Cosmic Evolution
In trying to make a virtual pass through the Tapestry's mandorla into its dark cosmos,
we have to
deal with notions about the ultimate mysteries of humanity and the universe. In biblical terms we
are at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, but the time scale of creation of planet Earth, as it is
now scientifically established, is too vast for our comprehension in relation to the relatively
minuscule solar cycles that we use to measure our earthly span, as individuals, nations, and even
a species. During recent years, science has made staggering progress in mapping the universe.
Cosmologists are no longer short of data. Fundamental laws of physics describe the structure of
matter and the way planets and stars were formed after the explosion of a dense mass of 'quarks
and gluons', 12 billion years ago. By applying these laws to information that is pouring in from
telescopes of ever increasing power, it is now possible to extrapolate a sequence of events, from
the present, back to within a second of the formation of the universe. This is the Big Bang theory,
which says that the universe has been expanding since a single 'genesis event' was initiated.
Cosmology is now concerned with answering the questions: 'How is the universe expanding?' and
'How was the space formed into which it is expanding?'
The purpose of cosmic evolution may be the emergence of some form of conscious relationship
between a spiritual entity and particles of the material cosmos, the whole process working on
space-time scales much different from our own. Science is not irreligious. It does not entail that
there is no spiritual reality, no God, and no purpose in the cosmos. Many of the greatest scientists
were strongly motivated by their religious beliefs. The sort of highly ordered and emergent universe
that science discloses is compatible with, and almost overwhelmingly suggests, the existence of a
creator of enormous wisdom and power. Religious myths depict the way in which that reality
makes itself known in the material universe. Religious rituals establish appropriate responses to
that reality. Religious symbols express its fundamental character.
Some religious thinkers take the view that modern science can help to clear away some
elements
of literalism, ignorance and myopia which still disfigure religion by providing a new and better
understanding of the material universe. Spiritual notions extend this scientific world view through
ideas that define a realm of spirit from which the material cosmos emerges, and to which it will
return. Religion has an irreplaceable role to play in relating human life to that wider spiritual
context. Our age offers the possibility of relating the scientific and religious perspectives in a
mutually enriching way.
Taking Christianity as an example, from the beginning it attempted to present a cosmic
vision of a
spiritually ordered universe, whose purpose would be somehow completed by a future full
knowledge and love of the creator. The myths of Christianity show:-
- how God ordered the universe
and produced a conscious moral agency;
- how God expressed the
essence of divine nature as self- giving in the life of a particular
human, Jesus;
- how God disclosed the
ultimate goal of the universe in the resurrection of Jesus.
The cosmic vision of the first Christians was that the spirit, who was the creator
of the cosmos, had
acted in human history to initiate the liberation of human lives from pride and egoism, and their
union with the divine essence of selfgiving. In other words, we are part of the whole cosmic process
from the Big Bang, and have emerged as conscious agents who can consciously unite the material
to God, its spiritual source and goal.
The Big Bang theory says nothing about what set the conditions for the expansion of
the primary
fireball in the first place. There is still room for the will of God as Creator, and a spiritual viewpoint
that the universe is as it is, and we exist, because a Creator established the initial conditions of
the
subatomic 'seed' in the ultra-early universe to make it so. This 'argument from design' type of
thinking has supported Christian reasoning about creation for at least two centuries. At this point
we face a division amongst cosmologists as to whether Creation can ever be a legitimate problem
of astrophysics.
Some believe that a cosmological God operating scientific levers is the only answer.
To call
cosmos out of chaos, and produce 'tapestry meditators', a beneficent God would first have to fine-
tune at least six independent physical factors in order to allow a 'fertile' universe unfold. If any
one
factor were un-tuned there would be no stars.
Finally, there is the intriguing question about where, in our tiny planetary system
circling an
insignificant sun, does the feedback come from to keep we humans on a pre- ordained track in a
God-driven cosmos. Religion flows, interacts between us and the cosmos, and the cosmos as a
whole is as yet hyperscientific. However, its truths are not limited by any culture. There is yet no
line of enquiry that could conceivably gather material evidence to implicate such a deity. To some
scientists this is an admission that the question cannot be investigated by science, and it is
therefore irrelevant.
