Anthony J. Fisichella...
Evolutionary Design Part I
The mystics of all ages have continually made reference to their dialogues with Deity. The Bible is an obvious case - the proclaimed "word of God." However, those making such claims have never made it clear as to the level from which these revelations were proceeding. It is interesting that the earliest of written languages, Egyptian hieroglyphics, is derived from hiero: sacred or holy, and glyph: word or symbol: for the Egyptians saw this as the "words of God". In truth, I suspect, the only true meaningful and relevant revelations comes from one's soul, the Christ within. That is ever the directing Intelligence within each of us. It is through the soul that the Universe eternally speaks and reveals Itself.
Until one makes that connection, between body and soul, even if only tenuously, the messages received must be held suspect. Even then we must question and examine the nature and quality of the receiving instrument, the personality. The cleanest and clearest of water emerges tainted when passed through a rusty pipe. The purest and loftiest of revelations emerge distorted and perverted when channeled through a presumed psychic faculty that is in any way tainted. I have often been asked if I am channeling the knowledge and insights that I share. Why does it matter? As pristine as the revelations may be, if I am the instrument of their expression they must be to some degree tainted by my consciousness. In any event, if it rings true, honor it, if not, say "pass". Truth is truth even if proceeding from a monkey, and that which is fallacious is so even if we suspect its source is lofty. In the final analysis it is the relevancy of the message to the receiver that truly is of moment.
The world is awash in terror and the fear it engenders, because there are those who, believing they have heard the “word of God” perform all manner of horror in His Name, without first questioning, “Is this really something to which I wish to contribute my life’s energies and commit my soul”? The essential problem of giving unbridled and absolute authority to a supposed dialogue with the Absolute is that it leads us to acts we would not ordinarily condone. And further, if we know the tree by its fruit then we must consider the source questionable when the presumed revelation is at odds with our inner core values.
We have now evolved our idea of deity from no God (Zero), transcending the idea of a personal deity – to one God, the One Solitary Life, the spiritual Fabric from which are drawn the many forms in evidence throughout the Cosmos that is undergoing Its own evolutionary awakening, to many gods (polytheism) that are the informing entities housed within the countless forms that inhabit the universe, each an extension of the One. Actually, we are really dealing with Pantheism, the notion that God is ever present within nature in all its component parts. Or, if you prefer, hylozoism, a doctrine held by early Greek philosophers that all matter has life. How can we regard Deity as infinite and omnipresent unless nature is an aspect of It, and It is present within and informs every atom in the universe? Additionally, how does Infinite Life create dead matter? Like begets like.
So each form is, in effect, deified. We are all in soul, submerged within it; and we are all ensouled, permeated by the Essence of the ensouling deity. However, these many gods are the manifested divine lives, not the formless, Unmanifested Essence, with which religion is so preoccupied, nor even Its manifested Root Principle, the One Solitary Life. There is no single, solitary, finite form, not even the totality of manifested existence, that can embody the One Life; yes, not even Christ. And not even our “Father in Heaven”, that which represents but one aspect of the Absolute. The Infinite embraces it all, Father, Mother, and all Their Children.
There are numberless forms that express countless levels of life expression and consciousness, each playing out its role in relation to those above and below upon the evolutionary ladder, each divine in its essential nature and none a barleycorn better or worse than the other.
There has been a long standing and sometimes hostile debate between two camps, those of scientific bent, who espouse the “big bang” concept of creation, leading to the Darwinian theory of “The Origin of the Species”, versus those, religiously inclined, who adhere to the biblically inspired vision of creation at the Hands of a transcendental Deity. Invariably, each side can bring to bear presumptive indications, logical conclusions or the force of their faith to offset the weight of evidence to the contrary. I find it difficult to relate, fully, to either side of this debate.
To the scientist who recognizes the inevitability of an ultimate abstraction, a First Cause, I ask, why is it a struggle to speak of that Cause as God? Is it because of the usually implied meaning of the word? Then maybe a change of connotation is in order, not a blanket rejection of the concept. Carl Sagan asserts, “The idea that God is an oversized white male with flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by ‘God’ one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying…it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.”
The exceptions I would take to this statement are twofold: the laws that govern the processes of nature go beyond “physical laws”, and function across planes of reality and secondly, the laws, processes and evolving entities that make up the universe, microscopic to macrocosmic, are all alive, conscious, divine and essentially godly. We may soon arrive at the realization that even forces such as gravity are malleable to the power of consciousness. It is the limiting form of an anthropomorphic deity that must be rejected.
Maybe the Universal Consciousness that we speak of as God was initially created by the universe as earlier implied, and has been expanding ever since. God, the composite of it all has then equally matured, as all else, through the medium of the ongoing Process of Creation. “The Universe has organized itself in such a way as to become aware of Itself,” says theoretical physicist Paul Davies.
Howsoever the Divine Force came into Being, It would still seem reasonable to posit the existence of some Aboriginal, Initiating Cause, some Essence that preexisted the creative Process. Of course, if you reject the existence of a Primal Cause then you have to give credence to the concept that the universe not only created Itself, ex nihilo, out of nothing, but without an initiating cause to set the process in motion. That’s more difficult to swallow than the notion of God.
To the creationist who would look upon the universe as God’s handiwork and finds the notion of evolution anathema to their way of thinking I ask, “What statement or statements in scripture preclude the possibility that God’s creation included a process called evolution”? Even Pope John Paul II has recently stated that the concept of evolution is not at odds with a Divine Process. In the face of burgeoning evidence how could he intelligently do otherwise? He also said in a 1988 message, science, “can purify religion from error and superstition” while religion, “can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” We’re getting there, aren’t we?
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