by Pope John Paul II
On many occasions I have felt obliged to call the attention of people in positions of responsibility to the dangers for humanity that can derive from a distorted use of scientific discoveries. The future of of the world is threatened at its roots by those very advances that bear the clearest imprint of man's genius. This is the result of utilizing scientific progress for ends that have nothing to do with science. Science is for truth and truth for man, and man reflects as an image (cf. Genisis 1:27) the eternal transcendent Truth that is God. The experience of history, however, in particular recent history, shows scientific advances being used frequently against man, at times in terrifying ways.
The question that has today become dramatically urgent is what criterion is to be followed in order not to suffer such disastrous consequences. When speaking to scientists and students in Cologne Cathedral on 15 November last,I said: "Technical science, aimed at transforming the world, is justified on the basis of the service it renders to man and humanity." This is the decisive criterion: the criterion of serving man, the whole man, in the whole of his spiritual and bodily subjectivity.
Our culture is permeated in all fields by largely functional notion of science, namely, that what is decisive is technical success. The fact of being technically able to produce a certain result is held by many to be sufficient motive for not having to ask further questions about the legitimacy of the result in itself. Clearly, such a view leaves no room for a supreme ethical value or even for the very notion of truth.
The consequences of such a minimal view of science have not been slow in appearing: scientific progress is not always accompanied by a similar imrpovement in man's living conditions. Unwished for and unforseen effects have been brought about, causing serious concern in ever wider sectors of the population. It is enough to think of the problem of the environment as a result of the progress of industrialization. Serious doubts have thus arisen about the capability of progress as a whole to serve man.
The issue today is no longer that of opposition between science and faith. A new period has begun: the efforts of both scientists and theologians must now be directed to developing a constructive dialogue, making it possible to examine more and more deeply the fascinating mystery of man and also to foil the threats to man that are unfortunately growing daily more grave.
The efforts that scientists will devote to this inter-disciplinary exchange, together with the responding efforts to the experts in "the science of God," will encourage significant progress in the comprehension of truth, which is a complex unity that can be grasped only if viewed from many sides...
Man will then be seen ever more clearly for what he is: and end, never a means; a subject, never an object; a goal, never merely a stage on the way to a goal. In a word, man will be seen as a person, the only legitimate attitude to whom is that of unconditional respect. Respect for man will therefore become the supreme test for judging every employment of science and every concrete planning of new experiments that could be made possible by technology.
The future of mankind depends on these basic ethical values. To ignore them would mean becoming responsible before posterity- if there is posterity- for the extremely serious crime of "offense against mankind." Scientists are the pioneers of science and must act as watchful sentinels on the paths of progress, denouncing any form of intervention on man or his life environment that would be seen to be an attack on his dignity or inalienable rights. This is a responsibility that falls to our scientists. May it also be the reason for wich they will truly deserve to be help up for tommorrow for the admiration and gratitude of those who will have been saved by their courageous foresight from the risks of dreadful catastrophes.