Time to Proclaim the Primacy of Jesus Christ in Creation

Editorial FAITH Magazine November-December 2009

'The Christian picture of the world is this, that the world in its details is the product of a long process of evolution but that at the most profound level it comes from the Logos. Thus it carries rationality within itself." (Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald. Ignatius 2002 p. 139)

What is the Relationship Between Jesus Christ and the Universe?

Who is Jesus Christ? Why did he come? What relevance does he have for us, as we begin the third millennium since his birth? The future of Christianity, of the Church, and indeed of the whole of the human race, depends on the answer to these questions.

This is an age of enormous development in human and scientific knowledge. We live in a world which has been transformed by science and technology. Back in the 1920s the philosopher A.N. Whitehead wrote:

"When we consider what religion is for mankind, and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them."[1]

However, we can and must formulate this question in an even more radical way. What is the relationship between the universe, as revealed to us by science, and Jesus Christ, the greatest, most remarkable religious teacher the world has ever known, and who claimed to be the Son of God?

This is not an idle question, nor just a question for those who happen to have a philosophical turn of mind. Our twenty-first century science-inspired culture is relentlessly becoming more inimical to the Christian formation of the human personality. The only truly effective way to counter this particular yet powerful resistance to the Grace of God is to show that Jesus makes sense of our increasingly successful knowledge of the physical realm. We believe that we can show more than this. Amazingly we can show that the cosmos which science is increasingly laying bare to our eyes is made for Christ.

It is the unique characteristic of mankind that although we live in the physical universe - indeed we can trace our material origins back through the evolution of life and the physical development of matter, all the way back to the Big Bang itself - we yearn for something more than matter, something greater. To show that Jesus Christ is the meaning and fulfilment of mankind, we will need to show that he is the full answer to that yearning, the utter fulfilment and joy of that higher, spiritual aspect of man. But further, we will need to show that he, in the unity of his divine and human natures, is the meaning of the entire universe itself.

The Debate About the Place of Christ in Creation

This is the classic debate between the Scotists and the Thomists on the place of Christ in Creation. The Scotist view teaches that Christ was predestined to come into the world before the creation of the universe. This means that Christ would have become Incarnate even had there been no sin to give us the fullness of salvation and grace that we need. We can say that the consensus among theologians at present seems to be Scotist. Nonetheless it is not as central to the Church's theology and catechesis as it should be. In the seminaries and theological faculties it is treated on the one hand as of purely academic interest and on the other, as portrayed to many of us when training to be priests, of no significance at all. We would like to argue here that the time has come for this questionof the place of Christ in Creation to be decided at the highest level and be given priority in the Church's theology and catechesis in the twenty-first century.

Atheism, and the purely secular approach to life it inspires, gives no answer to the meaning of the universe. Faced with the magnificent development of the universe and the evolution of life - processes bursting with intelligence, scientific wisdom, and purpose - it asserts that there is absolutely no reason for their existence. There is thus a contradiction at the heart of so-called 'scientific' atheism, which recognises a wonderful, meaning-filled universe, but denies the Intelligent Mind which gives it meaning.

The Pessimism of the New Atheism

The "new atheism" of such writers as Richard Dawkins is given widespread publicity and seems to have considerable influence. Dawkins in trying to address the reasons for the universe's existence comes to a very negative conclusion:

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."[2]

Professor Keith Ward replied, somewhat diffidently:

"Dawkins' belief that this is a blindly indifferent universe is a piece of wishful thinking [...] In fact, though evolutionary biology itself, as a scientific discipline, is silent on the subject of God's existence, it provides a quite remarkable array of data which strongly suggests the existence of at least an extremely wise and powerful designer. The universe does not look blind; on the contrary, it looks as if it has been contrived with the greatest intelligence... The hypothesis of God is superior in explanatory power."[3]

The new atheists avoid a central fact of our experience of the universe - that it is good and that it is our home. Despite the enormous impact of sin and evil it remains a beautiful and good universe, coming from the source of goodness itself. St. Paul preaching on his first missionary journey made this point:

