#92. Evolution & Holy Communion

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You are probably thinking the words "Evolution" and "Holy Communion" don't go together. I think they do, of course. In fact, I think that they go together better than any other two words I know. But I admit it's not obvious. So once again I ask for your patience. Thanks!

We know that the religions of the Western world-- Judaism and its two offshoots, Christianity and Islam-- greatly value human persons. The gospels specifically stress that offering the smallest bit of help to any human being is equivalent to directly serving the ultimate cause of the universe.

But what about Western science? As I see it, with its understanding of the place of the human community in the evolution of life on Earth, Western science greatly enhances Western religion's respect for persons.

But because of our culture's emphasis on "soul" as the essence of a human person, Western religion at times degenerated into a disdain for the human body. Following Greek philosophy, the people of the Western world envisioned the soul as something separate from the body-- and along with that disdain for the body came a disdain for the world of nature as well.

In the process-- and this is the first of the two main thoughts I want to share in this post-- the Christian tradition unfortunately lost a major perspective on its own central rite of thanksgiving.

It was unfortunate because the basic Judeo-Christian response to reality isn't disdain for the world but thanksgiving for it and for our lives in it.

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The second main thought I want to share is that the evolutionary worldview of the New Cosmology is helping us to recover that profound attitude of thanksgiving which is at the heart of our Western world's religious traditions.

A point easy to miss is that the Judeo-Christian rite of blessing God is not a thanksgiving for a static world-- as the creation was seen to be in the patriarchal perspective. The ritual blessing at the heart of Western religion is a giving thanks for the created world understood as an on-going dynamic process-- exactly the way modern science sees it.

And a key aspect of this dynamic perspective is that we humans now know ourselves to be expressions of the world evolved to the complex level of personal consciousness. We now recognize that we are one with all things and conscious participants in the cosmic process.

So the central Judeo-Christian rite of thanksgiving is not just a blessing of God for the world; it's also a giving thanks for our participation in the creative processes of the dynamic world.

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I think it's especially important to note that this recovery of humanity's awareness of its communion with the physical universe-- "its recognition of the divine presence dwelling and working in all persons and things," as a reader says in a comment on post #90-- parallels Western culture's present movement away from the patriarchal perspectives of past centuries.

It's clear enough that thanksgiving for our existence in the world and respect for human persons are not characteristics of patriarchal manhood. Indeed, we know that it is precisely the attitudes of patriarchy which are responsible for a great deal of contemporary damage to the environment and for the on-going exploitation of the Earth's people.

In contrast to the dualistic and destructive perspectives of static patriarchy, Hebrew thought, as it is expressed especially in the Wisdom tradition of the Bible, is dynamic and creative.

And the very idea of evolution-- the central idea of contemporary science-- comes originally from the experience of the early Hebrews in their Great Escape from Egypt. I described its annual celebration at the Passover seder in the previous post (#91).

In the evolutionary context of modern science we can see that the New Testament is in total continuity with that powerful biblical vision of an ongoing transfigured cosmos. We know that Jesus and his earliest followers were part of the Wisdom tradition and so were no less characterized by the dynamic view of creation still in process.

With their expectation of what Jesus called "the coming of the Kingdom," the early Christians met weekly in anticipation of the Reign of God and in thanksgiving for their participation in that ongoing renewal of creation.

My point here is that those weekly gatherings in memory of Jesus have remained a constant in the Christian tradition for two thousand years, although their evolutionary perspective was lost along the way.

And as strange as it may seem to some, modern science is helping us recover that dynamic religious worldview. As I see it, this recovery is a major aspect of the contemporary convergence of science and religion.

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One of the reasons why talk about the "convergence" of science and religion still sounds odd is that, especially in American society, religion is usually identified with behavior: how we act-- or how others think we should act. For many, "religion" means either private morality at the individual level or political and social ethics at the academic level.

But religion isn't about behavior, it's about experience.

