Ilia Delio: A Cyborg Christian on the God Revolution We Need Now

Sounds True: Insights at the Edge - Tami Simon

Sister Ilia Delio explores a radical vision of Christianity intertwined with science, evolution, and consciousness, framing God as an evolving process of wholeness rather than a static deity. She emphasizes human partici

Key takeaways

• God is not a being but an evolving process of wholeness

Transcript preview

The Sounds True True Podcast Network. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Sister Eilia Delio. Sister Eilia is a Franciscan sister of Washington, D.C. who in her teaching work brings together a synthetic coherence of science and religion and offers a vision, a startling and my sense, and of human becoming. She's a trained scientist and theologian who holds the Josephine C. Connolly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University. She's also the founder of the Center for Christo Genesis and the recipient of two honorary doctorate degrees and the author of over 20 books including the not yet God, Carl Young, Tylhard Deschardane. and the relational whole, a book on re-enchanting the Earth, why AI needs religion, and her memoir, Check out this title, Birth of a Dancing Star, My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian. She's someone I think of as a person of the future who's here now, right here now with us. Friends, Hi friends I want to tell you about Omega Institute an organization that I think of like an older sister to sounds true an older sister who happens to have a 250 acre lakefront campus less than two hours north of New York City I call Omega a we share so much philosophical DNA, a shared vision of how personal growth and social change are interconnected and how we aim to awaken the best in the human spirit. Omega is located in upstate New York's beautiful Hudson Valley, but it's more than just a peaceful retreat to nature. It's a global gathering hub for lifelong learning and and deep spiritual exploration. They offer weekend workshops, special events, rest and rejuvenation retreats, professional trainings, and more. I'll be back later in the episode to share more about specific programs coming up this summer. You can also learn more at eomega.org, slash true. That's the letter e-omega. Sounds True has a new podcast. But it's going to feel like something you already know. Because we're finding some of our favorite transformational moments from Insights at The Edge. And bringing them back to you every week. I'm Chris Rock. And I'm Mallory Corbin. We're producers here at the Sounds True Podcast Network. And we're the co-host for a new podcast called Just One Question. Each week we're going to bring you just one question that Tammy Simon has asked a guest on Insights at The Edge. along with their insightful answer. These are moments that changed how we think or just really spoke to us on a deeper level. So we want to share them with you. We hope you'll join us for just one question wherever you listen to Insights at the Edge or at sounds true.com. been thrilling for me to immerse myself in it. And I've learned a lot of new ideas and concepts, and I wanted to start with one of those, which is the center you have founded, the center for Christo Genesis. I'd never heard of that term before. Can we start there? Sure. Yeah, yeah, it's a term that's actually relevant for the work of Teard-de-Jur-M, the Jesuit. palelyontologist who was a Jesuit priest and really devoted his career to bridging science and religion. Basically he kind of rewrote the contours of Christianity through the lens of evolution. And this term Christogenesis can carry baggage for those who are brought up in traditional Catholicism or Christianity, but what Teard really is, vision was that the evolution is moving towards greater complexity and unity. Something is forming within this process of life. And this is something that actually recent scientists recently have noted as well that we're just becoming more like one big person, you know, like as if the whole Cosmos is one big person in formation, like transpersonal formation. And so, Christo Genesis really refers to to that. formation, that formative process, where divinity and materiality and spirituality are all kind of interwoven in this emerging body of life. I wanted to understand more when you talk about increasing complexity, complexity and consciousness, what does that actually mean increasing complexity? Yeah, right, that's, well you know, it's interesting. I mean, we've had Newton's laws of thermodynamics for quite a while. And scientists in the 20th century realize that we know that energy is neither created or destroyed but transferred from one form to another, which is the first law. And second law is that energy is entropy is increasing. Like so, so anytime you do something, you know, energy is released. So it's dissipative energy. Basically, our universe is such and biological systems are such that that dis- of energy in order to preserve it is taken up in new forms. More complexified refers to what I would just call simply the intensity of relationships. So things break down, but new things form, basically. And the formation is more unified because it preserves energy in a more consolidated way, and therefore it's more resilient to, you know, to break down. So, complexity. refers to very shorthand life is all about you know is up is always on the side of life so even though things break down something new is always breaking through and therefore I take complex well not only me but I mean scientists are beginning to take complexity as the fourth law of session next to Darwin's natural selection and survival of the fittest and now they're like well yeah it's not just like you know surviving thriving, you know, so you actually, you know, you just get up and you find new ways to do new things with others. And that's what complexity is about. It's about joining together, intensifying relationships, building communities of resilience, and converging energy, and it's always moving to life. If you were to bring that into practical language for people for a moment and out of the sort of theoretical physics. of complexity and into we are living in such a way to honor greater complexity. What would that mean? You know, I think, Tammy, very simply, because we can't do it alone. We need one another, right? So I think of it as living in the openness to real relationship. I mean, I'm going to put it that simply. And that is, not isolating ourselves or closing ourselves off. the relationships with nature, with one another, even within our own self. And here I think, I think