Evolution, Psychology, and Wellbeing (re: The Kolbe Center)

 

Introduction

In a 2020 article for the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, psychotherapist Martin McManus presents a critical perspective on the impact of evolutionary and psychoanalytic thinking on the public and Church's understanding of mental health and well-being. His main arguments are that thinking in evolutionary terms has led to psychologists viewing human beings as nothing but material machines that can be fixed through drugs, rejecting spiritual realities and leading people to be left numb and confused. What's more, evolutionary thinking negatively impacts morality by categorizing harmful behaviors as "natural" by evolution and encouraging their expression The article presents its argument in five major points:

• Evolution is an atheistic and materialistic consequence of the Enlightenment, which rejected God, causality, and meaning.

• Both psychoanalysis and psychiatry have had net negative impacts on mental health and well-being. Due to their basis in atheistic, materialistic evolution, psychoanalysis seeks to replace confession with a clinician, and psychiatry (seeing man as nothing but a kind of bio-machine) seeks to drug everyone into a state of numb acceptance. Both psychoanalysis and psychiatry, according to McManus, are completely void of evidence.

• The Church was right in resisting psychoanalysis and psychiatry early on but was duped by the fake scientific language that both fields dressed themselves up in.

• Psychoanalysis and psychiatry, due to their basis in evolutionary thinking, both encourage natural and moral evils under the guise that they are "natural".

• The solution to this problem lies in rejecting "molecules to man" evolution, and recognizing that sacramental living is the only true key to positive mental health.

I wanted to respond to this article because McManus' view doesn't accurately portray the theory of evolution in trying to heap onto it the modern failings of philosophical opinions and fields outside of its scope. I think the solution to McManus' problems lies in adopting a sacramental lifestyle, and not in rejecting evolutionary biology/psychology.

Evolutionary Foundations

According to McManus, the theory of biological evolution is materialistic, rejecting formal and final causality along with stable form and function throughout the biosphere, and replacing it with assumed flux and dysfunction as a rule.

"By embracing naturalistic uniformitarianism, the philosophers of the so-called 'Enlightenment,' no longer presumed stable form and function throughout the biosphere; and by renouncing formal and final causality, they set the stage for Charles Darwin and his evolutionary account of the origins of man and the universe. In the Darwinian system, the presumption of stable form and function was replaced by a presumption of flux and dysfunction..." (McManus, 2020)

While some Enlightenment thinkers were naturalistic in their outlook, a rejection of "stable form and function" in nature never happened. Due mostly to the discoveries and models of Isaac Newton, and complimented by the Empiricism developed by John Locke and others, the Enlightenment was characterized by an increased emphasis on studying nature as an orderly place governed by set laws, which humans could understand and explore consistently. (Bristow, 2023) The period was defined by a strong interest in understanding and explaining how the natural world worked through methodological investigation, and how natural laws governed matter - all requiring the assumption of stable form and function throughout the universe. Concerning the underlying rationality of the universe (i.e., its formal and final causality), there was considerable discussion. However, the methodological and more mechanistic style of investigating the natural world did not lead to a uniform rejection of teleology in nature. The Enlightenment can't be characterized by a single outlook or conclusion in this area - it was a complex period with diverse and sometimes conflicting views on nature, causality, the role of human reason, the nature and existence of God, etc. (Blanchard, 2021) While some great minds of this time did embrace this naturalism (such as Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, and Julien Offray de La Mettrie, to name a few), many others recognized and defended formal and final causality. Some of the most notable would include Immanuel Kant, Gottfried Leibniz, Thomas Reid, William Paley, Christian Wolff, and Bishop George Berkeley. (Bristow, 2023)

The same misunderstanding characterizes McManus' proposal that biological evolution "...contributes to the belief that man is solely a biological machine", or is materialistic, non-teleological, etc. As we've discussed in articles elsewhere on this site, the biological theory of evolution has a limited scope. (Edmonds, 2023) It only deals with the biodiversity of life across time regarding genetic inheritance: it has nothing to say about teleology, materialism, or formal/final causation. To claim that it does is to confuse interpretations of the theory of evolution that are materialistic or atheistic with the theory itself. If McManus were arguing that materialism or naturalism can be responsible for negatively impacting mental health or causing existential problems that inhibit well-being, he would be entirely correct. (Livni, 2019) Research has shown that holding to highly materialistic values has a plethora of negative consequences, all the way from negatively impacting the environment to individuals reporting lower levels of personal well-being, lower life satisfaction, higher levels of depression and anxiety, and a lower sense of purpose in life. (Isham et al., 2022) But, because he correlates the biological theory of evolution with atheistic interpretations of it, he completely deflates the power of a better argument (i.e., that naturalism may negatively impact mental health).

So if the Enlightenment wasn't characterized by the rejection of stable form/function and formal/final causation, and therefore isn't the base of the theory of evolution/is outside of the theory's scope, are the claims that McManus makes about psychoanalysis and psychiatry valid without their foundation?

