Christ in Evolution Quotes

“Christ is not only the name of an historical personage but a reality in our own lives.”32  He uses the term “christophany” to indicate that each person bears the mystery of Christ within.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Thus, the direction of evolution is toward the maximization of goodness, especially if we maintain that the incarnation is the goal of evolution. If Jesus Christ is truly creator (as divine Word) and redeemer (as Word Incarnate) then what is created out of love is ultimately redeemed by love. The meaning of Christ is summed up in creation’s potential for self transcendent love.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Christ is the model for creation so that, “what happened between God and the world in Christ points to the future of the cosmos. It is a future that involves the radical transformation of created reality through the unitive power of God’s love.”28  This universe, therefore, has a destiny; the world will not be destroyed. Rather, “it will be brought to the conclusion which God intends for it from the beginning, which is anticipated in the mystery of the Incarnate Word and glorified Christ.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“The cross and resurrection won the victory over evil, but it is the task of the Spirit, and those led by the Spirit, to implement that victory in and for the whole world. The victory is found not in the life of Jesus alone but in his death and resurrection. It is in the resurrection that the power of Jesus as the Christ is experienced.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Christ is both the One and the Many. William Thompson states that Merton’s view of the transcultural Christ means the emergence of “a person of such inner calm and personal and cultural detachment that she is capable of recognizing and perspectivizing the genuine values present in every person and every culture.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“In Bonaventure’s view only one who is on a journey to God can really know God; faith seeks understanding through the path of love.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“The idea of a spiritually potent creation means that Jesus Christ is not an intrusion into an otherwise evolutionary universe but its reason and goal.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Without spirituality as the heart of Christology, however, we wind up in a sterile christomonism that stifles the meaning of Christ.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Christ is the union of humanity and creation with God, the true integrating center of the universe.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“John Haught has spoken of evolution as Darwin’s gift to theology, and I think we can say here that evolution is, in particular, Darwin’s gift to Christology. For the whole concept of evolution has liberated Christ from the limits of the man Jesus and enabled us to locate Christ at the heart of creation: the primacy of God’s love, the exemplar of creation, the centrating principle of evolution, and the Omega point of an evolutionary universe.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“The cosmological significance of Christ means that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning of every created order as Word of God and the completion of that order as incarnation of the Word. In short, Christ, through a selfgiving act of love, completes every possible world order by entering into that order through an incarnation or Wordembodiment.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“the primary reason for the incarnation is related not to the “forgiveness of sin” but to the completion of creation in its relationship to God.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Technology is either pointless in the long run (another machine) or it is an expression of the fundamental selftranscending reality of God. Hefner concludes that technology is itself a medium of divine action because technology is about the freedom of imagination that constitutes our selftranscendence. In this respect, technology is integral to evolution. It is the result of human creativity and in turn has influenced the shape of human life to the point of becoming something totally new in the universe.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“If evolution is a movement toward greater complexity and union, then the marriage of human creativity and its offspring is integral to evolution.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“The epiphenomenalist says that transcendence is evolution’s way of promoting fitness. The theologian asserts that evolution has itself been designed to enable a selftranscending system of reality.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Authentic human love cannot be programmed because it is free. It must be freely given and received, and it is in the relationship of reciprocity that love becomes transformative.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“The one Christ who emerges out of an evolutionary universe and who is the center and goal of this universe will come to completion only at the end of evolution, that is, the Christ of the physical universe, the Christ of all humanity, the Christ of all religions. In this respect, Christ is not a static figure, like a goal post with a gravitational lure, toward which the universe is moving. Rather, Christ is in evolution because we, human and nonhuman creation, are in evolution. If our actions and choices influence the building up of Christ in the universe then we must take seriously the impact technology and science are causing on the shape of life in the universe.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“the parousia of Christ is not separate from the Eucharistic and risen Christ;it is not another incarnation or a second Christ appearing somewhere. We have been warned by Jesus in the Gospels not to believe in any appearance of the coming Messiah here or there. Rather, we are coworkers with God and stewards of creation. The second coming of Christ is the emergence of Christ in us, the human community, when we become reflective not only individually but collectively and live in the spirit of crucified love.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“If the whole of Christian faith is based on loss and gain, then losing one’s life is necessary for the sake of finding new life;death is the passage into life. This is the meaning of resurrection. So what do we fear to lose in dialogue with other religions?”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Vernacular theology in the second axial period is a reflection on Christ in view of evolution and is not content to confine itself to philosophical analysis (although it does not deny such analysis). Rather, it is doing theology by way of spirituality.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“The mystical insights of Teilhard, Panikkar, Merton, and Griffiths have ushered in a new type of vernacular theology in the twentyfirst century. It is no longer a theology of the unlearned but of global experience, arising from the spiritual search for Christ amidst evolution, religious plurality, and difference. Vernacular theology today is a way of going about the world; it is not a matter of analyzing concepts but of doing theology, shifting the context of theology from the rigor of academic discipline to the context of life and holiness. It is the theology of the poor person—not necessarily the economically poor, but the one who recognizes his or her need and dependency on God and neighbor and lives in openness, receptivity, and gratefulness.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“in an age of humanitarian and ecological crises, there is no room for a triumphalist religion, as if any one religion might conquer the world. In such a religion, we might say, Jesus is crucified over and over again — nailed to the cross, stripped of his garments, and left to die alone. To be a Christian in this new age is to see in Jesus the symbol of all humanity and thus to help shine this light of Christ in the world.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“until we can recognize ourselves as integral to the mystery of Christ, Christ is confined to the local tribes of Western culture.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“if I do not discover in myself the terrain where the Hindu, the Muslim, the Jew, and the atheist may have a place — in my heart, in my intelligence, in my life — I will never be able to enter into a genuine dialogue with him. As long as I do not open my heart and do not see that the other is not an other but a part of myself who enlarges and completes me, I will not arrive at dialogue.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Love is the knowledge of the mystic because love goes further than intellectual knowledge alone.We can know a person’s features, his or her identification, but to know who a person is, what makes him or her unique, is to know his or her identity, a knowledge gained by the experience of love. It is love that leads us into the heart of the mystery of Christ.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“When Panikkar views the Christian landscape today, he sees a rather weak religion that stakes its claim on being the “light of the world.” Most Christians, he claims, are apathetic to the problems of the world and are dissatisfied with only their inner political polemics and private problems (married clergy, women priests, etc.). We have become narrow in our focus and selfish in our concerns. In a sense, we are in a new flight from the world. The problem of apathy among Christians is rampant in the First World, where consumerism dulls the human heart amidst an ecological crisis while a massive humanitarian crisis of poverty and hunger is ravaging many parts of the Third World. Panikkar points out that many people around the world live in subhuman conditions, thousands of children die every day because of human injustices, wars kill every day, and warring among religions is still very much alive. His question, therefore, is timely and critical, namely, What does contemporary Christology have to say about all this?”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“a Christology uninvolved with the world is no Christology at all.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Evolution helps us realize that God works through the chaos of creation and is less concerned with imposing design on processes than providing nature with opportunities to participate in its own creation.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Yet, it is precisely God’s freedom to love that renders creation a dynamic, unfolding process of increasing complexity. God is love and love is free; thus, God creates in freedom.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution

“Take, for example, the profound insight of the thirteenth century Franciscan penitent, Angela of Foligno, who described her union with Christ crucified as an exchange of love.”
― Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution