Traditional theology looks backward to God as the cause of all things.
Emergence theology looks forward to godliness as its goal.

God, said Jesus, is Love; the ultimate goodness
the Spirit that cares for and needs Creation
as a mother hen cares for her chicks.

Does this presume an external divine entity
or that there is within us a presence that is divine,
above and beyond our material nature?


Such Godly indwelling could not be in control, or there could be nothing bad.
Everyone must have the freedom to do wrong, to ignore the call of the divine;
must have the reality of decision, between right and wrong, between good and evil.
Maybe this is the conflict between the call of love and of personal survival.



If so we do not live as puppets, driven by a pre-planned divine agenda,
but as free-agents capable always of getting it wrong,
even when lured by God's voice to the better path.
The activities of God are then lost in ambiguity, for even an Eternal Being,
can never fully know what mankind will decide, until we do so;
can not predict the future, for it does not exist
until its form and nature is decided.


The set boundaries of the past
have been replaced by a world of change;
a world in which boundaries are forever being exceeded,
new ideas developed, new possibilities foreseen.

This is a process of ongoing creativity,
with laws which are dynamic, probabilistic.
Over millennia, more and more complex states of affairs
have arisen through this open-ended process.

With that increase in complexity, new entities emerged
through the growth of molecules, to multi-cellular beings,
to conscious beings, to moral beings (humanity),
and maybe beyond to an entity beyond imagining;
Something beyond our wildest dreams.



This concept is a far cry from Calvin's God,
or the bounded concepts of evangelical theology.
The process of evolution is one of openness
without the certainty of any predestine outcome.
We are free to triumph, or make a mess of it.


God's role in the ongoing process of creation
is to provide guidance towards ultimate goodness;
that state which Jesus called
"The Kingdom of Heaven ".


Such ideas can have a profound impact on our lives
and on our interface to divinity, spirituality, faith.
For we have been given this gift
life itself
and are free to make of it what we will.
Not puppets in a predestined playlet,
but free to act and speak and do
for good or ill, or in between.


Within such a concept
maybe we can see our humble part.
We are not special. None of us are special.
Our likes and dislikes, accomplishements and failures
are irrelevant to the mighty march of evolution.
What we do has little real effect,
yet,
but
our ideas may spark ideas in others,
or our intransience may block another's path.
Our light can shine and expose the way ahead
even if we, you and I, can no longer travel it.
Even if our course is run in the present mire.

Far beyond our present existence may lie a place of glory
where humanity becomes what it could really be.
Sometimes we can taste its distant scent
feel its aroma, touch its absent presence.

We may never know its fullness
but its reality lies within us;
a shadow, spirit, hope,
in which we trust,
put our faith.