Fall Book Week: Ray Temmerman on William G. Joseph

An Evolutionary Biography of God:
Christianity in a World of Science
By William G. Joseph
Acheson AB/Amazon, 2024
$12.00   188 pp.

In An Evolutionary Biography of God, William G. Joseph, a priest, physicist, and computer scientist, brings his faith, his knowledge of science, and his logic to bear on the myths of Sacred Scripture. In the process, he skewers many of the interpretations and understandings we have of those myths. It quickly becomes clear, however, that he does so not with a view to destroying the myths. Rather, he invites readers to a deeper, richer sense of the myths, indeed of faith in a God of infinite love and mercy within the world as we have come to know it through the lens of science. The result is a book which makes Christ and Christianity more inviting, more credible to people of today. It may well do the same for Judaism, from which the myths stem as people sought to understand their experiences within the science known at the time.

Throughout the book, the word Creator is used to describe the One we refer to as God. In so doing, Joseph ties the work of God to all created being. In this, he is careful not to speak of “the Creator” as an object or identifier (as we would speak of “the plumber” or “the painter”), but simply as “Creator,” the One who is fully Subject.

As world religions have developed along various paths, Joseph here has limited himself to Christianity, and within that to the denomination which encompasses half of the world’s Christians, Catholicism. The development of doctrine is a key point. Joseph does not denigrate the understanding of earlier peoples and cultures. Rather, he points out that they worked with whatever scientific worldview they had, using their lens to transmit to us an image whereby we can “see” God and God’s work. He asks us to use our contemporary scientific and psychological lenses to delve into these same myths, explore them, and develop modifications in our doctrines to match the scientific lens we now have. At the same time, he insists that we allow ourselves, even demand of ourselves, that we develop our doctrines as science develops to reflect our future lenses. This will be a significant challenge for those who believe that all questions have been answered, and all that remains is simply to live in consonance with what we have learned through yesterday’s lens.

Through this book, Joseph moves the reader from the paradigm of a God-demanded “necessary sin of Adam,” throwing the world into chaos with its requirement for redemption, to one of an act of creation which contains within itself an evolutionary process intended to lead us, however slowly, to an awareness of and capacity for a relationship of love with the One who is source and summit of all.

Joseph explores personhood with all of its implications, its capacity for awareness and choice, its call to work not only for the rights of other persons, but for the well-being of all that Creator has brought forward. Along the way, he focuses on the life of Jesus, a man who lived as authentically human and in doing so revealed the image of God who is Creator of all, lover of all. His death becomes, then, not the vehicle for salvation, but evidence of the lengths Creator will go to show us the way forward, to bring us into full union with each other and with Itself.

While richly challenging, the book has its shortcomings. There are numerous typos, some small, others egregious (Whales for “Wales,” infantry narrative for “infancy narrative,” both due to the “help” of AutoCorrect), indicating the author could do with a good editor. There are also times where further clarity would be welcome, as several sentences hang together with a sense that one can “almost” see what Joseph is trying to say. A second edition may well be called for, with some additional focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ—though the focus on the life of Jesus is a welcome antidote to a hyper-spiritualization of the Mass and the Eucharistic elements.

This book is a welcome call to a new way of exploring Scripture through the eyes of contemporary science, and an ongoing development of Christian doctrine and dogma in light of those explorations. As Joseph says, “[W]hen new discoveries or insights impact a religious dogma, a new theory might be appropriate. Until such time as the new theory can be demonstrated as inappropriate, it should be freely open for discussion and investigation. What we are in search of is a mature and adult understanding of God in the 21st century. So let’s begin.” ♦

Ray Temmerman (Catholic), with his wife Fenella (Anglican), administers the website of the Interchurch Families International Network. A former Board member of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC), he continues to conduct research into the place of interchurch families and the gift they bring to their churches and the Church.

Image: Tyler Domingue / Unsplash