While I personally have no issue reconciling evolution, and the cosmos with a theistic God, I do have some difficult seeing the Christian God in it, much less Jesus.
You certainly are not alone in this. I too have often tried to reconcile God’s character and values with the idea of theistic evolution, and really, history in general.
But, to be honest here, I have also wrestled with the idea that God withholds his intervention from situations where people do nasty and horrible things, including those things and experiences that I have come to know in my own life on this planet. So, whether we are talking about the distant past, or recent history, God does things and withholds from doing things that ultimately make us confused, feel conflicted, and question who God really is. Its an honest and common place to be in.
But seriously, if we look at passages of the Bible, we see some grueling chapters in the Old Testament that make us squirm. God commanded Jacob to kill his son, commanded Israel to kill the natives in Canaan, commanded the priests to slaughter animals day and night at the temple, commanded law-breakers to be stoned alive in front of loved ones. He also instituted laws that, although ensured better treatment of indentured servants, would technically allow for beatings and the phenomenon of servitude in the first place.
Why? He wanted to make certain ideas very clear, certain standards and morality very clear. But as Fr. Mike Schmitz once said, he was also starting with where they were. He chose to work with their culture and daily reality, reforming it to some capacity (and in many ways was earth-shattering, especially once we get to the New Testament). And inevitably, this includes permitting certain realities for people, even if harsh.
1. Where is God’s love in evolution and survival of the fittest, extinction, nonviable mutations, etc. Do you see God’s love in the millions of years of animal suffering before humans existed?
This definitely makes us wonder what God’s love is, and arguably more importantly, what other values, beliefs, standards, or plans does God have that would override this love in the short-ish term? Lol. I say short-ish because, well, millions of years isn’t exactly short. Ok, so we could instead ask what might override God’s immediate love for a greater or more distant goal or purpose? Or a “bigger” love in the distant future?
And if we think about the OT again, God’s love can be really harsh. Stoning your child? Your wife? Arguably, it was even loving for him to command the genocide of Canaan because of just how fallable, distracted, and idolatrous the Israelites were. It was to keep them from adopting and following the idols and idolatrous lifestyles of the surrounding cultures. Doesn’t sound very loving does it? And that is in pretty recent history! It’s not like God becomes more tame once people hit the scene.
2. Do you see God’s love in a genetic flaw that leads to early death in a child or a life of misery into adulthood? Was that an accident that God allowed because of the greater good of random, probabilistic evolution, or did he make it so on purpose? If it is designed, why are some traits inheritability to easy to predict (50/50). Does God constrain him to not forget to make a certain amount of people have a trait, or does he just let the dice and the consequences fall wherever they land?
God doesn’t intervene when someone gets raped. He didn’t intervene and stop the holocaust or school shootings. Sure, maybe in individual people’s lives, but on a greater scale, it sadly still happened.
Is it loving for God to allow tornadoes? Brush fires? Animal bites? Getting hit by a car or stepping on a rusty nail? As one or more comments in the discussion here have pointed out, we live in a world with physics, natural laws, etc. It’s just how the world works.
Some have even argued that if there was no pain and suffering, no darkness, there is no contrast to then experience and know light, or at least to its full extent. And for God to fully exhibit his power and awesomeness, including his love, there has to be something to provide contrast.
3. Evolution is ultimately about self reliance and competition. Those organisms that do not complete will not survive. Even those who are altruistic to the extent of decreasing their chances of survival, and thus removing their whatever parts of their genes contributed to altruism. Therefore, there is a feedback loop for selfishness. Of course, the moral law exists, and it is hard to explain in this system, but, even so…
Yes and no. There are many organisms that have survived and succeeded because they share and support the group, even though they too have aggressive or selfish tendencies (well, often times that’s the males, but I digress). And that competition is not always against other organisms as it is also often a competition against the elements and the environment. Organisms that survived freezing to death because of their ancestor’s tendency to hide underground more often is not inherently selfish.
4. Why go through billions of years of forming the cosmos and millions of years of evolution to end it a few thousands years after human civilization begins, depending on when Jesus comes back?
