This book shows a way how to integrate a modern scientific understanding of the world with Christianity. The fundamental natural law discovered by science is universal evolution; the basic dogma of Christianity is that God is love. Any loving relationship requires the freedom to enter it. Therefore, human beings (who represent creation) have to be free to accept or reject the loving relationship offered by the Creator. From this Christian perspective, has to be created in such a way that it can create itself. The scientific discovery of universal evolution only makes explicit what is already implied in the fundamental dogma of Christianity, namely that God is love. The suggestion that God is guiding the creative process of evolution fails to take this central point of Christianity seriously. God intervenes in creation not through the evolutionary process but through the live, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The creative process of evolution works by sequen! tial syntheses. Synthesis brings forth new wholes with qualities that are very different from the properties of the integrated parts. This becomes explicit in art. A work of art is a whole that exists through the parts it unifies. Integrated diversity is the essence of art. Through art it becomes evident that unification of diversity not only creates the new but is also the aesthetic principle that brings forth beauty.
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"Brun makes a valuable contribution to theology and science. His summary of theology reflects current trends in understanding the God of Christian tradition as triune and therefore dynamically interrelated within God's own being and in relation to creation." -- Ronald Cole-Turner, Professor, Pittsburgh Seminary
On the chapter on science, Ernst Mayr writes to the author: "I have read it with interest and find that most of your presentation is legitimate and reflects the current literature." -- Ernst Mayr, Professor, Harvard University
On the chapter on science, Ernst Mayr writes to the author: "I have read it with interest and find that most of your presentation is legitimate and reflects the current literature." -- Ernst Mayr, Professor, Harvard University
From the Inside Flap
Why write this book?
This is a difficult question to answer. "I always wanted to be a doctor" some of my students write in their applications to Medical Schools. Well, I always wanted to better understand how nature brought forth human beings. These were the years in which the ideas of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin were hotly debated by a surprising number of people. His writings on the evolution of human beings opened the windows of the room in which the Christian Doctrine of Creation had mummified.
I had a strong interest in philosophy. Yet I wanted to get in touch with nature, I wanted to study things directly, not second hand through books. That is why I became a biologist. With the Catholic Church I share the deep conviction that there is only one Truth. This is because Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, and the Word of God that creates creation is the same Word: the discovery of universal evolution cannot contradict the basic tenant of Holy Scripture. Teilhard the Chardin invested his life working towards this goal. The work must continue.
I well remember talking to my mentor, the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar about my discovery of Teilhard. He acknowledged the importance of Chardin's work but also had a word of caution: "The New Jerusalem will not evolve from this world but will come down out of heaven from God" he said. I think I heeded the warning.
As I see it, the foundation of Teilhard's work is anchored in the Christian foundation that the Word of God is the Word incarnate in creation. I this view the incarnation of the Word of God reveals its cosmic dimensions. God's Word creates the universe by being incarnate in anything that is. Incarnation, however, does not mean annexation of the world into God. Neither can it mean that creation will reach God through completing the process of evolution. This was Teilhard's view that Balthasar criticized. Rather the Word of God incarnate in creation creates what it is not: creation. The Word of God creates, which means giving being, existence, to the otherness of God, as Hegel puts it. The Word of God creates in such a way that creation, the otherness of God, may become. If the Word of God would not create this "otherness of God" there would be God again. This is to say that God's Word in creation creates creation in such a way that creation can become itself, namely true "otherness of God." This is the mystery of incarnation that the Word of God leaves God absolutely to become creation.
The truth of this relationship of otherness between God and creation becomes visible in the GODMAN Jesus Christ. God and Man united, Creator and creation one, yet in the totally maintained difference of "otherness." It is in Christ, the Word of God, that creation is, but as creation-- not as God.
This relationship of "otherness" between God and creation is fundamental for the Christian faith. It is essential because the fundamental dogma of Christianity is that God is love. Therefore God created creation out of love. God created creation to share existence with what is essentially not God, namely (ontological) "otherness" of God. If this is so, and Christians know it is, then this loving relationship between God and His creation requires that creation can create itself. Why? Because if creation could not become itself through its own history, there would not be a partner free to return the creator's love. If creation could not create itself- it would merely be a function of the creator. Only masochists can fall in "love" with themselves. True love requires the "other," not self. Essential "otherness" of God and creation is the foundation of a Christian doctrine of creation. This is to say that evolution, the capacity of creation to create itself, is implicit in the fundamental dogma of Christianity, namely that God is love.
However, what has art to do with such a venture? The basic argument that I shall try to make is that creation is brought forth by just one basic principle: unification of diversity into unity. In this view, the essence of the creative process in nature and art is the same, namely unification of diverse elements into new wholes. In nature and art the new wholes created through the integration of parts are essentially different from their isolated elements. Integration produces jumps that bring forth new levels of reality. Unification that affirms diversity, integration that enhances the peculiarity of the parts, is the creative principle in nature and art. From this perspective art is the symbol through which the essence of the universal creative process becomes accessible. This is why I have tried to integrate the nature of art with the natural process of cosmogenesis.
Where does this leave the theologian? In Christian theology the universal creative principle reveals itself as the fundamental structure of love. The ultimate unification of God and creation is accomplished in Jesus Christ the love of God incarnate in creation. It is in Him that the unification of the absolute difference, namely of God and creation, is historical and eternal reality. I hope that this introduction offers an insight into the thesis of my book. Hopefully, some theologians, scientists, artists and "normal people," will browse through the Table of Content and decide to read some sentences on the topics they are familiar with. I trust that they will find some areas of interest and might so be lured into less familiar sections. As I see it, art is the bridge that arches over the gap between the sciences and the humanities as well as over the abyss that separates Christianity from the world view of science.
If this book can help to see creation again as the sacred trace of the love of God in all that is, it will have accomplished what its author hoped for.
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