Cameron Freeman - Creative Tension at the Edge-of-Chaos: Towards an Evolutionary Christology

Another new issue of The Global Spiral is out, with the usual collection of amazing articles. Here is the first one that caught my eye - a look at an evolutionary version of Christianity, or as the article suggests, Christology.

Creative Tension at the Edge-of-Chaos: Towards an Evolutionary Christology

By Cameron Freeman

This exploration aims to resolve the fundamental split between two diametrically opposed worldviews in the present day: the critical disjunction between the evolutionary story of the universe as described by modern science since the time of Darwin (1859) and the traditional Gospel story of God’s self-communication in Jesus Christ that informs the lives of up to 2 billion Christians in the world today.

Karl Rahner, the influential Catholic theologian whose writings were behind the many of the reforms of Vatican II initiated this critical inquiry in the 1970s with a pioneering paper titled “Christology within an Evolutionary View of the World.”¹ In seeking out an intrinsic unity between the decisive event of God’s self-revelation in the person of Jesus and the 13 billion year process of cosmic, biological and human evolution, Rahner maintained that in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ “the basic tendency of matter to discover itself in spirit . . . reaches it’s definitive breakthrough.”² So for Rahner, in Jesus Christ we discover New Creation—the necessary and permanent beginning of the divinization of sentient life in the evolving universe, an event signifying to us that the absolute self-communication of God to the world-historical process of evolution has been irrevocably inaugurated and is even now moving towards its far-off goal.³

As is well known, the orthodox Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, as upheld by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett has consistently maintained an opposing viewpoint: evolution is a blind and purposeless process—natural selection simply sifts through whatever is thrown up by random mutations in the genes, and over hundreds of millions of years things such as eyes and nervous systems are accidentally cobbled together. According to Neo-Darwinian theory, all such forms of adaptive complexity (including ourselves) are the result of cunning survival strategies that ‘just happen’ and which are then honed through natural selection⁴ mechanically sifting through these random mutations in the genes—just some of which are lucky enough to be beneficial in increasing an organism's probability of reproductive success.

But while Neo-Darwinian evolution highlights what is taken to be the blind aimlessness of an evolutionary process basically ‘red in tooth and claw’, in recent years an increasing number of biologists⁵ have expressed their belief that other explanatory features are at work in the overall trajectory of the evolutionary process from atoms to molecules to organisms to reptiles, mammals and the higher primates, and particularly in regards to the relatively abrupt origination of new forms of life in the aftermath of unexpected catastrophic events. As a result, these more marginal evolutionary biologists have broken with the dominant paradigm and argue that the mechanism of Darwinian selection winnowing through random genetic mutations (while true enough) does not adequately explain the dynamic patterns and directional trends in evolution towards increasing exterior complexity and interior consciousness, what Whitehead called evolution’s creative advance into novelty.⁶

Self-organization (Kauffman)

It now seems that the formative features of a new integration of the evolutionary epic of modern science and the Christian story of creation and redemption, will come from some of the more recent developments at the leading edge of scientific research—a field known as the “sciences of complexity.” Also called the evolutionary systems sciences, the sciences of complexity is a field that includes a wide range of scientific disciplines that describe the dynamic patterns of change that connect across disparate domains (physical, chemical, biological, psychological, socio-linguistics)⁷ with profound implications for the ongoing dialogue between evolutionary science and Christian theology.

The general claim of the sciences of complexity is that evolution exhibits some dynamic patterns, its formative features are invariant, and evolution repeats itself through in general ways so that we may now be able to glimpse its fundamental nature for the first time.⁸ The core insight of sciences of complexity is that matter on planet earth has the capacity to be ‘self-organizing’ on the account of the inherent nature of the processes that atomic, molecular, chemical and biological entities undergo. ⁹ So in contrast to the infamous Second Law of thermodynamics that dictates an overall increase in disorder (in isolated systems) leading to the ultimate ‘heat death’ of the universe, it is becoming increasingly clear that complex systems in open energy exchange with their environments can become unpredictable and chaotic in their observable behavior and then ‘self-organize’ or propel themselves onto new, higher levels of exterior complexity (and interior consciousness), commonly called 'order out of chaos'.

In other words, it is now recognized that when a constant energy flow is passed through dynamic open systems, they have the propensity to undergo abrupt transformations and organize themselves into new and unexpected forms of order characterized by an increase in structural organization and complexity.¹⁰ In fact, all evolving systems in the real world exist in open energy exchanges with their environments and when driven ‘far from equilibrium’ have this tendency to undergo chaotic instabilities and propel themselves to new and highly organized regimes. ¹¹ And since self-organization in complex systems occurs across all levels of the known universe, evolution can now be seen to be engaged in an irreversible or ‘uni-directional’ pattern of change creating “order out of chaos” and pushing complex systems towards higher levels of structural organization and complexity.¹²

Evolution on the Edge-of Chaos

Now, evolving systems on the 'edge-of-chaos' are very different from closed systems at thermodynamic equilibrium¹³ and tend to be poised at a critical threshold between order (periodic change) and chaos (a periodic or random change).¹⁴ Commonly named the “edge-of-chaos”, it is precisely here in this critical state delicately poised between too much rigidity and too much fluidity that evolving systems in open energy exchange have the significant tendency to evolve towards new, more complex adaptive structures.¹⁵

The edge-of-chaos is therefore the “source of order” in the universe (Kauffman), bringing “order out of chaos” (Prigogine), and moving evolution towards new dynamic regimes with higher levels of complexity and spontaneous “emergent order” (Phillip Clayton). As Kauffman explains, “Self-organization is a natural property of complex genetic systems. There is ‘order for free’ out there, a spontaneous crystallization of generic order out of complex systems, with no need for natural selection or any other external force.”

