The Holy Spirit is the Love-Energy of a turning world
Creating a world in need of development, God in some way sought to limit himself in such a way that many of the things we think of as evils, dangers or sources of suffering, are in reality part of the pains of childbirth which he uses to draw us into the act of cooperation with the Creator. God is intimately present to each being, without impinging on the autonomy of his creature and this give rise to the rightful autonomy of earthly affairs. His divine presence ‘continues the work of creation.’ (LS 80)
This is Pope Francis’s way of talking about evolution. He refers to ‘creating a world of development’ and says, ‘his divine presence continues the work of creation.’ It is of fundamental importance that we reach some understanding of how this ‘world development,’ this ‘continuation of creation,’ this ‘divine presence’ and the ‘autonomy of creatures’ occurs. The Pope is also writing about God’s guidance of evolutionary development, offering a word about ‘the things we think of as evils, dangers or sources of suffering.’ This extract contains mountains of mystery that need to be explored regarding the source of evil and the phenomenon of sin, especially now when the Adam and Eve story is no longer seen as an ‘explanation’ for these huge issues but is understood as the universal myth it is.
‘God’s divine presence continues the work of creation.’ Pope Francis is trying to help us understand his own insights into the wonderful mystery of how God and Creation, The Holy Spirit and evolution, can sing harmoniously together. Far from being in competition with the laws of nature acting around us, the hand of God empowers the cosmos at it evolves. Theologian Elizabeth Johnson’s Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love seeks an understanding of faith that embraces the remarkable findings of science. In it she writes that ‘the world evolves in an economy of divine superabundance gifted with its own freedom, and in and through which the Creator Spirit’s gracious purpose is accomplished. It may well be that our future lies not so much in an invisible heaven outside time, but in this world clearly understood, fully lived through and transformed by love. ‘Earth is a physical place of extravagant dynamism that bodies forth the gracious presence of God,’ writes Jonhson. ‘In its own way it is a sacrament and a revelation……. The creating God, as the sustaining power and goal of the evolving world, acts by empowering the process from within.’
We struggle to understand much of this kind of thinking. Our old mind-sets have to be replaced by the startling new insights of scientists and theologians as held together by Pope Francis in his writings. What is called a ‘paradigm shift’ (a radical new awareness) is beginning to happen in questioning, open minds. New personal and cosmic images of God will be born in our hearts as we surrender to the Holy Spirit. In The Emergent Christ Ilia Delio is preparing for a transformation in our consciousness as the Church merges into the framework of a new cosmology. She quotes Teilhard de Chardin: ‘Creation and Incarnation are two moments of the one act of God’s self-giving love…… There is a deep compatibility between Christianity and evolution.’ We repeat St. Thomas Aquinas’s warning that ‘if we get Creation wrong we get God wrong.’
Christians are now called to a new level of consciousness about God’s loving energy in the first ‘Flaring Forth’ (Big Bang) nearly 14 billion years ago, and in the subsequent process of evolution. Every particle of Creation is imbued with divine love-energy, and is an incarnate expression of God’s own creativity. One fundamental concept by the Pope in this extract concerns the presence of evil and suffering. He links them with ‘the pains of childbirth.’ Is he saying that evil is intrinsic to evolution? That there could not be a world created in space and time, without suffering and death? And where does that leave our ‘original sin’ teachings? A radical revision of this almost incomprehensible doctrine will open up the sacred space for developing an authentic theology of evolution, and this will lead to an exciting and challenging breakthrough for Catholic theology today. Our imagination and faith are stretched with every new scientific discovery.
From An Astonishing Secret.