Creation establishes God's order, Pope tells conference on evolution

October 31, 2008

Meeting on October 31 with members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, who have gathered in Rome for a discussion on evolution, Pope Benedict XVI observed: "In order to develop and evolve, the world must first 'be,' and thus have come from nothing into being. It must be created, in other words, by the first Being who is such by essence."

The Holy Father told the group that faith does not resist scientific inquiry into the development of life. Faith accepts science, and offers its own perspective, he said. Galileo, the Pope recalled "saw nature as a book whose author is God." That approach, he said, "helps us to understand that the world, far from originating out of chaos, resembles an ordered book; it is a cosmos."

Moreover, the Pontiff continued, the recognition of a spiritual being prior to the material world "points to the existence of the intellective soul of a free transcendent subject." This, he said, affirms the Christian belief that every person has a soul, which is immortal.

 

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Further information:

• Universe does not originate from chaos; it is a cosmos (VIS)