In the Beginning by Joseph Ratzinger, Homily 1, Part II

However, because God is the true author of the Scriptures, we can understand the spiritual meanings of them when we read them in the light of Christ, who is their true object, as the human authors of the New Testament well understood. Thus, St. John’s 1st Letter & his Gospel open with words that mirror the first verses of Genesis. We now see that Scripture is not closed in on itself, because God’s revelation of himself in Christ, & his people’s understanding of it & their reflecting it in their writings, unfolds throughout history. So we must not read the Genesis test complete by itself & purely within itself – we must look toward its end, which is Christ. Ratzinger says, “Christ frees us from the slavery of the letter, & precisely thus does he give back to us, renewed, the truth of the images (p.16).”

Only recently was this dynamic forgotten, that all Scripture is a living unity. Scholars seemed far more interested in researching Scripture like a puzzle to solve with an eye toward “explaining” it rather than understanding it with a view toward Christ. Ratzinger says that they became obsessed with the “particulars, but meanwhile it forgot the Bible as a whole. [They] no longer read the texts forward but backward – that is, with a view not to Christ but to the probably origins of the text…(p.17).” Thus began the altogether unnecessary - & ultimately false - enmity between faith & science.

In conclusion of his first homily, Ratzinger argues that faith in creation as a gift of God is reasonable, in fact, the better hypothesis. The very reasonableness of the universe confirms the God who is Reason, Truth, & Love. In God’s freedom as Creator, creation itself becomes a gift for man, a sharing with him of God’s own freedom, reason, & love. In responding to this gift in faith, man is able to call upon God in prayer.