The cosmos, and all life in it, will eventually cease to exist. But the Christian
view has always been
that the fulfilment of God's purpose lies beyond this space-time, even though it must be
approached through it. God's goal for the cosmos is that everyone who has ever lived will have the
opportunity to share in a trans-historical knowledge and love of God in a 'new creation'. From a
Christian viewpoint, this Cosmos is the place where souls emerge in the material and temporal
realm. Their ultimate fulfilment is in the eternal realm, which is the spiritual reality of God. This
was
the good news of the gospel, which should be clear without reference to a prior conviction about the
reality of God. However, some churchmen, such as
Hugh Montefiore as Bishop of
Birmingham, feel
that it is now necessary to find God in the development and nature of the world from its origins.
Having traced for himself this 'natural theology', through the formation of the atmosphere and the
oceans, the emergence of life, the evolution of animal species and man, to global civilisation,
Montefiore concludes that the creation of the world by a God, still concerned for humanity, is the
most probable explanation of it.
Evolution of Meditation
The tapestry, in the vast time scale symbolised by its images and their visual planes,
certainly has
the power to place the viewer in communion with the time scale of evolution, and its extrapolation
back through millions of light years, to the origins of the universe.
Apart from giving us the notional space to meditate on issues of cosmology and religion,
Sutherland's images are not really expressive of this universe of atoms, primary chemicals,
radiation energies and dark matter. It is his animal pictures of the tetramorph that take us into the
space/time relationships of stars and their planets. In particular, his efforts to symbolise species
behavioural characteristics through their particular forms, raise questions about the evolution of
animal behaviour, and our own capacity for meditation. This problem was but a footnote to Darwin
when he saw the future opening of fields of research into the origin of 'each mental power and
capacity by gradation'. Most biologists are now able to appreciate that a meditation on a wall-
hanging is an example of a human mental characteristic which has been handed down through
natural selection.
With respect to the evolution of life on planet Earth, biologists are well on the
way to demystifying
the question of how atoms assembled themselves into living beings with behaviour patterns
intricate enough to ponder their own origins. Like present day apes, our primate ancestors started
with an ability to make tools and integrate them into social relationships which boosted survival.
Our capacity to foresee the consequences of our actions evolved from this basic primate mental
trick of being good at solving the 'how questions' of survival. Further evolution of frontal lobes in
the
brain improved our skills in predicting relationships between cause and effect. Scientific behaviour
is a refinement of this ultimate method of solving how questions'. Questions about why the universe
began, requires spiritual thought. This allows us to create beliefs in the existence of supernatural
forces that do not require scientific proof to become credible, and are therefore helpful as aids to
social survival. But is there anything in common between the mental processes we call 'scientific',
and those we define as 'spiritual'?
There can be no doubt that behaviour patterns which reinforce communities, have a
strong
selection value in social animals. In our own species, the development of cultural cohesion through
patriotic attitudes has been underscored consistently by banners, flags, medals and other
commemorative paraphernalia, statues and a variety of monuments, buildings and dedicated
spaces. Notional values about neighbourhood are also expressed personally, in many ways,
through landscape paintings, poetry, patriotism, homesickness, and the vernacular creative work of
all people serving a local need, who make everything from pictures to cathedrals, furniture to
homes, jewellery to statues.
Each culture, or society, produces personal images and forms, which are unique and
peculiar to
itself. Even when similar images or forms are common to more than one culture or society, they
almost invariably have different meanings or values attached to them. Personal images, such as
Sutherland invented to depict his chosen natural habitat of the Pembrokeshire coast, constitute not
only an embodiment of a society's attitudes, values and beliefs, but are also a major means by
which values and beliefs are actually formed and realised. These individual and group notions have
an important, and an as yet unexplored potential for identifying, and teaching, the crucial values of
moral, aesthetic and humanistic concern. In particular, through a formal creative process of
environmental appraisal similar to Sutherland's, they could be coupled to the design and application
of neighbourhood values, to help root communities and counter the placelessness of people who
have no spiritual reason for being anywhere.
