On Wednesday, 2 April, the general audience was held in St Peter’s Square at 11:00. The Holy Father resumed his reflections on the mystery of creation, basing his remarks on the teaching of the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.

1. In the previous catechesis we dwelt on the finality of creation from the viewpoint of the "transcendental" dimension. Creation also demands a reflection from the point of view of the immanent dimension. Today this is particularly necessary because of the progress of science and technology, which has introduced important changes in the mentality of many people of our time. In fact, "many of our contemporaries", we read in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council on the Church in the Modern World, "seem to fear that a close association between human activity and religion will endanger the autonomy of man, of society and of science" (Gaudium et Spes, 36).

The Council faced this problem, which is closely connected with the truth of faith concerning creation and its finality, by giving a clear and convincing explanation of it. Let us listen to it.

2. "If by the autonomy of earthly affairs we mean that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own laws and values which must be gradually deciphered, put to use, and regulated by men, then itis entirely right to demand that autonomy. Such is not merely required by modern man, but harmonizes also with the will of the Creator. For by the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws, and order. Man must respect these as he isolates them by the appropriate methods of the individual sciences or arts. Therefore, if methodical investigation within every branch of learning is carried out in a genuinely scientific manner and in accord with moral norms, it never truly conflicts with faith. For earthly matters and the concerns of faith derive from the same God.

"Indeed, whoever labours to penetrate the secrets of reality with a humble and steady mind, is, even unawares, being led by the hand of God, who holds all things in existence, and gives them their identity. Consequently, we cannot but deplore certain habits of mind, sometimes found too among Christians, which do not sufficiently attend to the rightful independence of science. The arguments and controversies which they spark lead many minds to conclude that faith and science are mutually opposed.

"But if the expression, the independence of temporal affairs, is taken to mean that created things do not depend on God, and that man can use them without any reference to their Creator, anyone who acknowledges God will see how false such a meaning is. For without the Creator the creature would not exist. For their part, however, all believers of whatever religion have always heard his revealing voice in the discourse of creatures. But when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible." (G.S., 36).

3. These are the words of the Council. They constitute a development of the teaching offered by faith on the subject of creation, and they provide an illuminating comparison between this truth of faith and the mentality of our contemporaries, strongly influenced by the development of the natural sciences and by technological progress.

Let us endeavor to bring together in an organic synthesis the principal thoughts contained in paragraph 36 of the Constitution Gaudium et Spes.

A) In the light of the doctrine of the Second Vatican Council the truth about creation is not merely a truth of faith based on the revelation of the Old and New Testaments. It is also a truth common to all believers "no matter what their religion", that is to say, all those "who recognize the voice and the revelation of the Creator in the language of creatures".

B) This truth, fully manifested in Revelation, is however per se accessible to human reason. That can be deduced from the overall reasoning of the Council text and in particular from the phrase: "Without a Creator there can be no creature... When God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible". These expressions (at least indirectly) indicate that the created world postulates an Ultimate Reason, a First Cause. By virtue of their very nature contingent beings, in order to exist, require the support of the Absolute (of Necessary Being), which is Existence per se (Subsisting Being). The fleeting and contingent world "cannot exist without the Creator".

C) In relation to the truth, understood in this way, about creation, the Council makes a fundamental distinction between the "legitimate" and "illegitimate" autonomy of earthly things. That autonomy would be illegitimate (that is, not in conformity with the truth of revelation) which proclaims the independence of created things from God the Creator, and maintains "that created things do not depend on God, and that man can use them without any reference to their Creator". Such a way of understanding and behaving denies and rejects the truth about creation; and in most cases, if not indeed in principle, this position is maintained precisely in the name of the "autonomy" of the world, and of man in the world, and of human knowledge and action.

However, one should add immediately that in the context of an "autonomy" understood in this way, it is man who is in fact deprived of his autonomy in regard to the world, and in the end he finds himself subjected to it. It is a subject to which we shall return.

D) The "autonomy of earthly things" understood in this way is—according to the text quoted from the Constitution Gaudium et Spes—not only illegitimate but also useless. Indeed, created things enjoy an autonomy proper to them "by will of the Creator", and it is rooted in their very nature, pertaining to the finality of creation (in its immanent dimension). "For by the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order". If this statement refers to all creatures of the visible world, it refers eminently to man. In fact man, to the extent that he seeks to "discover, exploit and order" in a consistent way the laws and values of the cosmos, not only participates creatively in the legitimate autonomy of created things, but fulfils correctly theautonomy proper to them. Thus one meets with the immanent finality of creation, and also indirectly with the Creator: "he is, as it were, led by the hand of God, who holds all things in existence, and gives them their identity" (GS 36).

4. One must add that the problem of the "legitimate autonomy of earthly things" is also linked up with today's deeply felt problem of "ecology", that is, the concern for the protection and preservation of the natural environment.

The ecological destruction, which always presupposes a form of selfishness opposed to the community well-being, arises from an arbitrary—and in the last analysis harmful—use of creatures, whose laws and natural order are violated by ignoring or disregarding the finality immanent in the work of creation. This mode of behavior derives from a false interpretation of the autonomy of earthly things. When man uses these things "without reference to the Creator", to quote once again the words of the Council's Constitution, he also does incalculable harm to himself. The solution of the problem of the ecological threat is in strict relationship with the principles of the "legitimate autonomy of earthly things"—in thefinal analysis, with the truth about creation and about the Creator of the world.