Specifically, religion is about that kind of experience of the numinous in the natural world which Thomas Berry describes as "coming from so deep within us that it seems to come from outside us." As I noted in post #90, Berry emphasizes that this was the experience of our earliest human ancestors and that the capacity for it is still in our genes today.

We know that in all the world's spiritual traditions, the emphasis is first of all on experience, not morality. Ethical behavior, both personal and communal, follows, rather than precedes, religious experience. 

Matthew Fox expresses this understanding nicely in a recent interview. Religious experience, he says, "finds its full expression in service and work of justice-making and compassion."

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So why do the patriarchal religions of the West put so much emphasis on private behavior?

By definition, patriarchy wants-- and indeed, needs-- to be in control. 

And what easier way to control people than by making them feel guilty about their behavior? Especially by telling them that the purpose of their lives is to escape from body and world.

In contrast to patriarchal dualism, the dynamic religious perspective understands the purpose of our lives to be our conscious participation in the world's evolutionary development. And-- from astronomy and biology to neuro-science, depth psychology and cultural anthropology-- all the branches of contemporary science support that perspective.

Another way to say it is that religion, in the dynamic-evolutionary perspective, is first of all a response to the mystery of our own existence. I've quoted the words of Karl Rahner many times in this blog. He says that "the great question of our time is not whether God exists, but whether we willing to be sensitive and responsive to the mystery which is always and everywhere making itself known to us."

"Sensitive and responsive," says Rahner. Two things!

Modern science helps us to be sensitive. Thanks to the evolutionary perspective, we are more aware today than ever before of the dynamic cosmos from which we have emerged and with which we are so much a part that we recognize that "all things are our relations."

And religion helps us to be responsive. Our appreciation of the world and gratefulness for our existence in it is the very heart of the Judeo-Christian response to reality.

So, as strange as the name of this post may at first seem, I think "Evolution and Holy Communion" is exactly right for the thoughts I'm attempting to share here.

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When we think about it, making sense of the Christian Eucharist in an evolutionary worldview should be easy. In post #90 I described Thomas Berry's understanding of the cosmic task of humanity-- to "return the world to itself and to its numinous origins"-- and Alexander 

Schmemann's expression of that same idea-- that "our primary role in the cosmos is to be priest."

But the perspectives of the static-dualistic religious context get in the way of the deeper realities expressed by the ancient words like "communion" and "eucharist."

In that static worldview, the word "communion" referred not to an action but to an object. The Eucharist was the blessed bread which was "received" from the hands of others during a service but which otherwise was kept locked in a special container or sometimes displayed for adoration.

In contrast to that view of communion as something which was given to those who received it, in the evolutionary worldview-- which was that of the early Christians-- the Eucharist isn't a thing but an action. It is a communal activity, an action shared in common by the gathered community.

And as an action done by the whole community together, the Eucharist is a communal affirmation-- a saying "yes" to ourselves and to all things as expressions of the Mystery of God. It is especially a recognition of ourselves as empowered by the energy of the dynamic holy Spiritus to carry out our public work ("liturgia" in Greek) of co-creative participation in the cosmic process.

And it's here-- in our common task-- that morality and ethics come in. 

Although still understood conventionally in terms of patriarchal prohibitions ("don't do this, don't do that"), morality in fact is nothing less than our creative participation in the cosmic process at the human level. Compassion and justice-making, as Matthew Fox says, are the kinds of behavior that follow from the fact that we are in communion with all things.

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In past ages, this basic understanding of the Christian Eucharist as a cosmic thanksgiving and as a rite of communal empowerment for participation in global humanity's cultural development became "eclipsed," as some religious thinkers politely put it. It was lost.

But it's being recovered. And the story of its recovery is a fascinating part of Western culture's history. Historically, the recovery of the dynamic understanding of Eucharist first emerged in a few monasteries in Europe sometime in the late 1800s.

