Toward a Theology of Evolution
Contemporary insight from astrophysics, biology, paleontology and biochemistry seem to paint a picture of a universe that has developed over an inordinate amount of time: about fourteen billion years. Moreover, it is said to have taken four billion years for the conditions of the universe to give rise to complex creatures such as ourselves. This raises a question in the minds of many people of faith: why would God create the universe through such a slow and painstaking process as evolution? Surely a better mark of God’s power would have been for Him to create the world without any trace of development — instantly, as it were. So, why would an omnipotent being choose to create in a manner that does not properly reflect his omnipotence?
It should be noted from the outset that God is said to be omnipotent with respect to creation, not so far as he creates instantly or through a process of evolution, but rather so far as he creates ex nihilo, from no preexisting reality whatsoever. Only God can traverse the chasm between being and nonbeing with nothing presupposed. Hence, strictly speaking, evolution does not undermine God’s omnipotence. Still, there is a lingering worry in the minds of many, for isn’t there is something improper or unfitting about God creating a world through an evolutionary process? God is all-powerful, such that he need not labor to create or produce anything; nor does God depend upon any reality other than Himself, such that he is not lacking in resources. So, why an evolutionary universe?
Consider first that, from a theological perspective, God is a God of patience. Throughout the Old Testament God instructs the people of Israel to turn away from evil, and to turn toward the good — indeed, to turn to Him as the Highest Good — only to find, time and again, a people stumbling after their own desires, intent on worshipping the ground beneath them rather than the Creator above them, the ground of all being. God longs to draw Israel unto Himself, despite Israel’s continuous rejection of God. Stubborn, obstinate, and ‘stiff-necked’ (c.f. Exodus 32:9; Exodus 33:3; Deuteronomy 9:6; 2 Chronicles 36:13; Jeremiah 17:23, Ezekiel 3:7); and yet, God waits for His own with timeless patience.
In Genesis 18:26, God coordinates in His timeless providence that Abraham intercede for Sodom. As the famous story recalls, Abraham pleads with God to spare the city of Sodom — a city covered by the stain of adultery, violence, and all kinds of moral atrocities — should there be but 50 righteous people in the city. God responds: “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Abraham presses further, pleading that God spare Sodom if only 45 righteous people are found in the city. Again, God responds: “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” This back-and-forth continues until God finally responds: “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” The point of this exercise is clear: the immutable God hears Abraham’s plea, not because Abraham may have some insight that God lacks, which may prove influential in his decision whether to destroy Sodom; rather, God hears Abraham’s plea, because He wishes to impress upon Abraham the extent of his mercy and patience. God longs to spare the city of Sodom, despite the inhumanity within its walls.
In Luke 15:11–32 we find a beautiful picture of God’s patience in Christ’s parable of the prodigal son. Christ tells the story of a man with two sons; the oldest son loves and seeks after his father’s heart, while the youngest son seeks only after his father’s inheritance, He claims his father’s inheritance and moves as far away from him as possible, thus denying his source of life, wisdom, and security for the sake of fortune and flesh. Of course, his ‘happiness’ comes at a price, and eventually he squanders all of his fortune. Poor and alone, he finds himself in a pig sty, feeding pigs who, ironically, enjoy a better quality of life than him. The son, having borne the weight of indignity for far too long, realizes that he has sinned against his father — “I will set out and go to my father and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight! I am no longer worthy to be called your son! Make me like one of your hired workers.’” The son understands the gravity of his actions, and demands due punishment from his father. “But while he was still a long way away, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” Filled to the brim with love and compassion toward his wayward son, the father rushes to embrace him, and welcomes him back into his home.
Despite its many complexities, the central meaning of the parable of the prodigal son is this: the father is meant to be a symbol for God the Father, and the wayward son is meant to be symbolic of those who have rejected God for the sake of worldly pursuits, or perhaps for the sake of some perverted sense of freedom or independence. No matter our reasons for rejecting Him, God awaits with boundless love and patience for every son and daughter to return to him; God longs to meet us while we are “still a long way away”; He longs to embrace and kiss us, if only we seek his forgiveness and mercy.
Just as Scripture reveals a God who is eternally patient toward those who seek after Him, perhaps evolution allows us to understand God’s patience as extending beyond humanity, to the whole of the created order. Because God creates and sustains all things from eternity, what is a billion years to us is “as one day” to Him [1]; nevertheless, God has created an evolutionary cosmos so that from our temporal perspective we may grasp the intensity of his patience, which in turn prepares us to encounter the God of patience revealed to us in Scripture — a prolegomena to the Bible, if you will. As John Polkinghorne has noted, evolution is “a process that just can’t be hurried” [2]. This may seem radical to us, and in many ways it is; but we must remember that God’s patience is so radical as to transcend the plenitude of our sins — a magnitude incomparable to any natural process.