As far as we can see, a desire to be in touch with great unseen powers has always
been a feature
of human settlement, and was often realised through attaching spiritual meaning to rocks and
water. This is integral with the Christian belief that such divine channels for communication are
opened by God, and that it is also His will that we should have mental powers to read divine
messages of redemption in visual symbols, such as those created by Sutherland. However, to
some evolutionary biologists, the gift to live symbolically was a useful piece of evolutionary cell
biology, and came as part and parcel of brain mechanisms that allow us to predict the practical
results of our actions. The debit side of this gift of natural selection was that we could also imagine,
and worry about, the disastrous consequences of natural forces beyond our control. Therefore, the
concept of God developed as an innate mental adaptation to allay fear in a hostile world, and was
passed on through social evolution. Behavioural patterns we term 'appeasement' and 'reverence',
were necessary to get a notional battery of supernatural powers on our side. In Darwinian terms,
they may be viewed as a partial compensation for our lack of claws and muscle power. Thus, there
was fixed early in the evolution of the human brain, a complementary survival package of 'spiritual
thought' to be activated for our psychological protection in an uncontrollable world full of
unpredictable dangers. Malevolent forces were to be seen everywhere in Sutherland-like
paraphrases of gnarled trees and weathered rocks.
After the first anthropological stage of spirit worship, this social and cultural
survival kit stabilised
settled societies when religions adopted common ideals, standards, and fixed moral rules with their
associated noble sentiments. In this biological sense, a present day belief that Revelation is
literally true may be seen as the workings of a biological adaptation built into the brain's structure
and chemistry. This 'spiritual centre' gives people belief in imagined supernatural powers so they
feel part of a system that can control political forces which are really beyond their control in the
everyday world. Like the Coventry tapestry, the Book of Revelation from which it was derived, is a
cultural artefact resulting from the exercise of this kind of mental adaptability. Both are graphic
and
literary tools produced through the symbolising centre of artist and author. Their aim is to help us
seek causes and explanations, and produce a mental action plan to be at the controls, and cope
with day to day situations, and life after death, where science cannot provide answers. This aspect
of what used to be termed scientific humanism says that it is we humans who create Gods, and
not the other way around.
This was the thesis of Sir James George Frazer (1854- 1941) who assembled a vast collection
of
facts about fertility rites, human sacrifice and other symbols and practices from across the globe.
His belief is that humankind progresses from magic, through religious belief, to scientific thought
(7.002). Through his masterpiece, which appeared in twelve
volumes between 1890 and 1915,
Frazer is regarded as one of the founders of modern anthropology.
Religions meet human needs and through a system of shared symbols which reinforce
a long
social memory. At one extreme this can bolster fundamentalism which is resistant to change.
Nevertheless, from a Darwinian viewpoint it appears that religion has permanence because it is part
of an evolved cultural adaptability. Its truths are not limited by any culture and the cultural
adaptability of religion has been, and will be, the key to its survival; fundamentalism defies religion.
Development of spiritual thought
One God- many religions?
Michael Sadgrove, meditating on the greenness of the tapestry, was pointed towards
the vast time
scales of creation, and caused to ponder on Christ 'calling cosmos out of chaos'. He entered a
realm of green spirituality, where the colour drew him into communion with trees, grasses and a
God-intended oneness with nature, where he felt part of an organism greater than himself. The
tapestry is described as a marvellous celebration of the 'mystery of evolution&ldots; summoning
all
the works of the Lord to praise him and magnify him for ever'. But it also stands in his mind as a
silent rebuke to mankind for 'our relentless soiling of creation..' He was helped in this phase of his
meditation by the tapestry becoming a metaphor for the intellectual weaving of ideas about the
cultural development of green spirituality in the world of native Americans, the Celtic form of
Christianity, and medieval mystical writers, exemplified by Hildegard of Bingen, and Mother Julian
of Norwich.
