Pope Benedict Casts Doubt On Darwin
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BERLIN — Benedict XVI, in his first extended reflections on evolution published as pope, says that Darwin’s theory cannot be finally proved and that science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity’s view of creation.
In a new book, Creation and Evolution, published Wednesday in German, the pope praised progress gained by science but cautioned that evolution raises philosophical questions science alone cannot answer.
“The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science,” the pope said.
“I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science,” the pope was quoted as saying in the book, which records a meeting with fellow theologians.
