Special Transformism Contra Special Creation. A Critique of Mariusz Tabaczek’s Concept of the Origin of Man

Abstrakt

This paper is a response to Mariusz Tabaczek’s concept of special transformism as proposed in his book Theistic Evolution. After clarifying Tabaczek’s terminology the author presents the authentic Aquinas’s doctrine on the origin of man as opposed to Tabaczek’s proposal. Then the author shows how Tabaczek’s concept clashes with Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics. This includes four issues: (1) the incorrect understanding of the disposition of matter, (2) the incorrect understanding of animal and human generation, (3) the impossibility of an animal to give birth to a human and (4) the lack of explanation of the origin of the first woman. These four issues make Tabaczek’s view contradictory to Aquinas’s account of human origins. In the last section the author shows how Tabaczek misrepresents the teachings of three Fathers of the Church (Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom and Augustine) by showing that each of them clearly and explicitly supports the concept of special creation rather than special transformism.