Finally, after a long day in the lab, one kid had the guts to ask the question we were all wondering about. We had run a gel electrophoresis on a sample of DNA, and we were looking at the results, bands of DNA bunched together, trapped in the gel. “What does this say about us?” the kid asked. The scientist who was serving as our teacher gave an answer no one was expecting. “Oh no, you’ve been working with virus DNA today.” A few of us burst out in exhausted laughter. All that hard work and expectation, and we weren’t even doing what we thought we were doing. This happened when I was a kid taking a summer workshop at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab in Long Island, New York. One time, I even saw James Watson, who discovered the Double Helix Structure of DNA, give a talk there. But that day, working on those gels, shows something that J.R.R. Tolkien and Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, would both appreciate. Work happens in the context of a story, in the context of a narrative. We thought we were working on our own DNA, and that we would learn something about ourselves; that’s what was driving our work. Guiding narratives are very important, they provide not only context, but motivation. We probably wouldn’t have worked as hard or have been as interested if we had known that we were just working on some viral genes. Tolkien and Teilhard were both, in their own ways, masters of narrative. In different ways, they give us two alternative visions of the world, two contexts in which we can situate our efforts in life. They may not have yet been placed side by side, or framed as opposite sages of the modern age, but this is what I believe them to be. These are two men who faced the modern world, and found different solutions to it by creating narratives. Tolkien’s approach was one of creation and sub-creation, and Teilhard’s was one of evolution.
I think if you are like many people, you have found a kind of synthesis between your faith and evolution. But what is the nature of this synthesis of the Bible and evolution? I think that many people arrive at a view of the Bible which, to my knowledge, is not really stated in any specific theological school of thought. It amounts to “the earlier it is in the Bible, the more it is myth and not history.” Things like Genesis are thought to present a framework of meaning, but again and again, we hear the refrain “The Bible isn’t a science book.” Even more sophisticated presentations are made in which the literary genre is taken into account, and Genesis is seen as the ultimate refutation of falsehood in a mythic form, yet remains non-historical. It may be the myth to end all myths, but a myth it remains. Most people end up with a firm sense that Genesis is not to be taken historically, and get a mixed sense of Exodus, where some elements are seen as more or less historically accurate. Again, this is because of a sense that two things are true; the conclusions of modern evolutionary theory, and the conclusions of the ancient faith. This simple framework seems to make sense of these things in a basic way.
Yet, no one wants to die for this framework, and it doesn’t give direction to life. It isn’t something anyone would want to sing songs about. Thinking “the older books of the Bible are mythic truths, and the books get progressively real as you get toward the back cover” isn’t a great a guiding story. It is an uninspiring mutt of an idea, in which real solutions are posed in history to fictional or mythic problems. In contrast, the raw power of evolution, the inexorable march of progress from nothing to something, from matter to life, from life to humanity, and from humanity to something superhuman has in itself the seed of a great and guiding story. A story replete with death, struggle and destruction, and multiple inexplicable moments, but a story that gives direction. So does the ancient account of a world made by God, and two perfect first parents, who lost their perfect integrity of body, mind, and soul through a fateful choice, tasting death as a result. And the story of the God-Man who came to die instead, and share with all his divine life, so that all might be not only deathless, but partake forever in the dance of divine love, living here and hereafter as his Church. This too is a guiding story.
In these times, where newer stories are yet to be digested and older ones are doubted, there are some who have crafted stories that guide us. Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is one of them, and in his admittedly non-fictional works he sought, in a way, to wed the march of evolution to the logic of the incarnation of Christ. He made it into a new guiding narrative, a synthesis of both. Then there is J.R.R. Tolkien, whose admittedly fictional story serves as something of a moral and spiritual touchstone for many, even if they don’t believe in Christ. In a way, these two very different storytellers face up to the advances of the modern world by crafting two very different kinds of stories. Fr. Teilhard explicitly gave voice to a new guiding narrative of evolutionary Christianity, while Tolkien gave us a great literary work, an example of creation in action. Their stories, in a way, can help us to live in this modern world. They can become a way for us to face the facts, and ask the questions, and above all, to live with wonder and joy.
