Evolution, Contingency, and Christology

Zygon®, 2007

Recent controversies surrounding the discernment of design in the natural world are an indication of a pervasive disquiet among believers. Can God as creator/sustainer of creation be reconcilable with the belief that God's work is indiscernible behind secondary evolutionary causes? Christian piety requires that the order experienced in the natural world be evidence of God's love and existence. Theistic evolutionary models rarely examine this matter, assuming that God is indiscernible in the processes and order of the world because only secondary causes can be examined. This leaves antievolutionary perspectives to interpret and address the problem of seeing God in the world. I examine these issues in order to gain more credibility for the religious longing to discern God in nature while at the same time affirming the indubitable truth of an evolutionary history. I argue that God's trinitarian nature, hiddenness, and incarnation give us reason to believe that God's presence in the natural world will be discernible, but only within the natural processes, and thereby only in an obscured fashion. I also argue that newer understandings of evolutionary mechanisms are more consistent with theological appropriation than are strictly Darwinian ones.

Tangaza University College, 2005

This essay is an attempt to understand the scientific evidence that organic evolution is a fact as pointed out by Pope John Paul II in his recent statement in (1996). It is an opportunity for me to see how religious thought about creation and evolution is presently conceived; given the past traditional understanding that species were created and fixed once and for all in God’s creative activity, which presupposed that evolution could not take place. In the past organic evolution had made very little impression upon many areas of human knowledge, and more so in theology. But presently there is attention of many theologians from different religious faiths that has increased considerably on the question of the origins of the universe and its dynamism to the future. The fact of organic evolution is apparently becoming clearer with the evidence varying from one discipline of knowledge to the other. The organic evolution embraces a principle of novelty at work, which integrates its past into the present, and is directed to the future. Following this awareness, then, there is a profound link and unity between creation as a reality and evolution as a reality, that both are open to the future dimensions of beings. And this is the link and unity I focus on in this essay. In chapter one therefore, I start by defining the essential terms ‘Creation’ and ‘Creationism’ that will carry us throughout in this work, as we look how creation is envisioned from the Christian theological context. In doing this, I focus first of all on the Old Testament, to see what the biblical narratives on creation say, particularly (Gen 1-2). Then, what follows is the way creation was perceived in the Old Testament Prophetic and Wisdom literature. I conclude this chapter by looking at the Christian understanding of creation particularly in the New Testament, which has handed over a strong biblical traditional inheritance to the present Christian theological vision of creation. My aim in this chapter is not to criticise or interpret anything, but to see how this notion of creation emerged in the general Christian context. In chapter two, my attention goes on the scientific understanding about creation. I start by defining the essential scientific terms of ‘Evolutionism’ and ‘Scientific Creationism’. I then look at the notion of microevolution and macroevolution in which scientific evolutionists argue that evolution takes place or occurs along these lines of change. From that we see how evolution that is quite evidenced in these dimensions of microevolution and macroevolution is becoming part and parcel in the religious/theological circles and faiths. My focus here is on how believers and those who happen to be both believers and scientists, approach this idea of creation as God’s exclusive activity. Because, presently, creation is quite inseparable with the way God’s creative activity is perceived as continuous in evolution. And this brings us to the way the integrity of God’s creation ought to be, as human beings understand it presently, both from religious and scientific points of view. In the last chapter, I look at how human beings, presently, understand themselves as the summit of God’s creation, which is basically from the Christian perspective. This leads us to the contrasting message that is powerfully coming from ecological theology with the argument against human dominance and control in the entire creation of God as experienced in the modern world. That is, the issue of ‘Anthropic Principle’ that finds its support more clearly in the first account of creation narrative (Gen 1:28-30). This entire theological perception is summed up by the general theological outlook of how we can perceive God from both religious/theological and scientific points of view without unnecessary antagonistic relations. Because, our God as a God of mutual relations in the Trinity is our very God in an evolving universe. Finally, I give a short summary and some concluding remarks. This is followed by a bibliographical reference indicating my sources of research on this essay.

