DELIBERATELY DIVERSE | The Rev. Terry Pierce
Deliberately Diverse represents the individual thoughts and opinions of a group of Taylor friends who almost never completely agree about anything but enjoy diverse discussions in our beloved community. Today’s column represents the thoughts and opinions of The Rev. Terry Pierce, vicar of St.
James’ Episcopal Church in Taylor.
My mom, who would be 106 this year, used to say to me, “I believe in science because it is how I understand creation; and I believe in God because it is how I understand love.”
John’s Gospel does not use the noun for faith or belief.
Instead, John’s Gospel uses the verb which means to trust or to believe, uses it 98 times by the way.
Believing is an action; it is not a thing to be possessed. And because believing involves relationship, Dr.
Alyce MacKenzie said, “an even better translation in English would be ‘trusting’ or ‘entrusting oneself to’ [God or Jesus].”
I tried that translation on my mother’s words. What would it mean to say, “I am entrusting myself to science because science is how I understand creation; and I am entrusting myself to God because God is how I understand love.” That doesn’t quite work for me.
I turned to the writings of Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD, a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, and an American theologian and neuroscientist specializing in the areas of science and religion, to help me figure this out.
With Teilhard de Chardin, Delio conceives of the cosmos as an unfolding process “in which everything is evolving toward greater complexity and unity.” In that reality, love is the driving force behind all things.
Delio suggests that the way forward includes “overcoming the [idea that God is] timeless, eternal God of perfection and reconceiving God as a presence of unconditional love. Love is the indestructible energy of cosmic life.
Once we grasp our true reality, hope looms before us.
As Saint Paul wrote: ‘There are three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.’” What would reconceiving God as an ever-evolving presence of unconditional love look like?
Delio suggests that God is not far away, confined to a heaven we can only reach in death; instead, God is present here and now within all things. God is not found in perfection; rather God is found in presence.
Science and evolution sometimes lead to dead ends and often lead to the unexpected.
They incorporate living and dying, expansion and contraction, suffering and joy.
It is also understood in presence and process rather than in stasis. If the world is ever evolving towards greater complexity and unity, then I am not to be a static participant.
If God is love, then being made in the image of God is being able to love, being called to love. To participate in God, I must participate in moving the world toward unconditional love.
What would my mom say about all of this? Make sure the kids are learning that science and love are both from God.
