The Heart of Matter: Complex Life Forms
Tuesday, July 5th
“The whole history of the universe, and particularly the history of biological life on earth, has been characterized by the steady emergence of complexity, a movement toward more complex life forms, which, at critical points in the evolutionary process, qualitative differences emerge.”
—Ilia Delio, “The Emergent Christ”
“Toda la historia del universo, y en particular la historia de la vida en la Tierra, se ha caracterizado por la continua emergencia de la complejidad, un movimiento hacia formas de vida más complejas en el que emergen diferencias cualitativas en puntos críticos del proceso evolutivo.”
—Ilia Delio, “The Emergent Christ”
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What is being revealed? What is being moved?
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Clare,
I feel this quote from your comment is really the question and the answer… what and how do we do with what we are learning.
“How many of us are doing all we can to develop a deeper conscious awareness of the numinous, sacred universe and God’s incarnate presence within it – within us and around us???
Theresa
What a gift, to be able to slow down to contemplate the deep time of evolution in our known universe? The ultimate paradox of trying to understand deep time in our own real time of our personal existence. God/Universe teaches us so much about ourselves, others and our environment, as well as our relationship to it. Listen and learn.
In Genesis, at the end of Creation week there is indeed described an enchanted world with a great variety of complex plants and animals, a world under the dominion of man created in the image off God. As the Genesis account goes, it appears that God ordained that each species was to reproduce itself “after his own kind” (Gen. 1:11,12). The idiom “after his kind” appears 30 times in the books of Moses, and once in Ezekiel, implying a fixity of species. Critics of evolution underscore these points in Scripture, and while agreeing that modifications have occurred within and among species, they argue such are not attributable to evolution, merely to the type of expected changes since the Creation. Critics also add that the biblical record makes no mention of intermediate species, suggesting no species has essentially changed since Creation, and thus no new species has come into being. Critics of evolution further cite a single quotation from a letter Darwin sent to his friend Hooker in 1844 to illustrate the former’s deep reservations on his original notions, “I have read heaps of agricultural and horticultural books and have never ceased collecting facts. At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable” — Quoted in Erik Nordenskiord, “The History of Biology,” pp. 463,464. If such is the case, and in an organic (cosmological) sense, if God incarnated himself as the highest part of matter beneath which all forms of creation are “plastic” (even fixedly so) then perhaps what has “evolved” (loosely speaking) in humankind is a gradual awakening to same. That is, not a new species of mankind, merely a more enlightened and spiritually conscious phylum of God-awakened beings. As I understand the essence of Spirit, like light it is in the world but not of it, the axis mundi at the center of all things, changeless and eternal (therefore unevolved). What is fixed, changeless and formless can create and even influence that which is in flux and changeable (transformable), but itself, technically, does not change (or evolve) in the process. Fire, for example, slowly changes a burning log into itself, transforms it, absorbs it, but itself remains unchanged, though what remains of the wood is a charred carcass of its original form. I’m wondering how you’d respond to the above notions, Ilia, as to their merits and viability, though I’m merely pondering, not proposing same. My interest in doing so stems from a personal quandary on folk selecting and choosing certain portions of Scripture to their liking, or to fit their bias, while ignoring others. Particularly, as in this instance, when Jesus himself referenced Genesis as valid, especially attesting to the teachings of Moses.
Complexity – consciousness: Rudimentary consciousness, the potential for the conscious awareness that the human species have today, was there in the very first moments of this universe. As beings became more complex, consciousness increased. Consciousness – the mind/spirit/energy (the noosphere) of the universe which is God God’s love. Matter and spirit are two sides of the same coin. The universe is on a trajectory to becoming fully spirit in the Omega point – the Cosmic Christ. How many of us are doing all we can to develop a deeper conscious awareness of the numinous, sacred universe and God’s incarnate presence within it – within us and around us???