Španělský kardinál Zeferino Gonzáles Y Díaz Tuňon OP (1831–1894) a evoluční vznik člověka

This study presents the life and works of the Spanish Catholic philosopher and cardinal Zeferino Gonzalez (183–1894), who is very little known in the Czech environment. The focus of this study is an analysis of the La Biblia y la Ciencia published in 1891, in which the author – as a high church official – expressed his support for the acceptability of Mivart’s thesis. Which one he modified by claiming that the body of an animal prepared by evolution became fully human in the moment of unification with a rational soul. In this work, the Spanish Cardinal responded to Draper’s book on the Discrepancy Between Science and Religion. His approach to contemporary natural science, paleontology and paleoanthropology was quite honest critical. Once these sciences provided conclusive results that contradicted to the traditional exegesis of the biblical text, in particular on the basis of the texts of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, cardinal has been able to modify the interpretation of these texts in such a way that there is no contradiction between the faith and the results of human reason. Finally, it must be underlined that Gonzalez’s work has allowed us to identify three other French pioneers of accepting evolutionary origin – creation of man by Christian thinking.