “Faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence between them, impossible to