Benedicamus Benedicto
John Hobbins draws attention to Pope Benedict’s recent remarks on creation and evolution, and offers a fine comment on them. It is indeed good to hear the pope state that any suggestion that belief in the Creator and acceptance of evolutionary theory are incompatible “is an absurdity.”
What I would like to emphasize is this point of John’s:
Biblical cosmology provides a basis for holding that experience might be intelligible and meaningful in the first place.
One of the most significant features of Genesis 1 is that it portrays creation as ordered. Form is given to the formless and organisation to the chaotic. It is precisely this affirmation that makes science and faith compatible. It is precisely this that affirms the worthwhile nature of scientific endeavour. Science, in the light of faith, is discovery of what is really and meaningfully there, rather than an imposition of human meaning on a meaningless cosmos.