When Evolution is seen as Sacred

Words like natural selection, the survival of the fittest, and random chance, are words often associated with the scientific explanation of creation. They imply a certain mundaneness about the very purpose and meaning of life. This does not satisfy the opinion of all concerned humans. The battle lines were drawn between the two extreme ideologies, the Young Earth Creationists (the creation was brought into being in six days, 6000 years ago) and the theory of scientists like Richard Dawkins (who aggressively upholds the hard reductionist approach to scientific explanation alone) satisfies only a limited number of the population. But that divisive line in itself is misleading, for discussion on this topic reveals that there is a far greater range of modifying alternatives. Geologist, Dr. Nick Grollman has formulated some modifying options to include, Old Earth (progressive creationism), Intelligent Design (Meyer), and Evolutionary creationism (cf. Theistic evolution). It is unlikely that any one theory satisfactorily meets all proposed questions.

Before being quietened by the Church, Teilhard de Chardin proposed his alternative explanation called the Creative Process. Vincent Bedogne developed de Chardin’s theory after Teilhard had died. It believed that ‘being’ emerged out of consciousness, albeit out of such an unformed state of consciousness, which he spoke of as emptiness. One might speak of this origin in relation to what science refers to as the Plank Epoch, the immeasurable state pre-dating the big bang.

For Bedogne, consciousness began the path of creating formation out of a desire for self -fulfillment in a manner similar to that which chemistry speaks of as catalyses. The creative process seeks fulfillment of being. Theologian Raimon Panikkar speaks of ‘Being in Becoming’. Bedogne describes the unfolding evolutionary story progressing from a unity of gaseous formation, to structure, life, understanding, and eventually fulfillment.

Integral theorists Wilber and Gebser, speak of the process of evolution through the emergence of the physio sphere, the biosphere, and the noosphere. Within the latter, the noosphere, the story of humanity’s developing brain evolves through the eras of the primitive or archaic, the magic, the mythic, the mental-rational, and in recent centuries, the emerging integral.

The Creative Process is the title that speaks of purposeful intent, motivating the necessary movement toward fulfillment. While it need not, it does describe a process that allows for divine origin and ultimate catalyst. Panikkar would say ‘creatio continua.’ Even with such a possibility, it does not necessarily predetermine the outcome, it moves within the realm of possibility with direction finetuned at various points according to the most advantageous creative urge. Two essential dynamics play a vital role, forward direction toward an innate desire for fulfillment and trailing story recording the passing history, symbolically a forward arrow direction and a trailing arrow story of history.

It is in the context of the possibility of divine involvement that one can speak of the sacredness of evolution. With it is implied purposeful stages to aid the journey to fulfillment. At this point, the description returns to the work of Wilber and Gebser. Recalling the eras of the mind’s functioning a new primary purpose emerges in each era to collectively shape the human mind. In the earliest of eras - the primitive or archaic mind – is shaped by the preservation of life. The urge to procreate and protect ensures the duration of life even from its most primitive state. As the era crosses the threshold to an advanced state with the awakening intuitive awareness that things interact, the formerly archaic mind awakens in consciousness and with it the perception that a higher reality exists in magic. Its implication being that mind can determine the shape of life and with it, the earliest forms of belief emerge. Mind over matter is fundamental to the human experience. With the evolving story, a new threshold is crossed and meaning seeks description. Across humanity, the range of stories is broad, from simple records of daily events to the ultimate mythological stories endeavouring to answer the eternal questions and provide a philosophical perspective of existence even if still very primitive. For a myth to be purposeful it must be grounded in the daily life of human living. To enable this, the evolutionary story crossed the next vital threshold to the mental rational. Knowledge must be grounded and the rational perspective with its propensity to identify, divide and analyse, balanced the mythological trends, and the earliest forms of the scientific mind flourished. Across the centuries the progressive work of scholars shaped society reaching significant heights during the Renaissance and Enlightenment centuries. The rational mind was dominant and multiplied its output exponentially so that by the twentieth century CE (AD) historians spoke of the Information Era. Fuller Buckminister created the information graph to illustrate that while knowledge was understood to double by the century, with the assistance of the work of IBM, knowledge was predicted to double every half day by the early decades of the twenty-first century. Now the mental rational mind dominates humanity’s thinking but has diminished the contribution of the prior eras.

The value of life, the understanding of mind over matter, and the importance of humanity's greatest narratives or myths have all contributed to shaping the world which the rational mind built upon to shape the present state of understanding the world now lives by. Panikkar sounds the alarm that the modern scientific world is neglecting far too much of humanity's sacred history. He describes this loss as creating an artificial world. In response it is the Integral Theorists that speak of a new threshold, the evolutionary process, is leading humanity across. Led by Wilber and Gebser such scholars describe increasing minds awakening to integral awareness, which recognises the contribution of all previous eras as important to the evolving mind. From their different backgrounds Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, and Raimon Panikkar have each led a large contingent of voices that support this understanding.

When one builds the story of life upon the subject of creation, the extremes of literal biblical interpretation and reductionist scientific theory are inadequate for the modern mind. Built upon the understanding that life flows from consciousness, to flourish toward its ultimate fulfillment that nothing be lost, speaks of a sacred journey with the need for far greater explanation than the two identified extremes listed. The theory of the Creative Process and the emergence of the Integral Era call for open dialogue to build upon the understanding of the wonderful mystery of reality, Creator, Creation, and Creature as Panikkar describes.