And one fact is that the world has changed; few believe in a very traditional model of creation and divine providence. Nearly everyone thinks that the universe and even the Earth it is exceptionally ancient. Nearly everyone thinks that all life evolved, even arising spontaneously out of non-living matter without divine intervention. But even though there is a consensus in the culture, we have to really and actually ask the question; has there been cosmological and biological evolution, or was the world created directly? Or was there some mixture of the two? In the time of Tolkien and Teilhard, the ideas of modern science might have actually seemed more powerful than they do today. This is because their dominance is now so complete and truth so unquestioned that, like a recognized champion fighter, they need only to stand up, and potential opponents cower in fear. In the day of Tolkien and Teilhard, there was probably more of a sense that modern ideas and discoveries were dealing apparent knockout punches to the traditional ideas of the origin of humanity and the universe. The modern ideas about the vast scope of the universe, its exceeding age, and the non-miraculous origin of life have totally saturated modern minds and are nearly unquestioned facts. And for people of faith, this dominance is accepted, and it the radical challenge of modern cosmology is downplayed. But in the times of Tolkien and Teilhard, I think it would be safe to say, that at least in some minds, there was a sense that this new conception of the cosmos posed a powerful challenge to faith. Fr. Teilhard himself noted the problem of this new vastness of the universe in his own writings. He astutely realized that in this evolving cosmos, a person of faith needed to find how to keep Christ at the center, and Fr. Teilhard did so by recontextualizing creation and redemption as the evolutionary process. This might be an oversimplification of the material he presented to the world, but it remains the substance of the narrative he offered. He offered a spiritualized evolution to the world, restoring a type of Christian meaning to a world in which people could no longer believe in creation. That is the work of Teilhard, one of the sages who gives us a way forward through the modern age. The work of Tolkien, in bringing us Middle Earth, of reworking the hero’s quest with Christian values, of crafting the languages of elves and imaginary nations, is much more well-known. It is not an explicit position taken in favor of creationism and tradition against the modern world, but a vital practice of creativity itself, under the assumption of a Creator. Teilhard was a sage of evolution, and Tolkien, one of creation.
Evolution does seem like a heavyweight champion of an idea. Smart people believe in it because there are similarities between species, and these is an overall logic and coherence to it, as long as all the elements of the theory are true. Nevertheless, perhaps the main problem is the thing that fuels the whole process, the mechanism of mutation and natural selection. Finding a problem with this mechanism would be akin to finding out that a champion fighter took steroids, and his power was something inflated beyond its normal bounds. Even the simple question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, is utterly baffling if really contemplated from the standpoint of natural selection. Would anything less than a fully-developed egg have been effective at sheltering an embryo? If the slightest thing is wrong with the egg, it would not function. What about the clotting ability of blood? How would this ability have developed? Would not anything less than a full, or at least adequate clotting ability have led to death? It is now known that the famous experiment that made us all think that cells could have spontaneously arisen in a kind of chemical soup has serious flaws. It is a simple fact that nothing resembling a cell comes from the chemicals now thought to compose the early atmosphere. The fact that Darwin’s finches never became anything other than a finch is not even noticed, and new studies that reveal interbreeding between these species, and fluctuating beak sizes over time, reveal that many of the birds cannot be considered to even be different species, any more than dog breeds can be thought of as different kinds of animal. Most other textbook supports to macroevolutionary ideas fall to similar simple refutations from the progress of science. Nevertheless, it is this apparent evidence for evolution, and explanatory power of evolution which compels textbook authors to continue to present this narrative, and drives deep thinkers like Fr. Teilhard to integrate it into their faith in a pervasive way. However, if we can see serious problems posed by science to the evolutionary narrative, then we can wonder again about the unthinkable. I myself can no longer honestly think that evolution occurred in light of an in-depth review of the evidence that was shown to me in high school and even college biology classes. Many, from Dr. Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, to Hugh Owen of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, have raised questions, and forged coherent opposing perspectives to evolutionary orthodoxy.
But Tolkien also has something to say, if not in terms of some scientific or philosophical statement, but in his life of creativity itself. Tolkien didn’t only see God as creator, but lived his life in the enjoyment of what he seems to have understood as a principle of sub-creation. His work of making a fantasy world was an act of worship of the one who made the world, and made Tolkien himself. Tolkien’s world is one that is essentially, top-down and created by God, whereas Fr. Teilhard’s is one that is bottom-up, rising toward God. It is possible for an agile mind to try to synthesize these two views, but such a synthesis is only needed if many of the scientific challenges to evolution, which are not public knowledge and against public opinion, can be dismissed. This may not prove to be as easy as many science textbooks would have us believe. After reading many of the clear critiques of most of the evidence presented for evolution, I can join the ranks of those scientists who see biological, mathematical, not to mention philosophical and theological, flaws in the theory. And depending on whether or not we think that macroevolution is true, it is clear that we must make a choice between Tolkien and Teilhard.
