Reflection in Historical Evolution
Years of curiosity and recent days of retirement spent
in reading and contemplation of the origin and
development of religion have led me to formulate a bit
of way-station theology for myself.
I have been greatly influenced and encouraged by
Teilhard de Chardin's thoughts on the religious
implications of progress in general, the Vatican's
current position, as voiced by John Paul II, on the
scientific validity of the concept of evolution, and
John XXIII and Vatican II's views on the role of
progress in theology.
In reflection of the thoughts of Teilhard de Chardin,
Richard Kropf writes in "Evil and Evolution":
Just as the general theory of biological evolution
has become the working model for the majority of
modern scientific endeavor, so too I believe, as
did Teilhard de Chardin, that any area of human
thought, be it sociology, psychology, history,
even philosophy or theology, must take the
evolutionary structure of our world and our
development into consideration.
The Church of my faith has recently expressed sympathy
for such a consideration: In an October 22, 1996 addressed
to a plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences, Pope John Paul II allowed that the theory of
evolution "is no longer a mere hypothesis." He declared:
It is indeed remarkable that this theory has
been progressively accepted by researchers,
following a series of discoveries in various
fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither
sought nor fabricated, of the results of works
that was conducted independently is in itself a
significant argument in favour of this theory.
In recognition of the evolutionary nature of faith,
John XXIII, in Encyclical Pacem in Terris Paragraph 5
issued April 11, 1963, stated, "The search for truth
and goodness is never a ready made nor a `once and for
all' discovery but rather a growing and dynamic search
in historical evolution." De Ecclesia Constitution of
the Church of the Second Vatican Council in Article 8
of the Constitution of Revelation of the Church
proclaims, "The Church, we may say, as the ages pass,
tends continually towards the fullness of divine truth,
till the words of God are consummated in her."
A Faith in Existence, Life, and Awareness
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning God,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:1-5
In "The Modern Temper," Joseph Wood Krutch expands on
William of Ockham's 14th-century view that man knows
nothing outside of particulars to be real, and that the
mind of man can therefore not know the being of God.
Krutch writes:
It is only when the thinker discovered how small
are the things he can do that he succeeded in
doing anything at all, only when he renounced the
effort to find the key to heaven that he was able
to keep chimneys from smoking and only after he
had stopped believing in the possibility of
eternal life that he learned how the gout might be
prevented.
In the unending cycle of things, the reverse of
Krutch's contention is just as evident. It is only
after toiling-man learned how to keep chimneys from
smoking and discovered how gout might be prevented that
he enjoyed the time and comfort to focus his thinking
more keenly on the root meaning of it all.
I have come to root my religious beliefs in what I know
personally to be most true, the "particulars" of my
life and times. I cannot accept religious contentions
that require me to assume things that exist outside of
these particulars or that operate in a manner separate
from the ways of the present, or of the past as
revealed in recorded history, scientific investigation,
and common experience. Angels, evil, show-offish
miracles, and much that goes bump in the night, hold no
more mystery or import to me than do tricks of the
sleight of hand.
Primitive understandings, misunderstandings and
superstitions served early mankind's needs, but many do
not fit with what we know to be true today --- nor
today with what will be known tomorrow. Even the most
sacrosanct of contentions of early believers --- like
the misdirected astronomy that held the earth be the
center of our solar system --- were but steps and
missteps along mankind's path to ever greater
understanding.
The relatively advanced knowledge of the present times
brings to our awareness miracles of a nature different
from those that were assumed in times when mankind
understood little of the conditions and forces that
affected life and death. Current knowledge allows us
to focus our faith in miracles that are more basic,
more real and more compelling --- such are the miracles
of (1)existence, (2)life, and (3)awareness.
EXISTENCE: It amazes me that there is a something ---
existence. I can understand how there could be
absolutely nothing, a total void, but this is not so.
There exists a universe.
Our current understanding of this universe indicates
that matter is energy, and time and space proceed in
mirrored image of each other. And, all at base
constitutes continuous process --- cause upon
cause upon more cause. Reminiscent of Ockham's
observation, psychologist B.F. Skinner contended that
mankind, even with the most powerful of scientific
efforts, cannot know ultimate cause --- such is beyond
science. Although Skinner was an agnostic, his
observation on "ultimate cause" admits the existence of
an essence that precedes all. This essence and essence
of essence is God the Father of Existence.
