How have Catholic teachings changed as discoveries have been made in science?
As I said at the beginning of our little exchange of ideas, religious imaginations change under the influence of scientific progress. All our culture, Catholic theology included, presupposes a certain image of the world. In the first half of the 20th century, a famous British writer, C.S. Lewis, said that in the contemporary people’s image of the world, there is plenty of Freud and almost nothing of Einstein. I am afraid that today C.S. Lewis would have to change his diagnosis and to say that in our present image of the world there is more of Donald Duck than even of Freud. Of course, there is, in the Catholic teaching, a kernel that remains essentially the same, but interpretations even of this kernel may and should change as our knowledge of the world becomes more and more mature. Is it strange in any way to realize how the church has evolved over the centuries in its attitude toward science — think of its original treatment of Galileo — and does that make you wonder where the church
