There is often discussion about God as Creator through the processes of nature and the leader of evolutionary changes. I note for instance Illia Delia “Christ The Evolver”. and others who have thought of the Word and Spirt going ahead of evolution , leading the changes of life that took place in the developing cosmos and changes in chemistry and organisation within living matter. Wolfhart Pannenberg also wrote of God acting like a field of energy/force ahead of the universe, leading changes.
It struck me that we already have a Bible image of this in the image of the Shepherd. First God in the Old Testament who leads Israel and His People. How the kings and priests of Israel were intended to be good shepherds under his authority and how He would be when they were not. Secondly we also read Jesus using a similar image in His own teaching, of leading, loving and sacrificing Himself for their well being. So I think it may be a helpful image to use for God with evolution.
I guess it depends on the type of conversation. It can help someone feel more confident in their faith by adding this layer to evolution. It seems to help best when kept as vague as possible. Otherwise you kind of run into the issue of free will vs illusion of free will, but that’s not just a theists issue because this argument exists within naturalism as well.
But if it’s being used as a potential argument against atheism it probably won’t help any. When you look at the process of evolution it’s kind of hard to argue that any of it was designed. There’s not really any stages where the supernatural seems to be required to make it work. We can argue it’s behind the scenes without any evidence but then it becomes a moot point.
For me I don’t think God made us at all. I don’t think the supernatural was part of our origins stories within natural history at all. Just like I don’t think God purposely made us as bony lunged fish on purpose before guiding towards being tetrapods or early rodent like mammals to apes or proto humans and so on. For me when I call god creator it’s not a reference to the actual material world but to how we should live. What should our species story like? Should we just be consumers and killers or should we be a force that helps the world continue to develop into something beautiful and so I think we are failing. When i think of God as our creator I don’t think of god as this intelligent designer but as an influencer and comforter. When we are feeling hopeless, he’s this peace that comes over us to help us see beyond ourselves and into the deep future with a hope that we can make it better. I think that it’s a spirit that comes over even animals in their violent deaths just like we may feel as we are laying on the pavement bleeding out in pain we look beyond it to the next plane of existence and to a hope that even though we are not here God is and he will still be bringing this creativity and peace to our kids and to our descendants even to our future generations that may be so far ahead in technology that where they are, how they look may be alien to us just as much as we would be alien to our ancient fishy great x ancestors in the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago. When i think of myself as a creation it helps me understand that I’m just as much part of this creation as the mosquito needing my blood for her eggs to the trees that breath out what I breath in.
Teilhard de Chardin developed a scenario of evolution as God’s direction, but it has generally been deemed heterodox.
If one takes a more deterministic view, the fact that God is directing all things implies that He has directed all the steps of evolution to produce us, and the rest of life. The shepherd imagery ties in well with God’s general approach of using ordinary means to achieve His purposes, though occasionally we need a whack from the staff to keep us from running off cliffs. (Domestic sheep are not very bright; being God’s sheep does not primarily convey that we’re cute little lambs.) For evolution, God’s direction is seen not so much in particular steps (where ID insists on looking for it) as in the overall functionality - it has led to the outcome that He ordained.
I think that ID is not looking for God in gaps or irreducibiity but using them as a proof that ToE cannot achieve what it claims without help. It seems to me that Theistic Evolution falls short of specifying where or how God works but just claims that He is there to fulfill
Which is where theology and science usually divide.
Richard
PS Having read through the bio of Teilhard de Chardin on Wiki I found myself sympathising with his theological and scientific enigma wereby he was criticised by the church for taking nituce f scuebce and crticised by science for taking ntice of the church. A position I find myself frequety in (Not that I compare or equate my theology or status with Him, of course)