The Resurrection Event - "An evolutionary leap forward"

[utunumsint]

Hi,

I was wondering what people think of this quote from the Pope’s Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection page 244 Ignatius Press edition 2011:

The New Testament testimonies leave us in no doubt that what happened in the “Resurrection of the Son of Man” was utterly different [than mere resuscitation from the dead, where the resuscitated man or woman continues to live a normal life then dies again, as he explains in the previous paragraph]. Jesus’ Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, into a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming, but lies beyond it-a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence. Therefore the Resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated event that we could set aside as something limited to the past,** but it constitutes an “evolutionary leap” (to draw an analogy, albeit one that is easily misunderstood). **In Jesus’ Resurrection a new possibility of human existence is attained that affects everyone and that opens up a future, a new kind of future, for mankind.

Does the pope elaborate on this thought in any of his other writing? He may expand on it in the book itself. I am still reading this chapter and will post any further information I find, if it exists.

God bless,
Ut

 

[belorg]

Hi,

I was wondering what people think of this quote from the Pope’s Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection page 244 Ignatius Press edition 2011:

Does the pope elaborate on this thought in any of his other writing? He may expand on it in the book itself. I am still reading this chapter and will post any further information I find, if it exists.

God bless,
Ut

Yes, resurrection is the next step in the evolution of man, Jesus was the first, but there will be others.
I really love science-fiction of this level.

 

[utunumsint]

Yes, resurrection is the next step in the evolution of man, Jesus was the first, but there will be others.
I really love science-fiction of this level.

The first X-Men only for real.

Although the evolutionary leap of Jesus can only be ours by participation. So there can be no other Homo Resurrectus without union with Jesus - speaking for myself, of course.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Vouthon]

It reminds me of the thought of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whom Benedict also praised, in an address back in 2009:

The role of the priesthood is to consecrate the world so that it may become a living host, a liturgy: so that the liturgy may not be something alongside the reality of the world, but that the world itself shall become a living host, a liturgy. This is also the great vision of Teilhard de Chardin: in the end we shall achieve a true cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host.

And let us pray the Lord to help us become priests in this sense, to aid in the transformation of the world, in adoration of God, beginning with ourselves. That our lives may speak of God, that our lives may be a true liturgy, an announcement of God, a door through which the distant God may become the present God, and a true giving of ourselves to God.

 

[utunumsint]

It reminds me of the thought of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whom Benedict also praised, in an address back in 2009:

This liturgy that your quote mentions, is a participation in God through Jesus Christ, the resurrected one. The ultimate fulfillment of this endeavor is union with God forever in our new resurrected form. This is the Christian promise.

As an aside, it makes me wonder what the final result will be of merely human attempts to attain immortality. In Christ we find the definition of true humanity - the ultimate goal of our evolution. Science fiction is rife with terrible fears and warnings about distorted results of such attempts, becoming less human in the result. Is mere human progress doomed to end in a hellish nightmare? Or is the guiding hand of God involved and transforming all our human efforts on this score?

God bless,
Ut

 

[Julia_Mae]

I was wondering what people think of this quote from the Pope’s Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection page 244 Ignatius Press edition 2011:

The New Testament testimonies leave us in no doubt that what happened in the “Resurrection of the Son of Man” was utterly different [than mere resuscitation from the dead, where the resuscitated man or woman continues to live a normal life then dies again, as he explains in the previous paragraph]. Jesus’ Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, into a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming, but lies beyond it-a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence. Therefore the Resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated event that we could set aside as something limited to the past,** but it constitutes an “evolutionary leap” (to draw an analogy, albeit one that is easily misunderstood)**

The “Christ event” as some call the whole of the Incarnation/Crucifixion/Resurrection literally changed the way the Universe works. “Change over time” is the definition of evolution. Remember the veil in the Temple ripping in half? The border between Time and Eternity has been permanently breached. Now we have the Communion of Saints. It happened during Jesus Incarnation when He met with Moses and Elijah on the mountain. His sacrifice made it happen for us all.

At the Second Coming all will change again, as Time/Space is incorporated into the Eternal realms. Nothing will become something forever: Parousia.