What's especially fascinating is that this was just around the same time that Darwin's Origin of Species was becoming known to the general public.

While today everyone knows the name of Charles Darwin, almost no one-- yet!-- recognizes the names of religious researchers such as Odo Casel among Catholics, Gregory Dix among Anglicans and Nicholas Afanassiev among Eastern Orthodox. All of these thinkers were early contributors to the recovery of the dynamic understanding of the Eucharist.

It's only because of my personal life-long interest in both science and religion-- and specifically, in cosmic evolution and religious ritual-- that I'm aware of those late 19th- and early 20th- century religious thinkers.

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But I don't think it's just a coincidence that this recovery of the dynamic understanding of the Eucharist began around the same time that humanity was becoming more conscious of the evolutionary worldview of modern science.

From a long-range point of view, we can see that the same dynamic energy of the evolutionary process operating at the cosmic and biological levels is also empowering the process at the level of humanity's cultural development.

And while Western religion saw the dynamic process first, and called it "passover" and "transfiguration" and "new creation"-- and understood it to be empowered by the holy spiritus-- in our day Western science converges with this in-depth religious understanding of our place in the cosmos.

This convergence doesn't seem at all to be a coincidence. It seems to me to be a perfectly clear example of the Evolutionary Spiritus at work in human self-awareness as part of the evolutionary process taking place on our planet at the level of human culture.

And to put these thoughts in a very big picture, I don't doubt that a similar process is taking place on other planets in the cosmos where personal awareness has emerged. We can expect that the same kind of cultural development is being called forth elsewhere by that same dynamic Energy (urge, impetus, drive, holy spiritus) which has been behind the unfolding of the universe for the last 14 billion years.

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One final thought. Nothing of the more conventional understanding of the Eucharist is negated by seeing those teachings in the broader perspectives we have today as a result of both scientific and theological research.

There are no contradictions. Indeed, there is much enrichment!

Just as what's meant in the evolutionary context by "Holy Spirit" is precisely the divine life-force, the energy empowering the cosmic process, so it's equally clear that what's meant by "Holy Communion" in the evolutionary context is our union with all things in the created world and with the ultimate mystery of which we and they together are the epiphany.

Our contemporary context of cosmic-biological-cultural evolution was unavailable to the early followers of Jesus. We can see more easily today that the main point of the weekly gathering (ekklesia) by those early Christians is conscious awareness of and thanksgiving (eucharist) for humanity's place and role in the world.

The view of the world as cosmic process-- the evolution of material complexity and the emergence of personal awareness-- is the essence of the scientific view of reality. And communal thanksgiving for that dynamic reality as it is now revealed to us by science is the essence of the Judeo-Christian response to it.

So, as I see it, Western science and Western religion converge not just 
in greatly valuing human persons but in their awareness as well of humanity's communion with all things.

And what else can that be called other than a holy communion?

sam@macspeno.com

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P.S. Our communion "with the divine presence dwelling and working in all persons and things of the physical universe" has nothing about it of the sentimentality associated, for example, with having children dressed up in white clothing for their first holy communion.

On the morning after the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the prophetic Shalom Center in Philadelphia, whom I've mentioned in several previous posts (#47 and #51), sent a note which helps us to see just how challenging it is to understand Holy Communion in its own native-- evolutionary-- context.

Rabbi Arthur begins: "How do we address the death of a mass murderer?"

He observes that in the commentaries on the story of the Passover and its celebration at the Seder, the rabbinical tradition says that God did not rebuke Moses and the children of Israel for singing and dancing when Pharaoh and his soldiers were drowned in the sea. But when the angels began to dance and sing as well, God rebuked them: "These also are the work of My hands. We must not rejoice at their deaths!"

He also notes that at the Passover Seder "we spill wine from our cups as we mention each plague, lest we drink that wine to celebrate these disasters that befell our oppressors."

"The legend," says Rabbi Arthur, "is not addressed to angels but to our higher selves."