Evolution, Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry, and the Church

We've already seen that evolution does not reduce man to the biological, is not materialistic and has nothing to say about philosophy or morality. While evolution is not naturalistic, the primary developer of psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud) was. It defined his approach to therapy perhaps more than anything else. He did in fact view man as little more than a bio-machine. But this integration of scientific evolutionary thinking and naturalism was Freud's philosophy, not his science. If we try to help McManus' case by substituting "evolution" for naturalism in his argument, do his criticisms still stand that psychoanalysis is just naturalism pretending to be scientific? Not really.

McManus emphasizes the idea that resisting psychoanalysis was the proper approach for the Church to have taken, but that over time the Church was "duped" into accepting it by modernists. In his article, he states:

"...St Pius X's efforts against Modernism helped to protect many Catholics from the errors of the world...Many hospitals that treated physical maladies were run with a strong Catholic ethos so erroneous theories about man could not find a foothold in these environments. The dangerous tentacles of psychoanalysis could not get the same stranglehold on Catholics as they did with Protestants. Its errors and dangers were too obvious to Catholic intellectuals, priests and theologians, and they protected their fellow Catholics from them...From the 1960s onwards, psychiatry dressed itself up as an empirical science that had moved beyond Freudian speculation. This led to Church authorities becoming receptive to psychiatry and seeing it as an ally in treating psychological distress...In this way, the shepherds were duped, and the sheep became more vulnerable to the lies of the world, the snares of the devil and the unruly passions of the flesh." (McManus, 2020)

The primary reason that the Church resisted psychoanalysis and psychiatry in its inception (even going so far as to forbid its practice for Catholics before 1961) was due to its being couched in Freud's naturalistic and psycho-sexual outlooks that were at odds with Church teaching (a fact that's seen sharply in G. K. Chesterton's criticisms of the practice - his points tend to center on Freud's scientism). (Rapp, 1989) Despite McManus' skepticism, the field departed greatly from Freud once it was made available for mainstream research. None of the developments of Freud's ideas - analytical psychology, psychodynamic therapy, neuro-psychoanalysis, modern models of the psyche, etc. - are tied to the beliefs that he held as an individual. This separation of Freud from his errors is what allowed his discoveries to be tested to see whether they were objective, with the clarification and isolation of the things he got right making it easier to approach despite the things he got deeply wrong as an individual. (Peterson, 2017) (Plackett, 2020) In the 1950s, Pope Pius XII gave several addresses for how psychoanalysis could be faithfully approached by professionals, so long as it was used for psychotherapy and wasn't used in a reductionist manner to try to "explain away" religious realities. (DeVille, 2017) (Foschi et al., 2018) It wasn't modernism that duped the Church into approving of psychoanalysis - the Church only approved of the practice on the grounds that one rejected the modernism associated with it up to that point.  Which of course begs the question, what is the status of the evidence for these practices divorced from their founder?

Psychoanalytic therapy has collected a robust body of work up to the 21st century and has not failed the standards of repeated testing. Ongoing research demonstrates the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy for improving complex mental disorders, personality disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc., (in some cases working better for clients than more modern therapies like CBT) (Gonon & Keller, 2021) (Huber et al., 2012) (Institute of Psychoanalysis, n.d.) (Shedler, 2010) (Woll & Schonbrodt, 2020)

And what about his point on psychiatry? As he continues:

"From the 1960s onwards, however, things changed both outside and within the Church. In the field of psychiatry, there was a shift from psychoanalytical theories in the field of psychiatry to embracing of biochemical explanations for mental health issues...Evolutionary theories about man became more acceptable amongst leading psychiatrists and the search was on for finding the genetic causes and solutions to psychological distress." (McManus, 2020)

Even though evolution does not reduce human beings to their biochemistry, naturalism itself is not the reason why psychiatrists believe that physical factors can negatively impact someone's mental health. For example:

• "Scientists have long recognized that many psychiatric disorders tend to run in families, suggesting potential genetic roots. Such disorders include autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, major depression and schizophrenia." (National Institutes of Health, 2013)

• Nearly all symptoms of mental illness that are associated with neurodegenerative diseases are caused by underlying genetic and physiological causes. (Levenson, et al. 2015) (Pihlstrom, et al. 2017)

• "Patients who have gastrointestinal disorders also have high psychiatric comorbidity. This is because the gastrointestinal tract and the brain are intimately connected through bidirectional neural, endocrine, and immune pathways. Collectively, these pathways are referred to as the gut-brain axis (GBA)." (Aliouche, 2022)

• Artificially dropping the level of someone's serotonin has been shown to result in greater reported levels of felt negative emotion, particularly anxiety and depression. (Dayan & Huys, 2008)

• Research indicates that panic disorders and other anxiety-adjacent symptoms may be associated with specific predictable genetic arrangement. (Na, et al. 2011)

• Lack of physical activity can lead to changes in mood and depression - while increasing one's physical activity via increased movement and exercise has net positive effects on mental health. (National Institutes of Health, 2019) (Silva et al., 2020)

