Last month, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna published an op-ed piece in the New York Times claiming that "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution
in the neo-Darwinian sense – an unguided, unplanned process of random
variation and natural selection – is not." (Emphasis added.)
The director of the Vatican Observatory disagrees, and rightly so. The Rev. Dr. George Coyne, a Jesuit priest and Georgetown University Ph.D., muses that perhaps God is allowing the universe to develop largely on its own as part of a continuing process of creation:
It is unfortunate that creationism has come to mean some
fundamentalistic, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis.
Judaeo-Christian faith is radically creationist, but in a totally different
sense. It is rooted in a belief that everything depends upon God, or better, all
is a gift from God.* * *
Theologians already possess the concept of God’s continuous
creation with which to explore the implications of modern science for religious
belief. God is working with the universe. The universe has a certain vitality of
its own like a child does. It has the ability to respond to words of endearment
and encouragement. You discipline a child but you try to preserve and enrich the
individual character of the child and its own passion for life. A parent must
allow the child to grow into adulthood, to come to make its own choices, to go
on its own way in life.
(Paragraphing edited.)
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