We see just how challenging is the Judeo-Christian understanding of thanksgiving and of our communion with all things when we understand that our higher selves-- our deeper, truer, more inclusive selves-- may not rejoice in the death of any creature.

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#38. Exodus

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Where did the idea of evolution come from in the first place?

I said in post #37 (What's Next) that the concept of evolution didn't originate with Darwin but with the Bible and I acknowledged that "it's a big claim-- not one that people still living in the context of a static worldview can hear easily or take seriously." Biblical fundamentalists, with their strong sense of conflict between the Bible and scientific evolution, simply can't imagine it.

But for those who aren't closed to the evolutionary worldview, the understanding that it has its origins in the history of the Jews can help us to make much better sense of the Second Axial Period which western culture and all humanity is currently experiencing.

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To start with, it's important to be aware that Charles Darwin did not invent the idea of biological evolution. What he did was discover the mechanism by which it works. He called that mechanism "natural selection."

Almost everyone knows of Darwin's famous five-year voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle and about his observations in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of South America. It was there that he gathered much of the evidence for his understanding of natural selection. Less well known is the fact that a contemporary of Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, came up with the same mechanism for biological evolution from his work in Southeast Asia and the island of New Guinea.

But the idea of evolution is much older than Wallace and Darwin. Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, for example, was aware of it, and many earlier scientists, long before Erasmus Darwin's time, saw glimpses of it. An excellent brief summary of the history of the dawning of the idea of evolution in the world of science is available in the June 2008 issue of Smithsonian magazine, "On the Origin of a Theory."

I've quoted Teilhard de Chardin many times in this blog about the fact that the transition from a static to a dynamic worldview is the greatest change in human consciousness since consciousness first appeared on Earth several million years ago. And I've shared some thoughts about this truly immense transition in human consciousness in several recent posts: aspects 1 & 2 in post #35; aspects 3 & 4 in #36.

The question here is where did that breakthrough first occur? What occasioned the beginning of the immense change from a static to a dynamic understanding of the world?

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The answer is the event known in the Bible as the Exodus. As strange as it may seem to many, the dynamic-evolutionary worldview of contemporary science first entered into the consciousness of western culture as a result of the Great Escape from Egypt.

The Exodus happened around 1400 BCE. (Bible scholars and historians debate the exact date. The importance of the Exodus event is demonstrated by the enormous amount of effort that has gone into trying to determine its exact date. You can check out some of the numerous web sites for more than you ever wanted to know about how scholars go about dating an event of the distant past!)

The Great Escape from Egypt was essentially a revolt against slavery. A group of Egyptian slaves, focused around a leader we know as Moses, revolted against their degrading political and social conditions. They escaped, crossing the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds) "with dry feet" and wandered in the Sinai desert for many years; it was there that they forged their unique spirituality and eventually came to recognize themselves as a nation, the "people" known today as the Jews.

The Exodus event was not only the beginning of the Hebrew nation but also the start of the western religious tradition. It was the context out of which Jesus and the early Christian tradition appeared, and along with Greek metaphysics it is one of the two major sources of western culture.

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The Great Escape is still celebrated each year at the full moon in spring. Telling its story is the central part of the Passover Seder. It's told in response to the well-known question asked by the youngest child, "Why is this night different from all other nights?"

The end of the story always includes what scholars say is the oldest recorded song in the Bible, the song of "Meriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, and all the women who followed her, singing and dancing with tambourines."

Sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted,
horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea. (Exodus 15, 19-21.)

A longer version, called the Song of Moses, is given in Exodus 15, 1-18.

We sing of the Lord!
God, covered with glory!
Horse and rider thrown into the sea...
“The Lord” is God’s name.

What comes next is especially important:

God’s right hand is majestic in power,
God’s right hand shatters the enemy,
Great is God’s splendor...
"The Lord" will be king for ever more!

It's difficult today to understand how important those words are. They express the realization that something new happened: the Hebrews' God did something new. And it's with that insight that humanity began to move out of the static worldview of the Neolithic cultural period that had previously prevailed for many thousands of years.

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The Neolithic Age is a period of human cultural history that's both familiar and unfamiliar to most of us. It was the age of the Great Mother, when humans first become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers and human life was centered on the life-giving world of plants.

The discovery of agriculture began about ten thousand years ago with the (probably accidental) discovery that food-bearing plants will sprout from intentionally planted seeds. Those plants grow to bear edible fruit and vegetables. And more seeds.

While those plants die off at the end of the growing season, their seeds can be planted at the beginning of the next growing season and will sprout again to produce new food-bearing plants.

This experience of the life-death-life-death of the Earth's vegetation, repeated over and over, exerted a tremendous influence on human consciousness. It prevailed in people's mind for countless generations. A familiar biblical expression of it is recorded in the Book of Ecclesiastes: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

This same attitude is expressed by people today when they respond, "Same old, same old," to "What's new?"

The phases of the moon, dying and returning to life every 28 days, also fit this "same old, same old" pattern.

When the new moon first appears, it grows larger each night until it reaches its fullness. That glorious full moon fades quickly, however, and the moon eventually disappears completely. But it returns again three days later, so that every month ("moonth") is a death-resurrection-death-resurrection story-- just like the plant cycle.

Life-death, life-death, life-death: it goes round and round and round. Nothing really new ever happens. In the static agricultural world of the Neolithic period, there is, indeed, "nothing new under the sun."

It was the reflections of the Jewish people on the Great Escape from Egypt which opened the mind of humanity to the dynamic view of the world. But it hasn't been an easy transition; it's taken humanity more than three thousand years to catch on to it. As Teilhard says, "We're just coming out of the Neolithic Age."

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So this is what I meant when I said (back in post #37, in response to the comment of a reader who referred to "the bible stories about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit") that those stories are about the same thing that science is about. The idea of evolution comes "not from Darwin but from the Bible."

That dynamic worldview was developed by later biblical writers, especially the authors of the Hebrew Bible's Wisdom Literature. And it was continued into early Christian times by New Testament authors such as John the evangelist and the apostle Paul and by those writers of the first few centuries of the Christian era known as the Fathers of the Church.

Irenaeus of Lyons and Maximus the Confessor are good examples. They understood Jesus and the early Christian communities in that same dynamic context expressed in the Wisdom Literature. I hope to talk about the developmental mind of both the Hebrew and the early Christian writers in a future post.

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As I mentioned back in post #21 (Struggling with Words), the dynamic-developmental worldview was lost to western culture during the Dark Ages and eventually replaced by the static perspectives of the ancient Greeks. But it began to be recovered once again by the work of scholars and scientists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Scholars in areas such as biblical, liturgical and patristic studies began to recover it on the religious side, while researchers in astronomy, physics, evolutionary biology and cultural anthropology-- and most recently in the area of neuroscience-- did the same on the science side.

With my life-long interest in science and religion I find it delightful that enshrined in the sacred writings of the Jews and early Christians is nothing less than the evolutionary worldview which modern science has been uncovering since the time of Darwin.

As I said in post #21, "Theologians have not only recovered the inner core of the Judeo-Christian tradition which had been lost to western civilization after the Dark Ages but also have moved forward to include the best values of the modern world; those values especially include an appreciation of the universe as developmental and of persons as central to the cosmic process."

In our day, science and religion converge in humanity's efforts at self-understanding. We can see far better than previous generations that human history and humanity's cultural development are the continuation on our planet of biological and cosmic evolution. The essence of the Immense Transition is our awareness both that it is one single process and that we "Earthlings" are at the center of it.

But it's to the biblical mind that we owe the initial change from the static worldview of the Neolithic-agricultural period to the dynamic-evolutionary perspectives of the modern world.

And that began with the Great Escape from Egypt.

sam@macspeno.com