Reflection on Evolution

I feel a lot of empathy toward relgious people who reject evolution. I think there are a variety of reasons for this

1. People think that the idea that we evolved from other animals means that human beings are animalistic, that we lack the dignity of being created in God's image.

2. People are afraid that evolution means that human beings just came into the world by chance, through survival of the fittest. If that is the case, then life seems meaningless.

3. People approach the question solely through a literal interpretation of the Bible and are afraid that non-literal interpretation of one passage of the Bible means that you interpret other important passages (like the ten commandments) in a less than literal way. If that is the case, then Christian moral teaching gets watered down. Some literalists think that non-literal interpretations of the Bible have contributed to what they see as moral decay in American culture.

I respect conservative Christians and I share their concerns about moral formation; however, accepting evolution as a scientific fact does not mean that we should then water down the laws of love given to us by both the Torah and Jesus. As a matter of fact, if we accept evolution we then see Jesus' teaching as the evolution of centuries of human moral reflection and as the most progressive form of moral teaching.

I would like to respond to each of the three concerns:

1. If we accepted that God guided the process of evolution so that the Jesus movement came into existence, we then see evolution from earlier animal life as a holy endeavor. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin saw this. Also, a literal reading of Genesis 2 means that God made us out of clay. Which is more dignified--a creature made from dirt or a creature that came into existence from earlier life forms that had hearts and brains?

2. As a believer who thinks that God gave us the gift of faith and the capacity for reason, nothing that is the product of valid scientific reflection could be meaningless. We live meaningful lives because we can think and science is a manner of human reflection. There is a debate about the whole question of intelligent design. Without getting involved in that debate, what we could say is that part of what is at stake here is our understanding of God. God is not an old white man with a beard who literally breathed into clay. The Bible uses figurative language. As Moses is told in the Book of Exodus, you cannot "see the face of God." That is, God in God's glory is beyond our capacity to imagine. God then can create through the process of evolution just as easily as he could breathe into clay.

Second, an important issue is the issue of religious experience. All believers at one time or another have had some experience of God's presence--of God redeeming them, of God teaching them, of God moving their hearts, of God giving them the gift of faith, for some of "being saved." It is an experience. I would like to suggest that those moments are moments of God's creating us in the here and now. I am being created by God who draws me out of the chaos of life and who breathes life into my heart by moving me to work creatively and to love others. The experience behind the texts in Genesis 1 and 2 is the experience of the people of Israel being created as a people and of the authors of those texts being moved to faith, being moved to see God creating them from the abyss of their own lives. So, for the text to be meaningful, the question is not, "How can I defend a literal interpretation of Genesis so that people will believe that God created?" but rather "As I pray over Genesis, can I become aware of how God is creating me right now, hovering over the abyss of anxiety produced by 10% unemployment, fear of terrorism, conflict within our world, other fears, and unrealized dreams?"

That is, as I pray over Genesis, I am seeking to understand how God's word is speaking to me right now, not just how it spoke to the ancient Israelites.

The metaphor of God creating out of chaos in Genesis 1 and the metaphor of God breathing life into me in Genesis 2 are then meaningful, not meaningless. The metaphor of God creating my marriage by leading me to the woman who is "for me" as I am "for her" is not only life-giving, but so beautiful as to fill my life with its highest meaning--fidelity to my wife and our children.

3. As for non-literal readings of moral teachings like the ten commandments, we have to admit that the truths of the ten commandments are always true, but that, to understand that truth, we have to read them in a less than perfectly literal way. Conservative Christians overwhelmingly supported the US invasion of Afghanistan (whehter they want to war to end is another matter). The fifth commandment reads "Thou shall not kill." Obviously, they are interpretting the fifth commandment in a less than literal way.