The nature created by God cannot be inherently evil. The constant rebirth in nature is beautiful and good, even though it is fed by death and disease - these are an important part of life. Evil behavior (sin) can beget disease, and therefore the disease is not evil, the sin is.
Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. (Matt 15:11)
I use Matthew 15 as guide for these thoughts. It is how we react to God’s Nature that is sinful or evil.
I don’t think pregnancy is evil. But it does cause harm, which is why I think “causing harm” is not a good definition. My back is permanently damaged from three pregnancies. Talk to any woman about how her bladder works after pushing out a few babies. I think it is interesting that the groaning of creation in Romans 8 is a metaphor from childbirth. Creation longs for it’s “deliverance” in the same way a laboring woman longs to be “delivered” of her child. But the birthing process is inherently regenerative and life bringing, not some kind of broken, evil, thing. When people talk about all “natural evil” as some kind of broken perfection I think they are imposing a worldview on Scripture. According to Job, God delights in the apex predator prowess of some of the carnivores he created. Death, pain, and suffering are part of the cycles that bring health and new life. Suffering in the Bible is often portrayed as a purifying and strengthening process that God uses and that God’s people are to expect and even welcome.
I agree. Evil is thwarting God’s just righteousness which is summed up in love. It seems silly to talk about nature in terms of justice and love.
Christy, your quote above is central to my conception that evolution, rather than posing a threat to Christian Faith, is, instead, gives it rational support, since it fosters a belief in Original Blessing rather than Original Sin. The concept of ‘natural evil’ as evidence of some kind of ‘broken perfection’ (not substantiated by any of the physical sciences) is too ingrained in Christian Faith to be lightly cast aside. However, evolution in no way weakens the belief that God uses pain & suffering as means to strengthen human willpower to make the necessary sacrifices in order to conform to His plan: God has used evolution to create a Moral Creature with a Mind/Conscience capable of acting freely to build an Earthly Kingdom in His Image.
I don’t have the word skill to express this belief in theological lingo. Early in the 20th century, unsuccessful attempts to do so (within the Catholic Church) were made by Teilhard de Chardin and later by Mathew Fox. Perhaps @AntoineSuarez can inform me if there are any (approved) ongoing efforts within the Vatican along these lines.
Al Leo
“many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to exist; for fire would not be generated if air was not corrupted, nor would the life of a lion be preserved unless the ass were killed. Neither would avenging justice nor the patience of a sufferer be praised if there were no injustice.”
In support of his argument Aquinas quote Augustine: “God is so powerful that He can even make good out of evil” (Enchir. 11).
Thank Antoine,
It is a very healthy mediation to contemplate what good God has made out of 9-11, the Holocaust, and the inquisition. As I have said before, there is no evil in nature, just the evil actions of the self-righteous. How does God balance these scales?
Antoine, I am reasonably aware of the writings of these two ancient saints (4th & 13th centuries), and I concur that they offered some valuable wisdom based on the knowledge of the natural history known at that time. But, even with brilliant minds, they were ignorant of the evidence supporting the truth of evolution and the need to reconcile humankind’s animal roots with the Biblical statement that we were made in God’s Image. At least two Catholic priests (Teilhard & Fox) were severely punished for teaching that evolution casts serious doubts on the dogma that Adam, although created sinless, disobeyed God and was punished by having to struggle thru a painful life followed by inevitable death. The current Catechism of the Catholic Faith still maintains that this is dogma that must be accepted to be considered Catholic.
But I can’t accept it. My Mind/Conscience takes precedence over the Dogma of the Middle Ages that insists on a Fall from Sinlessness. I hear rumors that there are theologians close to the Vatican who are working behind the scenes to get the Church to accept this as modernized dogma. I sincerely hope so, for otherwise the fate of the Roman Catholic Church (and perhaps all of Christiandom) is in danger of extinction.
Probably this is just a worrisome old man speaking, but I sincerely believe that humans must take the road of reason as far as they can before leaping into the ‘cold stream’ of Scripture-based Faith.
