‘Does an evolutionary perspective bring any light to bear upon theological anthropology, the meaning of the human person as the imago Dei, the problem of Christology – and even upon the development of doctrine itself?’

Pope St John Paul II (1920-2005)introduction For centuries the dominant Western Christological position has been that the incarnation occurred because Jesus came to repair Adam’s sin, by dying on the cross, to appease God’s displeasure. A significant alternative Christology, associated, though not exclusively, with the Franciscan tradition, is presented. Its essential feature is that creation was made for Christ and not Christ for creation, and in turn suggests that Christ has a cosmic dimension we often fail to grasp.