"We have come with good news to make you turn from these empty idols to the living God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that these hold. In the past he allowed each nation to go its own way; but even then he did not leave you without evidence of himself in the good things he does for you: he sends you rain from heaven, he makes your crops grow when they should, he gives you food and makes you happy."(Acts 14:15-17)

The new atheism is not rational and many today realise this. God is returning from the evidence of science. Two well-known scientists have famously and bluntly said that: "Science is a surer path to God than Religion" (Paul Davies) and "The universe is a put-up job" (Fred Hoyle). The "Test of Faith" DVD we reviewed in our last Cutting Edge column presents a range of such contemporary scientists. Only last month Professor Bersanelli of the recently launched 'Planck laboratory', a European space agency project, declared "it is in the wonder and the beauty and the connectedness of the whole creation [...] that I see a sign of the Creator." It is natural, then, to ask: What is the ultimate purpose of the universe and why did God create it? It is the need to respond to this question that makesthe debate about the place of Christ in Creation so important in preaching the Gospel today.

The Teaching of the Apostles on the Cosmic Christ

The Apostles preach Christ as our personal redeemer who forgives our sins and rises from the dead to conquer death. He is our personal saviour and redeemer. This must always remain our key message: "For me to live is Christ" (Phil 1:21), "I live now not I but Christ lives in me... I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." (Gal 2:20-21)

Nonetheless the same Apostles also clearly preach that Christ is the meaning of the cosmos. There are many texts but the key ones are: John 1:1-14; Ephesians 1: 3-10; Colossians 1:15-20; Hebrews 1: 1-4. In these texts the vision of Christ in the early Church was clearly that the whole creation was predestined for Christ before the tragedy of sin. In the next article in this issue Fr Nesbitt looks at the presentation of this theme in Catholic tradition and its scriptural foundation. Below we would draw out the key scriptural themes, before moving on to the contemporary magisterium.

Both St. John and St. Paul, the deepest and greatest teachers of the New Testament, preach the same vision of the cosmic Christ. They proclaim that the universe has no meaning except for Christ and that it was created "in Him, through Him and for Him." (John 1:3; Col 1:16) The vision of Sts John and Paul is the one from which Scotus drew his inspiration. We believe for our time that we should draw out "things new and old" from this great treasury of teaching.

Pope Benedict XVI in a very interesting comment on Colossians 1:15-20 in one of his General Audiences in 2005 refers to the Jewish teaching, at the time of Christ, that: "The whole world was created in view of the Messiah". ;[4] It is generally understood that the Rabbis in Jesus' time clearly taught that the Messiah was predestined from the beginning of Creation. The Pope reminds us that the Jews were Scotists on this point before the coming of Christ! We suspect that on the road to Damascus St. Paul found his rabbinic teaching was perfectly fulfilled in his overwhelming vision of Christ as the Lord of Creation, Salvation and Redemption which he was to proclaim later in his letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians.

The Perspective of St John

St. John's prologue to his Gospel (John 1:1 -18) clearly presents Christ as the fulfilment of Creation which is the product of the Logos and the Mind of God. We need to return to that important text again in this age. It gives us the deepest vision of the early Christians on the place of Christ in creation. As St. Paul did, so St. John also takes a cosmic perspective on his Lord and Master. He begins by echoing the very first words of the creation narrative from the book of Genesis: "In the beginning was the Word ..." (John 1:1, cf. Gen 1:1). The "Word" (in Greek Logos, from which we have the English word logic) means the personified Wisdom and Intelligence of God, the Mind of God, in creating. St. John is quite clear that the Logos is divine: "... theWord was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning." (1:1-2) Everything is created through him (1:3).

In this vision mankind can only find its light, its true environment, in him: "All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men," (1:4) and again: "The Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and he was coming into the world." (1:9) St. John acknowledges the effects of sin on this coming of the Word into the world, but the whole tenor of his vision is that sin causes a failure of recognition and acceptance of the Word, not that sin is the reason for his coming. "He was in the world that had its being through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him." (1:10-11)

Then comes the climax of the whole of this vision - the greatest description of who Jesus Christ really is:

"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth." (1:14)

St. John is teaching many things in this simple verse. In the first place, the Word through whom all things were made takes flesh, a full human nature: Jesus Christ is true God and true man. Next, the universe was only created for the Word to become flesh. St. John is surely leading us to this conclusion by his careful interweaving of the themes of the eternal Mind of God, the Word (1:1 and 1:14), his involvement in the work of creation, which is "his own domain", from the beginning (1:3 and 1:10), along with several references to the Incarnation itself (1:9, 10, 11, 14).

