AN EVOLUTIONARY
CHRISTOLOGY
Teilhard de Chardin and Beyond
Copyright, Dr. A. B. Kelly 29th June
2001
David Coffey also refers to the work of a
group of three Dutch theologians, writing in the mid 1960’s, who “shared the
insight of Pseudo-Dionysius that properly speaking the mystery of Christ was
contained within the being and operation of the divine Word in the humanity,
the human nature, of Jesus”. The contributions of these theologians is
summarised by Robert North SJ in a paper on “Soul-Body Unity and God-Man Unity”
(1969).
In this paper North finds Ansfried
Hulsbosch, an Augustinian theologian, to be the most
outspoken of the three Dutch theologians. North considers the reactions of the
Dominican Schillebeecks and the Jesuit Schoonenberg to Hulsbosch’s
original thesis. At the end of his paper, North
summarises seventeen propositions that “are all contained within the three
Dutch articles”. He indicates his approval of these conclusions as they “seem
to be sound and acceptable as there contained.” (1969,59). Of particular interest to an evolutionary
Christology is conclusion No.16, that: “The unique person of Jesus the God-man
is an unfolding of possibilities which were somehow latent within matter
itself, and were precisely by their uniqueness distinct from the mode in
which material creation reveals God, and man in His image.” (1969,60)
So from Hulsbosch, Schillebeecks, Schoonenberg and
North we have agreement that latent possibilities, which are somehow contained
within matter itself, evolve to reveal Jesus the God-man. From Rahner we have human nature striving towards divinisation
by virtue of its essence. If human nature strives towards divinisation “by
virtue of its essence” and if Jesus represents “an unfolding of possibilities
which were somehow latent within matter itself”, we must try to understand
those processes through which this occurs. We need to find how human nature
strives towards its divinisation and how the possibilities that are latent in
matter are realised. We have to ask:
(A)
How
do the latent possibilities within matter come to be realised, and in
particular, what form of evolutionary process might realise these
possibilities?
(B)
Within
an evolutionary process, how might humanity achieve the divinisation that it
pursues by virtue of its essence? What evolutionary process could humanity
utilise in its striving towards divinisation?
(C)
As
Jesus has achieved the divinisation that humanity pursues by virtue of its
essence, what is the nature of the process that produced Jesus?
The ultimate divinisation, or deification, of
man is Christian teaching, but how this might happen has always been obscure.
This problem is highlighted by E.L. Mascall, who
says: “The vision of God, union with God, assimilation to God – in such terms
Christianity, basing itself on the Bible itself, has consistently described
man’s end and beatitude. Yet it is by no means easy to see how such a destiny
is consistent with the radical distinction between God and the creature. To be
a creature is to exist with a derived existence; to exist with an underived
existence is to be God; there can be no half-way house. How then can a creature
be deified? – for this is the term which Christian
theology has dared to use.” (1949,184) He
contrasts the rational conviction of the “absolute distinction between God and
creatures” to the equally firm faith conviction “that we can literally become
‘partakers of the divine nature.’ (2 Pet. I,4)” (1949,185)
I argue that Mascall
proposes a false dichotomy between a derived and an underived existence when he
argues that there can be “no half-way house” between underived being and
derived being. Once evolution is
understood as a process that involves both self-organisation and self-creation,
we can postulate an intermediate position between a derived and an underived
existence. This intermediate position, as the product of a process of
self-creation, can be closer to the underived existence of God than to the
derived existence of a creature. In my dissertation on “The Process of the
Cosmos” I develop a Natural Theology, based on contemporary Cosmology, which
identifies the role of human moral-cultural self-creation in the overall
process of the Cosmos.
One of the three Dutch theologians, Ansfried Hulsbosch, specialised
in Teilhard de Chardin’s
thought. Hulsbosch
applied Teilhard’s understanding of evolution to
Jesus himself, arguing that Jesus is “The unfolding of possibilities lying
latent in matter itself”. Teilhard saw the process of
evolution as the progressive unfolding of possibilities, all of which were
contained in primal matter. However he did not apply this concept to the person
of Jesus.
