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Evolution or God's creation? You can believe in both

Two professors hope their explanations can reconcile religious and scientific beliefs.
Evolution or God's creation? You can believe in both
Published: August 29, 2012 04:52 AM GMT
Updated: August 29, 2012 04:52 AM GMT

Evolutionary biology and faith in God are not incompatible, two professors asserted at the international Rimini Meeting, an event that brings hundreds of thousands of people to Italy. “A proper understanding of creation, especially an understanding set forth by a thinker such as Thomas Aquinas, helps us to see that there is no conflict between evolutionary biology or any of the natural sciences and a fundamental understanding that all that ‘is’, is caused by God,” Professor William E. Carroll of Oxford University’s theology faculty told CNA Aug. 22. “Evolutionary biology is that area of science which helps us to understand better the origin and development of human beings, but whatever those arguments are in evolutionary biology they, in principle, do not conflict with the fundamental understanding that all that ‘is’ is created by God,” Carroll said. Professor Carroll was a keynote speaker at the Rimini Meeting, an international gathering organized by the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation. From August 19 to 25 the event in the Italian seaside town of Rimini is exploring a range of contemporary cultural issues, including the relationship between faith, reason and science. “God causes the world to be the kind of world which it is and the natural sciences help to disclose what kind of a world we have,” Carroll explained. Sharing a platform with him was Professor Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Both men expressed a particular appreciation for Pope Benedict XVI’s ongoing efforts to encourage greater dialogue between faith and science. “There is a spectrum of intransigence in the religious community and in the scientific community,” Tattersall remarked, explaining, “that is why the dialogue is useful because maybe it will broaden flexibility on both sides.” Full Story: Scientists: no contradiction between evolutionary biology and belief in GodSource:Catholic News Agency

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