Denis Edwards
been maintained, 1 in the West, one of these elements—the wider creation—has largely dropped out of view. At least since the Reformation, there has been an almost exclusive focus on humans and God, and on human redemption in Christ, in both Catholic and Protestant preaching and theology. It is understandable, then, that some early studies in ecological theology and spirituality responded to this situation by attending primarily to creation, at times in a blending of creation spirituality and popular science, as in the
“new story” of the universe. 2 Th ese eff orts have borne fruit for many people, who have found through them a new vision and deepened commitment to the natural world.
However, in some expressions of these approaches—at least at the popular level—there has been such a prioritizing of creation theology over salvation theology that there is little or no place left for Jesus Christ, the incarnation, or salvation in Christ.
From the perspective of the broader Christian tradition, this situation clearly requires further development. A fully Christian approach to the natural world cannot be limited to the theology of creation but must involve both creation and salvation in Christ. If we are to ask about the theological meaning of animals, plants, microbes, and all that makes up the community of life on Earth, as well as of the Milky Way Galaxy and the observable universe, a fully Christian response needs to involve the whole story of God’s self-bestowal to creatures in creation, incarnation, and fi nal transfi guration. Th e problem with the Western church’s focus on redemption, from an ecological perspective, is not its concern with salvation in Christ, but that it was limited to human salvation, oft en in a highly individualistic way. What is needed for a rich Christian ecological theology is not a sidelining of salvation in Christ, but an enormous extension of the common view of salvation, so that, faithful to the biblical promise of a new heaven and a new earth, salvation can be seen to involve the whole creation.
Following this line of thought, some ecologically minded theologians have been working toward a theology that seeks to show the profound connection between God’s creative act that enables a universe of creatures to exist and to evolve and God’s saving act in Jesus Christ that promises the fulfi llment and transformation of the whole creation. As an important example of this, Ernst Conradie, a Reform theologian at the University of the Southern Cape, led an international, ecumenical group that worked cooperatively on this issue for fi ve years, resulting in a series of publications. Included among these are two edited volumes on the relationship between creation and salvation, the fi rst tracing the issue in the work of classical theologians from Irenaeus to Calvin and the second tracing the relationship in recent movements in Christian theology. 3
2 Th omas Berry , Th e Dream of the Earth ( San Francisco : Sierra Club Books , 1988 ) ; Brian Swimme Ecology of Transfi guration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature and Creation ( New York : Fordham University Press , 2013 ) ; Elizabeth Th eokritoff , Living in God’s Creation:
Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology ( Crestwood, NY : St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press , 2009 ).
Incarnation, Evolution, Communion 67
Another group of theologians has been seeking to show the radical meaning of the incarnation for the whole of creaturely reality through the concept of “deep incarnation.” Th is idea was introduced by Danish theologian Niels Gregersen, who speaks of it in this way: “Th e incarnation of God in Christ can be understood as a radical or ‘deep’ incarnation, that is, an incarnation into the very tissue of biological existence, and system of nature.” 4 Gregersen understands the cross as God’s identifi cation with creation in its evolutionary emergence and as a microcosm of God’s redemptive presence to all creatures in their suff ering and death. Th e concept of deep incarnation has since been taken up by other ecological theologians, including Elizabeth Johnson and Celia Deane-Drummond, who have made use of it in their own distinctive ways. 5 In my own work on this theme, I found myself going back to Athanasius and fi nding there a robust theology of incarnation, where the Word in whom all things are created is also the Word of the incarnation, the Word on the Cross. 6 Th e concept of deep incarnation can refl ect not only the profound insights into the incarnation that Athanasius’s theology represents but also the new insights that come to us today from the sciences, particularly cosmology and evolutionary biology. In this way, we can now see that Jesus of Nazareth was completely dependent upon the evolution of life from its microbial origins 3.7 billion years ago. In him God was made one with all the fruits of evolution by means of natural selection. In light of recent science, we can know that the body of Jesus was made up of atoms produced in the nuclear furnaces of stars so that, like us, Jesus was, and in his resurrected state still is, made from stardust. In light of today’s science, we can know that the body of Jesus depended on the cooperation of the billions of microbes that inhabited it and that it existed only in interdependence with other organisms and with the various systems that sustain life on Earth. In a biological view, it makes no sense to think of one person’s human fl esh as an isolated reality.
