Editor:
Mark Doorley’s column “The need for a new vision of the universe” (Sept. 21) presents a vision of the human person that is contrary to Sacred Scripture and the tradition of the church. Mr. Doorley distorts the meaning of Genesis 1, seemingly to justify his false premise that the human person is on an equal plane with all the other creatures of the earth.
God said in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness.” He did not say that to the fish of the sea and birds of the air. To be made in God’s image, in fact, makes us “different from and superior to all of creation,” a truth that Mr. Doorley rejects. Simple deductive reasoning allows us to see the error. If God is superior to creation, if humanity is made in God’s image, therefore humanity is superior to creation.
Furthermore, the human person was made at the end of the creation story in this chapter. The proper exegeses of this chapter states that humanity was created last because we are the crowning point, the apex of creation.
He asks the question, what does it mean to care for creation? Sacred tradition has not sidestepped or ignored it. The command of God to have dominion over all of creation (Gn 28) has been interpreted by the church to mean that God gave all of creation in its raw state to humanity so that the human person can bring it to perfection.
The very dignity of humanity rests in our unique relationship with God and our diligence to order all things, nature included, to Christ because we, not the animals and plants, share in Christ’s threefold office of priest, prophet and king.
It is sad to see such a distorted view of Scripture being presented as the truth.
Steven Bozza
Collingswood
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