Theistic Evolution (TE) is the view that God used darwinian evolution as His chosen method of the creation of life (including human life) in its amazing variety. According to this view we are all related, being descended from the most primitive of life forms. God may have interacted with the process or He may have set up the process in the beginning. It is a matter of divided opinion among supporters of TE. Evolution is not a theory as to how life got started in the first place but it prophecies that, one day, there will be such a scientific theory.

Theistic evolutionists (TEs) claim that evolution is just a widely accepted scientific theory as to how life on earth developed with no metaphysical overtones either atheistic or or theistic.

Even though Darwin and others may have claimed that they had no metaphysical axe to grind. Some of its supporters did see in the theory clear metaphysical implications and a definite moral stance.

When its whole significance dawns on you, your heart sinks into a heap of sand within you. There is a hideous fatalism about it, a ghastly and damnable reduction of beauty and intelligence, of strength and purpose, of honour and aspiration.[i]

Or we can rejoice in the meaninglessness of life - and allow the strong to eliminate the weak as in the quote of H. G. Wells who revelled in the ruthlessness of nature: He said:

And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black? . . the yellow man? . . the Jew? . . those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go. . . .

And the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system which will dominate the world state, will be shaped primarily to favour the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity—beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds. . . .

And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness . . . is death. . . .

The men of the New Republic . . . will have an ideal that will make the killing worth the while.[ii]

So I should begin this chapter by summarising various world-views which dominate much of the world today.

This view regards only the material or 'natural' as real so that the non-material, such as God, does not exist. However difficult it is to find a material explanation for the origin of life, such an explanation must be sought because all reality can only have a material explanation. In this view suffering and death – intrinsic to evolution - are just the way things are and there is no prospect for any long term change.

One of the main problems for materialism is that nobody knows what the materiasl is and the stuff we so easily take for granted is a complete mystery. Quantum Theory illustrates the point that just because science has found a materialist explanation for something, we have not eliminated the non-material. Saying something has a material explanation does not get rid of mystery. For what is matter? Although we assume some people know what they are talking about, no-one, as is said above, knows what matter is. If everything is made of molecules, what are they made of? - Atoms? But what are they made of? Electrons and quarks? No-one know what they are. We know how they behave but what they are remains a mystery. If matter is made of particles what are they made of? If matter is a wave or force, it is a wave or force in what medium? Leibniz in using similar reasoning said matter is made of non-material entities. Although we should be surprised by quantum theory, I don't think we should be surprised that we are surprised.

I close this small section with a quote from Bertrand Russell.

Nothing whatever in theoretical physics enables us to say anything about the intrinsic character of events. … All that physics gives us is certain equations, giving abstract properties of their changes. But as to what it is that changes, and what it changes from and to – as to this, physics is silent.[iii]

The physical world is considered part of the divine. It is not a creation of God but part of his eternal being. All physical reality is sacred. The divine is simply the spiritual dimension of the physical. The Divine drives the Physical, bringing its purpose to fruition. Some kind of evolution can be fitted into this world-view but no hope for a better future can be, because the whole process keeps repeating itself for ever. There is no ending to suffering and death.

This is the opposite world-view holding that God created matter and energy and then let them follow their own path. So in this view there was only one Creation event with all the subsequent properties of life working themselves out according to an ingenious foreordained plan. There is no continuing involvement by God in His Creation. His only involvement with Creation is confined to the spiritual realm not the physical realm. Denis Alexander strongly claims that he is not a deist because he accepts the miracles of Christ and others too. On examining his claim about belief in miracles, one notices that he does accept the miracles of redemption but not the series of Divine inputs as recorded in Genesis. Evolution with all its suffering and death can be fitted into this world-view but not the goodness of God, because suffering and death become the way He created the world. If His creation is pronounced 'good' then there can be no hope for a world created by God, which does not contain suffering and death.

Dualism

The physical world is considered negatively in relation to the divine. It is either unreal; a mere shadow of the eternal; or evil. It is something from which to escape by the practice of religion. In this view there is no physical existence beyond this world, because the physical only brings suffering and ignorance.

