The Subtle Workings of the Lord

With the popular affirmation of a good deal of the population spread across society the theory of the Big Bang, more accurately called inflation, began the story of evolution and the history of reality. Richard Dawkins and Cristopher Krauss are great popular advocates that this story began from nothing. With mathematical formula Krauss calculates how this is possible, emanating from the Planck Epoch, that infinitesimal timeless moment, the four prime forces, sprang into being and began the long journey of 13.8 billion years to the present day. They are adamant that this is the only logical explanation of evolution.

Despite their confidence, there are others who are not quite so sure. While such scholars are equally convinced about the story of evolution, they differ in their belief about the way it began and the way one should view it. Teilhard de Chardin is one such scientist and priest of the Catholic faith who explains a different story. His story begins under the title of ‘Cosmogenesis’ (Cosmos is the Greek word for the whole Universe). While he sees the commencement with the same explosive beginning, he reads the causes and processes differently. He speaks of the emerging power of love as the causal intent. The power of love ensures there is a purpose to the process of evolution. It remains a process of a unifying transformation destined for fulfillment. It is important to recognise that love is the story ‘within’ the more obvious story of the ’without.’ The journey of the formation of gases, the stars, and the planet Earth is to be read as the story of great scientists like Krauss, but this is not to be mistaken for the whole story, for love is the abiding purpose. Love is the unifying force that moves the whole dynamic as one continuously forward as 'whole joins with whole', to ensure the unity of construction. Teilhard determines that the movement of evolution follows the process of attraction, connection, complexity, and consciousness.

This means that one is to view the reality of creation from two perspectives, (the within and the without to use ‘Teilhard’s expressions). The concrete vision of the outer reality is only a partial vision for the quantum world has expanded our vision to open the way to see the inner perception. The minute vision of quantum reality castes a great range of sight from the smallest quanta particle to the external whole. For Teilhard, the inner reality is the foundation of the creative force which is love. It is the foundation of the incarnation of reality and drives the evolutionary story. This incarnational reality is the story of creation and continues the subtle power of love to mold the shape of creation down through its almost 14 billion years of time. The challenge is to be able to see this inner story over and above the outer story that is made famous by common scientists.

Francis Bedogne is a forty-year student of de Chardin and has elaborated upon Teilhard’s thesis by describing the evolutionary story as the emergence of consciousness. Consciousness is the ultimate beginning of all that is. It begins in the purest of simplicity, that he calls emptiness. From emptiness consciousness progresses out of the need for fulfilment. It repeats this cycle until the necessary formation is achieved. The fulfilment is the inflationary process that eventuates with the Big Bang. The driving story of evolution is one of consciousness. While seemingly random it is instead a story of intent, firstly, creating the physio-sphere (or in the words of de Chardin, physio-genesis), then the bio-sphere (bio-genesis). It is important to note that consciousness accounts for the emergence of the biosphere from the physio-sphere. There is no real reason for the emergence of the biosphere without consciousness. Likewise, the story continues to move by consciousness as the evolutionary story crosses the threshold of life, then human life, then the Noosphere, and the story of the ultrahuman.

Love, as the unifying force of all creation, is the subtle presence of evolution. It is the unseen force that moves the forces of nature in a unifying formation. It is the commitment to fulfillment. It is the balance between the dynamic of the myriad of forces of evolution and the sustaining presence of the goodwill of love. Love is never so bold as to interfere with the evolutionary forces, yet ever so sustaining in its presence. It is the guarantee that the story will reach fulfillment. It is the ever-present story of the incarnation.

Cosmogenesis is the universal word that de Chardin uses to describe the beginning of the creative process of evolution. However, he replaces it with Christo-genesis when speaking of the same process from a Christian point of view. The same truths apply. The beginning of the creative force of love was a subtle one. The unseen humbling of self is the incarnational process of subtle presence that is never seen but always present and active. The Christo-genesis which began at the beginning of time, continues on as the story of evolution and it comes to a display of fulfillment in the Christ of history, the person of Jesus.

When it comes to modern-day spirituality the story is the same. Love is never so bold as to interfere with the way we live yet never so absent to leave us abandoned. It is the unseen active participant. Unfortunately, modern spirituality sees it the other way around. We reach up to the Lord in our attempt at achieving goodness to secure the Lord’s approval. We then expect the unusual appearance of the Lord to help us through the day. Instead, the subtle presence of the Lord expects us to get on with the faithful caring of our neighbour for he is present in the common. To see with eyes of faith the presence of the Lord in the ordinary secular reality is the common spiritual way. It is an incarnational God who manages the balance between not interfering out of trust in our ability to cope and the subtle hand of empathy when we have hit the bottom of our endeavours.

It is summarised in the Crucifixion which illustrates for us by telling us that the Love of the Lord is always present in the darkest of times ready to raise us up when and if we fail dramatically. The crucifixion is the assurance of a loving hand waiting to restore the fallen. Then it becomes the story of restoration or resurrection, the light that shines in a dark place when all seems lost. It is the power of the spirit that liberates us when cooperating with the incarnational God.

The story of the incarnational God is, in reality, the story of evolution. The real but subtle story of love ever abiding to bring to fulfillment the story of creation. It is the domain Teilhard speaks of as noosphere and the journey toward the Omega point, the fulfillment of global consciousness.