Hulsbosch argues that the
divinity of Christ consists in the perfection and elevation of his humanity. Schillebeecks agrees with these “true and valid conclusions”,
but he objects to Hulsbosch linking his conclusions
to “an ephemeral evolutionism”, on the grounds that there was no consensus
among philosophers and theologians as to whether evolution is really a process
of “unfolding” of what is already present. (North, 1969, 27-28) This unfolding
of the latent has always been Teilhard’s understanding of evolution. I maintain that it is only when
evolution is seen to be other than a deterministic unfolding of what is already
present, that the process of Jesus’ divinisation can be understood.
Hulsbosch states: “The
divinity of Christ is seen to consist in the perfection or elevation of His
humanity”. He faces the fact that Jesus may be a “mere man” and asks whether Jesus’
prerogatives should not “be called ‘divine’ in the sense of godlike”? He
maintains that: “As long as we are really serious about insisting on the
personal unity of the man Jesus, we must say that here we have an unfolding of
the capabilities which lay latent within matter.” (1969, 27-33)
While Schillebeecks
approves the thesis that the unique person of Jesus is an unfolding of
possibilities that were somehow latent in all men and even somehow latent in
matter itself (conclusion No. 16), he rejects the “ephemeral evolutionism” that
proposes an inevitable unfolding of latent capabilities. The difference appears
fine, but it relates to whether the process of evolution is, or is not,
pre-determined.
Hulsbosch states that: “The
history of Christianity is at bottom a search for the unity of this person who
became known as man and confessed as the Son of God. The Church in her
confession has always held fast to the unity of these so diverse components,
but in speaking of “two natures” she has called forth a tension that has
persisted until today and in fact is felt today more keenly than ever. What is
inevitably conjured up is the image of a Christ divided into two layers.” Hulsbosch then argues that “(the view of Christ as a mere
man) cannot effectively be refuted by merely repeating traditional Church formulas. . . . . we (need to consider) the place of Christ
in evolution. We can divide into three phases the evolution of our earth from
its obscure beginnings up to today. First there was matter without life, then
there was plant and animal life, and thirdly there was man. Since Teilhard de Chardin has involved
Christ too in evolution, we are somewhat oriented to the thought that the
coexistence of the human race in the person of Christ can be called a fourth
phase of evolution.” (1969,30-1)
North comments that here Hulsbosch
is espousing Teilhard’s “continuity through
discontinuity”, through critical thresholds. He refers to an earlier article in
which Hulsbosch says “It is matter itself which is
appearing in ever new forms; it becomes ever different, raises itself to ever
higher levels…The living being is not matter plus life, but living matter. Man
is not matter plus spirit, but. . . . animated matter
capable of those activities we call spiritual.” Hulsbosch
“faces frankly the fact that we seem headed toward the conclusion that Jesus
was a mere man.” He argues that “since Scripture insists firmly that He is a
man taken from among us, must we not then abandon the notion that his special
prerogatives differentiating Him from other men are to be reduced to a separate
divine principle distinct from his human nature? . . . . Must we not here also
say that matter itself includes among its potencies that of being bearer of the
activities that characterise Jesus? In that case the prerogatives, which set
Jesus apart from other men, should be called ‘divine’ in the sense of godlike.
As long as we are really serious about insisting on the personal unity of the
man Jesus, we must say that here too we have an unfolding of the capabilities
which lay latent within matter.” North comments that this reasoning regards
Christ as “the primordial man, the exemplar for whom the whole of creation
exists, and in whom chiefly it is the image of God.” In Jesus “manhood had
crossed a higher threshold.” While this “would doubtless give full expression
to the unity of Christ. . . . the price really seems
too high. He would no longer be seen as the Son, one with the Father in his
divine nature. He would just be the human vehicle of an unusual grace.” (1969,
31-34)
North then comments
that “the basic problem of the combining of human and divine in one person has
not vanished.”
(1969, 35) so that “There lies before us only the possibility of a thoroughgoing
reappraisal of the whole problem.” (1969, 39)
North turns to Cyril of Alexandria (d.444 AD)
and his dictum that “the human is the measure in which the divine appears”.
North argues that “Because the man Christ remains a true creature revealing God
by His whole human personality, creation as a whole is thereby also a
manifestation of God, though in lesser and varying degrees.” (1969, 40) This view is supported by Schillebeeckx,
who says: “ The deepest sense of revelation is that
God reveals Himself in humanity. We cannot seek farther, above or beneath the man
Jesus, his being God. The divinity must be perceptible in His humanity
itself: ‘he who sees me, sees the Father.’ The human
form of Jesus is the revelation of God. . . .the
mystery lies . . . in His being man itself. . . The man-Jesus is the
presence of God. . . If Christ is God, we know this only out of His mode of
being man. . .He must be man in a different and
absolutely unique way”. (1969, 40-41) He adds: “We can say
that Jesus is the human way of being God, but we cannot say that Jesus is the
divine way of being man.” (1969,56)
On the question of pre-existence, Hulsbosch says that “When Jesus says ‘He who sees me, sees
the Father’, this implies that He, as a distinct person, is revelation of the
Father. But such ‘distinctness of person’ is to be sought in the human
subjectivity of Jesus, rather than in a pre-existent divine person.”(1969,46) The ascription of pre-existence to Jesus is to be
understood as “a kind of retrojection, much as when we say ‘The Chief Justice
was born in 1908’: the person as we know him now is rightly named as subject of
those activities which preceded. The
divine dimension of Jesus is truly divine, and therefore from eternity. Since
the revelatory divinity of Christ does not exclude that of the whole creation,
the pre-existence of Christ is paralleled by that of (personified) Wisdom in
the fashioning of the world.” (1969,47) Hulsbosch objects to “making the personal subjectivity of
Christ a pre-existent divine reality distinct from anything human.”(1969,
48)
Schoonenberg notes that Justin describes the Logos as communicated partially
to all men, but totally to Christ. He also reviews what Scripture says of the
Son’s pre-existence, and concludes that its real basis is to be found in the divine
wisdom present with God from or before the moment of creation. He notes that
none of the texts “really describes a previous existence of Christ”. (1969,
51-2)
Hulsbosch’s reasoning leads him
to the problem of how true divine sonship can be retained “if the divinizingly revelatory function is shared in gradual
degree with all the other creatures? Our dogma is that creatures are sons by
adoption and Christ is the Son by nature; and this tolerates no mere gradation.
But dogma also insists that Christ is true man and therefore true creature,
thus only in degree distinct from other creatures”. (1969, 47) In my view, the
resolution of this problem is to be found in the understanding of the
evolutionary process as one involving distinct stages of both self-organisation
and self-creation.
Christology stood at the very centre of Teilhard de Chardin’s concerns. As Donald. P. Gray makes clear; “from the time of the first
unmistakably Teilhardian essays, written during the
First World War, right up until the year of his death, he was preoccupied with
the possibilities of a Christology commensurate with the possibilities of the
evolutionary perspective.” Despite this preoccupation, Gray finds that Teilhard; “(was not) particularly concerned about updating
the ontological Christology stemming from Chalcedon.”
(1975,32)
The ontological status of Christ has been
identified by Baechler as one of the “structurally
insurmountable ambiguities” of present day Christianity. (1975, 90) Teilhard’s failure to address this problem highlights an
internal inconsistency in his perspective. Teilhard
sought to reconcile evolution and the traditional expression of Christianity,
while retaining Christianity’s traditional static expression. A reconciliation of the static and the
dynamic is ultimately impossible.
Evolution is based on a dynamic process
view of the world, while Christianity found its expression within a static world-view.
A complete reconciliation of two such essentially disparate world-views is
never a possibility. Teilhard did not seek to apply
his process perspective to the Christ-event. Instead, he attempted to make the
process of evolution compatible with the static expression of Christian dogma. Hulsbosch is more consistent in including Jesus in the Teilhardian evolutionary scheme, with its inevitable
unfolding of what is already contained in matter. It is this Teilhardian perspective on evolution that Schillebeecks rejects.
As we have seen, Schillebeecks
approves the thesis that human evolution involves an unfolding of possibilities
that are somehow latent in all men and even somehow latent in matter itself
(conclusion No. 16), but he rejects Holsbusch’s
“ephemeral evolutionism” that propose an inevitable unfolding of latent
capabilities. As noted earlier, this difference relates to whether the process
of evolution is pre-determined or is in some way a free process. It raises the
question of the nature of the evolutionary process.
Darwinian evolution, which Teilhard sought to reconcile with dogma, focuses primarily
on the role of natural selection in evolution. This is despite the fact that
selection can only operate on what is presented for selection. Darwinians have
tended to regard whatever is presented for selection as the product of chance.
Some mutations that are presented for selection happen to be appropriate to the
environment. In this approach, all
development, from the initial living cell to the present, is considered to be
primarily the product of chance. Chance is thus considered to be responsible
for all the enormous growth in both complexity and consciousness that Teilhard emphasised. A fundamental problem in this approach
is that ‘chance’ is only an epistemological concept, applied due to a lack of
knowledge.
The role of mutation in biological evolution
is now attracting more attention. Beneficial mutation is the initiation of more
complex novelty by the synthesis of existing elements. In biological evolution
the growth in complexity relies on this synthesis.
The part played by selection in evolution is
the elimination of non-beneficial “mistakes” but also the elimination of more
complex novelty that does not happen to fit the environment in which it
appears.
Evolution literally means a “rolling outwards”.
This suggests that what evolves is somehow present in its precursors. Mutation
appears to involve a process of involution, a “rolling inwards” of existing
elements to produce complexity. However, while the elements of what newly
evolves have to be present in its precursors, it is not their presence, but
their interaction and synthesis, which produce the more complex novelty. The
evolution of the complex biological present can be understood as primarily the
result of this involution and synthesis, rather than of chance.
In the creation of complexity, the most
important role in the biological evolutionary process is played by mutation.
Physical evolution, from the time of the Big Bang, is similarly a process of
increasing complexity, involving synthesis in the production of heavier
elements. It is in no way a “rolling out” of what is already present.
Physical and Biological evolution are not the
full story. Human cultures also evolve. The evolution of a culture is not a
matter of chance. A culture is a process of free self-creation. As I argue in
Chapter 5 of “The Process of the Cosmos”, the evolution of human moral cultures
involves a reciprocal process of human self-creation. It is self-evident that
humans make cultures and cultures, to a significant extent, make humans.
The development of any culture is a free
process. From the time that an explanation of the world is first proposed
within a human group, any further development of the culture of that group
depends upon the perception of reality by the members of that culture. That
perception of reality will necessarily be moderated by the understanding of
reality embedded in the culture. Dix’s analysis of culture has shown that the
roots of a culture are to be found in the ideas that the people of that culture
take for granted as to the meaning and purpose of human life. (1967,7)
With the further development of human
intelligence the primitive original understanding of the world will tend to be
challenged and modified. Modification of
the ideas that provide the basis of the culture will be driven by the
interaction between reality, the understanding of reality embedded in the
culture, and the clearer perception of reality by members of the culture. The
latter is particularly the case if the culture values the pursuit of all
knowledge.
For Hugo Meynell
the development of the understanding of reality is critical to the development
of human cultures. Through this development culture becomes “a means to the
examination of life” He finds the key to the development of the understanding
of reality in human authenticity. Persons are authentic in this sense “to the
degree that, insofar as is possible to them, they attend to the experience
available to them on any matter, envisage possible explanations for that
experience, judge the possibility which is best confirmed by the evidence, and
decide to act accordingly”. Following Bernard Lonergan
he calls these four capacities attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness and
responsibility.
Meynell argues that to
consider these capacities in our account of the world is to be led to a
critical realism that will lead to “the intelligent conception and reasonable
affirmation of an intelligent will, which provides the ultimate explanation of
the world”. (2000, 1-2)
Mary Midgely
demonstrates that man is formed in such a way that he needs a culture to
complete him. We have an innate need of culture and we cannot live without one,
nor without creating one. A person’s culture provides
the necessary matrix for that person’s development. (1978,286)
As noted in “The Process of the Cosmos”,
“the greater the degree of individual freedom that a culture permits,
and the more responsive it is, in its traditions and structures, to the
operation of our human moral value-consciousness, the more it will enable
individuals to develop and to realise their good, and also to contribute to the
further development of the culture.” (1999 Ch.5)
To summarise, culture can be understood as a
process of human moral-cultural self-creation. The development of a culture is
driven by the interaction between reality and the perception of reality by
members of the culture. This development can lead to the idea that an
intelligent will provides the ultimate explanation of the world. Let us apply
this understanding of culture to the culture that produced Jesus.