And there is yet another, deeper meaning to this important text. The Greek word eskenosen, usually translated as lived or dwelt, is translated literally as tabernacled. [5] It means literally that God pitched his tent among his people. (The same word is used with the same deep meaning in Rev 21:3, and the idea is prefigured in Sirach 24:3-10.) This unique expression is used in the Old Testament of the Tent of Meeting or Tabernacle in the desert, where Moses and Aaron went to speak with God, the place where God lived among them and beside them. And the words which follow, "we saw his glory", are also related to the Tent of Meeting: when Moses had finished its construction, "thecloud overshadowed the Tent of Meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." (Exod 40:34) This in turn alludes to the overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit in the conception of Christ (Luke 1:35). So St. John is describing the Incarnation as also the coming of the 'New Temple'. In his own Person Jesus fulfils what was shown symbolically by the Old Testament tabernacle and temple: he is truly the place where God dwells among his people.

Furthermore, St. John describes the great benefits that we receive through the Word made flesh: firstly, grace and truth, which are so much more wonderful than the Mosaic Law (1:14, 16-17); and then, above all, personal knowledge of God, and intimacy with him, which alone can satisfy us:

"No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, who has made him known." (1:18)

As Chapter 6 of John's Gospel goes on to confirm there are intimations here that Christ's very "flesh" (sarx), in its very physicality, is our Bread of Life. The Primacy of Christ in the light of modern science vindicates, with a new profundity we believe, the Catholic tradition which has affirmed Tertullian's "the flesh is the hinge of salvation" (see our Editorial for September 07, "Renewing our Vision of the Sacraments", and the lively correspondence that followed in subsequent issues).

This vision of St. John is very old but also very up to date. The idea of creation through the Logos, the Word and Wisdom and Intelligence of God, harmonises perfectly with the modern, scientific perspective on the universe as highly intelligent, bursting with wisdom, and full of amazing design. But St. John goes on to show that this scientific knowledge of the universe is inadequate on its own: the universe leads to man - and the meaning of man and of the whole universe is only found in the Word made flesh, for whom the universe was made. Moreover this is not just an abstract theory. Through Jesus Christ it gives every single human being a living meaning and a relationship with God. It is a vision personified in the Word made flesh. Jesus Christ, for St. John,is therefore, we would argue, the Master-Key to the meaning of the universe, and the Master-Key to our own personal lives. It is a single vision of creation fulfilled in the Incarnation - probably the most profound statement ever made of the true meaning of Christianity.

The Vision of St Paul

We have already seen how St. Paul shows us the deeply personal nature of our communion with the divine Person of Jesus our Saviour. In his letter to the Ephesians he states that God "chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world." (Eph 1:4) Thus not only we ourselves but Christ also is part of God's plan from before creation, and so this is clearly before sin. The universe is created for us and even more for Christ. St. Paul continues to talk about God's eternal purpose, "which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." (Eph 1:9-10) So Christ is the beginning and the end - the Alpha and the Omega - of the whole of creation.

Commenting on this passage Pope John Paul II says:

"In God's eternal design, the Church, as the unity of humanity in Christ the Head, becomes part of a plan which includes all creation. It is a 'cosmic' plan, that of uniting everything in Christ the Head. The firstborn of all creation becomes the principle of 'recapitulation' for this creation, so that God can be 'all in all' (1 Cor 15:28). Therefore, Christ is the Keystone of the Universe. As the living body of those who belong to him by their response to the vocation of being children of God, the Church is associated with him, as participant and minister, at the centre of the plan of universal redemption."[6]

