Catholic News | No conflict between faith, science, says pope

Home

Catholic News

RSS Feeds

Daily Features

St. Anthony Messenger

Books

Catholic e-Greetings

Parish Newsletters/Services

Free E-NewslettersSaint of the DayFriar Jack's E-spirationsCatholic SAMPlerCatholic GreetingsMore e-newsletters

Sign-up for a FREE E-Newsletters From St. Anthony Messenger Press
Free e-mail newsletters for Catholics about spirituality, Catholic e-cards, Catholic saints, free Catholic product samples, Catholic catechetics and Catholics on the Internet.

Enter your email address:

Enter your full name:

Saint of the Day	Catholic Greetings Premiere	Minute Meditations
Friar Jack's E-spirations	Faith Formation Update
Franciscan Radio	Catholic Sampler

Minute Meditations
Peaceful, spiritual reflection that comes to your inbox at no cost. Drawing upon short, inspired thoughts from the popular books and periodicals of St. Anthony Messenger Press, the online edition of Minute Meditations brings directly to you a chance to take a moment from the daily hurry and worry to focus on the place of God in your life. Sign up!

Franciscan Radio
A radio ministry of the U.S. Bishops' Catholic Communication Campaign and the Franciscans, designed to help Catholics know their faith and grow in their faith, American Catholic Radio airs weekly throughout the country on Catholic radio stations. It also can be found at www.FranciscanRadio.org. Our bi-weekly e-newsletter highlights content from coming shows, two weeks out. Host Father Greg Friedman discusses his topics in his blog and alerts listeners and radio station staff to future projects. The e-newsletter is free and comes to your inbox every other week. Sign up!

Faith Formation Update
Help plan your religious-education and RCIA classes with our monthly free e-newsletter aimed at religious educators. Timed to work within the liturgical calendar, this newsletter will bring you ideas gleaned from experienced teachers. Sign up!

Web Catholic
Improve your Web ministry with this free monthly e-newsletter exploring how Catholics use the Internet. Webmasters and communications professionals can keep up with what's new on the Web for Catholics and learn from their colleagues whose sites are featured. View past "Sites of the Month."

top catholic news
No conflict between faith, science, says pope
By Michael Lawton
Source: Catholic News Service
Published: Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Email |

Print | Size: A A | | Rate this:

No rating

COLOGNE, Germany (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI has said that he sees no conflict between faith and science in the exploration of the universe's development, but he has criticized those who see evolution as an explanation for everything.

The remarks, made in a discussion he hosted at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, with some of his former students in September last year, have been published in a German book titled Schoepfung und Evolution (Creation and Evolution). The book was published April 11, 2007, by the Sankt Ulrich Verlag publishing house.

The students have met annually since 1978 with their former doctoral supervisor, but this is the first time they have published the lectures and discussions.

During the discussion, the pope said it was not a matter of "deciding either in favor of a creationism, which out of principle excludes science from its considerations, or in favor of a theory of evolution, which underplays its own gaps and refuses to see questions which go beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science."

What was important, he said, was "the interplay of different dimensions of reason, an interplay which opens up into the road to faith."

The pope argued that Christianity was a religion of reason, but a reason that was wider than the limited scope of modern science.

For the pope, science reaches its limits when its assumptions can no longer be tested.

"We can't bring 10,000 generations into the laboratory," he said. That leaves "gaps in the possibility of proving or disproving (the theory) by experiment."

However, Pope Benedict said, God cannot be used simply to explain away the problems.

"It's not as if I wanted to stuff dear God into these gaps," he said. "He's too big to fit into such gaps."

Pope Benedict also took a firm stand against science books' tendency to suggest that things came about by nature and evolution.

"The question has to be asked: What is nature or evolution as (an active) subject? It doesn't exist! If one says that nature does this or that, this can only be an attempt to summarize a series of events under one actor which, as such, doesn't exist," the pope said.

Nature and evolution are made up of many individual steps, and the pope insisted that one must look beyond nature and evolution for a guiding principle.

Pope Benedict said science had discovered large areas of rationality and had given people new understanding.

But, he said, "in its joy at the greatness of its discoveries, it has tended to take away from us dimensions of reason which we still need."

Questions raised have to be answered by reason and "can't just be left to religious feelings," said the pope.

Evolution, even if it includes irrational, chaotic and destructive processes, seems to have its own rationality, said the pope. It has adopted the few positive mutations which occurred and exploited the limited possibilities which evolution has offered.

"Where does this rationality come from? Is there a causative rationality?" the pope asked.

"Naturally there is rationality in nature, but that doesn't allow us to have complete insight into God's plan," said Pope Benedict.

He pointed to the "riddle of cruelty in nature" which remains unexplained, even by philosophy. That requires a further step, the step of faith in the Logos, the creative rationality of God himself "which unbelievably was able to become flesh, die and rise again," he said.

More on The Church, Evolution and Creation >>
More Top Catholic News >>

MORE NEWS SECTIONS

	Top Catholic News
	Bioethics and the Catholic Church
	Death Penalty
	Ecology and Faith
	Economic Justice
	Franciscans' 800th
	Homosexuality, Gay Marriage and the Catholic Church
	Lent/Easter 2009
	Lourdes 150th Anniversary
	Politics and The Church
	Pope Benedict XVI
	Religious Intolerance
	Respect Life
	Saints in the News
	Synod of Bishops for Africa
	Synod on Sacred Scripture
	The Church and Immigration
	The Church and Interfaith Relations
	The Church and Sexual Abuse
	The Church, Evolution and Creation
	Vocations
	War and Peace
	Year for Priests
	Year of St. Paul

American Catholic is for Catholics, all Christians and seekers. Find Roman Catholic Saints, Catholic Church Questions and Catholic News. Post Prayer Requests and send Catholic e-cards. Discover Catholic Books, Catholic Audio Books, Catholic Videos, and a leading Catholic Magazine.