Pope feels science can’t explain creation

PARIS: Pope Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life’s origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.

The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory.

But Benedict praised scientific progress and did not endorse creationist or ‘intelligent design’ views about life’s origins.

“Science has opened up large dimensions of reason ... and thus brought us new insights,” Benedict, a former theology professor, had said last September. “But in the joy at the extent of its discoveries, it tends to take away from us dimensions of reason that we still need. Its results lead to questions that go beyond its methodical canon and cannot be answered within it,” he said.

“The issue is reclaiming a dimension of reason we have lost,” he said, adding that the evolution debate was actually about “the great fundamental questions of philosophy—where man and the world came from and where they are going.”

In the book, Benedict defended what is known as “theistic evolution,” the view held by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant churches that God created life through evolution and religion and science need not clash over this.

He denied using a “God-of-the-gaps” argument that sees divine intervention whenever science cannot explain something. “It’s not as if I wanted to stuff the dear God into these gaps — he is too great to fit into such gaps,” he said.

“Both popular and scientific texts about evolution often say that ‘nature’ or ‘evolution’ has done this or that,” Benedict said.

“Just who is this ‘nature’ or ‘evolution’ as (an active) subject? It doesn’t exist at all!” the Pope said. Benedict argued that evolution had a rationality that the theory of purely random selection could not explain.

“The process itself is rational despite the mistakes and confusion as it goes through a narrow corridor choosing a few positive mutations and using low probability,” he said.

“This ... inevitably leads to a question that goes beyond science ... where did this rationality come from?” he asked. Answering his own question, he said it came from the “creative reason” of God.