There is a real way that, because of the differences in presentation of their elegant narratives, and the seeming necessity of some kind of synthesis with evolution, that a sensitive thinker could draw upon both the fantasy world of Tolkien, and the evolutionary worldview of Teilhard, without perceiving the contradictions. After all, this is perhaps merely a way living out of the tacit tension, the secretly uneasy truce that already exists in between faith and evolution in most minds. Nevertheless, this essay has been an attempt to cast Tolkien and Teilhard as what I believe them to be; two irreconcilable visionaries, to heralds of two new kinds of spirituality for a new world. If evolution is true, then Teilhard is true, if creation is true then Tolkien is true. This has not been a systematic attempt to showcase the evidence for and against macroevolution, nor has it been a systematic presentation of the ideas of either thinker. It is merely a point of departure, a call to further inquiry, a signpost on the way. It is a proclamation that we ought to see that Tolkien and Teilhard are opposite options. Aside from their deep acquaintance with war, the fact that they reacted to the modern age, and the way in which they posed great narratives to humanity, there is very little similarity between them. Tolkien veiled his views under the cloak of story, Teilhard proposed a new global narrative into which all could enter.
It is my hope that this essay has drawn attention to the uneasy synthesis between the guiding narrative of faith, and the guiding narrative of evolution. But above all, it is my hope that this essay reveals Tolkien as something of a unique spiritual teacher for our times. Tolkien maintained that he hated allegory, and favored a kind of applicability of his writings to various situations. Nevertheless, this applicability has not yet been taken in the sense that his writings can be seen as a treasure of faith and not just literature. They are not taken as seriously as they might be as containing blueprints for a life based in a kind of creativity, and rejoicing in life. This is what I believe that they can be for our time. As we have seen, his characters, at least those whom we would wish to emulate, reveal a kind of creative approach to life. They sing songs, even in the midst of great trials and challenges. They hum and muse as they are going about their lives in a kind of creative celebration. The is a sense of whimsy which matches their wisdom, and purifies it. All work and no play may make not only a dull boy, but a servant of evil.
In the end, we can realize that Tolkien and Teilhard were both sages of wonder, trying to reenchant a world that had lost its way. Tolkien was a messenger of Fantasy Catholicism, while Teilhard was a herald of a Science-Fiction Catholicism. Teilhard lived a life which contained creative effort and adventure, traveling the world, often on paleontological digs associated with evolution. He was known to wonder at the miracle of life in the smallest of creatures and in matter itself. But what if his wonder was misplaced, such that in all his astute view of all things, he had found something that was merely strange and surprising, rather than wholesome and wonderful? There is a difference in what could be called ‘warmth’ between science fiction and fantasy, and this same difference of warmth is apparent in the kind of wonder at life to which we are invited by each of these sages.
We must choose which kind of wonder we wish to embrace, and what work we are to do in light of that wonder. This essay began in a lab, with a kid asking, concerning the results of an experiment “What does this say about us?” Perhaps the fact that Tolkien and Teilhard, the voice of Fantasy Faith and the voice of Science Fiction Faith are both storytellers can itself help decide which one of them was closer to the truth. We can reflect on which one of them had a worldview that was consistent with the simple fact that each of them was a storyteller. Does creation or evolution better explain the need for a guiding narrative? If we see Tolkien and Teilhard as sub-creators, organizing things into new syntheses, and recognize in them the human inability to live without the sweep of a great story, does this not reveal something of the shape of their human hearts? Does this not reveal them as sub-creators? Does this not make it somewhat unlikely that such beings are products of an unguided march of evolution, but rather, storytellers made in the image of the great Author of life? In the end, I think it is Tolkien who calls us into a world of true wonder, and makes the most sense of our need for narrative. Tolkien and Teilhard are two sages of the modern age, but I believe that it is in mining the spiritual riches of Tolkien’s work, that we will find an authentic path forward as sub-creators for Christ.