This is the biblical world-view. The physical world is considered positively in relation to the divine. The physical world was created by God, separate from him. Unlike the pantheistic view above it is not part of the divine. God gave it its own independent rational structure. He regards his creation as good and loves it. Although the physical creation has been negatively affected by human sin, the physical and the spiritual still belong together and are fully re-united in Christ's resurrection and ascension, when the physical will be liberated from all suffering and death.

This means that the eternal world of heaven and the physical world are related. At the end of time the New Jerusalem comes from heaven to earth and God's dwelling place is with his people. There is both continuity and discontinuity between this world and the new creation. God does not merely destroy this world and start his creation all over again but creates the new from the old.

Thus sometimes the Bible speaks of a ‘new’ world and sometimes of this old world reformed. They are both aspects of a deeper truth.

The new creation involves a breaking in by God into the old creation. So in the resurrection of Jesus we see that it is the same Jesus who died who is then raised, yet there is something fundamentally different about him. He is no longer confined by the space-time of this world and is not always recognised by his disciples. The resurrection of Jesus is not just the miraculous resuscitation of a corpse, nor is it an entirely new Jesus. The tomb is empty and he is raised in a 'spiritual body' incorruptible and full of glory.

In this model there is a clear interaction between the physical and the spiritual but they nevertheless remain distinct from one another. This means that we should highly value the physical world and physical life (however short). God loves the physical and so should we.

This is a religious view which shares the biblical view that God created the physical world distinct from himself.

However its view of the relation between the physical world and the spiritual world of paradise is very different from that of the Bible.

In this Islamic view there is no continuity between the life of this world and the life of heaven. This can lead to the view that this life is of little value because it is infinitely shorter than the everlasting life that follows. Several times, followers of that religion have told me that this life, being finite in length, is of little importance - other than being the place where it is decided that we live in submission to God or not.

Fear of hell is very real among people of this religion. In Christianity we are warned of the reality of hell too. However, in Christianity this is balanced by the belief that God dearly loves the sinner and does not will that any go to hell. On the contrary God, in his grace, bears our sins in Christ and gives us forgiveness and a new life. If we finally go to hell it will be because we resisted and refused God's love for us. However where there is no corresponding confidence in the love of God for the sinner, fear dominates. Some preachers of this religion actually teach that God hates the sinner.

This leads to people spending their life worrying whether or not God will accept him/her and this can easily lead to a religious fanaticism as s/he desperately attempts to justify him/herself before God.

There is no need to try to reconcile darwininian evolution with the Biblical world-view because all sensible arguments of science and philosophy show that it didn’t happen. All that Denis Alexander does is argue that micro-evolution happened and that some creatures developed into other creatures that cannot breed with the young of their distant ancestors.. Assuming he is right, one cannot extrapolate from that that all species have descended from a common ancestor so that they are all related to one another. Macro-evolution is an assumption that dominates much thinking but is without foundation. There is no evidence how completely new limbs and organs developed. In fact there is much evidence that they did not develop but merely appeared. Here is a quotation from Bertrand Russell which illustrates the fallacy of making such an extrapolation:

An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet. (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, volume 8, page 62 line 19.)

I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. I think I spoke to you before about this age as one of the most credulous in history, and I would include evolution as an example. (The End of Christendom, But Not of Christ (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980), pp. 4-5.)

God s desire is that all of creation which was very good be saved. Thus, redemption stretches beyond humans to the natural world which God also loves. This is illustrated from the Old and New Testaments in the following verses: Matthew 10, Rom 8, Psalm 98, Rev. 21 and 22, Isaiah 11.

29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

4 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
5 Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody!
6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!

7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who dwell in it!
8 Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
9 before the Lord, for he comes
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servant will worship him.

6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.

However we interpret Genesis 1, it is clear that not only was its spiritual dimension purposed by God but so was its physical dimension. So often, some Biblical interpreters who have wanted to hold to the doctrine of macro-evolution have made the claim that Genesis 1 is spiritual and not physical. In other words they hold to a version of Dualism. Such a belief is contradicted by the Incarnation which holds the physical and the spiritual together in unity.

Suffering and death in this creation is seen as an alien intrusion, not a means purposed by God to bring humans to being Suffering and death, in this view come from Satan and/or the sin of humankind .

The Creation which we experience now is to be replaced by a New Creation which contains none of these evil things. It is difficult to reconcile evolution with a Creation which is alleged to have formed itself through suffering and death of those not strong enough to survive like us.