In relation to this culture E.L. Doctorow has his character, Sarah Blumenthal, comment on
Exodus 19-24 in these terms: “My sense here, what comes through to me, is the
understanding these writers possessed of the morally immense human life. Do you
see that? They were proposing an ethical configuration for human existence. Who
before had done that in quite the same way? These Commandments were devised by
human scriptural genius. We could make the case then for God’s presence after
all in the humanly written Bible. The Lord, blessed be His name . . . being
what impels us to struggle for historical and theological comprehension. The
biblical minds who created the Ten Commandments that have structured
civilization . . . provided the possibility of an ethically conceived life, an
awareness that we live in states of moral consequence that, if not yet, must
someday bring us closer to a union of understanding with the Creator. What a great and profound gift . . . and how worthy of reverence!”
(2000,116)
The Hebrew culture, from the time of Moses,
maintained its focus upon the necessity of moral behaviour. While other
cultures have also produced spiritual leaders, the Hebrews, from the at least
the time of Moses, produced a whole series of Prophets and spiritual leaders.
This was a result of their conclusion that an intelligent will provides the
ultimate explanation of the world, their efforts to understand that will, and
their consequent focus on the appropriateness of human moral action. Jesus can
be understood as the ultimate product of the Hebrew culture’s process of human
moral-cultural self-creation.
As the product of a process of human moral-cultural
self-creation, neither Jesus, nor any man, is a “mere creature”. The
distinction between God and humanity is not as radical as Mascall
thought. While “to be a creature is to exist with a derived existence” and “to
exist with an underived existence is to be God”, to be the product of a process
of self-creation does at least constitute a sort of “half-way house”.
In reply to Mascall’s
question “How then can a creature be deified?” we can answer that a mere
creature cannot be deified. However all humans, including Jesus, are more than
“mere creatures”. Mascall points to “the radical
difference between God and the creature”.
This difference is to be found in the mode of
existence. While the essence of the creature is to exist with a derived, contingent
existence, the essence of divinity is self-existence. But the difference in the
mode of existence between the self-existent God and the product of a process of
self-creation, with a largely self-created or self-derived existence, is not a
radical difference. The mode of existence of the product of a process of
self-creation can be similar, as self-created, to the mode of existence of the
self-existent God. It is thus only the deontological success of the process of
human moral-cultural self-creation that can enable us to literally become
“partakers of the divine nature”.
To be the product of a process of
self-creation is to exist, to a significant extent, with a self-derived
existence. Different cultures will have quite different appreciations of reality,
and different ideas as to what particular aspects of reality are important. We
can contrast the Hebrew focus on moral action with the Classical Greek focus on
philosophic thought. Depending on the focus of a particular culture’s process
of self-creation, a product of such a process could conceivably become divine,
in the sense of god-like, or similar to god, as Hulsbosch
proposes. But this is no mere unfolding of what is already present. It requires
the free and appropriate development of latent possibilities within human
nature.
An evolutionary Christology requires that a
process approach be adopted towards the ontological status of Christ. I laid
the foundation for such an approach in “The Process of the Cosmos”. In that thesis I argue that the Cosmos, from
the Big Bang to the present, can be understood as a process involving
self-organisation and self-creation. This process moves through a series of
emergent stages, each one of which has a greater degree of freedom to evolve
than the previous stage. The laws of nature of the several stages range from
the deterministic laws of the physical stage to the complete freedom of humans
in relation to the moral law.
I consider why God would initiate such a
process of self-creation, rather than directly create the desired end-product
of such a process. I argue that God cannot directly create an entity that it is
appropriate for God to love. God can only directly create a mere creature.
A perfect God has no needs. Because of the absence
of needs, love provides the only possible motive for God to act. But the object
of God’s love has to be appropriate and proportionate to that love. This means
that God can only initiate a process involving self-creation, which could
possibly result in the free self-creation of an entity that is both good and
which, being self-created, has a mode of existence which is similar to the mode
of existence of the self-existent God. Mascall was
right about the fundamental gap between God and a mere creature, but wrong to
consider humans as mere creatures.
If we consider the process of the Cosmos we
see that each successive emergent stage of the process is built upon the
previous stage, but exercises greater freedom than the previous stage. The
first emergent stage is the physical stage, initiated by the Big Bang. The laws
of Physics and Chemistry of this stage are deterministic, but permit of
contingency. The next emergent stage is that of life. The laws of life permit
more freedom to develop or evolve than do the deterministic laws of matter.
