How the ‘ground of being’ can be understood from from three perspectives once seen throughTeilhard’s ‘lens of evolution’
Tooay’s Post
Last week we summarized the history of the last facet of the complex God that emerged in just a few hundred years after the death of Jesus: the ‘Trinity’. We also noted how this concept emerged at the same time that the new church began to become part of Roman society and how it began to evolve into a hierarchical institution which became increasingly dependent on adherence to dogma. As its teachings became more articulated, truth became more ‘an object of faith’ required to assure salvation than a collection of insights for living. It didn’t help that the new church was now becoming an essential part of the Roman structure which in turn required a new level of adherence to dogma to ensure a unified and therefore stable society.
Yet, as we saw from Karen Armstrong’s observation, the teaching of ‘Trinity’ was “simply baffling”, and from Richard Rohr that this teaching seems “furthest from human life”.
With all this, what sense can be of an assertion that God is “Three divine persons in one divine nature”?
The Secular Side of the Trinity
Once the Trinity is put into Teilhard’s evolutionary context it becomes possible to see it as not only much simpler but more importantly, more relevant to human life. From Teilhard’s perspective we have seen how God can be reinterpreted from a supernatural being which is the ‘over and against of man’ who creates, rewards, and punishes; to the ‘ground of being’, the basis for the universe’s potential for evolution by way of its increase in complexity over time. In applying this perspective to Jesus, we saw how he can be reinterpreted from a sacrifice necessary to satisfy such a distant judgmental God, to the personification of this increase in complexity as it rises through the human person: a ‘signpost to God’. In the same way we can see a third manifestation of this ‘axis of evolution’, the ‘Spirit’, in the energy which unites products of evolution in such a way as to effect this increase in complexity.
More specifically, we can begin to see how this ‘triune God’ can be seen to be ‘personal’. The synthesized collaboration of these three principles of evolution effects what we know as the product of evolution that we refer to as ‘the person’.
Christianity puts names to these three aspects of the ground of being:
‘Father’ as the underlying principle of the becoming of the universe in general, understood as the potential of the ’stuff of the universe’ to ‘make it make itself’
‘Son’ as the manifestation of the potential for the products of evolution to eventually become increasingly complex, and thus ‘conscious’, and therefore ‘personal’; a potential which is active in every step of evolution
‘Spirit’ as the ‘energy’ by which particles of matter unite in such a way as to result in increases in complexity
As we have noted frequently, Teilhard describes this third ‘person’, this third manifestation of the ground of being as it exists in the human, as love:“Love is the only energy capable of uniting entities in such a way that they become more distinct.”
And, as he sees it, the essential function of the rise of complexity in the convergent spiral of cosmic evolution:“Fuller being results from closer union and closer union from fuller being”
In addressing this last agent of becoming, we can now see more clearly how John’s astounding statement begins to make secular sense:“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.”
Thus, Teilhard locates the ’Spirit’ squarely in the axis of evolution, as the manifestation of the energy which powers evolution through its rising levels of increased complexity. We have seen in physic’s ‘Standard Model’ how the energies which are manifest in forces such as the atomic strong and weak forces, electricity and magnetism, gravity and chemistry all collaborate in raising the universe from the level of pure energy at the ‘Big Bang’ to that of matter sufficiently complex to provide the building blocks of life. With the addition of the concept of the ‘Spirit’ we can now see how this enterprise continues to raise reality into manifestations of complexity which are aware of their consciousness.
A purely empirical approach to ‘spirit’ can be seen in the new scientific subject of ‘information’. To Paul Davies, information is simply the quantum in each particle of matter which guides its unification with other particles. His analogy is that this ‘quantum’ can be seen as the ‘software’ contained in each grain of matter, the ’hardware’.
An example of this action can be seen in the potential of Hydrogen to unite with Oxygen to form the molecule of water. The ‘information’ of the Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms is not simply passed on to the new offspring, water, it itself is enriched by becoming more complex in the process. The evolved quantum of information contained in the molecule of water has a new and enriched potential of unifying with many other molecules, and the resultant molecules also have new characteristics and potentials not found in their less complex components. Thus, the three ‘triune’ aspects of evolution are evident in this simple example:
A component of matter has the potential to unite with other components (quantified by its ‘information or ‘software’’)
The process required to perform the connection is mapped in the ‘information’
The resultant new component (with new characteristics and potentials absent in its predecessor components) emerges with its new and more complex quantum of ‘information’
In this very simple but purely empirical example we can see a reflection of the Trinity:
The ‘Son’ is reflected in the ‘information’, effectively the ‘software’ of the component
The ‘Spirit’ is reflected in the ‘energy’ necessary to effect unification according to the ‘information’
And the ‘Father’ is reflected as the ‘potential’ of the components to unite
In addition to how the Trinity can be seen in these examples, we can also return to Teilhard’s image of the ‘convergent spiral’ of cosmic evolution. As we saw when we looked at Teilhard’s model of the structure of universal evolution, the three aspects of the Trinity can be understood as the human manifestations of the three basic steps by which the universe proceeds at all stages in its journey toward increased complexity.
We can also see how this energy continues to manifest itself in raising the complexity of living matter through the process of Natural Selection. Natural Selection, first identified by Charles Darwin, offers a partial explanation of how species change as they move from one stage of evolution to another. It does not address how the products of evolution at latter stages show evidence of increased complexity, but it does explain how the ramification of species offers many avenues of for ‘complexification’.
Human persons are clearly located on one of these avenues of evolution. Understanding the ‘Spirit’ at the level of the human person is simply understanding how evolutionary products aware of their consciousness (these human persons) can consciously cooperate with this energy to be united in such a way as to advance their individual complexity (their maturity) and therefore continue to advance the complexity of their species.
We have noted many times that Richard Rohr decried how the increasing hierarchy and dogmatism of the Christian church increased the distance between man and God by decreasing the relevance of its essential message. Seen through Teilhard’s ‘lens’, we can now see how it is possible to understand the Trinity in terms relevant to personal life.
Rohr offers a reinterpretation of the traditional Christian trinitarian terms as an integrated understanding of the Trinity which is directly relevant to human life:
“I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust the Big River of God’s providential love, which is to trust the visible embodiment (the Son), the flow (the Spirit), and the source itself (the Father). This is a divine process that we don’t have to change, coerce, or improve. We just need to allow it and enjoy it. Faith does not need to push the river precisely because it is able to trust that there is a river.”
The Next Post
This week we saw how adding the concept of ‘Spirit’ to those of the ‘Father’ and the ‘Son’ completes an understanding of the ‘the ground of being’, the basis of the universe’s ‘coming to be’ in general. More importantly, we saw how we can begin to understand how this agent of evolution which has “raised the world to its current level of complexity” (Richard Dawkins) is active in our individual lives, as we begin to understand ourselves as personal offspring of the ‘axis of evolution’.
Over the past several weeks, we have addressed three of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity: God, Jesus, and The Trinity, by seeing them through Teilhard’s ‘lens of evolution’. The ‘reinterpretation’ that results from this perspective can refocus their relevance to human life.
Christianity, however, piles many layers of belief and practices on top of these three precepts. In order to, as Richard Dawkins suggests, ‘divest them of the baggage’ that they carry, is it possible to use our principles of reinterpretation to achieve a similar refocus on them?
Next week we will begin to do this, first addressing the underlying concept of ‘spirituality’, and how it can be seen in the light of such ‘reinterpretation’.