Louisville Process Theology Network

Humility Theology, Part II

Oct 28, 2008

As Ilia Delio, OSF, writes near the beginning of ?“The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective?” --- What God does in this universe is ?“lure creation to more, or we might say, optimal good.?”

So, God?’s purpose is not to command and control creation, but rather to share his love. Delio goes on to elaborate on God?’s ways and means of accomplishing that purpose in just about every succeeding chapter.

For example (pages 131 & 132). ?“If we ask, why be involved in a messy world that is an obstacle to finding God? The answer is simply that God is involved in the mess. When we search for a clean-cut, uninvolved God of power and control high up in the starry heavens, we can be sure that be have abandoned a God who is humbly bent down in love for a fragile and finite creation.

?… The humility of God must shine through our lives if the evolution of the universe is to progress toward its completion in Christ. God must bend down in love in us and we must bend down in love for one another.

?… Christianity is a religion of the future, as Teilhard proclaimed, and Christians must lead the universe into the future by seeking the unity of all things in love.

?… As Hayes writes, ?‘we are not to become carbon copies of this historical Jesus nor of Francis nor of anyone else. We are to fill the Christ-form with the elements of our own personal life and thus embody something of the Word in ourselves in a distinctive and personal way.?’ I believe this is what it means to follow Christ in an evolutionary world and to be part of the evolution in Christ, as the universe itself moves towards the Omega point.?”

Delio continues to develop her thoughts on humility theology in her next book, ?“Franciscan Prayer.?”

For example (page 22). ?“Francis came to realize the he was no self apart from the other. Salvation, as Merton points out, means rescuing the person from the individual, or we might say, it is bringing the individual to personhood through the experience of love.

The word ?‘person?’ is related to the Latin ?“per-sonare?’ which means ?‘to sound through.?’ To be a person is based not on what we are, or what we do, but who we are in relation to God, self, others, and the world.

It means to be in a relationship with another, by which the other sounds through one?’s life.?”