 

[utunumsint]

The “Christ event” as some call the whole of the Incarnation/Crucifixion/Resurrection literally changed the way the Universe works. “Change over time” is the definition of evolution. Remember the veil in the Temple ripping in half? The border between Time and Eternity has been permanently breached. Now we have the Communion of Saints. It happened during Jesus Incarnation when He met with Moses and Elijah on the mountain. His sacrifice made it happen for us all.

At the Second Coming all will change again, as Time/Space is incorporated into the Eternal realms. Nothing will become something forever: Parousia.

I think there are some definitions of evolution that involve “leaps”. Like Gould’s Punctuated Equilibrium. As to the gradual part, well it is taking time for this transformation to occur in the general human population, and not all will enter the kingdom of heaven…

But as the pope says, this is just an analogy. I’m interested in exploring how far we can take it. I take it you are not a fan. As the pope has clearly said in his preface to the first book, this is not a magisterial document, so we are free to disagree with his ideas.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Vouthon]

As an aside, it makes me wonder what the final result will be of merely human attempts to attain immortality. In Christ we find the definition of true humanity - the ultimate goal of our evolution. Science fiction is rife with terrible fears and warnings about distorted results of such attempts, becoming less human in the result. Is mere human progress doomed to end in a hellish nightmare? Or is the guiding hand of God involved and transforming all our human efforts on this score?

God bless,
Ut

To answer that question Brother/sister Ut, I think that we have to turn to one of the highest levels of magisterial documents - a constituition of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes:

"…This scientific spirit has a new kind of impact on the cultural sphere and on modes of thought. Technology is now transforming the face of the earth, and is already trying to master outer space. To a certain extent, the human intellect is also broadening its dominion over time: over the past by means of historical knowledge; over the future, by the art of projecting and by planning.

Advances in biology, psychology, and the social sciences not only bring men hope of improved self-knowledge; in conjunction with technical methods, they are helping men exert direct influence on the life of social groups…

History itself speeds along on so rapid a course that an individual person can scarcely keep abreast of it. The destiny of the human community has become all of a piece, where once the various groups of men had a kind of private history of their own.

Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis…

God’s Spirit, Who with a marvelous providence directs the unfolding of time and renews the face of the earth, is not absent from this development…

Let everyone consider it his sacred obligation to esteem and observe social necessities as belonging to the primary duties of modern man. For the more unified the world becomes, the more plainly do the offices of men extend beyond particular groups and spread by degrees to the whole world. But this development cannot occur unless individual men and their associations cultivate in themselves the moral and social virtues, and promote them in society; thus, with the needed help of divine grace men who are truly new and artisans of a new humanity can be forthcoming…

We are witnesses of the birth of a new humanism, one in which man is defined first of all by his responsibility to his brothers and sisters and toward history…"

***- Gaudium et Spes (Second Vatican Council, 1965) ***

BTW Benedict outwith his papal office is in my opinion probably the greatest living Catholic theologian, or at the very least one of the greatest living catholic theological intellects.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I think there are some definitions of evolution that involve “leaps”. Like Gould’s Punctuated Equilibrium. As to the gradual part, well it is taking time for this transformation to occur in the general human population, and not all will enter the kingdom of heaven…

God bless,
Ut

The leaps aren’t part of the definition, they are just observed parts of the process, but you make a good point re: the excerpt.

I take it you are not a fan.

I am not a topic. You are also quite mistaken.

 

[utunumsint]

To answer that question Brother/sister Ut, I think that we have to turn to one of the highest levels of magisterial documents - a constitution of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes:

BTW Benedict outwith his papal office is in my opinion probably the greatest living Catholic theologian, or at the very least one of the greatest living catholic theological intellects.

These are wonderful and hopeful quotes the point to a more hopeful progress based human social and moral virtues founded on divine providence and grace. Thank you for posting them.

God bless,
Brother Ut

 

[Vouthon]

These are wonderful and hopeful quotes the point to a more hopeful progress based human social and moral virtues founded on divine providence and grace. Thank you for posting them.

God bless,
Brother Ut

God Bless you brother Ut

An excellent thread btw on a very intriguing concept.

 

[utunumsint]

The leaps aren’t part of the definition, they are just observed parts of the process, but you make a good point re: the excerpt.

I am not a topic. You are also quite mistaken.

Here is another quote from the chapter on page 246 and 247:

Naturally there can be no contradiction of clear scientific data. The Resurrection accounts certainly speak of something outside our world of experience. They speak of something new, something unprecedented-a new dimension of reality that is revealed. What already exists is not called into question. Rather we are told that there is a further dimension, beyond what was previously known. Does that contradict science? Can there really only ever be what there has always been? Can there not be something unexpected, something unimaginable, something new? If there really is a God, is he not able to create a new dimension of human existence, a new dimension of reality altogether? Is not creation actually waiting for this last and highest “evolutionary leap”, for the union of the finite with the infinite, for the union of man and God, for the conquest of death?

Throughout the history of the living, the origins of anything new have always been small, practically invisible, and easily overlooked. The Lord himself has told us that “heaven” in this world is like a mustard see, the smallest of all the seeds (Mt 13:31-32), yet contained within it are the infinite potentialities of God. In terms of world history, Jesus’ Resurrection is improbable; it is in the smallest mustard seed of history.

Interesting. Maybe it is this heaven on earth that is subject to the progress of evolution, that grows from the smallest mustard seed to cover the whole earth. But the “Christ event” is purely divine intervention in human history. Not a product of evolution, but an event that enables this evolution in mankind towards the true humanism, mentioned by Vouthon, that has as its ultimate end, eternal life with God.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Vouthon]

Here is another quote from the chapter on page 246 and 247:

Interesting. Maybe it is this heaven on earth that is subject to the progress of evolution, that grows from the smallest mustard seed to cover the whole earth. But the “Christ event” is purely divine intervention in human history. Not a product of evolution, but an event that enables this evolution in mankind towards the true humanism, mentioned by Vouthon, that has as its ultimate end, eternal life with God.

God bless,
Ut

How odd that the Pope discussed precisely that idea of “heaven on earth” in an article he wrote for the Financial Times that was just published yesterday. Coincidence?

zenit.org/article-36219?l=english

Christians should not shun the world; they should engage with it. But their involvement in politics and economics should transcend every form of ideology…From the manger, Christ calls us to live as citizens of his heavenly kingdom, a kingdom that all people of goodwill can help to build here on earth.

Hmm…once agan what you is a little similar to Teilhard’s thought, this time on the “Noosphere” and the “Omega Point”. Its such a complex concept that I can’t really describe it easily.

Read:

According to Teilhard de Chardin, the next phase of evolution is Christo genesis. This is evolution upward towards Christ, towards increasing love of God and neighbour. It began 2000 years ago, and certainly has not yet supplanted either biogenesis or Noo genesis. Christo genesis moves towards uniting all consciousness, all mankind, in unity with God. This final state was termed by Teilhard the Omega Point, using the final letter of the Greek alphabet to signify it:

Once he has been raised to the position of Prime Mover of the evolutive movement of complexity-consciousness, the cosmic-Christ becomes cosmically possible… For each one of us, every energy and everything that happens, is superanimated by his influence and his magnetic power… Cosmogenesis reveals itself, along the line of its main axis, first as Biogenesis and then Noogenesis, and finally culminates in the Christogenesis which every Christian venerates.’

Something else he said:

“…There is a future and a goal for the world, ahead of Man:
This future and this goal depends on the union, at once organic and mental, which will establish itself someday on our planet between all individuals, all races, and all nations on Earth…A tendency towards unification is everywhere manifest and especially in the different branches of religion. We are looking for something that will draw us together, below or above the level of that which divides…Not through external pressure but only from an inward impulse can the Unity of Mankind grow and endure…The phrase ‘Sense of the Earth’ should be understood to mean the passionate concern for our common destiny which draws the thinking part of life ever further onward. The only truly natural and real human unity is the spirit of the Earth…The sense of Earth is the irresistable pressure which will come at the right moment to unite them (humankind) in a common passion. We have reached a crossroads in human evolution where the only road which leads forward is towards a common passion.…To continue to place our hopes in a social order achieved by external violence would simply amount to our giving up all hope of carrying the Spirit of the Earth to its limits…The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire…Love alone can unite living beings so as to complete and fulfill them…for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth…We are all of us together carried in the one world-womb…The age of nations has passed. Now, unless we wish to perish we must shake off our old prejudices and build the earth…It is not our heads or our bodies which we must bring together, but our hearts…Humanity…is building its composite brain beneath our eyes. May it not be that tomorrow, through the logical and biological deepening of the movement drawing it together, it will find its heart, without which the ultimate wholeness of its power of unification can never be achieved?..”