Life is opportunistic rather than
deterministic. Then there is the emergence of the stage of conscious life,
which exercises greater freedom than can vegetative and instinctive life, and
finally there is the emergence of human moral-cultural life. Each emergent
level is supported by the previous level, but exercises a greater degree of
freedom. The law of this present moral-cultural stage of the overall process,
the moral law, permits total freedom. The moral law commands, but it does not
compel. Humans are totally free to apply, or to fail to apply, the moral law.
The movement through the various stages is from determinism to total freedom.
Humans are free to establish, or to fail to establish, a fully moral world community.
I argue that each emergent stage of the
process of the cosmos involves self-organization or self-creation. This
self-creation is particularly clear in the human moral-cultural stage. Humans
make cultures and cultures, to a significant extent, make humans. Culture is a
continuous process of reciprocal self-creation. The degree to which a
particular culture develops seems to depend on the nature of the world-view
that provides the basis of that culture. It particularly depends on the effect
on that world-view of the interaction between that world-view and reality. It
thus primarily depends upon the development of the understanding of reality
within that culture, and the consequent awareness of the need to modify the
culture in the light of reality.
John Paul II, acknowledging that “Faith and
reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation
of truth”, has encouraged philosophers - “be they Christian or not – to trust
in the power of human reason and not to set themselves goals that are too
modest in their philosophising”. He points out that “it is necessary not to
abandon the passion for ultimate truth, the eagerness to search for it or the
audacity to forge new paths in the search”. (1998, 9&84) Referring to the
fact that scientists do not abandon their search for truth in the face of
setbacks, he points out that they do not regard their earlier intuitions as
useless, but keep searching for the correct answer. He then argues that: “The
same must be true of the search for truth when it comes to the ultimate
questions.” (1998,49)
Meynell also notes the
importance of following the evidence where it leads in our creative theorising
about the world, while still recognising the value of the work of earlier thinkers.
He draws attention to the need for mental creativity and for recognition of the
ways our wishes, fears and prejudices can make us less attentive, intelligent
and reasonable in our theorising. (2000,1-2)
The argument in “The Process of the Cosmos”
is essentially a Natural Theology. Christology, which is concerned with the
ontology of Christ, stands to be reconsidered in the light of this Natural
Theology of Process. Christian Theology always relies on philosophical thought
for the better understanding of Faith.
The development of linear, progressive,
process philosophies and theologies has been traced in my “Milestones in the
Search for Meaning: Process Thought in Hegel to Baltazar
and Beyond” (2001). It is my contention that the historical Christ-event could
not be fully understood without the development of an appropriate process
philosophy and theology.
While the Hebrews developed their theological
understanding of the world, the strictly philosophical approach to the search for
truth began in Classical Greece. Greek philosophy was based on common sense, as
were the Ptolemaic and Euclidian views of physical reality. This explains their
persistence and appeal. But as Baltazar points out,
our commonsense time-frame of reference is so small that within that scale no
great changes are perceived. However if we introduce time into the equation, we
see that what appears to be static and permanent, in the two-dimensional
setting of common sense observation, is really process in the three-dimensional
frame of reference that results from the addition of the effects of time. (1965,136-7)
Classical philosophy, and hence theology, was
static and two-dimensional because it left time out of the equation. Baltazar argues
that there has to be an adequate philosophy of process developed before
theology can convert to the historical perspective. (1965, 134-7) Modern sciences, such as geology, biology and
cosmology, take time into account. They
take development over time into account.
These sciences reflect a dynamic perspective, a process
perspective. Taking time into account
can give us a three dimensional, or process, perspective rather than a two
dimensional, static perspective. (Baltazar 1965,137)
The idea of the world as a linear process was
potential in Jewish thought. Cahill (1998) makes as his central point the fact
that the Jews had introduced a radical new concept of reality. They had rejected the ancient belief in
reality’s static or cyclical nature, and they taught that the future is
determined by man’s present actions.
This, Cahill maintains, had made human progress possible. Baltazar also recognises that for the Hebrew, time has
always been the region of truth. He quotes from Galatians “Time matured and ripened Israel, the
spouse of Yahweh, so that she gave birth to Christ, the Fullness of Time. (Gal.
