Lent 1A, 2008
Matthew 6: 26, 28-29
OF EVOLUTION AND GOD, AND THE UNFOLDING INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF LIFE
“In the beginning was creativity and the creativity was with God,
and the creativity was God. All things came into being
through the mystery of creativity; apart from creativity
nothing would have come into being.
(Kaufman 2004:ix).
Today in the progressive religious world, is Evolution Sunday.
It is also the closest Sunday to the 199th anniversary
of the birth of Charles Darwin.
So to celebrate this, I want to talk very personally, about God.
And a clue to what shapes both my experience and understanding of God
is contained in the opening words/paraphrase of this sermon.
oo0oo
One of the very first books I ever bought on theology,
I bought in 1965, and by mistake.
It cost me nine shillings.
It’s author was a biologist and process theologian.
I still have it on my library shelves even though it is beginning to fall to bits!
I was in Warrnambool (Vic) on a university break when one of my former
bank clients (I used to be a bank teller) had just opened a bookshop,
so a few of us went to celebrate the opening.
The shop was divided into sections so I explored the ‘Religion’ section.
Among the books, one caught my eye.
Nature of God was its title.
I bought it. But when I got home I discovered
it was not called Nature of God at all.
But instead, Nature and God.
Nevertheless, the book and its author, L Charles Birch,
Challis Professor of Biology at the University of Sydney,
has been a valuable travelling companion with me
on my personal theological journey these past 43 years.
The very first sentence in Birch’s book is:
“The concept of God’s operations in the universe as a series of fitful interventions from a supernatural sphere overlaying the natural is quite unacceptable to science” (Birch 1965:7).
While the third sentence said:
“On the other hand, the traditional thinking of science, sometimes called mechanism, is quite unreconcilable with any reasoned Christian position” (Birch 1965:7).
Since reading Birch way back then, an interest in communication,
regular eye tests, and the relationship between
science and religion, has remained with me.
Which is why, on Evolution Sunday, I want to speak personally about God.
And for the record, it has taken me more than 40 years
to write this sermon, and I know it’s not finished yet…
oo0oo
‘God’ is a symbol or word known and used by nearly everyone
who speaks the English language.
But it is also a word which has many uses and meanings attached to it.
The Macquarie Dictionary defines the word as:
“the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe” (Macquarie Dictionary 1981:763).
This way of speaking theologically is called ‘classical theism’.
This ‘God’ is supernatural, interventionist, and
nearly always couched in male anthropological (or human-like) language and images.
And for many this is still the way they think when they hear the word ‘God’.
But this way of thinking doesn’t work for me.
So over the years my thinking has and continues, to change.
(i) I have come to think of God as the creative process or ‘creativity’, rather than a being who creates, and
(ii) I have tried, in the main, to us nonpersonal metaphors rather than personal ones.
The thoughts of many others have interacted with my own thinking,
including those positively influenced by the work of Charles Darwin
and his 1859 publication, The origin of species.
In that book Darwin suggested that the world/universe was:
(i) unfinished and continuing;
(ii) involved chance events and struggle, and
(iii) natural selection took the place of
“design according to a preordained [divine] blueprint” (Birch 1965:29).
Put another way:
cosmic evolution, biological evolution, cultural/symbolic evolution (Peters 2002, Kaufman 2004).
Or yet another way:
“In the beginning was creativity and the creativity was with God, and the creativity was God. All things came into being through the mystery of creativity; apart from creativity nothing would have come into being. (Kaufman 2004:ix).
oo0oo
There is a well-known scene in Disney’s popular The Lion King
where two friends, a meerkat called Timon and a warthog named Pumbaa,
are lying under a night sky with the soon-to-be-lion-king, Simba,
gazing up at the stars.
As they gaze, Pumbaa gets to wondering. He asks Timon:
“Ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there?”
Timon answers matter-of-factly:
“Pumbaa. I don’t wonder. I know. They’re fireflies…
“Fireflies that uh... got stuck up in that big... bluish-black... thing”.
“Oh gee,” Pumbaa says, “I always thought that they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away.”
And Timon responds to his friend, who has a well-known problem with flatulency:
“Pumba, with you everything’s gas.” (Jennifer Amy-Dressler. Evolution Sunday web site).
This little bit of film fun captures the crashing worldviews
of the 16th and 17th centuries especially.
Today, based on many observations and theories,
we have mentally constructed another universe.
Both in science and in theology.
The most widely accepted modern estimate of the earth’s age
is approximately 4.5 billion years. While the universe - that whole
“complex, interrelated and interacting... matter-energy in space-time... of which humans are an integral part...” (Gillette 2006:1), is approximately 14 billion years old.
And “[i]f we put our fourteen-billion-year universe on a clock of one hour, humanity appears in only the last few seconds” (Peters 2002:127)
So, modern science is saying and has been saying, again and again:
the universe must be regarded as a whole;
it is of intrinsic value, and each part,
galaxy,
organism,
individual atom,
participates in that intrinsic value as each part participates in this wonderful web of life.
Each part, rather than one species or organism
separating itself out as more important than the rest.
While that ‘naturalistic’ strand of theology call Process Theology, as advocated
by Charles Birch, Carol Christ, John Cobb and many others, suggests
“that a creative force imbues all that is; we can call this creative force God if we like but there is no requirement that we do so. A creative force for growth, for order, for positive development: from an amoeba to the human mind, each living thing - and perhaps each grain of sand, each atom - everything has within it, or is a part of, that creativity” (Jennifer Brooks. Evolution Sunday web site).
Which is why a growing number of people around the world
are beginning to recognise that our modern life-style is:
harming other creatures,
diminishing the functioning of ecosystems, and
altering global climate patterns.
Progressive religious thought calls each and every one of us
to ‘dance with’, to live in harmony with, nature.
For such is to live inspired (in-spirited, in-the-Spirit) lives.
And progressive religious thought names that creativity
which indwells and sustains all life forms...
galaxy
organism
individual atom... ‘G-o-d’ or ‘the sacred’ or ‘serendipitous creativity’.
“So the weather, the Earth, the stars, the gorgeous wings of a butterfly, the green of the trees, and the blue blue sky are connected to me and to all of you. That pulse we feel at the center of our being beats also in the hearts of stars. Evolution unfolds the interconnectedness of all life. It’s not an either-or choice between religion and science…
“When we consider the miracle of our presence, of our sentience, may we always be open to the unknown, the unanswered, the inexplicable. Rather than flee from mystery, may we embrace it; rather than grasp at pat explanations and claim to know the answers, may we live with awe and gratitude at the miracle of life” (Jennifer Brooks. Evolution Sunday web site).
Notes:
Birch, L. C. 1965. Nature and God. Gt Britain: London. SCM Press.
Evolution Sunday web site. (HYPERLINK "http://www.evolutionweekend.org/"www.evolutionweekend.org)
Gillett, P. R. 2006. “Theology of, by, and for religious naturalism” in Journal of Liberal Religion 6, 1, 1-6. (An online journal).
Kaufman, G. D. 2004. In the beginning… creativity. MN: Minneapolis. Fortress Press.
Macquarie Dictionary. 1981. NSW: McMahons Point. Macquarie University.
Peters, K. E. 2002. Dancing with the sacred. Evolution, ecology, and God. PN: Harrisburg. Trinity International.