The Vatican has still not really dealt adequately with the issue of Darwinian evolution, but on evolution broadly Pope Benedict XVI continues to make more sense than anyone else in the hierarchy. His greeting last Friday to the Pontifical Academies of Science conference that is now concluding in Rome is well worth reading.

The conference as a whole appears to have been something of a dud, perhaps because it is a closed affair and--more to the point--it has been used to showcase a viewpoint spectrum that ranges only from ardent materialism (Stephen Hawking) to various forms of theistic evolutionism/Deism. Intelligent design was slated for an attack by one participant (Maxine Singer of the United States), but the abstract of that attack betrayed another straw man argument of the kind that Darwinists typically construct in order to avoid real debate. No scientist who supports ID was invited to attend or speak.

That is not the fault of the Holy Father, however. The Academies of Science is a small, mostly self-perpetuating advisory group that does not require members to be religious, let alone Christian, let alone Catholic. It obviously does not command much attention in the Vatican, or, it seems, even the media.

Nonetheless, the Holy Father's welcoming remarks to the conference deserve attention. I particularly liked the image of evolution as a "scroll"--a book--to be read. That sounds like ID to me.

Here are some added thoughts from a friendly, but anonymous, critic:

1. There is a clear affirmation by the Pope of the doctrine of creation: the universe is contingent and had a beginning, it is not something that is self-sufficient and eternally existent. We cannot understand the universe, he says, exclusively on the "horizontal” level of “mutation and transformation,” but rather we must acknowledge the vertical or “transcendent origin of participated being.”...“In order to develop or evolve, the world must first be, and thus have come from nothing into being.” This is a clear affirmation of the orthodox doctrine of creation ex nihilo.

2. By stating that “the Creator founds these developments and supports them, underpins them and sustains them continuously,” the Pope is clearly foreclosing on any deistic interpretation of science. God is involved in Creation for, if He were not, it would not and could not continue to exist. In speaking of Aquinas’ views here of the Creator as “the cause of every being and all becoming,” the Pope is clearly saying that God is the First Cause of the universe and that the universe is under His intelligent direction – God is the primary cause of everything that happens, while causes operating on the level of the “horizontal origin of the unfolding of events, which is history,” are only secondary causes. Furthermore, in stating that “the notion of creation must transcend the horizontal origin of the unfolding of events,” there is the suggestion of an Augustinian and Thomistic conception of eternity in which God transcends time entirely and views the universe as a whole from Creation to Consummation as one creative act.

3. The etymological discussion of “evolve” as meaning “to unroll a scroll” as in reading a book is highly unusual and intriguing. The clear reference is to God as the author of nature in the same way that He is the author of Scripture. The book of nature is then read “according to the different approaches of the sciences, while all the time presupposing the foundational presence of the author who has wished to reveal himself therein.” As a consequence, the world, rather than being chaotic, “resembles an ordered book.” It is cosmos, not chaos. What is more, this book is legible, since it is written in the language of mathematics.

This is similar to how Galileo framed the question. The “legibility” of matter is found in the mathematics that describes it and reveals “the visible inner logic of the cosmos.” Naturalism has no explanation for why nature should be intelligible on the basis of mathematics, indeed, for why it possesses any order at all. That the book of nature is written by its Author in the language of mathematics, which is readable by man, is therefore an instance of God’s revealing Himself in nature. It is furthermore the only reason that nature is intelligible, for when we study it in such a way, we are seeking to “think God’s thoughts after Him.” Here the Holy Father is using another interesting expression, one that is usually credited to the astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) (“I was merely thinking God's thoughts after him. Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature," wrote Kepler, "it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God”)

4. Although a bit unclear in his meaning, the Pope states that “there always remains a broad range of intelligible events, and the process is rational in that it reveals an order of evident correspondences and undeniable finalities.” The correspondences in the natural world are clear enough: In the inorganic realm there is a relationship between microstructure and macrostructure, and in the organic realm there is a correspondence between structure and function. “Undeniable finalities” should probably be understood in the Thomistic-Aristotelian context of final causes, that is, purposes. The reason that microstructure has the mathematical description it does is found in the macrostructures it thereby makes possible; the reason that biological structures have the form that they do resides in the functions that they are intended to perform. In the spiritual realm, there is a correspondence and purpose revealed between knowledge of the truth and freedom. I can only interpret this in light of John 8:32: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This is an oblique reference to Christ as the Light of the World who releases us from darkness and bondage into knowledge of who God is.

5. Finally, Pope Benedict reaffirms John Paul II’s reflections on the origin of the human soul and the Magisterium of the Church in stating that “every spiritual soul is created immediately by God” and is not “’produced’ by the parents.” This is an affirmation of (theological) creationism over traducianism as an explanation of the origin of the soul. The Pope furthermore affirms the immortality of the immaterial soul. Both of these affirmations make it clear that there is a distinction to be made between human beings and the rest of the biological world – there is a spiritual break in continuity between humanity and others of God’s creatures. As the Pope says, “[t]his points to the distinctiveness of anthropology, and invites exploration of it by modern thought.” Humanity has a unique place in the cosmos.

In short, the Pope seems not only open to intelligent design, but he affirms it in the sense that nothing takes place in the universe apart from God’s sustaining life and authors it--that order being revealed in our study of nature through the language of mathematics. The Pope is rejecting the neo-Darwinian view that humanity is the end result of blind processes that did not have him in view.