4:4)” (1965,147) This process of maturation appears to
have begun in Israel with the promulgation of the Mosaic Law.
The static, two-dimensional world of
classical philosophy and theology has been replaced by the perception that the
world is in process. This dynamic
viewpoint is to be found in Cosmology, and in the work of Einstein and of
Darwin. It is seldom to be found in
theology, except to some extent in the work of Teilhard
de Chardin and his followers, and in followers of Whitehead. I have not dealt with Whitehead’s
idea of process, as I do not find a need for the idea of a developing God.
The process of human
moral-cultural self-creation shows how Rahner’s
concept of human nature striving towards divinisation by virtue of its essence,
might be realised.
The cosmic process, involving self-organisation, evolution and self-creation,
shows how the latent possibilities contained within matter itself can evolve to
reveal Jesus, as Conclusion No. 16 proposes.
Those latent possibilities evolve through the processes of the
self-organisation of matter at the physical level, biological evolution at the
level of living matter, and moral-cultural self-creation at the human level.
Conclusion No. 16 includes a distinction
between the evolution of Jesus, the mode in which material creation reveals
God, and the way mankind reveals God by being God’s image. As the process of
the cosmos is a continuum, such a distinction does not appear to be necessary.
Jesus clearly understood that he was the
Messiah. He was also a man of his time. From the perspective of the prevailing
world-view he initially expected to be dramatically revealed as Messiah. This
was the understanding of the time, held also by his disciples. Rather than
recognising the gradual process of human moral-cultural self-development that
had in fact occurred, and of which he was a product, he anticipated a dramatic
intrusion by God into the history of Israel. He could hold no other view, as
his culture had not developed a Process perspective on the world. This was
despite their understanding of the importance of time. They still understood God
as both willing and able to intervene dramatically in the course of the world.
If the divinity of Christ consists in the
perfection and elevation of his humanity, as Hulsbosch
proposes, then it is more reasonable to understand Jesus becoming divine through
the self-development of his individual human reality, within the context of the
particular human moral culture that gave him birth. Jesus can be understood as
the “first born” product of this process of human self-creation. As stated in
my thesis, Jesus is the proleptic exemplar of the final Emergent stage.
Every emergent stage in the process of the
cosmos, and all development or evolution within those stages, can be understood
as originating from the initiation of more complex novelty by the synthesis of
existing elements. This synthesis appears to be largely contingent at the
material level, but to be internally initiated at the biological level. At the
human moral-cultural level it is a function of the application of human
attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness and responsibility, within
cultures.
The self-organisation at the material stage,
and the self-creation at later stages, reminds us of Justin’s view of the
Logos. Justin was influenced by Philo’s interpretation of the Stoic idea of the
Logos. The Greek concept of logos could signify both the structure and order
that is found in nature and also the source of that order. This concept was
familiar to Judaism through the influence of Philo. Justin held that the Logos
is communicated partially to all men, but totally to Christ. In Justin’s view
the Logos assumed shape and became man in Jesus Christ. The function of the
Logos was to be both the Father’s agent in creating and ordering the universe,
and to reveal the truth to men. (J.N.D. Kelly 1960, 96-7)
I posed the question earlier about the nature
of the processes that could enable the latent possibilities within matter to be
realised, and in particular, how humanity could arrive at the point towards
which it strives by virtue of its essence.
I have
described the processes of physical, biological and cultural evolution, as I
perceive them. Both physical and biological evolution depend
upon the synthesis of pre-existing elements.
Both matter and life are initiated with the potential to freely develop
and evolve. This developmental process reaches its fullest expression in human
moral cultures. If human nature strives towards divinisation “by virtue of its
essence” and if Jesus represents “an unfolding of possibilities which were
somehow latent within matter itself”, we have to ask three questions. These
questions and the answers that I have proposed are:
(A) How do the latent
possibilities within matter come to be realised, and in particular, what form of evolutionary
process might realise these possibilities?
It appears that the latent possibilities
within matter come to be realised initially by processes of self-organisation.
These latent possibilities at the material level are recognised as those laws of
nature that determine the formation of elements and the possibilities of their
bonding with other elements. These laws are deterministic but their interaction
gives rise to contingency, eventually producing a planet capable of supporting
life.