Self-organization in complex systems finely balanced at the creative tension between opposites has also been termed “chaosmos” (James Joyce) in describing the delicate interplay between chance and necessity, stasis and change, chaotic disruption and emergent novelty in the evolutionary trajectory from inanimate matter to self-replicating life to self-conscious humanity. And in a way that speaks directly to our current global economic crisis, at this critical state of creative tension between opposing forces the outcome of any evolutionary process is said to be unpredictable in detail and inherently indeterminate, i.e. it is impossible to tell whether the system in this state of creative tension (i.e. the existing economic system!) will disintegrate into chaos or leap into a new, differentiated higher level of order.¹⁶

However the important point for the aims of this paper is that modern science has now discovered that the very site of evolutionary change is the creative tension between opposites at the “edge-of-chaos” – an insight which corresponds directly with orthodox Christian theology.¹⁷ For this same paradoxical tension between opposites is central to both dogmatic Christology – the irreducible tension between ‘fully human’ and ‘fully divine’ in the person of Jesus¹⁸ as well as (and more pointedly), the original structure of Jesus’ teachings on the Kingdom of God that reside within the earliest layers of the Christian faith tradition.¹⁹ That is, almost all of the recorded parables of Jesus of Nazareth have the same paradoxical voice-print, the same deep structure, where opposing perspectives are held together in the same creative tension at the “edge-of-chaos” that the sciences of complexity and self-organization have recently discovered at the wildly unpredictable edge of evolution’s creative advance. So Jesus of Nazareth spoke in paradoxes to usher in a new world (the Kingdom of God) and inaugurate a new horizon of what it means to be fully human by evoking the very same tension between opposites that has recently been discovered by the sciences of complexity and self-organization.²⁰

(For more discussion on the deep structure of Christ’s teachings, see my paper previously published by on The Global Spiral: “Towards a Post-Metaphysical Theology” [2008] where it is shown that the same paradoxical structure, what is also called a dynamic pattern of “bi-polar reversals” is clearly evidenced in the narrative center of at least 30 of the parables of Jesus recorded in the synoptic gospels.)

So where the central teachings of Jesus all give voice to the same paradoxical tension between opposing perspectives, the sciences of complexity now provide direct supporting evidence for the view that the creative tension of Christian paradox is indeed the ‘condition of possibility’ for the coming into being of emergent novelty in the structural dynamics of evolution at the “edge-of-chaos”. So the Christian hope for New Creation as is synonymous with this critical threshold between opposing forces described by the sciences of complex emergence, while this paradoxical tension is also attested to by Jesus as the very place in which significant change and transformation can take place.²¹

So where there are new grounds here for a direct correspondence between the creative tension of Christian paradox and the sciences of complexity, and to further unpack this we can briefly turn to the central mystery of the Christian faith where the God of Israel is revealed to us in the scandal of the Cross. As Jesus says in probably his most well known paradox and one which holds the radical tension between opposites: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and let him follow me! For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”(Mark 8:34-35) So where the figure of Christ crucified holds the creative tension between saving (self-expenditure) and losing (self-preservation) one's life we have a direct witness to what Jesus called “the narrow gate’” of transformation at the edge-of-chaos, where the same creative tension between opposites that constitutes the meaning of the Cross²² and the radical core of Jesus’ authentic teachings on the Kingdom of God²³ can also be seen from the worldview of modern science to depict the very contours of evolution when taken to it’s highest pitch and most creative, unpredictable and surprising edge.

So where the centrality of paradox to the Christian faith (and the teachings of Jesus) corresponds seamlessly with the recent discoveries of modern science, with the paradoxes of Jesus at the heart of the Gospel story we also discover the flesh and blood story of a God who becomes human and participates fully in the world’s struggles, pains and convulsions. In Christianity the unsearchable mystery of God’s love is revealed in the capacity of a vulnerable, suffering creature to go all the way and fully embrace the contradictory tensions of existence. For just as it is in the face of death that life is a gift, it is in the face of the cross that resurrection is a word of grace, and it is in the midst of sin and suffering that salvation is freely received, as Jesus absorbs evil with love and transforms this-world into a new world in which the inexhaustible love and radical justice of God can reign. And moreover, in addition to embodying the creative tension between opposites at the edge-of-chaos, the evolutionary worldview of modern science also allows us to depart from the image of an immutable God that is untouched by the world’s suffering and give renewed significance to our sense of God being present in the tangible depths of life’s long, painful, unpredictable and perpetually surprising evolutionary journey.²⁴

Read the rest of the article.

Tags: evolution, Religion, Science, The Global Spiral, Cameron Freeman, Creative Tension at the Edge-of-Chaos, Evolutionary Christology, Darwin, Jesus, Karl Rahner