jackovesk
24th April 2011, 04:19
Pope rejects 'random' start for humanity at Easter vigil mass
http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/04/24/1226044/012750-110424-pope-benedict.jpg
Pope Benedict XVI holds up the book of the Gospels during the Easter Vigil mass, in St. Peter's Basilica. Picture: AP Source:
POPE Benedict XVI has marked the holiest night of the year for Christians by stressing that humanity is not a random product of evolution.
Benedict emphasised the Biblical account of creation in his Easter Vigil homily, saying it was wrong to think at some point "in some tiny corner of the cosmos there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it".
"If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature," he said.
"But no, reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine reason."
Church teaching holds that Roman Catholicism and evolutionary theory are not necessarily at odds: A Christian can, for example, accept the theory of evolution to help explain developments, but is taught to believe that God, not random chance, is the origin of the world.
The Vatican, however, warns against creationism, or the overly literal interpretation of the Biblical account of creation.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/pope-rejects-random-start-for-humanity-at-easter-vigil-mass/story-e6frg6so-1226044014121
http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/04/24/1226044/012750-110424-pope-benedict.jpg
Pope Benedict XVI holds up the book of the Gospels during the Easter Vigil mass, in St. Peter's Basilica. Picture: AP Source:
POPE Benedict XVI has marked the holiest night of the year for Christians by stressing that humanity is not a random product of evolution.
Benedict emphasised the Biblical account of creation in his Easter Vigil homily, saying it was wrong to think at some point "in some tiny corner of the cosmos there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it".
"If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature," he said.
"But no, reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine reason."
Church teaching holds that Roman Catholicism and evolutionary theory are not necessarily at odds: A Christian can, for example, accept the theory of evolution to help explain developments, but is taught to believe that God, not random chance, is the origin of the world.
The Vatican, however, warns against creationism, or the overly literal interpretation of the Biblical account of creation.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/pope-rejects-random-start-for-humanity-at-easter-vigil-mass/story-e6frg6so-1226044014121