Initial Conditions

Note: this is Part 6 of a series of posts on Christianity and evolution. Read the introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 for background.

6. The most powerful argument Creationists use is the aesthetic: who wants to have a monkey for an uncle? I shall present some illustrative images and metaphors that I believe show that the idea of evolution is beautiful and portrays the faithfulness and love of the invisible God in the visible world.

Allow me to indulge in a brief Socratic dialogue here:

Do you believe that God created you?

Assuming you said yes — these posts are probably of little interest if you said no — then tell me, exactly how did She do so, and how long did it take?

Now tell me, during the 9 months of your creation, was there any single event that you can point to and say was “miraculous” or outside the ordinary laws of nature? Of course not.

God created you — let me repeat that: God created you — by entirely “natural” processes. That does not make your creation any less of a divine miracle! God’s immanence in the natural world, His “holding everything together”, makes every quantum interaction a miracle! It was by God’s faithfulness and love, clearly shown in the visible world, that you were created.

Note for Biblical literalists: Psalm 139 clearly states that there are knitting needles involved in the formation of the human body, so you’d better put that on the Kansas curriculum.

YEC’s will try to tell you that a universe suddenly springing into being fully formed is more miraculous than one being formed over billions of years. Why? Why should God care about the passage of time? Every instant of the history of the universe is present to Her experience, and He holds every particle and wave and interaction together.

And the fact that it all took place according to the pre-determined “laws” of nature makes it more miraculous, to my mind. It is as if God picked up a pack of cards one day, carefully hefted it, and then flung it into the air at just the right height and with just the right momentum for the cards to drift down and down and land lightly in a magnificent card house. And the card house turns out to be a pretty nice place for us ex-monkeys to live in.

Scientists call this the “anthropic principle“. It’s the idea that there are a great many arbitrary characteristics of the universe we live in that seem to combine to make it a pretty nice universe for us to live in. It’s really a tautology: if the universe were unfit for us to live in, we wouldn’t be around to remark on the fact. But it’s yet another instance of God’s faithfulness being shown in the cosmos.

As for the monkey thing, I’m not sure why monkeys get such a bad rap. Humans left to their own devices seem to be just as apt to chatter wildly and fling feces — I’m speaking metaphorically here: the capability of the human race for nastiness far outweighs any mere animal’s. The thing that is supposed to separate us from the animals is the capability to rise above that, rarely though it is exercised. It is the consciousness of good and evil that enables both the vilest evil in our species, as well as the search to know God.

So instead of worrying about being descended from a monkey (more properly, the common ancestor of both primates and hominids), try to be at least as nice as they are, and perhaps even strive for that extra portion of grace that is the gift of God to our peculiar species.