Another evolution story

Brian McLaren keeps bringing up these different Christian interpretations of evolution. While I appreciate his efforts to bring in varying points of view, I've been pretty disappointed with what I've seen.

The interpretation I read tonight was written by Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, which perhaps informed a lot of her reading of past and present views of God. Here is part of what she writes about the old view of God:

The God of creation, the religious world determined, was all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present and all-holy. The problem lay in the fact that a God of these proportions failed, it seemed, to exercise such power when it came to the creation this very God had created.

This God did not save the world from evil, did not exercise blatant power in behalf of the good, did not save the righteous from the unrighteous, did not act in behalf of the oppressed. This was a God whose merit theology, whose rule-driven scorekeeping, trumped care, compassion and love.

It's interesting to view these statements from the point of view of a Protestant, coming from a tradition that rebelled against precisely this view of God.

It makes me think of John Calvin, whose commitment to God's sovereignty was unshakable, and is probably perceived by many as part of this "old" way of viewing God. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Calvin's commitment to God's sovereignty meant that God was acting on behalf of the oppressed, that prayer could change the world, and that God could save the righteous. For Calvin, it was the very sovereignty that Chittister seems to dislike that made these things possible.

Also the undying commitment of Protestants to justification by faith alone prevents any notion of God keeping a score-card. Indeed, such a view of God is exactly what Protestants were trying to reform.

What's so fascinating is that Chittister reacts to a horrifying conception of God by asserting free will at every turn, and diminishing God's sovereignty to do so:

A self-creating universe becomes co-creator with the humble God who shares power and waits for the best from us and provides for what we need to make it happen. We become participants in the process of life and the development of the world that is not so much planned as it is enabled. As nature grows, experiments, unfolds, selects and adapts, so then must we. Growth, not perfection, becomes the purpose of life. Ongoing creation, not predestined fate, becomes the purpose of life.

There's some tension here between Chittister's desire to see the role of the self more highly and to see our final eschatological purpose wrapped up in God. For instance, she writes towards the end of her article:

We learn from the fossils of the ages that development is most often a slow and uncertain process, a precarious and breakneck experience that demands both time and trust in the future that is God, and in the God of the future.

Somehow this desire for God to be the reliable end of life's journey doesn't change, even when you and God are partners, as opposed to the more traditional roles.

Chittister concludes that "Evolution gives us a God big enough to believe in." I'm not sure her story does, though.

I find myself actually much more inclined to go back to the Reformers, and find hope not in the partnership between God and self, but rather in the all-encompassing sovereignty of God.

There are some huge mistakes I think people make when thinking about God's sovereignty. I think the number one mistake is viewing it in primarily in terms of personal salvation. God has foreordained each soul for heaven or hell, end of story. That is an ugly picture, I think.

Instead I think the sovereignty of God, if it covers anything, should cover everything. One should not miss how this is a vital source of hope. It means that this world matters--God is involved in everything. It means God's power is here and now just as much as in eternity.

At the same time, of course, it is a frustrating view of God, but there's a certain kind of frustration that I find essential to spiritual health.

I am constantly fascinated by how the Old Testament deals with God's sovereignty. You get all kinds of passages more or less blaming God for bad things, even Israel's disobedience (cf. Isaiah 63:17).

Hebrew theology didn't allow for any dualistic explanations of the world--God was behind everything. But it did allow for full expression of disappointment with God, and a desire for God to change things. I think there's great wisdom in that.

The thing I think is most damaging in all of these discussions is how individualistic we are in our thinking. Modern thinking gives us two choices: either God is in charge, or the autonomous self is in charge.

How sad it is that we find it somehow original to think of this meager third option, that God and the self are working together.

What we really ought to learn from evolution, among many other things, is that we are part of something much bigger. It is not just between God and me. There is God, and there is all of creation!

I find it tragically ironic that in her post featuring beautiful pictures of outer space, Sister Chattister failed to meditate on the sheer vastness of the universe, and our smallness in it. Whereas Chattister wants to "imagine a greater sense of self," I feel compelled by scientific knowledge to imagine a much smaller sense of self, and a greater sense of my surroundings.

And yet, in a way, if I can imagine just how small I am compared to the world, I can become much bigger, in the sense that I will be part of something much bigger--something God made me to be by making all things according to His wisdom.

Well, one thing is clear: there is no one spiritual interpretation of scientific theories. This debate could certainly be enlightened by having more varying perspectives heard.