De Chardin on the necessity of evil in a finite creation

For three decades I have actively pondered and written on the problem of evil and sin. We could sum it up this way: If God is so good, how come life is often so bad? This problem has no one single answer, and is addressed in several overlapping perspectives. But today I was again reading some of the writings of the scientist-theologian Teilhard De Chardin, and he helped me describe yet another perspective that has been bubbling up inside my prayer and meditation for a decade or more. Over 100 years ago, he wrote this:

“We often represent God to ourselves as being able to draw from non-being a world without sorrows, faults, dangers--a world in which there is no damage, no breakage. This is a conceptual fantasy, and makes it impossible to solve the problem of evil. No, we have to accept that in spite of his power God cannot obtain a creature united to himself without necessarily engaging in a struggle with some evil.” (Teilhard De Chardin, Christianity and Evolution: Reflections on Science and Religion, location 360)

In this, and the rest of the essay after this, I hear him saying the following:

The fullness of life, fullness of love, fullness of bliss are only possible within unlimited and infinite being (that reality we call “God”). For the infinite to create anything finite necessarily requires a limitation of life, love, and bliss (for finite means “limited”). And limiting capacity for life and love and bliss is inherently evil, because it means a struggle against non-life (that is death), against non-love (that is selfishness and apathy and hatred), and against non-bliss (that is pain). So for the infinite God to create anything that is not God (that is anything non-infinite) implies at least the possibility of evil. And yet, the only way non-God things can come into being to share in the life, love, and bliss of the infinite God is to be created: To be made actual in some world where they can experience autonomy and selfhood. 

Put another way: In any infinite spacetime, the only way to make any particular shape is to exclude everything that is not it. A perfect sphere or cube or pyramid would have to have definite and particular sides and surfaces which clearly differentiate them from all that is not them. And those sides and surfaces are precisely the place of struggle and confrontation and differentiation with all that is not them. They may be able to navigate those boundaries with eventual peace and harmony with what is outside them, but if they are finite in skill and knowledge, this will necessarily entail a struggle to get to that place of harmony. If this is true conceptually with very simple and perfect shapes which are static, how much more so in a spacetime filled with imperfect, growing, learning beings— like the beings we find in our world. If God is to make a world of such beings, it will necessarily entail a struggle with evil: With death and pain, selfishness and limitation, apathy and hatred. Until we all learn to navigate our boundaries and attain harmony within ourselves, with one another, and with our Creative Source. 

Thus any world where good is possible— Where creatures can attain the good of sharing in God’s life and love and purpose— is compatible with and reflective of the Goodness of God. A world where goodness was NOT possible would be one which God would be duty bound NOT to create. But then again, it is arguable such a world is a logical contradiction which would negate itself and cease to exist anyway. Therefore, it seems that God brings into being all worlds where each and every possible form of goodness can be actualized. And then God works within and suffers with each and all worlds to bring about that goodness, so that at the consummation of all possible space times, God will unite the joy of all of these forms of goodness into Godself forever. 

So while it is impossible for God to bring into being a finite reality in which pain and death and evil do not exist, it is possible for God to work with and suffer through every evil with us to bring about the fullness of every possible good. Is God then evil? No. God is the fullness of all Good. But is God then to blame for creating evil? Yes. Because to create any finite world to share Divine Love with means creating evil and struggle. What then does God do with God’s responsibility for evil? God allows Godself to be crucified with us, by the evil acts of God’s own creation, while God’s Spirit groans and grieves with creation, so that God’s life and love may strive and strain to bring about Good out of evil, and heal all of Creation at the consummation of all things.