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Thursday, April 27, 2000 The Southern Cross, Page 8 A way of viewing evolution through a Christian lens By John F. Haught Catholic News Service -p V-^an science be reconciled with Christian faith in a loving, powerful, creative and redemptive God? Some would say no, others would be doubt ful. But most of us have a hunch that science and religion can live together. Still, it is not always clear how to make the science-faith connection, a*nd much confusion comes from not doing it thoughtfully. Superficial li aisons are worse in the long run than an indefinite standoff. How ever, a standoff is hardly ideal ei ther. But won’t exposure to new scien tific information undermine my faith? Isn’t it simpler to keep the timeless truths of faith carefully quarantined, sealed off from contact with the tran sitory views of scientists? Can the most interesting scientific ideas, especially those having to do with evolution, ever be reconciled with religious belief? Finally, what does the evolution of life, or of the whole Big- Bang universe, possibly have to do with my trust in God? Actually, when carefully sepa rated from the materialist ideology in which some scientists package it, evolution may prove to be not so n jch a “danger” as a great gift to theology. ■ ■ a No matter how difficult the pursuit of truth is — and often it is difficult — believers can trust that it always will lead back to God. Embrace the truth, no matter how initially shocking it might be, and, as the French writer Simone Weil put it, you will fall into the arms of Christ. In 1 past, prominent leaders in the eh ch at times resisted genu ine er mnter with new scientific ideas. e need only recall the reac tions 1 some to Copernicus, Galileo and D »vin. Even today many reli gious mple turn away from the idea of volution. What fundamentally is at issue in the case of evolution is whether we any longer plausibly can think of the universe as a purposeful creation of God. At first sight, the meandering, apparently blind and experimental character of life’s lumbering terres trial journey, along with the im mensity of time it took for life and humans to emerge on this planet, might make us wonder what is go ing on in such a strange world. Would an intelligent God have “fooled around” for 3.8 billion years after the first appearance of life before creating intelligent be ings? Why so much cruelty and suffering, wasteful extinctions, discarding of the ill-adapted and survival of the reproductively “fit” along the way? Evolution, we know today, is not unambiguously cruel and heartless. It also could be said to involve a wonderful cooperation of life with life; and Earth’s life- story, viewed in its entirety, ex hibits a breathtaking “grandeur” that enraptured Darwin himself. Still, evolution is not always be nign, and a sound Christian theology must face the harsh facts along with all the marvelous beauty nature has brought forth. » b a What I believe a theology of evolu tion will find is that the notion of God can be deepened and expanded by its encounter with biological evo lution. The understanding of nature implied in Darwinian evolution de mands that people abandon any view of God that ignores the self giving and self-effacing character of the divine mystery. This understanding affirms that all of the struggle and suffering in life’s evolution is God’s struggle and suffering too. Nature itself is cruci form. According to this understanding, the God whose image radiates from the humble, self-giving, suffering love of Jesus is not one who overpowers the world, forcefully cramming it into a prefabricated frame. Instead the Cre ator wants a world that will flourish in a way that renders it distinct from God. Only such a world can enter into loving relationship with an infinite love. Divine power, therefore, includes a measure of loving self-restraint in which the world is permitted to emerge over the course of time as something other than God. A world truly loved by God must have room to wander about, experimenting with various possibilities. Love allows the universe to remain unfinished for now. If God had com pleted creation in such a way that the world was frozen into a deadness with no future, it would have been an ex tension of God’s being rather than an independent creation. Evolution, therefore, seems to me to be essential to a world truly loved by God. And this means that the life-story is permitted to be experi mental. To be alive at all, life must have room to wander as it finds its way into God. Christian faith gives us a sense of God as self-abandoning, self-giving mystery. The evolutionary picture of nature invites us to embrace, in a wider way than ever before, this sur prising, disturbing and powerfully salvific image of God. (Haught is chairman of the theol ogy department at Georgetown Uni versity. His most recent book is “God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolu tion.” Westview Press, 2000.) All contents ccpyright©2000 by CNS RTHOUGHT Rr- cience and faith need each other, and each may suffer by “going it alone.” The Jubilee Day for Scientists May 25 u 7 accent that point. Ac ually, this day now has become known as the Jubilee for Men and Women From the World of Learning because, as one Vatican official explained, by science is meant every exercise of human intellectual activity directed io the search for truth in a rational and methodical way. Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, announced plans for this jubilee day, calling for “a new season of dialogue between science and faith.” The jubilee for science “will take place in a profoundly different climate” than existed at the time of Galileo in the 17th century, the cardinal said. A Vatican scientist, Jesuit Father George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory, said in a 1996 speech that today religious and scientific leaders ought to be able to appreciate each others’ benefits. And Pope John Paul II said — also in 1996 — that “the need for dialogue and cooperation between science and faith has become ever more urgent and promising.” 18 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive! V^hristian faith gives us a sense of God as self-abandoning, self-giving mystery The evolutionary picture of nature invites us to embrace ... this surprising, disturbing and powerfully CNS photo by Bill Wittman