Martin Luther's Theory of de-Evolution

...and a bit of Anglo Inspiration

Aug 17, 2022

A Dalle2 render of Luther in deep thought.

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I don’t like to say I’m Lutheran. The title was created by inquisitors to denote those who agree with Luther’s interpretations in order to separate them from the Catholic Church. In many ways I’m not really a Lutheran - I was baptized, raised, and confirmed into the Catholic Church and by all accounts I maintain my Catholic identity in the real world. I have never felt a need to formally renounce that identity. Rather, I like saying I am a Catholic who agrees with Luther on many things. Not everything, mind you. Just most things. Indeed, I find myself agreeing with Luther more than most Lutherans do these days. Let me ask you, dear reader: Am I Lutheran if most Lutheran churches would condemn me for my agreement with Luther’s opinions? You know, technically speaking, if Luther is right and the Papacy is the Antichrist that would mean the Catholic Church is the true church. After all, why would Satan seek to corrupt mere heretics? They are already condemned. To call the Pope the Antichrist is - consequentially - to declare the Catholic Church true, because Satan would only seek to assault the true church. Luther believed this was the prophecy of the Antichrist - that the true church would receive a false leader. So, am I Catholic because I agree with Luther that the Catholic Church is the true church?

It’s all so tiresome.

If you are at least a little bit interested in the reformation, you likely know that the Papacy’s condemnation of Luther’s teachings stem from his arguments with the indulgence salesman, Friar Johann Tetzel. What you may not know is that while the Papacy very publicly punished Luther, privately they also punished Tetzel. The very man who was selling indulgences was condemned for a few embezzlements and forced into retirement where he fell into deep depression and poor health. So, dear reader, did the Catholic Church end up agreeing, at least in part, with Luther? Of course, not fully, as indulgences are still sold to this day. But it is amusing they punished both men.

Word of Tetzel’s poor health eventually reached Luther by rumor, and he felt compelled to write a letter of forgiveness, saying he felt no poor will to the man. There are many stories about those final weeks of Tetzel’s life, but it seems factual that the two men - whose arguments dawned the Protestant Reformation - made amends with each other in brotherly Christian fashion and parted their mortal coils in a state of forgiveness and grace. What an irony it would be to find both men are in Christ’s kingdom for their faithfulness to Christ’s command to forgive one another.

Reconciliations and Estrangement

Stories like these give me hope that one day some kind of formal reunification between Lutherans and Catholics may eventually come. In 1999 the Catholic Church and Lutheran World Federation signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification which saw the formal agreement that both Lutherans and Catholics - at least, the signers - have come to an agreement on the topic of Justification and Grace. In some part of my mind, I do hope this document will eventually produce something of a Lutheran Rite that, like the Eastern Catholic rite, rejoins with Rome in some curious patchwork arrangement. Getting them to dismiss the excommunication of Luther will be the most challenging part, of course. I have heard many Catholics tell me this is impossible - but it has happened before.

However, there is a realm of faith I do not pray for reconciliation with. That is Darwinism. No, dear reader, this will not be some creationist propaganda (although I am increasingly convinced of a young earth), rather this will be an all-together different thing. A different way of viewing what Darwinists call natural selection and evolution, using a broader understanding than what they teach you in highschool level biology. This is, to be clear, a call for estrangement with the cult of Darwin. And yet also a tale of a curious approach to the concepts. But to understand where Luther falls in with this, we need a brief history lesson from the English city of Lincoln. Trust me, this is important.

In the 1200s the Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste, found himself asking a question: Why do things fall? This led him to also wonder why doesn’t light fall. Or rather, why doesn’t it seem to? Such a thought led to rigid experimentation, and in his 1225 AD text “De Luce”, Robert wrote the following stunning words:

The first corporeal form which some call corporeity is in my opinion light. For light of its very nature diffuses itself in every direction in such a way that a point of light will produce instantaneously a sphere of light of any size whatsoever, unless some opaque object stands in the way. Now the extension of matter in three dimensions is a necessary concomitant of corporeity, and this despite the fact that both corporeity and matter are in themselves simple substances lacking all dimension. But a form that is in itself simple and without dimension could not introduce dimension in every direction into matter, which is likewise simple and without dimension, except by multiplying itself and diffusing itself instantaneously in every direction and thus extending matter in its own diffusion. For the form cannot desert matter, because it is inseparable from it and matter itself cannot be deprived of form.–But I have proposed that it is light which possesses of its very nature the function of multiplying itself and diffusing itself instantaneously in all directions. Whatever performs this operation is either light or some other agent that acts in virtue of its participation in light to which this operation belongs essentially. Corporeity, therefore, is either light itself or the agent which performs the aforementioned operation and introduces dimensions into matter in virtue of its participation in light, and acts through the power of this same light. But the first form cannot introduce dimensions into matter through the power of a subsequent form. Therefore light is not a form subsequent to corporeity, but it is corporeity itself.

Think for a moment about these words, that corporeal things are light itself, or some agent that introduces dimensionality. Can we write that as an equation by modern terms?

Corporeity is the diffusion of dimensional agency through the participation in light expanding.

Which becomes:

Corporeity = Dimensional Diffusion Agency / Light Speed’s Area

m = e/c^2

This equation can be rewritten in a far more well-known format:

e = mc^2

700 years before Einstein, this English Bishop discovered mass-energy parity. Even more curious, Robert Grosseteste used this to conclude the universe started from a single point of light of infinite energy that expanded into a finite material universe - the Big Bang:

Thus light, which is the first form created in first matter, multiplied itself by its very nature an infinite number of times on all sides and spread itself out uniformly in every direction. In this way it proceeded in the beginning of time to extend matter which it could not leave behind, by drawing it out along with itself into a mass the size of the material universe.

Attempts to draw Grosseteste’s complex concepts have been tried through many ages.

Robert Grosseteste went on to explore numerical infinities which may sound familiar to any mathematician today, and theorize fundamental geometric operations in the cosmos, writing:

It is my opinion that this was the meaning of the theory of those philosophers who held that everything is composed of atoms, and said that bodies are composed of surfaces, and surfaces of lines, and lines of points

File:Grosseteste, Robert – De phisicis lineis, angulis et figuris, 1503 – BEIC 4678756.jpg

Grosseteste’s studies of light, refraction, and optics, and how this influences plant growth, show incredible insight.

Grosseteste had a huge impact on the sciences by introducing his testing standards, which were some of the first to involve constants and variables to verify results. These were disciplines to construct what we now call the “Hard” sciences. Many consider him a father of the scientific method and for centuries to follow, European philosophy oriented around his defined structures and formats.

Grosseteste’s studies of light, refraction, and optics show surprising technical detail.

One particular mind that the works of Bishop Grosseteste appear to have had an impact was none other than Martin Luther. We know Luther read him, because Grosseteste was responsible for reintroducing western thinkers to Aristotle. He was an avid translator and commentator and provided many resources to propagate Aristotle’s philosophy into the west, both as commendation and condemnation. Luther studied these texts when he developed his own occasional animosity towards Aristotle. We can also tell he read him because Luther uses a number of idioms that appear similar to ones Grosseteste invented. For instance, Bishop Grosseteste once wrote:

[They should] not deceive themselves and pointlessly try to make a Catholic of Aristotle, thereby wasting their time and mental powers and, in making a Catholic of Aristotle, make heretics of themselves
-Hexaemeron

And Luther, likewise, wrote:

As a result Aristotle, a blind heathen, teaches and rules Christians more than does Christ.’
- Luther’s Matthew 24 Commentary

While it is likely Luther reconciled his understanding of creation to something of a Grossetestean understanding, Luther appears to have gone even further… which leads us to his thoughts on evolution.

Slow Genesis

Within Luther’s commentary on Genesis, you can find his meditations on evolution. This may confuse you, considering Darwin wouldn’t be around for another three centuries. However, the concept of evolution is far older than Darwin himself. Much as Grosseteste’s discovery of E=mc^2 predated Einstein by centuries, quite a number of scholars speculated on the change of species over time. About a century after Grosseteste wrote his theories, Ibn Khaldun wrote in his text Muqaddimah:

One notices how these elements are arranged gradually and continually in an ascending order, from earth to water, to air, and to fire. Each one of the elements is prepared to be transformed into the next higher or lower one, and sometimes is transformed. The higher one always finer than the one preceding it. Eventually, the world of the sphere is reached. They are finer than anything else.”
…
“It started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner, to plants and animals. The last stage of minerals is connected with the first stage of plants, such as herbs and seedless plants. The last stage of plants, such as palms and vines, is connected with the first stage of animals, such as snails and shellfish which have only the power of touch. The word ‘connection’ with regard to these created things means that the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the next group.
…
“The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this stage we come to the first stage of man.”

