Faith in Time of War
In 1953, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote an essay entitled, “The Agony of Our Age: A World That Is Asphyxiating,” in which he pointed out that after eons of slow expansion, the human species has entered a phase of compression. Every part of the globe is now inhabited by the human species, and we are confronted by a new Earth reality: limited natural resources and an expanding population.
The internet and mass media have shrunk the globe even further by seamlessly linking minds across national borders and across different languages and cultures. So, on one hand, we have a rich variety of human persons linked by common interests, and on the other hand, an expanding population competing for limited resources and land. This flood of sheer humanity, Teilhard wrote, is seeping through every fissure and we are becoming enervated both intellectually and physically.
Despite our networked world, we find ourselves in a disagreeable closeness of interaction; a continual friction between individuals who are alien or hostile to one another; a mechanization of persons in the corporate collective mentality of big business; and the increasing insecurity of daily life with national threats of terrorism and nuclear war. Our capacity to breathe freely has become severely compromised.Teilhard wrote:
Just like a train in the rush hour — the earth is coming to be a place on which we simply cannot breathe. And this asphyxiation explains the violent methods employed by nations and individuals in their attempt to break loose and to preserve, by isolation, their customs, their language and their country. A useless attempt, moreover, since passengers continue to pile into the railway carriage.
Instead of being exasperated by these nuisances from which we all suffer, or waiting vaguely for things to settle down, would we not do better to ask ourselves whether, as a matter of solid experiential fact, there may not possibly be, first, a reassuring explanation of what is going on, and secondly, an acceptable issue to it?
Indeed, what is going on? This is the question we are asking ourselves around the globe today. Teilhard thought we needed to reframe our question. Instead of asking, “what is happening?”, we should ask, “what lies ahead?” For the one thing we hold together, on every continent and in every language, is the future. Evolution is the description of cosmic life open to the future.
Evolution is another way of speaking about change and complexity. Life is dynamic and moving toward something more: eppur si muove, as Teilhard wrote. All life is changing, including divine life. God is changing and we are changing. And it is precisely because God is changing that we are changing; and because we are changing, God is changing. This fundamental reality of change, embraced by process thinkers but rejected by Catholic theologians, must awaken us to a new reality. The insistence on divine and human essentialism (as if we actually knew what nature is), which both monotheistic religions and political systems live by, is killing us. New emergent capacities in nature, such as hybridization, show us that there are no essential natures. Rather, to live in an evolutionary spirit is to let go of structures that prevent convergence and a deepening of consciousness, and assume new structures that are consonant with creativity, inspiration and development. Alfred North Whitehead noted in the early 20th century that creativity is the ultimate principle of life, including God’s life, an idea rejected by Catholic theology. However, without creativity and novelty in nature, we humans would simply not exist.
Evolution requires trust in the process of life itself; from a faith perspective, there is a power at the heart of life that is divine and lovable. In a sense, we are challenged to lean into life’s changing patterns and attend to the new patterns emerging in our midst.To live in openness to the future is to live with a sense of creativity and participation; to make wholes out of partials, to risk, get involved, challenge what is static and fixed by developing new models of practice and beliefs that energize life in God.
The fact is, we have not accepted evolution as our meta-story. We treat evolution as a conversational theory or a specialty of science. The lack of integration between science, philosophy and religion has created a fractured earth. Politically, we have fiefdoms and kingdoms; socially, we have tribes and cults; religiously, we have hierarchies and patriarchies. There is no system that supports and sustains cosmic evolution. One of the reasons is simply an inadequate grasp of evolution. The term itself frightens people, as if evolution renders us less human or less special as human. We do not talk in terms of evolution, nor do we think in terms of evolution. Our everyday lives are conceived as static and immutable, as they always have been or should be. However, fixity is contrary to the fundamental principles of nature itself. The process of evolution reveals nature to be in a constant flux of openness to new forms, new relationships and new processes that not only sustain but optimize life in the face of environmental changes. The implicit law of evolution is this: life seeks more life. There is a constant urge in nature to transcend toward higher levels of relationality (complexity), and with higher levels of relationships emerge higher levels of consciousness. Today, we have reached a complex level of global consciousness operating on very old systems that cannot support it.
While evolution is pressing in the direction of convergence and globalization, the political powers of the world are resisting convergence and fighting to maintain autonomy. Patriarchy is threatened by relationality; that is, patriarchy is anti-evolution. Patriarchs and oligarchs will muster power at all costs to maintain control. Patriarchal anti-evolutionists want to remain stable, fixed, tribal and nationalistic.They reject convergence, which includes shared space, shared resources, shared policies and shared power. However, in Teilhard’s view, we must converge or we will annihilate ourselves.
This is our threshold moment, and we need to get on board with evolution. If we get nothing else straight about our present moment, it should be this: Stability is an illusion; the only real stability is the future. Thomas Berry summed up the problem of our age this way: “We will go into the future as a single sacred community, or we will all perish in the desert.” We are starting to feel the effects of perishing in the desert. If we are to overcome our anxiety and doubt about the future, we must trust the power of divine love in our midst. How can we best consolidate our efforts and come together for that which lies before us, the future, into which we are being fearfully but irresistibly drawn? This is the true test of our faith, not only faith in God but faith in the world; for there is no God without world. When God and world are separated, or when we place God “above” and earth “below,” then we make ourselves ripe for extinction. Without the living God in the heart of matter, we are left with no other choice than to become gods, and human gods are deadly. It is time to resist every patriarchal institution and to creatively advance with new models of religion, education, politics and culture. If we can invent robotic cars and send humans to the moon, then we can reorganize and reinvent ourselves. God is inviting us to this challenge and we must respond.