LIFE: It further amazes me that within existence,
there is life. It is difficult if not impossible to
adequately define what this miracle of life is, but we
know that it exists. Such an essence can exist in the
germ of a seed that can rest there for hundreds of
years and then sprout forth in new abundance. This
promise of miraculous inception, conception, sustenance
and renewal is Jesus Christ the Son of Life, the
essential presence in the celebrated Eucharist of
bread, and watered wine at Mass.
AWARENESS: Atop these two miracles rests a third, that
of awareness --- an incomprehensible capacity to
comprehend. We can know and know, and know that we
know, but the essence and personal nature of such
awareness is encompassed in an ultimate understanding
and persona that goes before and beyond us, the Holy
Spirit of Awareness.
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit form a triune
essence that makes possible all personal existence,
life and awareness. This is the Great Personal Trinity
that essentials the being of the children of God.
It is the Trinity of Existence, Life and Awareness that
I, as a 20th-century person, can commune with. This is
the One I reach out to in worship services, prayers of
thanksgiving, cries of anguish, periods of meditation,
service to others, and moments of awe. This is who I
respectfully contemplate when reading the primitive
Scripture that is loosely sketched in my Bible, and
when observing the Tradition that has been passed down
to me by the Church.
This is a personal and essential God that lovingly
gives rise to all that is personal, essential, and
loving in me, and all reaches of the universe --- the
God of all times, and the God of these times. This is
the God that I comprehend directly through enjoyment
and celebration of existence, life and awareness ---
the God of the excitement of bright beginnings, the
comfort of loving nurture, and the fulfillment of apt
conclusions. This is the God of infinite grandeur
whose inchoative flux is perceived as weal and woe by a
limited humanity.
This is the real God evidenced by unswerving faith in
what we know to be lastingly tangible and true. The
One from whom cycles all that humanity embraces as most
dear: love and compassion, joy and good humor,
expectation and reward, dignity and respect, beauty and
appreciation, peace and tranquility, and comfort and
good will. It is from the Father, with the Son and
through the Spirit that we share faith in these good
things with friends, neighbors, loved ones, and
occasional strangers.
This is the Wondrous Image of Certainty reflecting back
to me the certainty of my own existence, life, and
awareness.
This is the Presence of God that descends to me from
the awe of Neanderthal man; the wonder of Cro-Magnon
man; the imagination of Akhnaton; the faith of Abraham,
Moses, Peter, Paul, Mark, Justin, Augustine, Aquinas,
Ignatius and Newman; the doubt of Galileo, Darwin and
Einstein; and the love, respect and tolerance of
Teilhard, John XXIII, and my family. This is the God
that I celebrate and seek communion with through the
Body of Christ, the Church.
The comfort I take from the church of my faith, and
there is much, I draw more from Tradition than I take
from Scripture alone. Tradition is a dynamic force
that has but one static anchor, God. It allows us to
hold fast to God's infinite grandeur as we hurtle, at
God's speed, through a world of changing nature and
nurture, science and technology, community and
commerce, and living and learning.
Though the Church allows for two founts of faith, one
Tradition and the other Scripture, in actuality I
believe that there is but one, Tradition. Tradition
gave rise to Scripture many decades after there was a
faith in Jesus as Christ. As John Newman and Fulton
Sheen observed, the Bible comes from the Church, the
Church does not come from the Bible.
There was no Bible in the upper room at the inception
of the Church, but the upper room of inception found
its way into the Bible. All that was before, during,
in and after the upper room is the Tradition from which
the Church draws its canon of Sacred Scripture, takes
its works, and administers its sacraments.
Though respectful of all the sacraments of the Church,
it is the Holy Eucharist that most accommodates my
religious need to be drawn into sacred spaces where I
find poetic communion with my God.