As you can see, Darwin was not unique at all. He was but the most recent and well-remembered of a branch of thinking that goes back many many generations. Indeed, as far back as Hanno the Navigator in the 500s BC, you can find texts speculating that apes are the ancestors of man:

In this gulf was an island, resembling the first, with a lagoon, within which was another island, full of savages. Most of them were women with hairy bodies, whom our interpreters called "gorillas". Although we chased them, we could not catch any males: they all escaped, being good climbers who defended themselves with stones. However, we caught three women, who refused to follow those who carried them off, biting and clawing them. So we killed and flayed them and brought their skins back to Carthage. For we did not sail any further, because our provisions were running short.

Do note, savage in this time did not merely mean a lack of civilization - it meant an ancestorial form of living which city states viewed themselves as an advancement upon. In calling the Gorillas savages, Hanno was stating they were members of the human family, but far more primitive.

For Luther, history was full of evolutionary thoughts. As he reviewed the texts, he found it difficult - if not impossible - to rectify these theories with the traditional creation narrative. Over time, Grosseteste’s writings helped move him to a more well-defined view of space and time, which would enable him to adopt a rather novel understanding... Luther opens with himself:

With respect to Martin Luther before you. If you look at my individual person I am a certain kind of new creature; because sixty years ago I had no existence. This is the common thought and judgment of the world. But the thought and judgment of God are far different. For in God's sight I was begotten and commenced, being multiplied immediately "from the beginning of the world." When God said, "Let us make man," he then created me also. For whatever God willed to create that he did create when he spoke the word. All things did not then appear indeed on a sudden before our existing eyes. For as the arrow or the ball from the cannon, in which is the greatest velocity attached to the works of men is in one moment directed to its mark, and yet does not reach that mark without a certain interval and space between, so God rushes, as it were by his Word, from "the beginning" to the end of the world. For with God there is no before nor afterwards; no swift nor slow; but all things to his eyes are at once present. For God is simply absolutely independent of and alone, and separate from all time!

Here, Luther reveals a rather esoteric understanding of eternity not as infinite time, but as either the absence of time itself, or the collapse of all time into a singular all-encompassing experience or moment. It’s hard to explain, but the reason being - and this is often overlooked - time itself was created. As such, if God precedes this creation, he by necessity exists beyond the threshold of his own creation. This may derive from an Augustinian understanding of subjective time, but it sounds far more similar to Grosseteste’s curious declaration:

[time is] the privation of the at-once of eternity from the totality of being

Insomuch as Luther’s own life is an expression of God’s word, Genesis is understood more so in the context of a promise. When God declared he would make man and man was good, this was a promise made for each and every one of us that took a set of time to unfold from God’s instant and eternal declaration to our experiences in the creation of time. There are some issues even I find with this. For instance, how can God speak our creation both from eternity, and on a day of creation, and unto the day of our birth eons later? But in Scripture we do see he for-knew us before creation itself. So it can be argued God both knew what he wanted to create - namely, us - and chose to express that will on a specific day in creation.

Neil Lewis, something of a Grossetestean scholar, explains this declaration of the essence of time further:

He means that for there to be time there must be items whose existence does not adhere as a whole … with the at-once of eternity, that is, whose existence is not instantaneous. … Grosseteste defines the instant, by which he means the now, as this adherence of being with the at-once of eternity, and likewise defines past and future in terms of this adherence.
…
Grosseteste’s account of time appears to be closely related to his conception of existence, as presented in his commentaries on the Posterior Analytics and Physics and in On Truth. Grosseteste holds that a created thing’s existence just is its dependence on God. Thus, a thing does not depend on God for its existence; its dependence on God is its existence. Grosseteste appears to equate this relation of dependence with the relation of adherence to the at-once of eternity mentioned in his account of time. He remarks that “something no more partakes of actual existence except insofar as it adheres to the first being that is all at once”

Source

Luther thus concludes, if Genesis is the privatization of that divine word spoken that was realized in the unfolding of time, then:

These words of God therefore, and God said, "Let there be," "increase and multiply," etc., create, constitute and ordain all creatures, as they were, as they now are, and as they will be unto the end of the world.

