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Review of Unweaving the Rainbow - Robert Tulip

#8: May - June 2003 (Non-Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Review of Unweaving the Rainbow - Robert Tulip

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An email I received recently...Quote:Hi ChrisHere is a review I have written of Unweaving the Rainbow. Hope you find it interesting!Robert TulipBook ReviewRichard Dawkins: Unweaving the Rainbow, Penguin, 1998Christiaan Mostert: God and The Future, T & T Clark, 2002Richard Dawkins is justly famous for the remarkably lucid and coherentevolutionary philosophy he has developed in his books The Selfish Gene, TheBlind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable. Dawkins presents Darwinwith power, logic and clarity, effectively rebutting the old fundamentalistidea of God as an interventionist designer. For Dawkins, evolution is thereal context of thought, and the Darwinian logic of cumulative adaptationis entirely sufficient to explain all apparent miracles of evolution, fromCambrian phylla to bat's ears to eagle's eyes to human brains. He considersthat any thinking which fails to engage with scientific understanding setsitself outside the boundaries of intelligent conversation.Unweaving the Rainbow further develops these evolutionary themes, withdifferent approaches to the rainbow providing a motif for the culturalbattles faced by scientific understanding. For Dawkins, Sir Isaac Newton'suse of the prism to explain the structure of light has a beauty which canonly add to our subjective vision of the beauty of rainbows in nature. Bycontrast, John Keats' comment that Newton 'destroyed the poetry of therainbow' by reducing it with 'cold philosophy' actually diminishes thescope of our imagination. Science is the foundation of creativity, so whenpoets like Keats deride knowledge out of some romantic nostalgia, they pushour culture away from the engagement with reality that has to be the sourceof any improvement.I believe that Christian theology should engage with ideas such as those ofRichard Dawkins in order to retain credibility and contestability in thebroader intellectual community. Dawkins is an avowed atheist, with goodreason considering the lame ideas about God he has encountered, symbolisedby the religious demand that the rainbow can only be appreciated as a wholerather than as the sum of its parts. Theology needs to unweave such'rainbows' as its approach to the trinity, to creation and to the meaningof heaven and salvation. For example, a key error of many Christians isthe belief that God is like a heavenly watchmaker, designing each creatureto fit its place. Charles Darwin showed that this theory about God isincorrect, because the only mechanism of design is natural selection.Dawkins provides a brilliant modern explanation of why the theory ofevolution is so compelling, and why it is simply wrong to reject Darwin.However, he does not properly engage with the theological conversationaround these topics, appearing to say the refutation of incoherent ideasalso serves to refute coherent theology.Theology should have the capacity to engage with Dawkins' critique,developing its own coherence by systematic logic grounded in both anunderstanding of natural processes and of the meaning of divinity. To thisend, the way of thinking I would like to explore sees God as the ultimateadaptive possibility towards which humanity must evolve if we are tofulfill our purpose in life. A way of putting this in terms of evolutionarybiology is to say God is 'the niche of the world'. This approach sees theinfinite and eternal God as revealed in that structure of reality (ourecological niche) that will maximise human flourishing. By definition, ifhumanity lives according to the will of this God we will prosper and grow,but if we live contrary to the will of this God we will suffer, decline andperhaps eventually become extinct. Connection with the divine realitypromotes salvation, understood in entirely evolutionary Darwinian terms,while disconnection from this reality promotes destruction. There is onetruth, with the big picture equated to God and revealed in science. Thedivine human niche is the global, even cosmic, ecological sum of factorsthat enable human life.I like to think of this divine niche as our telos - the Greek word forpurpose. On this basis, teleology becomes the study of how we can adapt toour real niche, rather than the pre-Darwinian teleology which claimed thatGod is somehow actively shaping us to fit nature. Operating as a whole,our niche is largely passive, consisting of natural structures that are setin place and mostly continue for eons. The activity is on the part oforganisms, which must find their way of living in harmony with thesenatural structures if they are to prosper. Like a hermit crab that mustfind a suitable shell to protect it, humanity must find our ecologicalniche if we are to prosper. God has created us as complex free beings,with power to choose if we will live by faith or not.Can this approach reconcile with Christianity? My own belief is that JesusChrist provides the model of human evolution through his claim that we canconnect to God through grace. Further, I believe that trinitarian theism isabsolutely necessary in a cosmic sense if we are to develop a vision ofsalvation that builds on our scientific understanding. If the niche ofhuman potential may properly be identified with the Christian God, we arecalled to live in the image of this gracious and glorious God, representingtruth through language and establishing the Kingdom of God in the world bypromoting the Christian teachings of meaning, purpose and love.If God is revealed in the cosmic force of nature, the question arises howthis force can be represented in human life. This is where the Christiantrinitarian conception is so powerful. When Jesus said 'Believe me that Iam in the Father and the Father in me' (John 14:11) he claimed to incarnatethe cosmic spirit of truth. His ethic of love, courage and sacrifice ledhim to the cross and the resurrection, whatever that may really mean, andthis ethic continues to reverberate in our world through the holy spirit.It is not necessary to postulate an anti-scientific personal God asHeavenly Father to see that God became personal in Jesus Christ.In grappling with these ideas I have found the work of Christiaan Mostertimmensely helpful, in his God and the Future, a study of the great Germanthinker Wolfhardt Pannenberg. Mostert provides a masterly presentation ofan entirely coherent and compelling vision of God, with potential to helpChristian theology engage more broadly with the best of contemporarythought. Recognising that 'the reality, power and goodness of God areradically debatable' (155), he supports Pannenberg's contention that thedoctrine of the Trinity provides the framework for understanding creationand history. The Trinity is often misunderstood, so Mostert's complexorthodox 'unweaving' of this topic is refreshing - especially his focus onthe relations between the Father, Son and Spirit, and his argument that forGod to be a God for humanity, the Father needs the Son just as the Sonneeds the Father. Mostert quotes Pannenberg's statement that 'theresurrection of Jesus is just as constitutive for the divinity of theFather as for the Sonship of Jesus' (p196), a confronting idea which reallyhelps to understand what it can mean to say the infinite God of theuniverse cares passionately about humanity. Although Mostert is critical ofprocess theology, I would claim my own idea of God as revealed in the nicheof the world finds support in his statement that "if Jesus' message of thecoming kingdom of God is taken seriously, our view of God must includeGod's power over all finite reality, which can only be awaited from thefuture. This is the key point for any theology which intends to do justiceto eschatology' (p.151). The implication is that the power of God willprovide the meeting point for theology and ecology within human history.Biblical prophecy claims to anticipate the future rule of God and toexplain what people must do to participate in that future. I would suggestwe can get a better understanding of the parameters of that future bycombining the scientific framework of evolution with the Biblical frameworkof trinitarian eschatology. This points to three areas where I would beinterested to see Mostert expand; firstly, his understanding of divinepurpose or telos, secondly, the role of the Son in the consummation ofreality (a role Mostert assigns to the Spirit), and finally, his reading ofthe Book of Revelation, and whether any of that mysterious book can berehabilitated as we seek to understand God and the future.Robert Tulip Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 10/4/05 9:12 pm
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Re: Review of Unweaving the Rainbow - Robert Tulip

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Does anyone want to discuss this review?
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Chris OConnor

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Re: Review of Unweaving the Rainbow - Robert Tulip

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I'm going to lock this thread. I've added the review to a new thread in Additional Book Discussions. Once we're done discussing this review I'll move that thread back to this forum and delete this thread.Go there by clicking here.
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