I don’t know which is worse, the slovenly, off-the-cuff way in which Francis casually spouts off heretical propositions or the foul glee of the enemies of the Church who lap it up.
Bring back Benedict indeed.
The Pope MUST distinguish as Pius XII did. There is no theoretical problem with having the human body develop from pre-existing species, and indeed one can see the concept anticipated in St. Augustine’s notions of seminal or potential creation which is only actualized through time.
But the soul is created immediately by God and *is not subject* to any kind of evolutionary change—and how could it be, since it’s not material?
I will add also that the Abbé Lemaitre, who first came up with the Big Bang theory BEGGED the Pope at the time not to push any link with Genesis. He was a good scientist with a theory and didn’t want the Church to fall with a theory that he knew might someday be proved wrong.
” He was a good scientist with a theory and didn’t want the Church to fall with a theory that he knew might someday be proved wrong.”
I have to agree that the Church has a long history of being wrong in its understanding of the world—its long insistence that the earth was the center of the universe being perhaps the most famous. But I think that Lemaitre’s objection with the Church delving into scientific matters was more fundamental than that it might back the wrong theory:
“It was Lemaître’s firm belief that scientific endeavour should stand isolated from the religious realm. With specific regard to his Big Bang theory, he commented: ‘As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question.’ Lemaître had always been careful to keep his parallel careers in cosmology and theology on separate tracks, in the belief that one led him to a clearer comprehension of the material world, while the other led to a greater understanding of the spiritual realm... ...Not surprisingly, he was frustrated and annoyed by the Pope’s deliberate mixing of theology and cosmology.” Simon Singh (2010). Big Bang. HarperCollins UK. p. 362
Not long before Benedict XVI resigned, he did make a statement along the lines that Genesis is not a scientific explanation of Creation. He set forth the reasoning that as an Ancient story, Genesis makes the point that God did create the world and man and that man became aware of both God and right and wrong. The six days of Genesis could just as as easily have been 6 trillion years. A literal interpretation of Genesis leaves way too many questions that go unanswered (who did Cain have children with?) and set up a false logical conflicts between science and religion (6000 years verses the age of the Earth/fossils that are millions of years old, etc.)
It seems that in approaching the work of Darwin, far too many Darwinists and Christians lump all of his work together and see no distinction between his scientific observations of evolutionary processes and his theory that evolution is somehow the explanation of the Origin of Species. Where the evolutionary observations provide a sound scientific theory for explaining changes within species, they do not explain the origins of any species. Darwin’s theory that random evolutionary processes somehow explain the origins of life itself remains an unproven theory with strong evidence that it is scientific error.
(I wrote a little bit about this idea in God’s Sudoku http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2964965/posts.)
Bottom line; science does point toward the need for a Creator to put life here. All the Darwinists molecular biologists nor all the Big Bang theorists have still not come up with scientific proof of the origin of species nor of man evolving from lower species.
The stories in Genesis were written for ancient societies who had no knowledge of science, but made the eternal point that it was God who created the Heavens and Earth and put us here. I believe we will soon get back to the point where many scientists will arrive at the conclusions of Louis Pasteur, the father of modern Micro Biology, that all the scientific knowledge we gain points to the need for God to create it all.
All the Best!
Bill
Benedict was a great intellect....Francis is a good but simple man.
Both were Holy and have their role in God's plan.