Refl ecting on the incarnation in light of our evolutionary heritage, and the crisis of life on our planet, we are led to a deeper appropriation of the meaning of God-with-us in Christ, as a theology of God-with-all-living-things . In the Word made fl esh, God embraces the whole of fi nite creaturely existence from within. Th e incarnation is God-with-us in the “very tissue of biological existence” and in the systems of the natural world.
One of the startling implications of the Christian view of the depths of the incarnation is that it is a claim about a God who eternally binds God’s self to fl esh and
4 Niels Henrik Gregersen , “ Th e Cross of Christ in an Evolutionary World ,” Dialog: A Journal of Th eology
to matter. In a thoroughly incarnational theology, God is understood as becoming forever a God of matter and fl esh. Th is is the implication of the Christian doctrines of the resurrection and the ascension. Th e Word is made fl esh, and matter and fl esh are irrevocably taken to God and embedded forever in the life of the divine Trinity.
Th e incarnation and its culmination in the resurrection and ascension of the crucifi ed Jesus mean that the Word of God is forever matter, forever fl esh, forever a creature, forever part of a universe of creatures, but is a part of all of this that is now radically transfi gured. As the fi rstborn of the new creation, the risen Christ is the beginning of the deifying transformation of the whole universe of creatures in God. Karl Rahner has said of the risen Christ:
No, he is risen in his body. Th at means: He has begun to transfi gure this world into himself; he has accepted this world forever; he has been born anew as a child of this earth, but of an earth that is transfi gured, freed, unlimited, an earth that in him will last forever and is delivered from death and impermanence for good. 7 Th e Word is made fl esh, and matter and fl esh are taken to God irrevocably. God is forever part of evolutionary history on this planet and forever part of a universe of creatures.
Th omas Torrance says that the incarnation means “God has decisively bound himself to the created universe and the created universe to himself, with such an unbreakable bond that the Christian hope of redemption and recreation extends not just to human beings but to the universe as a whole.” 8 Aspects of this view of the incarnation can be found in the recent teachings of Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis. In his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, John Paul II writes: “Th e incarnation of God the Son signifi es the taking up into unity with God not only of human nature, but in this human nature, in a sense, of everything that is ‘fl esh’: the whole of humanity, the entire visible and material world. Th e incarnation, then, also has a cosmic signifi cance, a cosmic dimension.” 9
In Laudato Si’ , Pope Francis speaks of the Word of God who “entered into the created cosmos, throwing in his lot with it, even to the cross” (§99). 10 Several times he focuses on the risen Christ at work in the whole creation. In one example, aft er referring to Col. 1:19–20 and 1 Cor. 15:28, he writes:
Th us the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. Th e very fl owers of the fi eld and the birds which his
7 Karl Rahner , “ A Faith Th at Loves the Earth ,” in Th e Mystical Way in Everyday Life: Sermons, Essays
and Prayers , (eds.) Annemarie Kidder ( Maryknoll, NY : Orbis , 2010 ), 55 . See also Rahner , “ Th e Specifi c Character of the Christian Concept of God ,” in Th eological Investigations , 21 ( New York : Crossroad , 1988 ), 191 .
8 Th omas Torrance , Th e Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Th ree Persons ( Edinburgh : T&T Clark ,
1996 ), 244 .
9 John Paul II , On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World: Dominum et Vivifi cantem
( Boston : Pauline Books and Media , 1986 ), §50, §86 .
10 All parenthetical references from Pope Francis , Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home
( Strathfi eld : St. Paul’s Publications , 2015 ).
Incarnation, Evolution, Communion 69
human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence (§100).