The idea that the old creation contained elements from God which led to suffering and death to those very creatures that God had created and declared ‘very good’ goes right against this Biblical teaching.

Survival of the fittest goes right against the known reality that we should help the needy and weak. Yet it is alleged to be the engine of evolution.

The New Creation is continuous with the old as well as discontinuous. Thus the Old Creation ,before the advent of evil must have exhibited God’s character as a Loving being. Our care for animals is commanded in the following text and thus shows something of the care of God.

Jonah 4:10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labour, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

One significant difficulty for those who try to reconcile evolution and the Bible is that Darwinian evolution does not allow that there is a hierarchy of life within the natural world. Natural selection ensures that each species is best adapted to survive and thrive within its own environment but it cannot ascribe a special significance to humanity. If evolution were true we would all be human-animal hybrids. The Bible on the other hand describes man and woman as the pinnacle of God’s creative work. This obviously includes him/her as a physical being not just a spiritual being. Humans are seen as both special and different to the other life forms and are given dominion over them. The greatest demonstration of this special nature of man is seen in Christ taking on himself human flesh and laying down his life at Calvary as Redeemer.

Man is identified in the Scriptures as being created in the image of God. Theologians wrestle with this concept, attempting to understand exactly what this means and there are several different views normally posited. However, there is no dissent from the view that the Bible declares man as unique within creation. This was not the position of Charles Darwin. His friend and mentor, Charles Lyell, debated the issue with him. Lyell could not accept that man was descended from beasts in the same way that other organisms had evolved, though he supported much of Darwin’s theory.

If Christians are to embrace evolution they must have an evolutionary theory that ascribes a special significance to humanity and recognises the primacy of mankind within the evolutionary framework or else they must impose this special nature on to man apart from evolution. Denis Alexander finds the special nature of humanity, not in the evolutionary process but in the intervention of God. He argues that the image of God is not imparted to Homo sapiens through evolution but by a special revelation to a particular couple, Adam & Eve, and this revelation makes them Homo divinus. In other words he sees God's image as only spiritual.

The issue of man’s special position before God also requires that those embracing evolution explain why humans will not evolve into a different species. The alternative is to explain how this new species fits into the eternal purposes of God that are identified in the Bible. While there are wide ranging eschatological interpretations they all concern themselves with the eternity of humanity not its extinction.

When Christians embrace evolution it is usually with a conviction that this is the vehicle God has used to bring about the variety of life on our planet. It seems perfectly plausible to them that God set natural laws in place and chose this process for the development of life. However, this scenario raises numerous problems. Darwinian evolution does not allow any external direction. Natural selection working on random mutations is what gives force to the evolutionary process. Although the mutation mechanism was not known in Darwin’s day, the chance element was clearly emphasised and it was this that Asa Gray found so objectionable about Darwin’s position. He urged Darwin to acknowledge design and refuted the randomness that Darwin championed.

If God is immanent in his creation then to what degree is He directing the process of evolution? Darwin withstood any notion of divine direction, not least because of much of the deleterious stuff that he had observed. He could not attribute such activity or design to a benevolent God. Theists mostly believe in the immanence of God. They do not subscribe to the concept of a deity who started a process of creation that they are now uninvolved in. This is a concept that Darwin would not dismiss but he totally refused to accept the immanence of God in the process of evolution. This was his great idea – natural selection not God explained the development of all life on earth!

Alexander repeatedly asserts the immanence of God in every aspect of life and this, of course, is in line with orthodox evangelical theology but it is in direct contradiction to Darwin’s theory of evolution. To embrace evolution and Christianity you must reconcile natural selection with the immanence of God. It is not sufficient to simply assert that both are true. The originator of natural selection believed them to be mutually exclusive. Stephen Jay Gould held to the view (widely supported by the scientific community) that if the whole process of evolution was to start again it is highly improbable that you would end up with the same result. Alexander is challenging that view because it cannot be reconciled to his theology. Any theology that embraces evolution must explain, at some level, how God is directing the process of natural selection and this explanation must make clear how natural selection can then still be considered to be natural selection

The Church seeks not only to declare the Gospel to a lost world but also to offer support, comfort and insight to people dealing with the issues of life. Pastors spend a great deal of time in hospitals, in the homes of the bereaved, at funeral services and with people in crises seeking to apply the truth of God’s loving care in difficult times. However, if Christianity is to embrace evolution we must consider what the most appropriate way forward will be in offering help and counsel to those who are hurting.

