The focus of the Science and the Human Person project precludes an oversimplification of personhood based on theological doctrine alone. Rather, it is important to see theology within the larger context of cosmology and thus to understand the human person within the whole order of science, philosophy and theology. In this respect, two sentences from Abdulaziz Sachedina’s reflection are important for me. The first is his opening sentence: “Modernity has played havoc in appraising human personhood.” I could not agree more. In my view this havoc ensued at the dawn of modernity in two main events. First, the new cosmology wrought by heliocentrism set the eternal celestial realm in opposition to the terrestrial scene of change and decay, challenging the immutability of God and dissolving the place of the human person in creation. The spinning earth demoted the human person from the stable center of the universe to an elliptical orbit so that human uniqueness and God’s particular concern for human life seemed in danger. Second, the flourishing of the human in the Renaissance and the rise of the Enlightenment gave the human a new mastery over nature.
In the medieval synthesis God was the source of unity, but in the Enlightenment, the power to unify was found in the self-thinking subject. The Cartesian “turn to the subject” imposed a burden on each person to make sense of the world individually and unify it by rational thought alone. The Bible spoke of the human person as image of God, but with the rise of modern science the human person had no defined role. The great absentee in the scientific description of nature to this day is the human person. Raimon Panikkar writes: “Gods there are aplenty, the form of black holes, galaxies, and infinities, etc… matter and energy are all-pervasive, as are time and space. Only man (sic) does not come into the picture. Man cannot be located among the data. Man is in a certain way the obstacle to pure information.”
In Panikkar’s view, modern science and technology dispensed with the human person as image of God. Once the earth was identified as moving around the sun, the human person lost stability and purpose in nature, as nature was stripped of its divine character. The human person created new gods to fill the need for worship, surrendering personal autonomy to science and technology, violence and power. Descartes’ cogito became a substitute for the cosmos. That is, the cosmos was replaced by the feeling of being a separate, thinking individual. Instead of seeing God reflected in the cosmos, the human could now possess the cosmos; instead of surrendering to God, the human could now play God. Modern science developed without the human person as person, that is, a relational self at home in creation reflecting the divine Creator.
Sachedina’s second statement follows accordingly: “The future of human personhood is intimately intertwined with the unfolding of scientific truth.” This is such an important statement that I would underscore it because the new world picture brought about by modern science has not included religion. Both Christianity and Islam have constructed their theologies based on the ancient and outmoded Ptolemaic cosmos. Both religions are inscribed within a perfect, immutable, hierarchical and anthropocentric order and therefore feel threatened by modern science. Hence the question “where are science and technology taking us?” is a real one of perceived danger. Blessed Pope John Paul II’s insight is helpful here: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” These two pillars of human existence must be brought together into a vision of the whole.
We know today that human persons emerge out of 13.8 billion years of cosmic history. Evolution is not background to the human story; it is the human story. To realize that the human person is part of a larger process which involves long spans of developmental time brings a massive change to all of our knowledge and beliefs. We rise from the process of evolution but in reflecting on the process we stand apart from it and are distinguished from non-human species by our complex brains that are capable of symbolic language, self-reflective consciousness, and personal freedom to love. We not only know, but we know that we know. The human person is the arrow of evolution, the point at which this deep cosmic evolution culminates and declares itself. We realize today that the human person is constantly being shaped by constitutive relationships. In terms of evolution, the human person is not a fixed essence but a dynamic becoming. Human nature consists of open, evolving systems which proceed by quantum jumps from one steady state system to the next through a hierarchy of ordered systems.
Both Christianity and Islam must engage modern science and, in particular, understand the human person in light of evolution. We cannot simply affirm the human person as imago Dei — we must also affirm that the human is evolution become conscious of itself. Science and technology place the human person today on the threshold of a radically new future. Without a coherent understanding of religion and evolution, however, technology can appear ominous, threatening to unravel the human person. From a Christian perspective, we are created “co-creators” and what we become will reflect the extent to which we participate in evolution. Teilhard de Chardin wrote: “I can only be saved by becoming one with the universe.” The unification of the cosmos is now in and through the human person who is the growing tip of the evolutionary process. Can Christianity and Islam reconceive the divine dignity of the human person in light of evolution? If so, can we ask together, what is the role of the human person in an unfinished universe?