Later, discussing the sacraments, he writes: “For Christians, all the creatures of the material universe fi nd their true meaning in the incarnate Word, for the Son of God has incorporated in his person part of the material world, planting in it a seed of defi nitive transformation” (§235). At another point, he off ers a picture of this transformed existence: “Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfi gured, will take its rightful place and will have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all” (§243).
Evolution
A second priority in the recent work of ecological theologians has been the attempt to deal responsibly with evolutionary science. 11 How are we to think about God’s creative and saving action in the processes of the emergence of the universe over the last 13.7 billion years and the evolution of life on Earth over the last 3.7 billion years? If God acts through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, how might we think about this action in an evolving world? In seeking to develop a Christian theology of the natural world in light of evolution, I fi nd it meaningful to think of the Spirit as the Energy of Love at work in the process of the emergence of the universe and the evolution of life on Earth;
likewise, we might understand the Word of God as both the Attractor of evolutionary emergence and also as the Word incarnate who, crucifi ed and risen, draws all things to their transfi gured eschatological fulfi llment. 12 In such a theology, the Creator Spirit can be seen as immanently present to all the entities of our universe, enabling creatures to exist, interact, and evolve by means of the laws of nature and the processes discussed in the natural sciences. Th e capacity for emergence, for increase in complexity through self-organizational processes, and for the evolution of life by means of natural selection is interior to creaturely reality. It belongs to the natural world. Th e capacity for emergence comes from within. At the empirical level of science, the emergence of the new is completely open to explanation at the scientifi c level. But, theologically, this capacity can be understood as the gift of the Spirit’s empowering, life-giving, and loving presence to creatures, in the relationship of continuous creation.
For biblical faith, the Spirit is the “vivifying and energizing power of God”
immanently present to all things. 13 Th e life-giving Spirit can be seen as breathing life into the laws of nature and into all the natural processes by which the universe and all
11 A leading fi gure in this work is John Haught; see, for example, God aft er Darwin: A Th eology of
Evolution ( Boulder, CO : Westview Press , 2000 ) and Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God and the Drama of Life ( Louisville, KY: Westminster : John Knox Press , 2010 ) . Important recent contributions are Johnson , Ask the Beasts , and Celia Deane-Drummond , Th e Wisdom of the Liminal: Evolution and Other Animals in Human Becoming ( Grand Rapids : Eerdmans , 2014 ).
12 Th is subject is treated more fully in Edwards, Partaking of God, 74–87.
13 John McKenzie , “ Aspects of Old Testament Th ought ,” in Th e New Jerome Biblical Commentary ,
(eds.) Raymond Brown , Joseph Fitzmyer , and Roland Murphy ( Boston, MA : Pearson , 1989 ), 1291 .
of life on Earth emerge. For a Christian, this Spirit can be seen as the divine energy of love at work in the origin of the observable universe, in the birth of galaxies and stars, in the development of our solar system around the young Sun, in the origin of the fi rst microbial life on Earth, in the fl ourishing of life in all its diversity, and in the emergence of humans with their capacity for self-consciousness and interpersonal love.
In suggesting that the Word of God can be seen as the Attractor, I am adopting an image from the philosopher of science and Archbishop of Lublin, Josef Zycinski. 14 He suggests thinking of God as the “Cosmic Attractor” of evolution. 15 He points to the use of the concept of the attractor in the physics of nonlinear systems in which the system is found to be drawn to a particular state: “Th e essential factor in this process is the dynamic by which the system is directed locally toward a physical state which is as yet unrealized, but nevertheless gives the appearance that it is ‘attracting’ to itself, at the given stage, the evolution of the system to itself.” 16
In a trinitarian theology of creation, I see the eternal Word of God as the divine Attractor in the evolutionary emergence of the universe and its individual entities.
Th e incarnate Word of God, Jesus risen from the dead, is the Attractor not only of evolutionary emergence but also of the fi nal transformation and fulfi llment of the universe of creatures. Th is attraction of the Word is not a physical force and not something that could be discovered empirically. It is God’s creative and saving action that enables a creaturely world to exist and evolve and brings it to its fulfi llment.
