Time

I believe in God...creator.

                                           - 1st Article of the Apostles' Creed

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Based on current estimates, if the entire 13.8 billion year history of the universe were scaled to a 24-hour day, the appearance and entire history of humankind would occur in the last 4 seconds of the day. On that scale, the last 500 years since the Reformation would be nearly immeasurable, a flash in the evolution of time.  

But remove the 24 hour scale and if you think about it, in reality, there has been much progress made by humankind in that flash of 500 years. By way of example, that we can measure the age of the universe, that we can determine the age of humankind, that we have a greater understanding of the universe and our place in it, reveals the rapidity of humankind’s evolution. Regrettably, the Church has not kept pace.

Franciscan Sister, theologian and author Ilia Delio, who writes and lectures at the intersection of faith and science, offers this perspective:

For centuries Christianity told a grand narrative of God, creation, and humanity that held such power and conviction that virtually all systems were based on it. We believed everything in the Bible to be historically true. Now, modern biblical scholarship discloses that stories of the Old and New Testaments were prayerfully created for the purpose of community, rather than as historical narratives. Yet, the stories of the Bible are deeply embedded in our religious consciousness and have provided images and symbols to define our relationship with God….

[Core Christian doctrine was informed by the view of the cosmos espoused by Ptolemy, the Greek astronomer and geographer of the 2nd century CE.]

…To this day all our core doctrines are fitted to [Ptolemy’s] universe even though, as early as the sixteenth century, modern science began to describe a new universe that departed from [the theories of Ptolemy]. 

The inability to engage a new religious story…has confined us to the old one. The impasse we find ourselves in is centuries old….[Needless to say] The church has had trouble embracing the prophets of a new age, especially those announcing new stories and new ways to think about God…¹

I imagine you can see how modern science and 2^nd century theologies (still accepted today) could be at odds with one another.  Something has to give. We need a new way to think about God.  

Here again is Ilia Delio: 

In my view, evolution is the story, the meta-narrative of our age. It is not only a scientific explanation for physical reality; it is, rather, the overarching description of reality, the cosmological framework for all contemporary thought. While scientists continue to understand how evolution works for physical systems, it is important to understand how evolution works for religious systems as well, since physical reality and spiritual reality are intertwined…²

Intertwined is good. After all, if there is a God, and that God is creator, clearly that God would utilize all the assertions of mathematics, physics, biology, anthropology and theology to inform the divine creative process and the telling of a more faithful story.

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What do you think about God having the role in the evolutionary process? More so, that it is the “meta-narrative of this age”?

What current theologies might be effected by an evolutionary meta-narrative?

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¹ Delio, Ilia. The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love (pp. 11-12). Kindle Edition. 

² Ibid., p. 14.