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"From the beginning, Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the Logos, as the religion according to reason...It has always defined men, all men without distinction, as creatures and images of God, proclaiming for them...the same dignity. In this connection, the Enlightenment is of Christian origin and it is no accident that it was born precisely and exclusively in the realm of the Christian faith....It was and is the merit of the Enlightenment to have again proposed these original values of Christianity and of having given back to reason its own voice... Today, this should be precisely [Christianity's] philosophical strength, in so far as the problem is whether the world comes from the irrational, and reason is not other than a 'sub-product,' on occasion even harmful of its development—or whether the world comes from reason, and is, as a consequence, its criterion and goal...In the so necessary dialogue between secularists and Catholics, we Christians must be very careful to remain faithful to this fundamental line: to live a faith that comes from the Logos, from creative reason, and that, because of this, is also open to all that is truly rational." -- Pope Benedict XVI
The Pope makes an interesting argument here, which has some interesting consequences to the original topic. Basically what he seems to be saying is that the widespread concept of rational thinking arose in Western society and so is of exclusively Christian origin. He goes on to say that it is important for Christians to maintain that reality is the way it is for a reason, rather than reason being a byproduct of existence. Thus, he concludes that Christians should be open to rational thought.
From this we can deduce the following: Not only should a Catholic be open to the reasonable explanations provided by evolutionary science but they should base their entire belief system on reason. In my view the Pope is basically shooting the Catholic faith in the foot because faith is, by definition, unreasonable. Thoughts?
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