Pope speaks on Creation, Original Sin at Wednesday audience
February 06, 2013
Creation provides “the place in which to know God’s omnipotence and goodness,” Pope Benedict XVI told his weekly public audience.
Continuing a series of Wednesday talks on the Creed, the Pope dedicated his February 6 audience to the phrase identifying God as “Creator of heaven and earth.” He explained that God is “the source of all things, and the beauty of creation reveals the omnipotence of the loving Father.”
Turning then to the account of Creation in the book of Genesis, the Pope said: “In the light of faith, human intelligence can find the key to understanding the world In Sacred Scripture.” The Genesis story is not a scientific account, but conveys the fundamental truth that “the world isn't a collection of opposing forces, but has its origin and stability in the Logos, in God's eternal reason, which continues to sustain the universe.”
Man and woman stand at the “apex of all creation” because we are capable of knowing and loving the Creator God, the Pope said. “We carry within us his life-giving breath.” This, the Pope mentioned, is “the deepest reason for the inviolability of human dignity.”
Pope Benedict called attention to two particular aspects of the Genesis story. First he spoke of the serpent, “a figure derived from oriental fertility cults that fascinated Israel and that were a constant temptation to forsake the mysterious covenant with God.” The serpent, he said, offers the temptation of “building a world of one’s own without accepting the limits of being a creature.”
Second the Pope reflected on the reality of sin. “Sin begets sin,” he said, “and all the sins of history are related.” This leads to the understanding of Original Sin, the fault that alters the fundamental relationship between man and God. Since we all are born with the weakness that characterizes this altered relationship, we cannot escape the problem by ourselves. Thus mankind from the beginning needed salvation.
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