Al Leo
To be sure God can bring good out of evil just as He brings life out of death. But making this a matter of having enough power is just wrong. Omnipotence most certainly does not mean God can accomplish anything by whatever means you care to dictate. Anyway, bringing good out of evil doesn’t require divine power, and it happens largely because there is so much evil in the world mixed up with so much good that great evil can act like knife forcing us to confront and face down the evil within. And life comes from death because life and death are highly interdependent. Learning is the essence of life and there can be no learning without failure, which in the fight for survival means death.
Dear Leo,
I am pretty sure that it is going extinct regardless of what the Vatican tries to do. There is too much medieval baggage for them to overcome. I realized this after reading Johannes Greber’s work.
You have the right idea to stay with your logic.
Best Wishes, Shawn
Sorry I meant to reference Genesis 3:16, not 1:16:
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children."
Anything resembling a direct interpretation would mean God made human pregnancy very painful in response to transgression— in a sense, it is broken. It’s perplexing that the first mention of childbirth (by God no less) is in such dark terms. What could it mean? The paradox of life from severe pain, caused as a direct consequence of falling to deception and disobedience. Life is never without pain, and the blame is placed on the creation. But the initial intent, and the eventual goal of the Creator is different.
According to van Huyssteen, the image of God comes about slowly, bodily, and socially as a gradual outworking of our intellectual abilities in a communal context. In the same book, Ted Peters writes, “the flourishing of the divine image in the human race is the end [purpose] of evolution” (p. 92). Here evolution finds its telological goal in the image of God.
Seems like an interesting read. I associate consciousness very closely with the image of God and it quickly becomes corrupt with the onset of the knowledge of good and evil in an imperfect being.
With EC as the premise, I’d like to take that approach and ask how God has spoken through evolution; if/as God created the universe that way, there should be no contradiction with scripture.
To me the the knowledge of good and evil is an inevitable part of the evolution of human consciousness, and consciousness in an imperfect creation is by definition sinful. God sets the stage for eventual salvation and redemption.
The quote by Aquinas above seems to imply that natural evil exists. Is this the view of catholics?
I suppose one could appeal to earlier creation commands for life (including humans) to fill the earth - or to “be fruitful and multiply” to be earlier, and positive, if indirect mentions of the birthing process. But it is true that the later focus specifically “inaugurates” the involved pain (…as some say, though I think it a more faithful reading to say it “reveals” involved pain).
You can always edit your past posts by clicking the grey pencil icon underneath that post.
I think of the curse as describing reality, not creating it. I think it was written at a point in time when women had been suffering through childbirth and experienced being ruled over by their husbands for as long as anyone could remember. Childbirth is painful because human babies have relatively large brains/heads and the shape of our pelvises is optimized for walking upright. Those two evolutionary developments are in tension. I don’t believe that God altered the biology of humans (changed our brain sizes and pelvises at the Fall) any more than I believe he magically transformed herbivores into carnivores and invented thorns and parasites.
There’s also a lot of good stuff on the image of God as a corporate vocation for humanity. Which makes more sense in the ancient context.
I’m trying to see if there is any significant link behind the story of childbirth, pain, good & evil, etc. that we are to understand from scripture. You bring up an interesting point. The capacity to know good and evil would require a larger brain, so in a sense knowledge of good and evil in humans did bring about a particularly painful birth experience. Also, the biology of pregnancy and reproduction alone is enough to skew the balance of physical “dominance”. It adds another layer in understanding the weight of consciousness in carrying the image of God. The harmony of truth in fact and story, that’s what I’m after.
If you are looking for the deeper meaning of the painful birth as stated in the Bible, I have one to offer. This comes from Salomo, die Königsquell.
At the time of the Fall, Raphael was pregnant with their 13th child. (Raphael and Lucifer had 12 children at the time of the fall.) When this child was born, it was the first time in Heaven that a divine birth happened without the father present. This pain was unknown to Heaven.
The three Archangels that remained true to Jesus were responsible for preparing the way for Jesus’ incarnation as a human - Raphael (Salomon), Gabriel (Isaiah) and Michael (Ezekiel). When Solomon wrote the Song of Solomon, part of the Heavenly story came through in this duet. Of course, none in Heaven have suffered as much from the Fall as Raphael.