It saddens me that the post-Vatican-II Mass has been
striped of much of the ritual and symbolism that
evolved down through the ages. Too many Church
celebrants now seem bent on replacing all poetic and
artistic accouterments of the Mass with a rendering of
prayer and Scriptural recitation and explanation in as
dreary a form of straight prose as is humanly possible.
However, at base the Mass has not changed since the
Church's earliest celebrations of "remembrance." Those
familiar with the Mass of today will easily recognize
its practice in the times of St. Justin Martyr (c100-
165 AD). In his "First Apology," Justin describes a
Mass at which a baptism is administered:
But we, after we have thus washed him who has been
convinced as has assented to our teaching, bring
him to the place where those who are called
brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer
hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the
illuminated [baptized] person, and for all others
in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now
that we have learned the truth, by our works also
to be found good citizens and keepers of the
commandments, so that we may be saved with an
everlasting salvation. Having ended the prayers,
we salute one another with a kiss. There is then
brought to the president of the brethren bread and
a cup of wine mixed with water, and he taking
them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the
universe, through the name of the Son and the Holy
Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length
for our being counted worthy to receive these
things at His hands. And when he has concluded
the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people
present express their assent by saying Amen. This
word Amen answers in the Hebrew language to "so be
it." And when the president has given thanks, and
all the people have expressed their assent, those
who are called by us deacons give to each of those
present to partake of the bread and wine mixed
with water over which the thanksgiving was
pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry
away a portion.
I see the ritual consecration of the Eucharistic
species as a celebration of the initial
transubstantiation of matter into life. This happened
an eon ago, was held as incarnate in the paschal lamb
of Jewish tradition, marked as the Paschal Lamb of the
incipient Church, and is scripturally described
(drawing on tradition and likely the synoptic Gospels)
by the Church's first modernist(s) in the Gospel of
John: As he, she or they wrote for John the Baptist in
John 1:30, "He is the one of whom I said, `A man is
coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he
existed before me'"; and for a challenged Jesus in John
8:57-58, "So the Jews said to him, `You are not yet
fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?' Jesus said
to them, `Amen, amen, I say to you before Abraham came
to be, I AM'"; and for Jesus in prayer to our Father in
John 17:1, "Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the
glory that I had with you before the world began."
That which "existed before," and is "I AM," and was
"before the world began" is the Essence of Life ---
Jesus Christ the Son of Life, the Vernal Lamb of
infinite beginning.
A bit of bread, a drop of water and a cup of wine
possess the life sustaining essence not found in a
chunk of rock or a mound of dust. If not a piece of
bread and cup of watered wine, what would the Son of
God look like in any form that I could see or
comprehend?
Threaded through the Mass, and in harmonic accord with
the celebration of the Eucharist, is the pageant
portrayal of the journey of all of God's children
through existence, life and awareness --- at God's
speed, a journey of light over darkness.
In calling the faithful to weekly Mass ("`the hour' of
Jesus' Passover, which reaches across and underlies all
history"), the current "Catechism of the Catholic
Church" references the words of St. Hippolytus
(c160-235 AD):
Life extends over all beings and fills them with
unlimited light; the Orient of orients pervades
the universe, and he who was "before the daystar"
and before the Heavenly bodies, immortal and vast,
the great Christ, shines over all beings more
brightly than the sun. Therefore a day of long,
eternal light is ushered in for us who believe in
him, a day which is never blotted out: the
mystical Passover.
But alas, rituals of the Mass do not create that which
they celebrate any more than poems create that which
they verse about. Rituals and poetry are like the laws
of science. As B.F. Skinner observed, "The laws of
science don't affect what they are laws about."
However, when I am tuned in, both the poetry and ritual
of the Mass vibrate in my experience in a manner that
straight prose and perfunctory agendas do not. They
are of the nature of that which is art to me --- they
stretch my awareness beyond my understanding in a
manner that I somehow understand. They confirm the
Godly essence of existence, life and awareness.
In closing, for what is written above and for all efforts
to move forward in faith, I ask for tolerance with words
that St. Justin Martyr used in concluding his "First Apology:"
And if these things seem to you to be reasonable
and true, honor them; but if they seem
nonsensical, despise them as nonsense, and do not
decree death against those who have done no wrong,
as you would against enemies.
God bless and keep faith,