position. To avoid this state of affairs, God must allow himself to become involved with man's evolution with all man's evil, and that is bound to leave its mark on Him.
In fact it is bound to crucify him, literally in history, and metaphorically until the end of history. Crucifixion is what happens when personality gets involved with or endures the evil of other men, without allowing itself to become corrupted. If a man allows himself to become corrupted, everyone says, “It is rather nice that we are all friends again”; but the only result is that he has entered a thieves' kitchen, and no lasting oneness results. Lasting oneness is in reconciliation, as in the story of the Prodigal Son, because this is a oneness whose joy is ever present and everlasting. In a sense the whole of evolution in religious terms is a process of reconciliation, however much in the biological world it is a process of ramification. But reconciliation is between people, between personalities. Who knows what the future holds? Could the culmination of evolution be the flowering of man's personality? Would the last enemy then be defeated; would death be swallowed up in victory, as Isaiah predicted?
Whatever the future holds, it is sufficient to recognise personality as the ultimate reality in the present. The ultimate substance I suppose is diamond; the most perfect crystallographic structure, the hardest, and the most beautiful substance known. But how can inorganic matter compare in beauty with the mutual love and restored trust that reconciliation implies? We all know the kingdom of heaven when we see it; even if some people hate it.