from a Jungian perspective, I think part of the complexity movement is really invested in that process of individuation, becoming a whole person. And therefore I think it is that not refusing to live in the isolated self and opening up to the beginning. relational self and then entering into those relationships wherever those relationships are opened out to us. As I was engaging with your work, Ilia, and I mentioned I was getting so excited and thrilled and enthralled as I was reading. I was thinking of myself, why is this so important to me? Why do I care so much? What's going on inside? And I think it had to do with a sense of human purposefulness. in our lives that matters that we can contribute to the whole and I think that was part of your writing in the not yet God. We complete God and God completes us and what I'd love to hear more about is how might we quote-on-quote complete God. Right. I think from you know I think traditional religion has God as his supernatural guy in the sky, you know, this male god who he's watching over us, etc. And that's just a myth and now it's just a bad myth, you know. It just is an import from Greek metaphysical thinking, but the word God is really pointing to, it comes from an ancient Sanskrit word meaning white or consciousness, you know. I mean in this way I think the Eastern religions are much closer to what that word God is actually named. And so, God is the name of the ultimate ground, you know, in a sense, it's that pull within us. You know, we don't have to name it as God, but we just know it. But we know that there's something within us that is pulling us onto more life even when things break down. And it's like, I'm here with you, you know, it's a feeling of, um, when we, in a sense, feel a lot, alone. It's where we have lost sight of that attentiveness to that presence. I think God is the name of presence within us. Divine presence, meaning the overflow of life. That's what divinity means. It's the transcendence or the overflow. Life itself is not completely contained in us. It is embodied in us, but it pulls us onto more life. And therefore I think that overflow of life is what we're always seeing. seeking. We are transcendent beings. We're always in the more. You know, we're never satisfied quite honestly. It's like, here we are. You know, it's good, but there's more. And that's what this questing for life and what the name God is, God is, God is the mornness in a sense of life at the heart of life. And then God, the name itself really points of that wholeness that we, the mornness for the wholeness, but that wholeness is still in formation as we're a formation. And so God is what is in a sense empowering us, pulling us and lowering us toward that wholeness of life. So God, as we have, you know, as this name has been passed down through the ages, is that wholeness that seeks to become actualized in us and where we in a sense make a difference to God is that God is just an idea, a possibility and without the actuality where the responsiveness to that possibility, like I can feel pull to something, but I then have to make a choice in that direction and therefore I actualize what that pull can mean for me. And that's where God either becomes alive in us or dead, you know, in other words, we can enhance this, this of course of life, which to me is what the name of God is. Or we can, we can reject it. We can just say, well, that's just say, well, does it's just don't. here. And so I think this God is always, in fact, there are many writers throughout from the 19th century through the plays would say, the whole process of evolution is really God seeking self-definition in us. Like God is seeking to find God's own identity in us. Like, we always think we're asking who are we, but God is asking, who am I? And so I think we have the God question kind of wrong. And I think actually, If we don't understand that what we are, what God is, are two sides of the same coin. I think it's why we have a lot of problems today in our culture and society. We have a God problem. And I think waking up to the fact that we have a divine dimension, like we have an overflow, a transcendent dimension and the grounds of that tumultuous, we're going to call God. So we don't even own our own divine dimension. We're like, no, that's no way that can't be made. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm And you know, you know, are in other words you're just not like a fraction of the universe you are the entire you are the whole you are the absolute whole in this particular way and and therefore I think the human person has been so undermined in our capacity to not only live homeless but to to express it in a particular way and that's the beauty I think of human life or of life itself or the particular is just that wholeness of life that's seeking to become the wholeness of life in us. Is there some place of completion in the way you view our human becoming and getting to know God and the whole through us? Is there an end point? But you know, if you end this idea of the omega, you know, that. And I think we are always... put this over. We're always amagizing. We're always in a sense coming into that homeless. I don't think and I think actually the the quest for goals like will I arrive you know in my wholeness. I think we have to set that aside for the arrival is in the living of this moment this day in the wholeness of all that I am. I think we have to set that aside for the arrival is in the living of this moment this day in the wholen of all that I am. I think is itself an arrival in a departure. And I would look at that even in Tayard's omega as it's like a spiral. We're always building up more, it could be persisted on this journey. So I don't think we will arrive like in a linear way. I think we arrive in the fullest of our consciousness, the fullest of our being. And that's what we're called to do. We're called to live at the fullest of love, the fullest of awareness. And I think, you know that process of awareness. And I think that process of that process of is always that you know that journey into into the fullness of the now I do think the journey is in the now and the now is always opening to tomorrow you know so you know I'm not gonna wait till I you know maybe learn everything correctly and then become you know into that omega wholeness I'm going to do all that I can now you know in this moment live in that fullness so to answer you I don't think there's any arrival. I think there's always an arrival and a departure even as this earthly life, you know, terminates and we open up into infinite or eternal life, whatever