Whether you are theistic or naturalistic, biochemical causes and influences for mental distress and illness exist. But this doesn't mean that humans are nothing but matter in motion - it just means that our bodies and our minds were designed intertwined. This also doesn't mean that psychiatry can't be rightly criticized for overly "science-izing" mental illness, and attempting to treat it like a physical illness that can be entirely mitigated by medication, or that psychopharmacology might be criticized for being ineffective at times despite its success (though these issues are more the result of inadequate research, insurance incentives, and corrupt business practice than any supposed evolutionary correlation). (Horgan, 2020) (Ivanov & Schwartz, 2021) (Smith, 2012) (Sullivan et al., 2006) Many advocates of psychiatry don't acknowledge that it isn't strict medicine, but rather straddles the boundary of the social and the medical, integrating distinct value judgments and moral opinions into its approach to treatment that takes away from its objectivity in many settings. (Currie-Knight, 2023) (Peterson, 2016) Which leads directly to the consideration of McManus' final critique - psychiatry's moral outlook.

Evolution, Psychiatry, Society, and Morality

McManus states:

"Immoral behaviours, such as homosexuality, were seen as natural and healthy, since man's cousins the chimpanzees and other ape-like creatures practiced them. Pre-1960's, Kinsey and his followers...led the charge for the 'normalisation' of fornication and homosexuality. Much of Kinsey's work was based on the false notions of Darwin. He reasoned that since man's cousins, the bonobos and other sub-human primates, practiced these behaviors, this proved that they were natural, normal and good." (McManus, 2020)

In making this critique, I don't think McManus realizes that he's shot himself in the foot. He's claiming that psychiatry has been atheistic and immoral evolution from its conception, but also that its atheistic and immoral evolutionary outlook led it to remove homosexuality from the DSM. If psychiatry was from the beginning evolutionary and atheistic, why would behaviors deemed "immoral" by the Church also be deemed immoral by psychiatry? The two would have been at total odds by McManus' reasoning. The argument could have been fixed if he hadn't been so intent on demonizing psychiatry (i.e., he could have argued that psychiatry started out good and then became corrupted over time).

McManus does hit the nail on the head when it comes to Kinsey and his ilk: the man was a depraved fraud and monster, and his successors have wrought negative consequences galore for the individual and society at large. But his Darwinian outlook didn't mean that his beliefs were a consequence of Darwin any more than social Darwinism is a tenet of biology. Evolution has nothing to say about sexual ethics - it can tell us, for example, that same-sex behavior is observed in 1500 animal species and can even explain why it developed or stuck around to be inherited biologically by human beings. (Adriaens & De Block, 2006) (Apostolou, 2016) (Gomez et al., 2023) But it cannot tell us whether it is right or wrong, morally speaking, when practiced among human beings. A naturalistic outlook might make the claim that humans are "only animals" and commit the naturalistic fallacy, but that's a consequence of philosophy and not science. 

Conclusion - On Shrinks and Sacraments

The Church's view on mental illness is directly opposed to that of McManus - i.e., that people just need to reject the theory of evolution and live a sacramental life, and that will cure mental illness. Without trying to be uncharitable, his position smacks dryly of the prosperity preachers who tell their flocks that their finances and physical health aren't in order because they simply don't have enough faith. While wanting to hold to tradition and remain faithful to the Church's message that you cannot find ultimate meaning and freedom in medication and the numbing of one's conscience, he goes too far in the opposite direction by characterizing these arenas as directly opposed to the faith. He doesn't seem to acknowledge that even faithful Catholics can suffer from neurological and psychological illness that impedes their well-being and that this isn't a consequence of believing in the theory of evolution or substituting Christ for counseling. Cameron Bellm of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries (2021) articulates this point far better than I could, as does Melanie Juneau of Catholic Stand (2016). This isn't to say that there are no psychological consequences of mortal sin, adopting naturalism/materialism, or that one's sense of peace and well-being can't be enhanced by acting out the Church's teachings of an ordered life. But it is saying that all mental health issues cannot be reduced to a lack of them, or a belief in this or that scientific theory.

Whether or not McManus knows it, he is sitting on what could be a phenomenal critique. The fact that materialism and naturalism are incompatible with Church teaching, can have devastating effects on individual well-being and mental health, and that a purely naturalistic or secular approach to mental health that leaves out man's transcendent aspects can lead to absurdities are all completely valid. However, he completely takes the wind out of his sails when he builds inaccurate histories about and misrepresents the levels of evidence for approaches like psychoanalysis and psychiatry, and tries to lay all of these criticisms at the feet of a theory of biodiversity that has nothing to say on matters of faith, philosophy, or morals. His conclusion that rejecting biological evolution would lead to the resolution of these ills lacks a foundation since biological evolution is not the system that he tries to make it out to be (an atheistic, materialistic, anti-God, anti-teleology system of philosophy). McManus' observations could better be solved by educating people on the Church's teachings on mental health and encouraging psychological care in addition to orienting oneself towards Christ, a life immersed in prayer and the sacraments, and not in rejecting a scientific theory that has been granted approval by the Church for the faithful to accept.

This type of distinction is why delineating between evolution as a scientific theory and evolution as a philosophical narrative is a key point in the creation-evolution dialogue.

References

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