In his letter to the Colossians St. Paul again gives us this same vision of Christ, the "first born of creation" (Col 1:15), as pre-destined before creation: "all things were created through him and for him." (v. 16) There are echoes here of Christ as the Heir to creation. Once again, he is clearly both the beginning and the end of creation: its origin and purpose. Again in his second letter to Timothy, he states: "God saved us and called us to be holy - not because of anything we ourselves have done but for his own purpose and by his own grace. This grace has already been granted to us, in Christ Jesus, before the beginning of time." (2 Tim 1:9)

The Letter to the Hebrews

Another passage from the New Testament should be quoted, because it witnesses to this same faith and vision of the first Christians in very succinct and beautiful language:

"At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is. He is the radiant light of God's glory and the perfect copy of his nature, sustaining the universe by his powerful command." (Heb 1:1-3)

The Magisterium on the Threshold of the Cosmic Christ

In the history of the Church the place of Christ in Creation has never been taught by the Magisterium at the highest level. But in very recent years it has begun to address the question. The first serious references are in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) and in the first chapter of Pope John Paul II's letter for the new millennium Tertio Millenio Adveniente (1994). In both of the above the title "Lord of the Cosmos and Lord of History" given to Christ is a real development of doctrine. If Jesus Christ is "Lord of the Cosmos" then we are surely right to presume that this is before the advent of sin. Surely he does not just become Lord of the Cosmos as a consequence of sin?

The Catechism of Catholic Church might be seen as developing upon the seminal Vatican II statement, which it closely paraphrases in paragraph 450, that the Church "holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man, as well as of all human history." {Gaudium et Spes, 10).

The Catechism states that:

"God's 'plan of his loving kindness', is conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world, in his beloved Son. This plan is a "grace [which] was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began", stemming immediately from Trinitarian love. It unfolds in the work of creation, the whole history of salvation after the fall, and the missions of the Son and the Spirit, which are continued in the mission of the Church." (257).

It is very difficult to see how a plan conceived in the Trinity before sin could be anything other than Scotist. Are we to believe that our sharing in the life of the Blessed Trinity only comes about due to original sin?

While not giving this question the prominence it should perhaps deserve the Catechism of the Catholic Church, gives some remarkable texts that lead to the threshold the cosmic Christ. Some of these important texts are:

"In the creation of the world and of man, God gave the first and universal witness to his almighty love and his wisdom, the first proclamation of the 'plan of his loving goodness', which finds its goal in the new creation in Christ." (315)

"Jesus Christ is Lord: he possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He is 'far above all rule and authority and power and dominion', for the Father 'has put all things under his feet.' (Eph 1:20-22) Christ is Lord of the cosmos and of history. In him human history and indeed all creation are 'set forth' and transcendently fulfilled." (668, our emphasis)

"God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the 'convocation' of men in Christ, and this 'convocation' is the Church. ... Just as God's will is creation and is called 'the world', so his intention is the salvation of men, and it is called 'the Church'." (760)

"The name 'Jesus' contains all: God and man and the whole economy of creation and salvation." (2666, see also 280)

In Tertio Millennio Adveniente, Pope John Paul II states:

"Christ, the Son who is of one being with the Father, is therefore the one who reveals God's plan for all creation and for man in particular... '[He] fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear... By his incarnation the Son of God united himself in some sense with every man'. (Vat II, Gaudium et Spes, 22)" (4).

"Christ, true God and true man, the Lord of the cosmos, is also the Lord of history, of which he is 'the Alpha and the Omega', 'the beginning and the end' (Rev 1:8; 21:6). In him the Father has spoken the definitive word about mankind and its history." (5, our emphasis)

In Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Letter Dies Domini (On the Lord's Day) (1998) he states:

"It is true that the Word was made flesh 'in the fullness of time' (Gal 4:4); but it is also true that, in virtue of the mystery of his identity as the eternal Son of the Father, he is the origin and end of the universe: 'Through him all things were made, and without him was made nothing that was made'. (Jn 1:3) and, 'In him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible ... All things were created through him and for him'. (Col 1:16) This active presence of the Son in the creative work of God is revealed fully in the Paschal Mystery, in which Christ, rising as 'the first fruits of those who had fallen asleep' (I Cor 15:20), established the new creation and began the process which he himself will bring to completion when he returns in glory to 'deliver the kingdomto God the Father..., so that God may be everything to everyone' (I Cor 15: 24,28). Already at the dawn of creation, the plan of God implied Christ's 'cosmic mission'. This Christocentric perspective, embracing the whole arc of time, filled God's well pleased gaze when, ceasing from all his work, he 'blessed the seventh day and made it holy' (Gen 2:3). Then was born the 'Sabbath', so characteristic of the first covenant, and which foretells the sacred day of the new and final covenant [in Christ]. (8) The Sabbath recalls that the universe and history belong to God. It is a celebration of the marvels which God has wrought in creation and salvation." (15)

Proclaiming the Full Gospel

Thus we can see that this insight is rooted in Biblical revelation and the early Church's profession of faith, as well as being increasingly widely and authoritatively acknowledged in our own era. Because of this we feel justified in arguing that, at this juncture of the Church's history, the Church must proclaim the cosmic Christ as an essential part of the preaching of the Gospel and that if we do not do so then we are just not preaching the full Gospel.

It is interesting that Fr Philippe Yates in his article in Faith (Jan/Feb 2008) on Blessed John Duns Scotus made the interesting point that the pre-conciliar Church was too narrowly Thomist on everything, including the place of Christ in Creation. Fr Yates thought that there was an unbalanced perspective which followed Pope Leo XIII's very necessary attempt to reform theological studies in the Church at the end of the 19th century, a narrowness that was made worse by the modernist crisis that continued into the 20th century. For these reasons the great tradition of the Franciscan school, and of Scotus in particular, were not given due prominence. Perhaps it is time, while not forgetting the genius and perspective of St. Thomas Aquinas on other parts of the Catholic Faith, toreaffirm this vital tradition

Let us remember that if those who are Thomist concerning the most basic rationale for the Incarnation are correct, then without sin there would have been no Virgin Mary, no Incarnation and no Jesus Christ. As the Franciscan Maximilian Dean writes: "If man's redemption is the primary reason, then sin has the upper hand. In other words, all the positive blessings of the Incarnation which can be expressed, quite apart from the redemption, would hinge upon sin - our divinisation in Christ, our adoption as sons of God, our eternal predestination in Christ... are all these blessings really because of Adam's fall?"[7]

Development of the relationship between Christ and Creation is now essential because it is at the heart of the relationship between Religion and Science, and Faith and Reason.

"All Things Have Meaning in Jesus Christ"

To return to the question posed at the beginning, what is the relationship between the universe and Jesus Christ?

In the first place, we have seen that, from the very sciences themselves, the universe reveals God as the supreme Mind behind the amazing order, design and beauty of creation. And this creation is purposeful: it is set up to develop and evolve, leading ultimately to man, who is made body and soul for God. Next, God, who created the universe, revealed through his People before Christ came that "the world was created only for the Messiah". Thus the Messiah, or the Christ, is both the total fulfilment of the universe and the total fulfilment and happiness of man.

Jesus claimed to be the Christ - to be God in Person, our Saviour and Redeemer; and he manifested that divinity in his teaching and in his miracles, especially his own resurrection. His claim is unique among all the religious leaders and prophets the world has ever known. Jesus also claimed that the universe was made for him: he is the "Heir" of the Kingdom prepared before the foundation of the world; and if because of sin we do not acknowledge him, then "the very stones will cry out". St. John and St. Paul also clearly taught the same doctrine: "through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him", and "all things, visible and invisible, were created through him and for him."

Thus we can see the relationship between the universe and Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ is the Master-Key to the meaning of the universe. The universe was made through him and for him. It was made so that he could take flesh and enter his creation; so that he could give himself to us in love in the greatest way possible, by taking on our human nature to be our brother, our Saviour and our God.