Why not? Why not bother to “waste time” and be creative or enjoy the process? Why go to the trouble to make something by hand and from scratch, paying attention to detail? Or, why not just save time and be productive or efficient? Which, by the way, these are very 21st century, American ideals. To put a pebble in your shoe, just travel to other parts of the world and you will see that other cultures don’t ascribe to these ideals nearly as much if at all.
But to more directly answer the question, I don’t know. He never said why. But if anything, it means that it is not about us. It is not about our sense of time. Nothing ever really was anyways. Instead, it is about God and showcasing himself, no matter how long it takes.
5. If, for millions of years, animals have been suffering and struggling to survive, most of which dying off due to various factors or traits the made them less fit for survival, and theistic evolution accepts the idea that factors such as genetics, ‘instincts’, and other immutable characteristics strongly influence behavior, then what about the Fall of Man/Adam was even remotely avoidable? Were we set up to fail? How it our fault? Why do we deserve hell for making use of the selfish tactics and traits our ancestors used more successfully than others? This leaves the unpleasant interpretation that God curses humanity ultimately to Hell for doing what it was programmed to do, and what was necessary to survive in the systems God created. Then, after being forced into this situation, you are then given option to accept salvation or to face whatever Hell is, for a problem created either by God himself directly or the necessity of adaptation to nature.
Good question. We have to realize that by the time God could enter into relationship with us, there is the bizzare x-factor of free will, the conscience, personhood, and autonomy. We are no longer animals who are bound to our base programming. We have the intelligence to choose and live differently, as we do today. I might not feel like loving or accepting someone, or sharing my time and energy for the benefit of others, but I can choose to do differently. And interestingly, it makes me feel good. The brain is programmed to release dopamine (the reward system) when I do this. So then we also have to ask, what then is our programming? Is it always selfish? But regardless, humans became people, which utterly breaks the 4th wall and changes the scenario entirely.
Though, playing devil’s advocate here, I could argue that although the moral blame for living animalistically is not on God, he still created the universe and world such that we are fighting against our own natures. So how then is God not at fault here? Come on, right? You know?
I read an article once about how God and our faith in him fits into the horrifying picture of rape, sexual abuse, and childhood trauma. Especially when that faith is of the abused survivor. The author, after great lengths to explain and discuss so many of the nuances and challenges, finally got to the question of whether or not God was at fault, guilty, or complicit. She said, on some level that God was. Why? He broke trust and failed to provide basic needs and protection to those that he loves, children that he loves. So, in the case of millions of years of suffering and the evolution of an animalisic nature (which actually got less animalistic over time in some ways), we can say that God is responsible and guilty on some level for setting up the world like this. But is he at fault for our fall? For our choice? No.
6. A dominant theme of the New Testament isn’t just God’s love for his creation, but also the malevolence of Satan and demons, whom make mankind act against their better natures in ways that are, basically, animalistic in nature (selfish, violent, short sighted, paranoid, emotional, etc). While you can interpret the Fall of Adam in many ways, attributing the above tendencies to God and not Satan has even further implications. What exactly is Satan and Demons in theistic evolution?
So, to briefly recap my response to the prior question, our fall cannot be attributed to God since we have personhood, autonomy, free-will, and intelligence that allow us to live and choose differently. Once humans became people, humanity was no longer subject to its base programming or natural tendencies. We were given the choice to live morally upright lives, not just physically upright, lol.
And if we look at what the NT shows, it doesn’t ascribe to the idea that mankind is basically good and that demons drag us down to act animalistic (If I misunderstood what you meant here, apologies!). If anything, Paul repeatedly writes in great detail that we are inherently sinful, selfish, and fallen. He (and/or other NT authors) also writes that demons and Satan take advantage of this inherent nature of ours and exacerbate it.
So, fascinatingly, the New Testament actually supports the idea that our base programming is animalistic.
But to answer your question, we don’t know what role the demons had in our evolution. But at some point or another, kind of like what Dawkins said once in an interview, it is ultimately a waste of time to speculate as to what could or might have been done, when it is more profitable to instead look at what has already been done, especially by God (or the demons for that matter). So, by looking at what God has done, what can we infer about who he is?
