United States Catholic Catechism for Adults

60 • Part I. The Creed: The Faith Professed

FROM ST. JOHN PAUL II

The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its makeup, not in order to provide us with a scien tific treatise but in order to state the correct relationship of humanity with God and the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God. (St. John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences [October 3, 1981])

with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living mat ter” (no. 36). At the same time, Pope Pius XII reiterated the doctrine that each human soul is immortal and individually created by God. St. John Paul II made a further commentary on this question in his 1996 Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. While acknowl edging the scientific evidence in favor of evolution, he cautioned that the theories of evolution that consider the human soul the seat of the intellect and will by which the human person comes to know and love God “as emerging from forces of living matter” would not be compat ible with the truth about the dignity of the human person as taught in Revelation. This position does not conflict with the nature of scientific methodology in the various fields, since their method is one of observa tion and correlation. The spiritual dimension of the human person is of a different order that is related to yet transcends the material world and that is not reducible simply to the physical aspects of our being, which can be more readily studied by the scientific method. Among scientists, a lively debate about aspects of Darwin’s theory of natural selection as the key to evolutionary hypothesis continues. Christian faith does not require the acceptance of any particular theory of evolution, nor does it forbid it, provided that the particular theory is not strictly materialistic and does not deny what is essential to the spiritual essence of the human person, namely that God creates each human soul directly to share immortal life with him. At a popular level