At this point, Luther choses to discuss the theories of evolution of his own day:

But here sceptics and objectors will present a further question for reply. How can it be true, say they, that God made no new thing, when it is evident that the bow of heaven or the rainbow was created in the time of Noah? And when also the Lord threatened after the fall of Adam, that it should come to pass that the earth should bring forth thorns and thistles? Which thorns and thistles the earth would not have brought forth had Adam not sinned. Also concerning the serpent, the same cavillers say, that reptile ought to creep along almost upright with its head bending toward the earth; for when first created they say it was doubtless upright, as crows and peacocks move now. We readily acknowledge that this is indeed a new state of things, wrought also by the Word.

(Note here, the understanding that Snakes when they had legs would likely move like birds, is a likely reference to the known fossils at the time)

These are actually some very powerful questions Luther brings up in regards to God’s will to create being both in the week of creation, and after. He can clearly show from scripture that God had indeed modified his own creation. Indeed, as a bit of joining in, Luther confesses that Christ himself is an act of evolution. For none of the commands of creation in those 6 days could allow for a virgin to give birth. But, if it is so that God continues to tinker with creation, how can it be that creation ceased ast the end of that week? How can God have “Rested”? Luther goes on:

God therefore did not in the seventh day cease to work in every sense, but he works still, not only in preserving his whole creation, but also in altering and new-forming the creature; wherefore that which we said above, that God ceased on the seventh day from creating new orders of things is not to be understood as true absolutely and in every sense.

Luther defines three avenues of creation still active in the world today:

Preservation: The divine act of preserving a lineage he desires to be kept from extinction.

Alteration: The divine act of alteration of the existing creation, either as punishment or blessing, such as with the serpent.

New-Forming: The divine act of a new creation after the 6 days, such as with rainbows and the thorns and thistles that sprung out of the Earth later on.

Luther believes for all three of these acts, they descend from the commands of those initial six days. Not as new-spoken words, but as the manifestation of words spoken then from eternity - but, with a twist:

But we further reply to our cavillers that Moses is here speaking of nature in its yet uncorrupted state.

Luther understood that these acts of Preservation, Alteration, and New Formation are unto themselves a consequence of nature’s decay, from man’s sin. Again, deriving from Grosseteste’s understanding, things begin in an uncorrupted higher state and then proceed to expand into a corrupted and declined one. Luther concludes:

…nor would there have ever been known, if Adam had thus continued sinless, any fear of a flood, nor would there consequently have ever existed a rainbow in the heavens. But sin caused God to alter many things and otherwise order them. And at the last day there will be an alteration and a renewal far greater still of that whole creation, which as Paul says is now by reason of sin, "subject to vanity,"

Now, this is a totally different way to understand evolution. Darwin’s theories were that new forms are the result of random mutation, with nature killing the bad ones and only the good ones propagating forward - Evolution was fundamentally a form of progress. Luther contests that life started well-designed - that every creature has some ideal form and order - but that sin has muddied the forms and orders necessitating God’s interventions. Consequently, what Luther has described is a Theory of De-Evolution, viewing evolution as a form of decline from a perfect well-ordered state. Of course, least there be confusion, this would not make man a less ordered monkey. Rather, humanity is a less ordered Adam, and a monkey today is more corrupted than a monkey when God made them.

Reflections on Reality

A study of fossils, Dalle2

To my surprise in investigating this, there are some hints that Luther is right! Today, if you look at the DNA of any creature on Earth, there are layers of species within. For instance, every Bird has the DNA for a tail, teeth, hands, and everything we would call a dinosaur - they are simply turned off. Some scientists have even managed to turn them on, generating chickens with dinosaur traits. In one such experiment, the activation of these genes generated a reptilian skull with dinosaur and alligator traits. The Bird’s DNA had this information, it was simply deactivated.