The Master-Key could not have been found in any secular philosophy or in the physical sciences alone since man is made to the image of God and his meaning and purpose, and that of the whole universe, will only be found in God himself. All attempts to find the meaning of the universe and of man in secular philosophies or in created things are doomed to failure. We must look to God for the revelation of that Word, that Master-Key which unlocks the final meaning of the universe - Jesus Christ, God and Man, Saviour and Redeemer of mankind, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things. In summary:

"Without Christ man is meaningless, without man the evolution of life is meaningless, without life the earth is meaningless, but all things have meaning in Jesus Christ, to whom all things visible and invisible are relative, and to whom all things bear witness in their being."[8]

We can and must draw a new vision of Christ for this age, which will be the basis of a synthesis of science and religion. It is a vision that our secularised world at its deepest level desperately needs and is longing for; for Jesus Christ is Lord of the cosmos and Lord of history, the Master-Key to the meaning of the universe, and also the Master-Key to the meaning of every mind and heart.

Conclusion: Time to Proclaim the Primacy of Christ

We have said before in Faith magazine that Pope John Paul II, supported especially by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, through his wide ranging and deep teaching over a long pontificate had really re-built the Catholic Faith and encouraged us all. [9] In his teaching He had brought the Church to the very threshold of a new synthesis of the Catholic Faith and the scientific vision of the universe. In some of his catecheses, in the Catechism, and in his Letter for the new millennium there has been a remarkable convergence.

What we are asking now is that Pope Benedict should go further and finally address the central synthetic principle of all Catholic teaching, Christ the Sacrament of Creation, and issue an encyclical on the Primacy of Christ in Creation. The Pope himself has got very close to this in the words quoted at the top of this piece. We ask that the Church should now proclaim the Primacy of Christ over all Creation. For a new evangelisation we must preach the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Such a proclamation would be part of a tradition started in the Old Testament in the teaching that the world as only created for the Messiah. It was fulfilled by Sts John and Paul, the greatest and most profound teachers of the New Testament, and has then continued in the long history of the Church by a wide range of saints and doctors such as: St. Irenaeus, St. Justin Martyr, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Albert the Great, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bonaventure, St. Mary Magdalen Pazzi, St. Francis de Sales, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Edith Stein, and not forgetting Pope John Paul II.

We would humbly ask the Holy Father to articulate this teaching and to proclaim finally that the Universe was only created for Jesus Christ, and for no other reason. Only Christ therefore is the ultimate answer to the personal, social and even ecological problems of the cosmos in which we live. Christ is the personal answer, bringing peace to our souls, conquering the appalling tragedy of sin and death. Christ is the social answer, teaching us to value all human life and how we behave to each other. Christ is even the ecological answer, bringing God's presence into the cosmos which was created for Him. We realise that this claim for Christ is a staggering one, a "sign of contradiction". Many, however, disturbed by the emptiness and pessimism of the new atheism and agnosticism are yearningto find the true meaning of the universe, but there will be others who will hate and reject it. Thus it was with Jesus at the beginning so it will be at the end but the Gospel must be preached to the whole of creation.

If any reader, particularly from beyond Faith movement, would be interested in supporting the cause that the Primacy of Christ in Creation be more officially proclaimed and promoted do please let us know. It is also now possible for those committed to the importance of this vision to join Faith movement. On this theological theme the two Faith Pamphlets in the series Reasons for Believing Jesus our Saviour and Jesus our Redeemer are recommended.

Notes

[1] A.N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, Cambridge University Press, 1926, p. 224.
[2] Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden p. 133 Wiedenfeld & Nicholson. 1995.
[3] Keith Ward, God, Chance and Necessity p.202 One World. 1996.
[4] General Audience 8th Sep 2005, and also in Psalms and Canticles for Evening Prayer CTS. p. 169.
[5] Cf. Nestle, Greek/English Inter-linear Translation, Bagster, 1979.
[6]General Audience, 31 July 1991.
[7]Maximilian Dean FI A Primer on the Absolute Primacy of Christ: Blessed John Duns Scotus and the Franciscan Thesis Franciscans of the Immaculate Publications 2006 p. 13.
[8]Edward Holloway, The Path from Science to Jesus Christ, Faith Pamphlets, p. 10.
[9]"John Paul II: The Outstanding Teaching Legacy — But Is Anyone Listening?" Faith June 2005.