Catholics: No, Thomas Aquinas did believe we can see design in nature

In recent years, one has heard much from Darwinists dismissing the pious yokels with “the Catholic Church supports evolution Darwinism.”

evolution Darwinism’s three characteristics are that it is blind, purposeless, and the only kind Darwinists force on the school system and science in general. How how likely is it that the Catholic Church supports it>

Hardly likely, but as Logan Gage puts the matter in Touchstone,

Given the active role of God in nature in Thomas’s system, one might think today’s Thomists would encourage the pursuit of signs of intelligent design in nature. Yet in recent years, some Thomists have shied away from ID. They do so not only because of lax scrutiny of the tensions just discussed but also because of three major misperceptions of intelligent design: first, that ID is “mechanistic”; second, that ID is a “God of the Gaps” theory; and third, that ID is inherently “interventionist.” While many Thomists harbor doubts about the more extravagant claims of Darwinian science, taken together these three factors make it almost impossible for some Thomists to embrace intelligent design. That is as unnecessary as it is unfortunate.

Unfortunate for whom? Thomists will get desirable advancements and rewards from benefactors such as the Templeton Foundation if they can see their way toward embracing Christian Darwinism, and ostracism if they don’t.

So yes, there are Catholic academics attempting to make the case that Thomas Aquinas himself would pretend to see no design in nature. Touchstone is offering online Gage’s article on Thomism, Darwinism, and intelligent design, explaining - for anyone with a taste for traditional philosophy - Thomas’s actual view:

As Alexander Pruss, an analytical Thomist and former Georgetown colleague of John Haught, writes, “On the compatibility between Thomism and ID, the answer is surely positive. Thus, one might think that the irreducible complexity types of arguments provide a strong probabilistic case for design and that the existence of teleology provides a sound deductive argument for a first cause.”

Despite the different subject matter and styles of argumentation, Thomists and ID theorists have, as we have seen, much in common. The dismissal of intelligent design by some contemporary Thomists is unfortunate. For if reality is a unified whole, that is, if it stems from the divine mind, as Thomas believed, would it not be odd if good philosophy concluded that life was designed but good science concluded that it was not?

Yes, but don’t forget that religious academics benefit from the possibility that the Christian public will indeed be sold on Darwinism, along with Christian weight loss and Christian recovered memories therapy - and they then have a huge asset in the form of a public to be brokered with the real Darwinists - the subject become, how many Christian beliefs must we lose or empty of all value in order to preserve Darwinism.

It’s no new thing, getting brokered that way by the clerisy - the intellectual stars. The key is to see it coming and get out of the way.