Mass research and communication is responsible for this throwing together of ideas
about nations
and individuals, which a century ago could only be juxtaposed through difficult and time-consuming
work by scholars in obscure libraries. Also, humankind has been mentally and physically
catapulted onto a small world stage at the speeds of electrons and jet-propulsion. We are faced
every day with the restlessness of minds impatient to learn of ways that differ from their own.
Intolerance is a closer and more disruptive by- product of this spread and intermingling of peoples.
For the first time in human history, nations, races and creeds are being asked to take one another
seriously by the cross- cultural assimilation of human social values which are mostly derived from
the worlds great living religions.
In all of the above contexts the Coventry tapestry may help transport people into
the heart of the
world's great living faiths to the point where they might see, and even feel, why, and how, they
guide and motivate the lives of those who live by them. Here, Sutherland's ability to depict Christ
within an object inspired by the shapes of leaves and eggs, is helpful in bringing forward the
mysterious notional realism which is the centrepoise of all religions. The artist's only commentary
on the world-wide communion of faiths is the small group of motives he took from Egyptian art- an
art which was inseparable from the religious beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians. Nevertheless, these
are powerful metaphorical cross-links and bindings. They are particularly evident in the yellow
ribbons and bands which hold together the various elements of the tapestry, and give them a
notional depth. Sutherland says he developed this unifying structure from seeing pictures bound by
tape to coffined mummies. In their original context, mummy bindings were used to carry messages
into the hereafter. These are metaphors for the ultimate binding of all spiritual notions to an eternal
cosmos.
It is a big step to move from the tapestry to consider the question of the relation
between religions.
However, this was an issue built into the cathedral's master plan, and expressed physically in the
space of its Chapel of Unity. Clearly, we will not find all religions saying the same things, although
unity in certain respects is both striking and impressive. If one is aiming for unity there must be
assumptions that all important truths cannot be found in one tradition, and that differences between
faiths are but dialects in a single spiritual language that employs different words but expresses the
same ideas. At this point we may return to Sutherland's task in composing the great tapestry,
which was the bringing together of many stimuli through symbolism into a compact whole with a
personal inner meaning.
Development of an
ecological conscience
Humanists such as Julian Huxley have seen an apparent progress in cosmic evolution
towards
increasing consciousness and control. That is to say, we are part of a development from the
unconscious simplicity of the 'Big Bang', with which our universe was created, to the conscious,
diverse and complex carbon-based life-forms of the planet earth. Our unknown future carries the
possibility of understanding and controlling the cosmos itself.
Attempts to provide biological explanations of consciousness are far from convincing,
and are
certainly not established by scientific study. In fact, the ultimate personal expressions of
conciousness are through the arts. The author Henry Rider Haggard, for example, in his
imaginings, kept returning to the possibility that the material universe does express a spiritual
reality. In this he was influence by the mind-set of Ancient Egypt where the fruits of the land were
fed through a kingly priesthood to support the cosmic system.
In this respect, Haggard was one of several Victorian polymaths, also exemplified
by Charles
Kingsley and John Ruskin. Their lives span a crucial period of world development when the findings
of biological science first began to ruffle the waters of religious certainty. A Victorian knowledge
system cannot avoid incorporating spiritual notions about nature which provided the 19th century
drive and justification for social change. In particular, the Victorians found themselves caught within
a Biblical world view of the origins and purposes of human existence. In this sense, religious belief
was at the heart of all environmental problems, issues and controversies.
Haggard was a rural reformer, who wrote with personal experience about land conflicts
in the
colonies, and the drift of people from the land. His diary of 1898 is a vivid month by month account
of the life of a progressive farmer involved with the social problems of village, county, and the
national scene. His stories reveal the mind-match that is possible between individuals of different
lands, usually through a potent atmosphere of intrigue, violence and romance. Kingsley was an
urban reformer, very much concerned in his novels, lectures and tracts, with relieving the ills of the
urban masses who had migrated from the countryside. He was a Darwinian and enthusiast of
applied science. Ruskin was a powerful educator who, in his writing on social reform, deplored the
crushing influence of industrialism on art, morality, and the natural world. He saw the 'land question'
as a matter of rapid population growth.
