Christ-centred creation and prodigality

This excerpt from a talk by Tom Wright resonated with some things I've been thinking about in relation to the nature of creation centred in time and space on Christ. +Tom says:

... if creation comes through the kingdom bringing Jesus, we ought to expect it be like a seed growing secretly. That it would involve seed being sown in a prodigal fashion in which a lot went to waste, apparently, but other seed producing a great crop. We ought to expect that it be like a strange, slow process which might suddenly reach some kind of harvest. We ought to expect that it would involve some kind of overcoming of chaos. Above all, we ought to expect that it would be a work of utter, self-giving love. That the power which made the world, like the power which ultimately rescued the world, would be the power not of brute force, but of radical, outpoured generosity. We ought to expect, in other words, that the creation would not look like an oriental despot deciding to build a palace, and just throwing it up at speed, with his architects and builders cowering before him. 

What I find helpful in this is how our attention is drawn to the prodigality of it all. One of the minor objections from creationists is the wastefulness of the processes that the rest of us believe we discern in the geological records and other related evidences. Linking the debate in the way that +Tom does here; to the parable of the sown seed, helps see a kind of implicit endorsement in Jesus' own teaching of a prodigal creative process in which there is some 'hit and miss' element to it all. It kind of finds in creation a prodigality, which Jesus draws attention to and thereby endorses rather than questions. And while this doesn't add up to saying 'this is the meaning of the parable' it does take Jesus' acceptance of the wastefulness of both the creational type and the parabolic antitype as at least the possibility of seeing that generous endowment in which there is more and to spare as the way things are and develop.
I'm finding that really helpful to think further about.

Cultural products' evolutionary roots

It's no surprise that evolutionary psychologist should give attention to what essentially is the idea of seven stories. And I don't gainsay the idea that our cultural narratives should have evolutionary reflexes. But I'm not sure really that this is saying very much reall:

"Romance novels, pop songs and movie plotlines always come back to the Darwinian themes of survival (injuries and deaths), reproduction (courtships, sexual assaults, reputational damage), kin selection (the treatment of one's progeny), and altruistic acts (heroic attempts to save a stranger's life). Movies, television shows, song lyrics, romance novels, collective wisdoms, and countless other cultural products are a direct window to our biologically based human nature," says Saad.

 I'm not sure that anyone would be surprised, really, that we would tell stories about things that concern us and find interest and drama in the interplay of the themes arising from them. What is intriguing is smuggling in 'altruistic acts' as if they are Darwinian themes. I tend to think that altruistic acts are rather a challenge or puzzle to Darwinian selection and our fascination with it seems rather to be astray of so-called evolutionary concerns.

It's not just cultural products that demonstrate the evolutionary roots of what Saad terms "Homo consumericus." From the food we eat to the clothing we buy, we're always under the influence of evolution.

 In my previous sentence, I wrote 'so-called evolutionary concerns' because I question whether we can be under the influence of evolution. 'Evolution' doesn't exist in the way that this sentence seems to say. 'It' is not something that influences: evolution is the collective name we give to a bunch of things that tend to generate phenotypical changes over time via genetic changes. So we may be under the influence of sexual attraction, fear or jealousy but that isn't evolution. Such things may generate evolution, eventually, but they aren't evolution. So we aren't really under the influence of evolution, merely forces and events that may produce changes in time. Meanwhile, we are still going to tell stories about things that concern us: attraction, dislike, fear, loathing, bravery, joy, campanionship and, yes, concern for others as well as for ourselves. These things have convoluted relationships with what may result in survival or reproducible traits. Our cultural values may or may not align with genetic traits' 'interests' and so while our story-telling may reflect things that may have effects in evolutionary terms, these effects may not be straight-forwardly so. Sometimes 'evolution' is now under our influence.
 Big movies and other cultural products have evolutionary roots:

Reviewing Evolutions Purpose

 Steve MacIntosh has done us a service in writing this book. It's not a Christian book but it is a book that Christians interested in the philosophical implications of the theory of evolution should read. The author aims to write a book that might be helpful to people of many life-stances, spiritualities and religious outlook.

The subtitle helps us to understand what he's up to in this book: An Integral Interpretation of the Scientific Story of Our Origins
All of those words are important: 'Scientific Story' recognises that the theoretical interpretation of the emergence of life -indeed of the emergence of stuff, suns, planets and the rest- tells a story. The interesting thing, of course, is that 'story' implies an audience, and that is part of what the book explores too. Part of what Steve is doing is to try to make a case for seeing evolution as purposeful. Those readers who are aware of the scientific debates will realise that this counters the idea of what Dawkins has famously analogised as 'the blind watchmaker' -precisely that evolution has no teleology it is simply the next adaptation after the last fitness-selection followed by the next survival and the next reproduction.

'An integral interpretation' seems to have two referents: one is (it seems to me) a nod towards the turn to wholism and hospitality to monistic philosophy; the other is working philosophically with emergence. It is the latter that has most prominence and importance, the fact that it can play nicely with the former is interesting but not core to the argument.

A big part of Steve's argument revolves around observing that there is an inherant 'local' teleology in the world when emergence is considered: at each new level, the purpose of the constituent antecedants for the emerged level has also developed. I think that this means that molecules give purpose to subatomic particles and atoms and so on 'up' through the levels. The other part of the argument is that meaning is not either transcendant or immanent but actually dialogical (and emergent?) or rather dialectical. The latter is the term that Steve uses and does indeed hark back to Hegel, Marx and the like and recognises that meaning-making is something that arises from the inter-relating of things.

I was reminded of a good and under-known theological book Ross Thompson's Holy Ground - the spirituality of matter. where the creational characteristic of dialogical/dialectical process is recognised and developed under the term diousia which I think is probably a word Steve MacIntosh would have employed had he known it.

What these things do in Steve's argument is lay the foundations for viewing reality as we know it as modestly purposeful as opposed to 'blind' and for a progressive interpretation of evolution where evolution is understood broadly to include the whole development of the universe and including human cultural development. Sometimes this feels a bit Marxian but isn't because materialism is eclipsed by integral philosophy, sometimes it feels a bit Newagey but it is actually more careful and hardheaded and indeed modest than many New Age philosophies though sharing something of their optimism.

I'm not entirely convinced that Steve has pulled the rabbit out of the hat in terms of grounding teleology in the scientifically-accessible universe, but I do think that (along with Ross Thompson as mentiond above) this is a way of thinking that deserves more consideration and discussion and could be helpful.

Evolution's Purpose: An Integral Interpretation of the Scientific Story of Our Origins