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?”
The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
If God has such regard for the life of all creatures, then why does he use a system which requires animal death to achieve his aims, when he could merely have created animals instantaneously?
Of course, the God I believe in is impersonal, so I have no such problem.
Yes everything in Genesis 3:14-19 is a direct consequence of the fall or a measure to save us from those consequences. For example, living by the sweat of our brow is to teach us that blaming everyone but ourselves is pointless, we have to live by the consequences of our own choices.
As for this reference to pregnancy this is only one of many hints pointing towards the sexual nature of the fall, the most obvious being the way that Adam and Eve immediately covered their genitals. There is nothing in the entire Bible that shouts symbolism louder than the names of those two trees in the garden and making the story about magical fruit, golems of dust and bone animated by necromancy, and talking snakes is to reduce the story to a Walt Disney production for children – very entertaining but not very meaningful for human life.
The tree of life is a NOT a magical fountain of youth but is and always was a symbol for the life giving relationship with God. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is NOT a magical fruit to impart knowledge forbidden because God didn’t want us to have any moral discernment – that is completely absurd. The tree of knowledge of good and evil represented a shortcut to becoming like God with the authority to say what is good and evil, whether we have any actual understanding of good and evil or not – something that is quite unavoidable with parenthood. Yes, as hinted by so many things in the story, the fruit eaten in the fall was a premature sexual relationship. And the resulting parenthood before Adam and Eve were ready for that responsibility is indeed quite believable as the root of all human problems. So why the increased pain in childbirth because of the fall? Isn’t it obvious? To add a measure of seriousness to human parenthood, so we are not dropping infants with no more concern than pooping.
Now one might wonder how this all fits with evolution?
Did not the homo genus live for millions of years having sex and giving birth to infants? Of course. And were not those infants helpless and requiring considerable care by their parents in order to survive? Of course. So how does this whole fall scenario fit in with that?
Easy peasy…
With Adam and Eve something crucial had changed. It wasn’t just biology anymore. We now had a mind operating on a level of abstraction with its own needs and inheritance to make it a living organism to rival and even overule the body and its biological needs and instincts. The results is, all that was learned in the evolutionary process no longer held us in thrall. Instead we also had choices between the ideas from God of personhood, love, and doing what is right, and the self-destructive habits initiated by Adam, Eve, and their descendants. Suddenly things had become considerably more complicated, and the plain fact is that human beings can and do ignore the instincts of parenthood to behave rather careless and callous in the pursuit of all kind of personal interests having nothing to do with the survival of their species.
There is only one thing that can sever a parent-child relationship. And that is for the presence of the parent in the child’s life to do more harm than good. You can certainly say this doesn’t really sever the relationship in the abstract sense, but in the practical sense it does. And this is what happened when by this bad habit of blaming everyone but themselves for their own mistakes Adam and Eve turned God from the perfect teacher into the perfect scapegoat. Jesus changed this because He showed us that God will do anything to help us and we will do anything to stop Him, killing those God sends to help us, even when perfect as God Himself. And this is what we are faced with when choosing to receive Jesus into our lives as the one who died for our sins. It is a choice to accept that we are the problem for God will make the ultimate sacrifice and die in torment to save us. What God can/will not do is accede to inconsistent childish demands that He change the rules themselves because they are the very substance of life itself.
Perhaps this works within your framework, but it doesn’t provide much value to me. With EC as premise I’d like to focus on understanding more of how scientific fact and revealed story are harmoniously intertwined. Replacing story with myth will require further extraordinary evidence.
That the acquisition of knowledge of good and evil could be described as part of the evolutionary process of acquiring consciousness as humans acquired more neocortical matter, which naturally made childbirth more excruciating and burdensome to women, provides parsimony and understanding that I did not expect from this passage.
@mitchellmckain I don’t see the need to ascribe sexual nature to the fall. As far as I can tell, that was one thing that was not sin in the scenario. I see the fall as an inevitable consequence of imperfection.
Yes this naturally follows from the story of the fall of Man carrying the image of God.