The Pope on Creation

[Catholic Christian]

While the stories of the creation of the world and of the fall of humankind have often given rise to conflict - some Christians twist the Bible into science and history while rationalists approach this issue by "divorcing God from creation" - Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) presented the Catholic middle ground between extremist positions in explaining the vitality of these early Old Testament writings in his book:

In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation



You can click the book to read a sample.

Question: Who has read this book, and what was your opinion?

 

[NoDoubt]

It was interesting. It's unfortunate that it stopped at page 42 at the subject of human creation.

I did note that evolution is accepted. That is quite surprising. (Evolving from previous life forms?)

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

 

[Catholic Christian]

It was interesting. It's unfortunate that it stopped at page 42 at the subject of human creation.

I did note that evolution is accepted. That is quite surprising. (Evolving from previous life forms?)




http://www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

Certain aspects of eveolution are acceptable, although a Catholic is free to accept or reject this.

But evolution out of nothing is not acceptable. The Church teaches that God created everything out of nothing.

 

[Vance]

Right, this has actually been the "official" position for a very long time in the Catholic Church. I have heard a couple of Bishops lately taking the line of Michael Behe-type Intelligent Design as well.