You can find a Spanish translation of that article here
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In the midst of Putin’s raging war and horrific attempt to annihilate and kill in Ukraine, I have been wondering where the voices of religious leaders are in this. Perhaps I am not tuned in to the right channels. Someone said the Pope has been modest in his speaking out (maybe he’s changed by now) because he wanted to hold back in case he could serve as a mediator. The respective dueling orthodox churches of Russian and Ukraine are described as being at odds with each other, with the Russian church backing Putin, and not gleeful but perhaps pleased that the Ukrainers misbelievers will get their comeuppance. So respect for the orthodox traditions have diminished in my eyes. I have come to the point where wonder in what sense the Scriptures are inspired, if leaders steeped in Scriptures can act in this way. The incarnated Jesus as suffering servant, who told Peter to put up his sword at Gethsemane is far from the gold bedecked religious oligarchs presiding over church rituals and supposed Christian communites. Is the Cosmic Christ pleased at this. Or does he weep again, together with the weeping of numerous sufferers. Yes, we all die, from this earthly climate; a hundred years from now practically no one who is now on the planet will be here. For much of us, our departure will be much sooner. So we are destined to leave this dimension. But it is not God’s will that we be offing each other in advance through brutality; and giving commands from a distance, and pushing buttons and levers that unleash projectiles of death, killing babies, mothers, old people, and soldiers who are grown up fetuses who have been cared for and raised into a barely young adulthood with countless acts of love and care … for what end?
George 3/16/2022
You’re welcome, Denis. All credit to God.
My take on trusting the evolutionary process of life is our unquenchable thirst for power driven by our egos. As long as we can’t surrender to the cosmos, we will do battle with it!!
Yes reading geemapox gives me Hope . Thank you .
John’s comment verges on a counsel of despair. His second-to-last sentence appears to have words missing, as I can’t paraphrase it for a coherent statement. His final sentence clashes with the faith of Julian of Norwich, to whom “all will be well,” as well as Theilhard de Chardin and many other wise people. Yes, there is turbulence, and the foreseeable future portends much more. Nevertheless, when humans cooperate with God’s grace, justice and peace spread healthily. This is a view shared by many mystics and countless people of faith and good will. Behaviorists and pessimists have a right to their opinions. In our day the philosopher Ken Wilber holds that humanity has been evolving toward a maturity that accepts differences and does not fear otherness, recognizing that all the many comprise one whole. Humans have evolved out of primitive survivalism and tribalism, past nationalism and imperialism into international cooperation and care for creation, recognizing the dignity of not only all humans but all creatures. (The “conquering hero” Putin is a throwback, as are several would-be and real tyrants elsewhere.) Progress is slow and painful, but history manifests social and spiritual advancement. On the other hand, I cannot agree fully with Alice’s “really all up to us,” because for us with God all things are possible. Remember the last blessing of the risen Christ, peace. Remember too his wish, that “all may be one,” as he and his heavenly father are one. (Different yet united as one.)
God is the divine creator; humans are created in God’s image; it follows that creativity will improve all the issues, problems and worries we face. For instances, instead of continuing in the routine of burning fossil fuels (a conservative or complacent position), humans must go green for energy; and instead of rejecting people who want to immigrate of seek refuge in our blessed country, Americans would do right to accept as many as possible. Creativity means change to greater variety instead of sameness. As God does, so humans in all places ought to do. It’s not only natural (logical) but also devout (theological).
Jesus and Paul lived in the Apocalyptic era in extreme poverty in a system that believed only war could bring peace. In many ways we are still living under the same approach where the people of power continue to trap the masses in poverty for their own benefit. We have not even come close to evolving to a accept the idea that justice brings peace. This would require the understanding that ignorance and want must be eliminated and that social and economic equality must become the norm. Power and control used to establish dominance of others which maintain slavery must be the evolution that Jesus recognized, or the Apocalyptic era will continue. In principle, the evolution of the Human concept of God may not be in tune with the evolution of matter in this universe which is in fact always turbulent.
We can find whatever we are looking for in Scripture. Acts 3: 21 seems to look towards a time of “universal restoration.” But not time in a linear sense. The “Time” will come and is already here within each of us. I remember a priest once saying: “We are primarily a people of promise (universal restoration) and therefore a people of hope. But in hope is this challenge. Not hope, based on faith in God alone but hope based on faith in who WE are as the Beloved of God.” It really is all up to us and I do believe this seed of hope is taking deeper root…..maybe even because of the present suffering.
Not exactly sure how the process theology/evolution models and their optimistic outlook on humanity attaining unitive consciousness fast enough to reverse its calamitous ways, jives with the words of Jesus and Paul. Those words forecast the earth as becoming essentially a mess, one that heralds the end of the church age and necessitates the Second Coming (and Kingdom Age) for a bail out.The latter implies more faith in the divine intervention side, than in the human side (the God incarnate in and as evolved, superspiritualized humanity getting the redemptive job done.) As we all know, the terrestrial game may be over by then. How does one reconcile these hopeful, optimistic models with Scripture, which seems to have far less faith and confidence in mankind
than in God throughout its pages? Or for that matter, it seems to have more faith than God-in-man, judging by Paul’s letters as to what havoc happens when humanity assembles itself tribally to do God, today’s modern debacle.
Thank you Ilia! Spoken as only a true prophet can speak! You encourage those of us, born and raised and loving being Catholic to shed the vestiges of Patriarchy, put on the new skin of evolutionary hope and move into the unknown future with courage and Love, open and expectant!