Zygon®, 2007

In order to develop a single narrative of God's continuing creation that includes salvation, this essay in theological construction focuses on the idea of transformation. Using the metaphor of conceptual maps in science and religion, it weaves together ideas about evolution, God working in the world, and how humans can be brought to wholeness in community in relation to God.

Zygon®, 2012

In an evolutionary world, humans need "salvation" understood as restoring and maintaining well-being or functioning well. Humans are embedded in, embodiments of, and emergent creative-creatures of the universe. We have evolved also as ambivalent creatures-doing good, harm, and being bystanders while harm is being done. Multiple factors-for example, genetic, neurological, child developmental, and societal-contribute to malfunctioning and harmful behavior, and multiple religious and secular approaches help restore well-being. I develop a view of Jesus as a "religious genius" who, grounded in a direct experience of God, taught undiscriminating love and engaged in nonviolent political activism against the unjust domination system of the Roman Empire. Christians and others can follow Jesus by engaging in meditative practices that facilitate well-being out of which compassion for others and a passion for justice flows. Universal love rooted in Jesus is compatible with an evolutionary perspective that all humans are part of a natural family.

Verbum et Ecclesia

This article sketches how the debate on Christian faith and evolution has evolved. Seven challenges are identified and described in the debate, namely, regarding a recognition of deep (geological) time (challenging the historicity of the biblical creation narratives), understanding the role of chance in natural selection (posing questions about the nature of divine action, e.g., providence), human descent (challenging presumed human distinctiveness), a recognition of natural suffering (challenging the benevolence of the Creator), identifying the evolutionary roots of evil (challenging Christian views on the fall of humanity), a recognition of natural disselection (challenging notions of divine election) and, finally, evolutionary explanations of the emergence of morality and of religion (reiterating the challenge of atheism). It is argued that with each of these challenges, some of the underlying problems were provisionally resolved, only to reappear later in an even more challengin...

2017

If the Christian God is creator of all things but is also revealed in Christ to be costly love, then how can divine agency in creation be understood in light of scientific discoveries revealing that biological warfare undergirds the creative process of natural selection? The implications are significant for understanding Christian vocation if indeed the human is made in God's image with the capacity for creative or destructive "dominion" over earthly life (Gen. 1:26). To approach this challenge, I begin with an exploration of Philip Hefner's theory of the human as created co-creator, and conclude that his teleonomic axiom focusing on the survival of creation, although necessary and fruitful, is contradicted by his use of the male-gendered logos with the teleological metaphor of sacrifice and John Hick's Irenaean Theodicy to understand divine agency in creation. I then turn to the work of Denis Edwards and Elizabeth Johnson, who consider the female figure of divine Wisdom, or sophia, incarnate in Christ, as a more liberative representation of God, inclusive of women and the diversity of creaturely life. However, their use of John Polkinghorne's "free process defence" neglects the depths of natural evil suffered at the level of the individual and runs the risk of justifying suffering and death as the inevitable cost of the realization of a greater good. A consideration of William Paley and his work in Natural iii Theology highlights the risky dynamic set up by teleological representations of God, which can serve the interests of a powerful elite. With reference to the historical context of Paley's work, I consider the role of theory as a larger framework of meaning, contextualizing observations to serve as evidence. Finally, I look to Charles Darwin and his impact on the thinking of Asa Gray and Aubrey Moore to argue that divine agency in creation can only be discerned from a faith perspective. That said, although divine providence is not empirically demonstrable, Christian theology can offer a larger framework of meaning to interpret the facts of nature as revelatory of God when considered in light of the suffering Christ and an existentially fallen creation. 'But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Mortals do not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living. The deep says, "It is not in me," and the sea says, "It is not with me.…" 'Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. Abaddon and death say, "We have heard a rumour of it with our ears." 'God understands the way to it, and he knows its place. For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens. When he gave to the wind its weight, and apportioned out the waters by measure; when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt; then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out. And he said to humankind, "Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."'

