Pope Benedict XVI on Creation and Evolution

Pope Benedict XVI on Creation vs. Evolution

FAQ about Reflections on the Worthiness of Human Creation

Question: What does the Pope think of your book?

Answer: His Holiness has not yet had an opportunity to read my book. I think he might disagree with my views on world population. However, based on his teachings, I believe he supports my views on creation, evolution, and the world energy crisis.

From the July 2007 Meeting of the Holy Father Benedict XVI with the Clergy of the Dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso:

"Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God. This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man? ... "

"Today, we all see that man can destroy the foundations of his existence, his earth, hence, that we can no longer simply do what we like or what seems useful and promising at the time with this earth of ours, with the reality entrusted to us. On the contrary, we must respect the inner laws of creation, of this earth, we must learn these laws and obey these laws if we wish to survive. Consequently, this obedience to the voice of the earth, of being, is more important for our future happiness than the voices of the moment, the desires of the moment."

Pope Benedict talks about the "voices of the moment" to represent current desires with no regard to the future of humanity. In my book, I talk about a "voice of the future" to represent justice for future generations.

From Reflections on the Worthiness of Human Creation:

We have activism in countless ways. The Spotted Owls in the Pacific Northwest, for instance, are not aware of the hardships they face or the danger of their own extinction. It is thought, nevertheless, that they need a voice, a human voice to speak for their right to survival. Fine! Now how about a voice for the future generations of mankind -- they will probably be smarter than we are, and will also love to live well; but they have no voice because they are not yet born. I therefore propose that every government create a "Voice of the Future" department to allow government policy makers to include in their consideration a most important input -- justice across time boundaries in addition to contemporary justice across political or economic boundaries.

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©2008 K. T. Chang. All rights reserved.

Reuters News Update: January 6, 2011

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – God's mind was behind complex scientific theories such as the Big Bang, and Christians should reject the idea that the universe came into being by accident, Pope Benedict said on Thursday.

"The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe," Benedict said on the day Christians mark the Epiphany, the day the Bible says the three kings reached the site where Jesus was born by following a star. "Contemplating it (the universe) we are invited to read something profound into it: the wisdom of the creator, the inexhaustible creativity of God," he said in a sermon to some 10,000 people in St Peter's Basilica on the feast day.

While the pope has spoken before about evolution, he has rarely delved back in time to discuss specific concepts such as the Big Bang, which scientists believe led to the formation of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago. Researchers at CERN, the nuclear research center in Geneva, have been smashing protons together at near the speed of light to simulate conditions that they believe brought into existence the primordial universe from which stars, planets and life on earth -- and perhaps elsewhere -- eventually emerged.

Some atheists say science can prove that God does not exist, but Benedict said that some scientific theories were "mind limiting" because "they only arrive at a certain point ... and do not manage to explain the ultimate sense of reality ..." He said scientific theories on the origin and development of the universe and humans, while not in conflict with faith, left many questions unanswered. "In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in its greatness and in its rationality ... we can only let ourselves be guided toward God, creator of heaven and earth," he said.

Benedict and his predecessor John Paul have been trying to shed the Church's image of being anti-science, a label that stuck when it condemned Galileo for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun, challenging the words of the Bible. Galileo was rehabilitated and the Church now also accepts evolution as a scientific theory and sees no reason why God could not have used a natural evolutionary process in the forming of the human species.

The Catholic Church no longer teaches creationism -- the belief that God created the world in six days as described in the Bible -- and says that the account in the book of Genesis is an allegory for the way God created the world. But it objects to using evolution to back an atheist philosophy that denies God's existence or any divine role in creation. It also objects to using Genesis as a scientific text.

(Editing by Tim Pearce)