Within living matter, determinism gives way
to greater freedom. Life freely evolves to produce greater complexity. While
the elements of what newly evolves have to be present in its precursors, it is
not their presence, but their interaction and synthesis, which produce the more
complex novelty. The evolution of the complex biological present can be
understood as primarily the result of this involution and synthesis, rather
than of chance. Biological evolution is
an undirected process of self-creation.
(B)Within that evolutionary process how might
humanity achieve the divinisation that it pursues by virtue of its essence?
What evolutionary process could humanity utilise in its striving towards
divinisation?
The process is one of human moral-cultural
self-creation, utilising the human qualities of attentiveness, intelligence,
reasonableness and responsibility. This is essentially a free and not a
determined process. It is a communal process but it depends upon the individual
exercise of the human qualities identified by Lonergan
in order to progress. It requires that moral action be accorded priority in
cultures.
(C)As Jesus has achieved the divinisation
that humanity pursues by virtue of its essence, what was the nature of the
process that produced Jesus?
Jesus is the unique individual product of the
communal Hebrew process of moral-cultural self-creation. The primary focus of
this process was on seeking a better knowledge of God, and on acting morally.
This understanding of Jesus resolves the problem of the combining of the human
and the divine in the one person, referred to by North as “The basic problem”
(1969,35) It also explains how Jesus comes to be “the human way of being God”.
(Schillebeeckx in North, 1969,56)
When Mascall poses
the question “How then can a creature be deified?”
and North refers to “the basic problem of the combining of human and divine in
one person”, they are really addressing the same problem. The answer to both
questions is that humans can achieve divinity through the free process of human
moral-cultural self-creation. But as this is a free, and not a determined
process, there can be no guarantee of success. This process can only be free if
there is no divine intervention.
An understanding of the process of the cosmos
shifts responsibility for the world from God to mankind. It challenges the old
understanding of God as Pantokrator, as it leaves God
with nothing to do in our Cosmos after initiating the Big Bang, and also
initiating life. This is an unfamiliar concept and some find it disturbing.
However the understanding of Jesus as a
product of a process of human moral-cultural self-creation, resolves a number
of problems in Christian Theology. One such problem is the apparent inability
of God to intervene in the world. In a recent article, Denis Biefeldt argues that: “Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can
avoid a causally inert deity only if they are willing to deny the current
presumption of the causal closure of the physical.” (2001, 153)
Biefeldt applies Alexander’s
dictum “To be is to have causal powers” to the assumption shared by
Christianity, Judaism and Islam that God is a causally efficacious entity in
the present world. He concludes that: “For traditional talk about God to be
true, either there must be some information transfer or downward causation from
the divine level to lower physical levels, or there must be some underlying
natural events that would make these statements true. But (as his analysis of
the problem shows) all of these ways are blocked.” He then asks: “How else
might we avoid a causally inert Deity?” (2001,175)
When Biefeldt speaks of a “causally inert Deity” he
is addressing the idea that God intervenes in the world, not the initiation of
the Cosmos by God or the initiation of life.
The natural theology of “The Process of the
Cosmos” is not significantly affected by Biefeldt’s
conclusion, indeed it argues for an understanding of God who does not
intervene, or who intervenes minimally, and who certainly does not intervene in
the normal life of the world. In “The Process of the Cosmos” I argued that God
initiated each new Emergent stage. I now resile from all intervention by God in
the process of the cosmos, once the process has been initiated, except for the
initiation of life, which would seem to have been associated with a transfer of
information and energy. The initiation of the cosmos, the first Emergent, is
clearly associated with a transfer of information and energy. It is not
affected by Biefeldt’s argument.
Biefeldt is “fearful that the
reluctance of theology to deal honestly with God’s putative causal power has
hastened the marginalisation of God-talk, for if God is not a causally
efficacious entity, then what significance has God in our lives?’ (2001,155) This fear is not well-founded. Pre-scientific people
could readily accept the constant intervention of God in the world. A more
critical perspective rejects such intervention. But the move away from divine
intervention directs more responsibility to ourselves,
while the recognition of the nature of the cosmic process, as a process of
self-creation, restores significance to God and purpose to our lives.
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