Acta Benedicti Pp. XVI 797

of thinking and speaking about the evolution of the world. Thomas observed

that creation is neither a movement nor a mutation. It is instead the foun-

dational and continuing relationship that links the creature to the Creator,

for he is the cause of every being and all becoming.1

To ''evolve'' literally means ''to unroll a scroll'', that is, to read a book.

The imagery of nature as a book has its roots in Christianity and has been

held dear by many scientists. Galileo saw nature as a book whose author is

God in the same way that Scripture has God as its author. It is a book whose

history, whose evolution, whose ''writing'' and meaning, we ''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. This image also helps us to understand that the world, far from

originating out of chaos, resembles an ordered book; it is a cosmos. Not-

withstanding elements of the irrational, chaotic and the destructive in the

long processes of change in the cosmos, matter as such is ''legible''. It has an

inbuilt ''mathematics''. The human mind therefore can engage not only in a

''cosmography'' studying measurable phenomena but also in a ''cosmology''

discerning the visible inner logic of the cosmos. We may not at first be able to

see the harmony both of the whole and of the relations of the individual

parts, or their relationship to the whole. Yet, 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: in the inorganic

world, between microstructure and macrostructure; in the organic and ani-

mal world, between structure and function; and in the spiritual world, be-

tween knowledge of the truth and the aspiration to freedom. Experimental

and philosophical inquiry gradually discovers these orders; it perceives them

working to maintain themselves in being, defending themselves against im-

balances, and overcoming obstacles. And thanks to the natural sciences we

have greatly increased our understanding of the uniqueness of humanity's

place in the cosmos.

The distinction between a simple living being and a spiritual being that is

capax Dei, points to the existence of the intellective soul of a free tran-

scendent subject. Thus the Magisterium of the Church has constantly affir-

med that ''every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not

1 Cfr Summa Theologiae, I, q. 45, a. 3.