Christology as Critique: On the Relation between Christ, Creation, and Epistemology, 2018

If the origin of the world is not a part of the world, what are the implications for our understanding of ourselves, the world, and its origin? In antiquity, both gentile and Christian authors agreed that the significance of this question could only be maintained by accepting the unbridgeable difference between the world and God. Not even Christology as the most ambitious attempt at developing a model for divine–human communication was allowed to undermine the principle of absolute divine difference. This changed with the modern emphasis on univocity and measurability as the defining aspects of knowledge. From the point of view of a philosophy of absolute difference, this appears as an arbitrary loss of perspective. By focusing on four authors—Cusanus, Luther, Hamann, and Kierkegaard—who have explored how the Christian and paradoxical understanding of Christ as eternal God and true human subverts the modern emphasis on unambiguity and definability, the present investigation makes an attempt to retrieve what has been lost. Classical Christology as interpreted by these authors thus appears as an indispensable tool for receiving and appreciating the gift of the world in a way that is not unduly limited by anthropocentric prejudice.

Emmaus, 2020

(Communication Theologian) Fr. Dr. Charles Ndhlovu graduated with a Doctorate in Social Communication specializing in Communication Theology at the Pontifical University of Salesianum in Rome-Italy. You may find his publications on the website: charlesndhlovu.wordpress.com; also found on Youtube (Fr. Charles Ndhlovu-Mkhalirachiuta). He is the owner, proprietor and founder of Emmaus. He is on linkedin and on academia. This paper explores the irrevocability of God's self-communication in Jesus. The highest point of the realisation of the human person is the coming of Jesus in the world. He who "embraces and exhausts all past, present and future reality [...]." 1 Jesus is the existence of God in the world. This existence of God in the world took place through the Incarnation of Jesus. He is the Saviour in the absolute sense because He appeared in time and space as a signifier of the beginning of God's Absolute self-communication, which is moving towards its final goal. 2 In Jesus, the Absolute self-communication of God has taken place irrevocably and absolutely. This does not mean that salvation in the world and in the spiritual subjects only began with Jesus, because it has always been coexistent with the history of humanity and the history of the world. Jesus is the historical subjectivity through whom the Absolute self-communication of God to the human and world history can be recognised unambiguously as being irrevocable. 3 Jesus is the Saviour in the sense that "through him this self-communication can be clearly recognized as something irrevocable, and in him it reaches its climax, in so far as this climax must be thought of as a moment in the total history of the human race and in so far as this climax is not simply identified with the totality of the spiritual world subject to God's 1 Cf.

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

all things were created' (John 1, 2; Colossians 1:16), and 'in [whom] all things hold together' (Colossians 1:17)-in relation to creation, and the suffering and death related hereto? 1.This article represents a reworking of a section from the PhD dissertation by Rev. Dr Annelien Rabie-Boshoff, Dogmatics and Christian Ethics at the University of Pretoria, with the title 'Seeing God in creation: A visio-spatial interpretation of Genesis 1', under the supervision of Prof. Dr Johan Buitendag and Dr Linzay Rinquest as co-promoter. The basic challenge that readers of the New Testament face is not only about what Jesus Christ teaches but who he is. Functional Christology has developed at the expense of ontological Christology. This challenge centres on Jesus Christ's relevance, in terms of his identity, not only for Christians in particular but also for creation as a whole. The question 'who is Jesus Christ in relation to creation?' is thus of special interest to this study. Various authors such as Gunton, Gregersen, Peacocke and others have approached this question from different perspectives. The PhD study by Rabie-Boshoff was completed to shed light into the context of dialogue between Christian theology and the science of linguistics in an effort to understand the Genesis 1 creation story. This article refers to part of the study in an effort to make sense of who Jesus Christ is in relation to creation. This provides consolation in a time of worldwide lockdown because of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus. The human struggle of making sense of the world is brought into sharp focus in times like these, more so in terms of making sense of their creatureliness and mortality. Although science as a valid knowledge base may provide some answers to this human dilemma, Christians in particular appeal to the Bible and their belief in Jesus Christ. This turn to Jesus, and who he is, provides human beings with enduring and satisfying answers to their suffering and pain. Contribution: This article is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing discussion on creation in terms of how human beings make sense of creation, considering who Jesus Christ is in relation to creation. Human beings have always been engaged in a process of making sense of the world they live in. Ancient cultures provide such a window, allowing a glimpse into how those cultures perceived their world.