Th e Word, then, can be understood as the divine Attractor, drawing into being galaxies, stars, and planets, and then, on Earth, through the evolutionary processes described in the sciences, all the diverse species of microbes, insects, birds, fi sh, plants, and animals, including human beings. Th e divine Word draws each species to its own identity and place in evolutionary emergence. Not just each species, but each member of each species, each sparrow, is held in the divine memory and embraced in the divine love, as a word of the Word, an expression of divine Wisdom in our world.
In this view, then, the incarnation of the Word is the incarnation of the Attractor of evolutionary emergence. As John’s Gospel tells us, all things were made through the Word of God (Jn 1:3), and this Word of creation is made fl esh in our midst (Jn 1:14).
In terms of the proposal being made here, then, this incarnate Word, the crucifi ed and risen Christ, can be understood as the Attractor of the whole creation, not just to its evolutionary existence but to its transfi guration and fulfi llment. And the Holy Spirit is the enabling power at work in this whole process—the very attraction, the drawing power of love, the life-giving presence at work in it all.
One of the advantages of the analogy of the Attractor is that it can be understood in a nonanthropomorphic way, pointing to the fulfi llment and transfi guration of a cosmic world far beyond the human. But it also has another advantage. Th e analogy
16 Ibid., 162.
14 Th e concept of God and of Christ as “strange attractor” is used by Ilia Delio , Th e Humility of God:
A Franciscan Perspective ( Cincinnati : St. Anthony Messenger Press , 2005 ), 75–85 and Th e Emergent Christ: Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe ( Maryknoll, NY : Orbis , 2010 ), 142–6 .
15 Jósef Zycinski , God and Evolution: Fundamental Questions of Christian Evolutionism ( Washington,
DC : Catholic University of America Press , 2006 ), 161–4 .
Incarnation, Evolution, Communion 71
of the attractor can also carry a human and personal meaning. Th e gospels tell of Jesus who attracts great crowds in Galilee, adults and children as well. He draws followers to himself, involving them in a lifelong relationship. In language that echoes the biblical tradition of Wisdom, Jesus draws to himself all those who struggle in life with weariness, pain, and grief: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will fi nd rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mt. 11:28–30). A profound theology of Jesus as the divine Attractor is found in John’s Gospel, particularly in the image of Jesus lift ed up and attracting all to himself as the crucifi ed and risen one: “And I, when I am lift ed up from the earth, will draw all to myself ” (Jn 12:32).
An evolutionary theology of creation, then, can be developed as a trinitarian theology of God creating through the Spirit as the Energy of Love and the Word of God as the Attractor in both creation and new creation. But theology in dialogue must also attempt to deal with the costs built into the process of evolution: the loss, the pain, the predation, the deaths, and the extinctions of most species that ever lived over the 3.8-billion-year history of life. 17 If modern humans emerged only in the last 200,000 years, then all of these costs cannot be reasonably attributed to human sin, as many Christians have done in the past. It seems the responsibility for the costs of evolution rests with the Creator—at least for those who believe in God. An evolutionary view of the world thus intensifi es the age-old theological problem of evil because of the sheer scale of the suff ering because it seems intrinsic to the process and because it seems the
An evolutionary theology of creation, then, can be developed as a trinitarian theology of God creating through the Spirit as the Energy of Love and the Word of God as the Attractor in both creation and new creation. But theology in dialogue must also attempt to deal with the costs built into the process of evolution: the loss, the pain, the predation, the deaths, and the extinctions of most species that ever lived over the 3.8-billion-year history of life. 17 If modern humans emerged only in the last 200,000 years, then all of these costs cannot be reasonably attributed to human sin, as many Christians have done in the past. It seems the responsibility for the costs of evolution rests with the Creator—at least for those who believe in God. An evolutionary view of the world thus intensifi es the age-old theological problem of evil because of the sheer scale of the suff ering because it seems intrinsic to the process and because it seems the