Pope Contradicts Genesis Account of Creation,
Argues ‘God and Evolution’ Are Compatible
This was the headline in a recent Christian News Network piece about a recent gathering in Rome. Strangely the article goes on to quote the pope accurately. Rather than offering a contradictory assessment of creation, Pope Francis offers that the two are compatible and therefore not contradictory:
The Roman Catholic Pontiff Francis addressed an audience at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Monday, during which he reaffirmed long-held Catholic beliefs that evolution is not “inconsistent” with Creation. “When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” he told those gathered for a discussion on “Evolving Concepts of Nature.” “He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment.”
“And so Creation continued for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until it became which we know today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives being to all things,” Francis continued. “The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it. … Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”
The article goes on to quote the chief Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno:
The papal astronomer further explained that he rejects the literal interpretation of Genesis and instead finds truth through “science.” “Science is a way of getting close to creation, to really getting intimate with creation, and it’s a way of getting intimate with the Creator,” he claimed. “It’s an act of worship.”
At the end of the article the Christian News Network quotes a creationist proponent who takes this as evidence of the Roman Catholic church moving away from biblical faith rather than offering a broader view. It really is rather sad, or infuriating -- take your pick.
Comments?
My latest Groundling blog about the aftermath of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
http://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.ca/2014/10/the-bathtub-ring-from-hell.html
I simply cannot support the mindless, infallibility of scripture argument (which version BTW?), which cannot be sustained in any legitimately cognitive framework of reasoning, or genuine faith for that matter.
ReplyDeleteIMHO this is at the root of the creation/evolution dispute.
Frank Is absolutely correct!
ReplyDelete