Is the extinction of humanity part of God's plan for the evolution of the Cosmos? You and I might be nothing more than a gracious blimp in history...

My friend Gus posed a very interesting question in his blog. He asked : What if this is the only shot at life - ever? This is his post -

Reading some time ago about the amazing co-operation of factors that went together to give us the opportunity at life on earth, I wondered: What if this was the only shot at life ever (for all things living)? What if in the whole universe there was no other planet that produced sentient beings at all? (Which as far as we know is the case...)

Imagine how we would have wasted this opportunity if all we did for all our years was fight with and harm one another?

Here's my response to him:

Hi Gus,

This is a very astute observation! In fact, I think that you're right, this IS the ONLY shot that we have at this KIND of life ever! Now, I'm not talking about a pious afterlife... What I'm talking about is something MUCH MORE RADICAL!

Have you ever considered that perhaps human beings are not the end (the telos) of God's creative activity? Certainly, the God I know does not place humans at the centre of the cosmos - no, he places the Cosmic Christ at the centre of the cosmos. That God even notices us, and even gives us a single shot at life is a gracious miracle.

No, I think that perhaps we are part of what stops the world from reaching the true potential for which God has created it! So, perhaps we need to be made extinct for it to reach that purpose... Maybe not.....

But, the one thing that we need to learn is the WE are not the Alpha and the Omega... We're just a blip somewhere in the middle.

Jumbled thoughts, I know... I did record them much more articulately (and with a little bit of scientific and theological research) in a paper I had published a few years ago.

You can read, and download, the paper here.

It is called a posthuman evolutionary cosmology... I got quite a lot of criticism for it... However, I think the central argument is still quite sound... Christ is the centre, the goal, and the true aim, of the Universe... We are just an expression of God's gracious love along the way.

So, what do you think? This is not exactly the kind of thing you want to preach on a Sunday.... Heck, how 'seeker sensitive' do you think this will be!!? But, it may be something for us to consider in terms of theology, i.e., placing Christ at the centre and moving humans to margins?

Technorati tags: Teilhard, Cosmos, evolution, extinct