God and Evolution: Fundamental Questions of Christian Evolutionism

11. The Cosmic Kenosis of God

chapter 11 The Cosmic Kenosis of God Philosophical treatments of the harmonious evolution of the cosmos, of God’s immanence in nature, and of the program of development directed to Divine ends contrast sharply with the reality of the struggle for survival. This reality manifests itself not only in the tooth and claw of biological survival, but also in the experience of psychic struggles, which attain a special status in human suffering. The question of how to reconcile the reality of human suffering with faith in the meaning of evolutionary development is much more difficult than any biological question about the mechanisms of evolution. It connects the great questions of metaphysics with the fundamental experiences of our existence . Appreciation of the mathematical solutions of Einstein’s field equations contrasts sharply with the pain of a mother mourning the tragic death of her only child. That contrast gives rise to fundamental questions: Is it at all possible to speak about the direction and meaning of evolution, if the everyday existence of man is entangled in an uneven struggle with senselessness, violence, and evil? Is the creator of such a program of evolution not rather a daimon, indifferent to human tears, than the loving Father whom the Christian tradition reveals? ‘Logos’ and Suffering Why does the immanent God, hidden in the work of creation, tolerate the exceptionally large dose of pain which accompanies the 181 processes of the development of nature? Is He indifferent to the pain of the world or is He not able to apply effective means of alleviating the suffering of creatures? The attempt to give some kind of answer to that question requires the prior affirmation that we do not come to know the whole truth about the God of evolution and that we must limit our discussions to the teleology of processes or to the universality of the laws of nature. The pain of an evolving world is a problem no less important than the question of the mechanisms of biological evolution. Attempts to give a rational explanation of the origin of suffering and evil have led to the emergence of a vast literature , in which is often heard the Socratic motif “I know that I do not know.” The conclusions of philosophical reflections are sometimes no less surprising than the phenomenon of evil itself. Joseph F. Kelly, professor of the philosophy of religion at John Carroll University, in closing the monograph in which he tries to make sense of the presence of evil in our culture, admits helplessly: I am a theist, a Christian, a Roman Catholic, and thus must reconcile my belief in God with the existence of evil. In a word, I cannot. In spite of years of teaching and thinking about this topic....... Therefore, my personal view is that of the anonymous Jewish author who wrote the Book of Job....... The author of Job had to accept his ignorance and trust in his God. So do I.1 How can we reconcile our intellectual efforts to piece together manifestations of the Divine Logos found in nature with that experience of the pain of creatures which appears as senseless or simply tragic? Posing such questions, we would, even if unintentionally, be inclined, in the style of Gottfried W. Leibniz, to expect that evolution would have to lead to the emergence of the best of all possible worlds. Are, however, such expectations not a manifestation of the utopia, in which we ignore the unavoidable connection between pain 182 The Cosmic Kenosis of God 1. J. F. Kelly, The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition: From the Book of Job to Modern Genetics (Collegeville, Minn.: M. Glazier, 2002), 233. and the processes of development and growth? We should remember that the experience of suffering is a function of our psychic or moral sensibilities. Perhaps there would have been no dramatic tensions in an evolutionary development in which Homo sapiens had only a degree of sensitivity similar to the sensitivity of a singing blackbird or to that of a delighted chimpanzee. Could, however, such a variant of evolution be the crowning of our dreams about the development of our species? Would it not contain too hurried an answer to the classical question: Is it better to be a suffering Socrates or a happy shepherd ? Perhaps it is not only a...