Traditionally, counsel and comfort have been expressed in the context of a fallen world that was not God’s design and where death is our enemy which Jesus Christ came into the world to confront and overcome in order that it might ultimately be destroyed. If, however, the invasion of evil had no impact on the natural order and sickness, suffering and death are the chosen order of God to develop life, our pastoral message needs to change significantly. It is also highly questionable whether or not Church ministers are best placed to give this support. Surely scientists, who properly understand evolutionary theory would be better equipped to explain to grieving relatives the reason for the demise of their six year old. As elderly parents lie dying in agony from wasting diseases should we be explaining the evolutionary advance that may one day come from the deleterious mutations that their body is now suffering?

Evil in the world is understood very differently by evolutionary theorists than it is by those committed to the supremacy of Scripture. The Bible teaches that Christ came into the world to destroy the works of the evil one. This is demonstrated in the ministry of Jesus as he heals those who are afflicted by disease and sickness showing his power and the nature of a kingdom that is to come. According to Jesus the “thief comes to kill and destroy” but according to Darwin it is evolution that kills and destroys. According to those urging Christians to embrace evolution this killing and destruction is the design of God for the development of life.

There is much more to embracing evolution than suggesting different ways of interpreting the creation passages of Scripture. A clear understanding of the theory is essential in order to fully appreciate its implications and a commitment to the supremacy of Scripture will not allow you to embrace any aspect of evolution that compromises the key themes of the Biblical text.

Sociobiology: An alternative way of understanding human behaviour and morality

The term ‘sociobiology’ was defined by Edward O Wilson in Sociobiology: The New Synthesis as the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviour. The study emphasises natural selection as the main factor responsible for our behaviour. Wilson expounds this further in his later book, Consilience.[iv]

Natural selection has its own values (if it helps survival and breeding it is good; if not, not) and it cannot support any other values. It therefore cannot explain morality, which has its own, different values. Wilson himself wrote on p3 of Sociobiology that the central theoretical problem of sociobiology was ‘how can altruism … evolve by natural selection?’ The answer he gave was ‘kinship’. However, there is much more to morality than the kind of altruism that can be explained by natural selection and the human moral sense cannot be explained by natural selection alone on the basis of his wide review of many different kinds of moral thinking.

Sometimes supporters of sociobiology say we actually exist for the benefit and propagation of our genes.

We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA … Flowers are for the same thing as everything else in the living kingdoms, for spreading ‘copy me’ programmes about, written in DNA language.

This is EXACTLY what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living objects’ sole reason for living. [v]

The individual organism is only the vehicle (of genes), part of an elaborate device to preserve and spread them with the least possible biochemical perturbation.. The organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA.[vi]

There is no way to rationalise a view of the purpose or value of human life, or any life, if one holds these views.

In opposition to this we have Objectivist Ethics. This is founded on the belief that there is something called goodness which is independent of us – out there somewhere or revealed by God. ‘This action is good’ means it conforms to that goodness. ‘This action is bad’ means it is in opposition to that goodness.

Science can tell us what is the case, but can it tell us what ought to be the case? Electrons behave as they do – that is neither morally right nor wrong – it is just the way things are – the whole story. We behave in certain ways but that is not the whole story for we know we ought to behave in certain other ways. Therefore there is more than one kind of reality. The first of these realities is subject to scientific investigation and discovery. The other one isn’t – and yet somehow we are convinced that objective moral values exist and are real. However distant they may seem, and however much we may differ from other people about details of morality, we have a sense that these values are there, validating our own moral struggles. 'Survival of the fittest' goes against what most people know to be true.

[i] Quoted by Dawkins in The Devil’s Chaplain.

[ii] Quoted by Dawkins in The Devil’s Chaplain.

[iii] My Philosophical Development page 13

[iv] See my critical review of Consilience published by Philosophia Christi. It is also on my web pages.

[v] In a lecture given by Dawkins called The Ultra Violet Garden.

[vi] E O Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Harvard University Press, 1975, page 3.