Thursday, February 21, 2002
I recognize that the quote below explicitly addresses Man's spirit only, whereas my rantings, at least implicitly, address Man's spirit and body. In some ways this is because John Paul II is following his predecessor Pius XII, in that one can make a concession of sorts: That the human body may "take its origin from pre-existent living matter." This is not the concession it seems, however. Saying that God may have drawn Man from the living matter at hand -- which would, actually, accord with the undoubted genetic resemblances among species -- is not the same as saying that the living matter, by its own workings or the workings of the world, became the body of Man; and in any event, as regards the critical piece of Man (his spirit), there is and can be no concession to ideas of evolution. (For the Pope's 1996 address on evolution, see here. For Pius XII's much more formal consideration of the whole issue, see here. If nothing else, this to-do has sent me looking for primary documents and arguments more substantial than mine...)
# posted by Peter @ 4:05 PM 