Consider also that the most beautiful and wondrous things are a labor of time. What is beautiful and wondrous about an intricate watch is not merely the end result, but the painstaking detail poured out by the watchmaker over a copious amount of time. Every spring, every dial, every crystal, every fork, every plate and every wheel — the watchmaker invests himself into the watch in what can only be described as an act of love [3]. Or, take interpersonal relationships, such as marriage and parenthood. Both husband and wife commit themselves to the project of willing the good of the other as their own — an understanding of love that must first be cultivated through many storms and winters before it may be said to habitually flow out of their marital union. Hence, an understanding of self-giving love is not immediately given, but rather emerges out of the union of man and woman as a result of their commitment to, and patience toward, one another. Or, consider a work of art of great magnitude — think of Michelangelo’s magnum opus, “The Last Judgement.” There is a sense in which, upon apprehending the beauty and majesty of a work of art, we come to see it as a work of love. But there is a further sense that contributes, rather than hinders, to our seeing a work of art in the light of love, namely, knowledge of the background conditions which gave rise to it. We see the time and effort undergone to produce a work of art in light of the artist’s vision, commitment, patience, and, ultimately, in light of his love for the work produced.
Those things which most command admiration and cultivate in us a sense of wonder are the result of painstaking artisanship, as guided by love and patience. For all we know, God could have created a universe with all its features appearing instantly — though I question whether such a universe could in principle resemble our universe [4]. But by creating a universe that unfolds throughout the ocean of time, God has not only given us a Masterpiece; He has left for us a detailed record of every brushstroke, every rhythm, every color, every light and every shadow that went into creating the universe. His is a masterpiece that fills the light of both soul and intellect. [5]
A third and final reason why God may have chosen to create an evolving cosmos — rather than the instantaneous creation of all species — is that such a view of the cosmos impresses upon us the notion of eschatological history found in the whole of Scripture, namely, the conviction that God has and is presently working to reconcile all things unto himself, to bring creation to its omega point. We find a common thread in the evolution of the cosmos, namely, a gradual perfection from simpler forms to complex forms, akin to the way individual substances gradually move from the imperfect to the perfect. Hence, there is a sense that, from the first instant of the Big Bang to its current expansion, the cosmos is gradually maturing toward some common good. And, as Charles de Koninck suggested in his unpublished work, “The Cosmos” [6], perhaps “we can consider the evolution of the cosmos as a maturation of traces which will terminate in an image of the Trinity [namely, in man].” De Koninck’s suggestion finds modern support in Simon Conway Morris’s theory of evolutionary convergence, according to which the tape of life played by evolution appears to follow specific, fixed patterns that make the arrival of man — or something close to man — inevitable in cosmic history. An evolving universe intimates in us a sense that creation is not finished, and hence that neither is the history God has written for it.[7]
[1] 2 Peter 3:8–9
[2] “When we think of our universe with its trillions upon trillions of stars, we can easily get upset about our apparent insignificance as inhabitants of what is, effectively, just a speck of cosmic dust. We should not, though, because if all those stars were not there, we wouldn’t be here to be daunted by the thought of them… Only a cosmos at least as big as ours could endure for the fourteen billion years necessary for evolving carbon-based life. You need ten billion years for the first generation stars to make the carbon, then about four billion years for evolution to yield beings of our sort of complexity. It’s a process that just can’t be hurried.” — John Polkinghorne, Quarks, Chaos and Christianity. 43.
[3] Note that the example given is not intended to advocate for a Paleyan or Intelligent Design view of substances-as-artifacts. Natural substances are not ‘like’ or ‘analogous to’ any artifact, precisely because artifacts such as watches are not substances in their own right, but rather accidental unities, their unity and function being wholly dependent upon the activity of some extrinsic cause.
[4] A universe in which all its features appear instantly rather than gradually would be injurious to the diversity of life we find at home — and possibly elsewhere — since not only is the integrity of one creature always had at the expense of the integrity of another, but spatial restrictions prevent the possibility of such a variance of species existing all at the same time.
[5] It may be objected that, unlike the artist, God is not limited with respect to power or resources; thus, He need not ‘labor’ to create, the way the artist labors for his masterpiece. This is true; but neither is God capable of changing his mind, nor is He composed of a physical body, and so on; and yet, these idioms are given to us throughout Scripture so that we may render intelligible the mystery that is God, that we may grasp the ineffable within our cognitive and communicative means.
[6] Charles De Koninck, The Cosmos. 330.
[7] Many thanks to Berta Moritz for her constructive and critical comments.