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955), French Catholic mystic, scientist & Jesuit priest

 

[wmw]

Teilhard de Chardin didn’t think of the Noosphere or Omega Point as an analogy. Though he used examples of evolution to explain his vision of the result of future evolution.

The Pope is using the popular phrase “evolutionary leap” analogously. This is to say that the resurrected body is a new, different, and better from the usual human form. Such an improved difference that we don’t see any other creature or even mineral with its features such as immortality. It is not to say it comes about by a natural process or as results of efforts to unify souls by love as in Teilhard de Chardin’s Noosphere.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Here is another quote from the chapter on page 246 and 247:

Interesting. Maybe it is this heaven on earth that is subject to the progress of evolution, that grows from the smallest mustard seed to cover the whole earth. But the “Christ event” is purely divine intervention in human history. Not a product of evolution, but an event that enables this evolution in mankind towards the true humanism, mentioned by Vouthon, that has as its ultimate end, eternal life with God.

God bless,
Ut

If what you are referring to is what Raztinger meant, then he isn’t talking about change in human beings, IMO:

The New Testament testimonies leave us in no doubt that what happened in the “Resurrection of the Son of Man” was utterly different [than mere resuscitation from the dead, where the resuscitated man or woman continues to live a normal life then dies again, as he explains in the previous paragraph]. Jesus’ Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, into a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming, but lies beyond it-a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence. Therefore the Resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated event that we could set aside as something limited to the past, but it constitutes an “evolutionary leap” (to draw an analogy, albeit one that is easily misunderstood). In Jesus’ Resurrection a new possibility of human existence is attained that affects everyone and that opens up a future, a new kind of future, for mankind.

The word isn’t confined to biology but to anything that changes over time. Jesus is the first “Adam.” Only not as the first true man on earth, but as the first of His type to exist in Eternity. The Second Person of the Trinity came, suffered and rose and became a new form of life, that which we can become. Humans were not changed, according to what is written, but the universe is changed to allow the way of Eternal life where we will be oned with God.

He calls it an analogy. Do you know what made the change from small ape to ground-dwelling large hominid possible? Climate change dried up the environment and great spaces of grasslands opened up in what had been a “world-girdling” rain forest where species lived in the upper canopy never descending to the ground. Once the “universe” changed, it opened up new possibilities and lifeways.

Those at the edges of change, where the forest met the grassland, what’s called an ecotone, those are the ones able to explore and be subject to new forces for change.

Where are we changed? At the spiritual “ecotone” where Eternity meets time - on the altar, in the Sacraments, in prayer… But we are changed as we are born, not a different kind of human at all, but a spirit “born” from above and grown, enlivened, strengthened, evolving through this interaction with Christ.

 

[Vouthon]

It is not to say it comes about by a natural process or as results of efforts to unify souls by love as in Teilhard de Chardin’s Noosphere.

WMW,

You do know that Pope Benedict XVI has a positive view of Teilhard and the drafters of Gaudium et Spes were influenced by his thought, don’t you?

**Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity – 1968 **

• We shall return later to discuss today this enlarged perspective which is at last beginning to gain currency in the Western consciousness as well, especially as a result of stimuli from the work of Teilhard de Chardin. Page 85

• It must be regarded as an important service of Teilhard de Chardin’s that he rethought these ideas from the angle of the modern view of the world … Page 236

• This leads to a further passage in Teilhard de Chardin that is worth quoting … Page 238

• From here it is possible to understand the final aim of the whole move*ment as Teilhard sees it … page 238

• To use Teilhard de Chardin’s terminology … Page 304

• The first of these two concepts can be accepted again today without argument; and after what we have learned from Teilhard, the second should no longer be entirely incomprehensible, either. Page 318

**Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy Ignatius Press: (2000), p29 **

“… against the background of the modern evolutionary world view, Teilhard depicted the cosmos as a process of ascent, a series of unions. … From here Teilhard went on to give new meaning to Christian worship: the transubstantiated Host is the anticipation of the transformation and divinization of matter in the christological “fullness”. In his view, the Eucharist provided the movement of the cosmos with its direction; it anticipates its goal and at the same time urges it on”.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, Ignatius Press (1987), p. 334

“The impetus given by Teilhard de Chardin exerted a wide influence [on the Council]. With daring vision it incorporated the historical movements of Christianity into the great cosmic process of evolution from Alpha to Omega. … The Council’s ‘Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World’ took the cue; Teilhard’s slogan “Christianity means more progress, more technology,” became a stimulus in which the Council Fathers from rich and poor countries alike found a concrete hope” .

And he isn’t alone either:

Fulton J Sheen - Footsteps in a Darkened Forest, (New York: Meredith, 1967) 73. - “It is very likely that within fifty years when all the trivial, verbal disputes about the meaning of Teilhard’s “unfortunate” vocabulary will have died away or have taken a secondary place, Teilhard will appear like John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, as the spiritual genius of the twentieth century.”

**Pope John Paul II, **Gift and Mystery, page 73
“The Eucharist is also celebrated in order to offer ‘on the altar of the whole earth the world’s work and suffering’ in the beautiful words of Teilhard de Chardin.”

Note

The pope was referring to prayers in Teilhard’s Mass on the World, which the latter had said 80 years earlier in the Gobi Desert, when he had run out of bread and wine and made the whole earth his altar.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. - A Eucharistic Church: The Vision of John Paul II - McGinley Lecture, University, November 10, 2004.

“In his own poetic style, the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin liked to meditate on the Eucharist as the firstfruits of the new creation. In an essay called The Monstrance he describes how, kneeling in prayer, he had a sensation that the Host was beginning to grow until at last, through its mysterious expansion, ‘the whole world had become incandescent, had itself become like a single giant Host.’ Although it would probably be incorrect to imagine that the universe will eventually be transubstantiated, Teilhard correctly identified the connection between the Eucharist and the final glorification of the cosmos.”

Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J. - The Catholicity of the Church, 1983
Page 38 - ‘The pan-Christic’ universalism of Maurice Blondel and Teilhard de Chardin has, in some respects, become official Catholic teaching in Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.
page 43 - The Teilhardian formula, ‘union differentiates’, casts additional light on the concept of catholicity. … The Church may be called in the terminology of Teilhard de Chardin, the 'consciously Christified portion of the world".

 

[wmw]

Yes and I was making no judgement on Teilhard de Chardin or his ideas. Only that the Pope’s use of the phrase “evolutionary leap” need not have just his works connected to it. Through I agree that he is high on the list of great figures on the subject.

 

[Vouthon]

Yes and I was making no judgement on Teilhard de Chardin or his ideas. Only that the Pope’s use of the phrase “evolutionary leap” need not have just his works connected to it. Through I agree that he is high on the list of great figures on the subject.

Ah, yes I understand now friend and actually agree with you

I think its because Teilhard is the most famous exponent of such “evolution” theology, and influenced Vatican II’s statements to that effect.

However I fully agree that he is not the only authority in this area and that the pope might not have been referring to his ideas on the subject when he used this phrase.

God Bless and Merry Christmas btw!

 

[wmw]

Merry Christmas!

 

[fhansen]

Hi,

I was wondering what people think of this quote from the Pope’s Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection page 244 Ignatius Press edition 2011:

Does the pope elaborate on this thought in any of his other writing? He may expand on it in the book itself. I am still reading this chapter and will post any further information I find, if it exists.

God bless,
Ut

Poor Pope B-he gets flack from all sides. Liberals are still chafing at his anti-gay marriage Christmas message delivered on Friday. As to “Jesus of Nazareth”, he puts “evolutionary leap” in quotes, using it as an analogy to establish an emphatic distinction between the relatively less relevant while nonetheless miraculous resuscitation from the dead (after which those raised still end up suffering a physical death later on) and a whole new life where the old has totally passed away, ushering in a “new dimension of reality” that completes creation, the “union of the finite with the infinite”, the “union of man with God”, the complete “conquest of death” by Jesus Christ, manifested by an incorruptible resurrected body.