John Ruskin's writings are what we would now describe as a cross-curricular attempt
to
encompass the notional, utilitarian, and academic ideas about how we should value and use
natural resources. His personal synthesis of religion and natural resources exemplifies the unusual
breadth and depth needed to clarify and deepen our values and actions to meet today's challenges
of sustainable development. Ruskin's standpoint was to interpret God's plan for humanity, as set
out in the Book of Genesis, in terms of the Creator giving Earth substance and form. God willed
functions into natural resources so that they may be used by His people to fulfil their divine destiny.
He embedded in nature a divine blueprint for a natural economy which organises the uses of nature
for production in conjunction with a local political economy. The necessary materials and energy
were provided, as physical and biological resources, through planetary and solar economies. The
former produces episodes of mountain-building associated with Earth's molten core; the latter
governs weather and climate. These flows of materials and energy were set in motion following
God's 'command that the waters should be gathered', which produced the planet's land-sea
interactions. At this point Ruskin, envisaged the Creator's blueprint being realised through the
denudation of mountains by rainfall. Starting from this divine 'gathering of waters' the human natural
economy was dependent on the God-given 'frailness of mountains'. He put it as follows:
The first, and the most important, reason for the frailness of mountains is "that
successive soils
might be supplied to the plains . . . and that men might be furnished with a material for their works
of architecture and sculpture, at once soft enough to be subdued, and hard enough to be preserved;
the second, that some sense of danger might always be connected with the most precipitous
forms, and thus increase their sublimity; and the third, that a subject of perpetual interest might
be
opened to the human mind in observing the changes of form brought about by time on these
monuments of creation".
This quotation may be taken as an example of Ruskin's philosophy that environmental
features
produce ideas, which are then confirmed by studying the features themselves. Ruskin's holistic
knowledge system relates human spiritual values of the Bible to inbuilt attitudes to, and use of, the
land, and its biological resources. He wrote to a friend-
"what do you think
that a man- candidly and earnestly looking into his own heart, will find there.
He will find I think- first- selfishness- an instinct of choosing his own good rather than anyone
elses. & secondly- such a degree of sympathy and love of other animated creatures that he
has pleasure in seeing them happy & would willingly part with some portion of his own good-
to secure theirs- not with all his own happiness- but with a portion of it, provided he could
secure a larger portion to them. By yielding to all his sensual passions, he may in time blunt
these feelings of benevolence- eradicate them- but the animal man, as born into the world, is, I
believe, much as I describe, a creature preferring its own good to that of others where
uncomfortable with it- but yet having delight in the good of others & and ready to make certain
sacrifices to advance it"
Other Victorian thinkers tended to slot into this framework of links between human
behaviour and
the origins and destiny of nature. Kingsley and Haggard differed from Ruskin by giving more value
to the processes and fruits of science, particularly as applied to industrialism. Rider Haggard was
personally involved with the more efficient use of land for agricultural production and forestry,
subjects on which Ruskin had little to say. All three made practical proposals for social change to
improve the lot of artisans and their families. Charles Kingsley, was one of the first to articulate
the
science of ecology. He also probed into freshwater and marine biology, and was deeply involved
with public health issues concerning the supply of clean water to disease-ridden towns and cities.
'The Water- Babies', which has achieved the status of a children's classic, presents
environmentalism in its entirety. The narrative rests firmly in an overview of Nature's many worlds,
and presents their respective scientific 'ologies' in an entertaining fashion. The setting is a quest
for
sustainable behaviour, and a future, characterised by restraint on consumption, kindness to others,
and care for the ecosystems which support our global economies. Mrs Do- As- You-Would-Be-
Done-By is the magical figure who delivers these messages of offers redemption. Today she could
be described as the good-fairy of 'sustainable behaviour' helping to develop a collective 'ecological
conscience'. In more recent times this theme was taken up by Henry Williamson who projected his
imagination into the minds of otters and salmon in an effort to tie them into a human world, where
deeply felt humane values were against cruelty to non-human creatures. His books 'Tarka the Otter'
and Salar the Salmon' bring out the beauty and the harshness of river ecosystems in unsentimental
stories about the day to day joys and tribulations of rare animals that were once common.