In the book of Genesis we are led to believe that the creation of the planet, indeed, of the universe was once and done: 2:2-3 “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
This also seems to imply that God sustains creation in an everlasting providential state of being and intervenes when necessary. The interventions may be at the petition of humans who were created in the image of the creator or when some aspect of nature or human behavior needs fixing of correction.
Natural events like volcanic eruptions, floods, etc are believed by many to be the actions of the creator as a way to intervene when necessary.
“The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis 6:5-8
The rest is history, as they say!
Therefore, in this history of humanity, the inspired Word of God or Bible, is a record of God’s providence and engagement with the world which we call “earth”. As a result, humans, as Jews and Christians, beg, borrow, and steal any means they can to persuade the creator to meet their needs and give thanks and praise when they are fulfilled. This is evidenced by the many religious wars that have been the most devastating events for all of humanity.
The unsolved conundrum about all of this is the plethora of questions about which and whose petitions are answered or whose side the creator is on.
Since this theistic God seems to be seen as unpredictable by some and a downright failure by others, there must be another description for a transcendent being who many believe is the intellectual source of the universe and its contents.
Since the time of Darwin’s publication of “On the Origin of Species” published in 1859, some members of the world’s theistic religions have attempted to incorporate this theory about “creation” into their understanding of God much to the horror of the majority who condemn it.
“Francis Collins describes theistic evolution as the position that “evolution is real, but that it was set in motion by God”,[4] and characterizes it as accepting “that evolution occurred as biologists describe it, but under the direction of God”.[5] He lists six general premises on which different versions of theistic evolution typically rest. They include:[6]
- The prevailing cosmological model, with the universe coming into being about 13.8 billion years ago;
- The fine-tuned universe;
- Evolution and natural selection;
- No special supernatural intervention is involved once evolution got under way;
- Humans are a result of these evolutionary processes; and
- Despite all these, humans are unique. The concern for the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the continuous search for God among all human cultures defy evolutionary explanations and point to our spiritual nature.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
“The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11
What seems to us contingency, faith will recognize as the secret impulse of God.” John Calvin,
The apparent incompatibility between the Christian doctrine of providence and the chance elements of the Darwinian theory are presented in a paper by Peter Harrison entitled, EVOLUTION, PROVIDENCE, AND THE PROBLEM OF CHANCE https://www.academia.edu/25357978/EVOLUTION_PROVIDENCE_AND_THE_PROBLEM_OF_CHANCE?email_work_card=view-paper
Evolutionary creation, also presented as Evolutionary creationism, is the religious belief that God created the earth using processes of evolution. The concept is similar to theistic evolution and accepts modern science, but there are theological differences.
Its supporters, who tend to be conservative evangelical Christians, hold that God continues to be actively involved in evolution, to a greater extent than theistic evolutionists believe this.[1]
There is diversity among evolutionary creationists in explaining how these two concepts fit together.[2] Evolutionary creation – Wikipedia
The Holiness of Evolution
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Catholic Jesuit priest and a trained scientist offered some very profound thoughts about God and evolution.
In virtue, therefore, of his faith, the Christian is justified in claiming a place among those who work for the greatest advancement of the earth; and the soul he brings to that work will be ablaze with the fire that inspires the conqueror. Teilhard de Chardin, Cosmic Life
In his Christianity and Evolution he summed up the problem of God in an evolutionary world by saying:
In the case of a world which is by nature evolutive. . .God is not conceivable (either structurally or dynamically) except in so far as he coincides with (as a sort of “formal” cause) but without being lost in, the center of convergence of cosmogenesis. . . .Ever since Aristotle there have been almost continual attempts to construct models of God on the lines of an outside Prime Mover, acting a retro. Since the emergence in our consciousness of the ‘sense of evolution’ it has become physically impossible for us to conceive or worship anything but an organic Prime-Mover God, ab ante. Only a God who is functionally and totally ‘Omega’ can satisfy us. Who will at last give evolution its own God?
In his “Mon Univers” he wrote:
The theory of creative union is not so much a metaphysical doctrine as a sort of empirical and pragmatic explanation of the universe. This theory came to birth out of my own personal need to reconcile, within the confines of a rigorously structured system, the views of science respecting evolution (which views are accepted here as being definitively established, at least in their essence) with an innate tendency which has driven me to seek out the presence of God, not apart from the physical world, but rather through matter and in a certain sense in union with it.
In one of his journals Teilhard wrote:
“According to Teilhard, we are evolution made conscious; thus, a deepened consciousness should yield to greater bonds of love, promoting unity in creation. Such unity, according to Teilhard, is not sameness but differentiated unity. True creative union preserves the distinct personalities of each term. Thus evolutionary progression toward greater union is a progression towards greater divergence. It is overcoming multiplicity or separateness through bonds of unity that preserve distinction. The progression of hominization in the universe (and with hominization non human creation) through complexity-consciousness (the development of noosphere, for example, and in our age, the internet) is the progressive unification of the world in God. What Teilhard emphasizes is that the God who is and who is coming to be is united with the whole evolutionary process through Christogenesis. Christ evolves through the unfolding fabric of evolution by the power of the Spirit.”Christianity, influenced by the conquests of modern thought, will finally become aware of the fact that the three fundamental personalistic mysteries upon which it rests are in reality simply three aspects of one and the same process, depending on whether one looks at it from the point of view of its principal moving power, or its unifying mechanism, or it elevating effort (redemption)
For a commentary about the quotes above from Theilhard de Chardin go to the following: Teilhard De Chardin and The Future of God – Center for Christogenesis
“In his “parable of the sower,” Jesus taught that the “word of God” is known naturally because it is sown “in the heart” of everyone. For instance, the apostle Paul, who was a Jew, recognized that God’s laws are known naturally by everyone. Paul wrote, “When Gentiles (non-Jews) who do not have the (Mosaic) law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts” (Romans 2:14-15). Christian deism is therefore based on appreciation for all creation and on appreciation for every human life.” Christian deism – Wikipedia.
In Genesis 1:27 we read, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” If we, as the pinnacle of creation, are the “consciousness” of creation would it not be possible to consider the God of the Bible to be the fullness of Consciousness or the Divine Consciousness of the universe.?
And would it be possible to consider the ongoing evolution of the world as the Divine activity of the Divine Consciousness?
Considering the revelation that “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14) could we conclude that God is Existence? And, if existence is evolving in a trajectory toward the Divine Consciousness, then our God and creation is evolving as we read this.
In other words, as human consciousness increases or evolves and the choices we make become more profound, we can conclude that we are either headed toward or away from union with the Divine Consciousness.
Finally, the meaning and purpose of the Incarnation becomes the meaning and significance of human free will and consciousness. Jesus increased his human consciousness and it therefore enabled him to do the “Will of God: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” Lk 2:52
Faith Seeking Understanding 