Where Next With Evolution?
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
(Genesis 1 v. 1)
Most Christians agree up to here — but what happened next? Some would argue that the Bible is true, word-for-word, and that in six days God created the earth and humankind. Some more scientifically-minded Christians claim that this is ‘poor science’ since it is beyond proof. They would argue that the earth formed about four and a half billion years ago, and that life developed from simple forms into the more advanced, complicated ones seen today.
But this too is ‘poor science’ — it is beyond proof. Even if life were to be created in a laboratory from inanimate chemicals, this would not prove that this is what occured so long ago.
To me, the scientific view is not a contradiction of my belief in the truth of the scriptures. What is important is that God created the earth, and all in it. The rest is merely arguing over how God did it. As scientific and religious thought progress, they contradict each other less and less. Though apparently opposites, as they progress towards ultimate truth, so they get closer and closer together, much as the lines of longitude do as they approach the pole.
This is a heartening thought in these days of scientific determinism. As science progresses, so it becomes apparent that some things cannot be determined. The Heisenberg Uncertainty principle is a good example of this. The momentum and position of a small particle cannot be determined — the more precisely you ascertain the one, the more innacurate your determination of the other will become.
So far, evolution has progressed through several massive steps: the transition from void to existence, then from existence to life, then from life to thought.
So what next? Is ‘evolution’ finished? Or, put another way, has God completed his creation?
To answer this question it is helpful to look at the mechanism that has brought creation up to this point.
So how do things evolve? The normally accepted Darwinian theory states that progress results from competition. As the members of a species struggle for survival, some undergo random mutation which makes them better equipped to compete, and thus beat the others and perpetuate their line. This is the system of development in capitalist society. All individuals do their best to beat the others, and those best suited — by means of effort or innate skill — are more successful and thus survive best.
By this argument, sending food and aid to suffering people in underdeveloped nations is wrong since it interferes with this process of Natural Selection. Indeed, from a Malthusian point of view, (i.e. that population growth readily outstrips food production) such action is detrimental to society as a whole — it will only serve to provide the already overlarge population with the means to reproduce and increase in numbers. These people do not have the means to compete and thus serve society best by dying without children.
There is an alternative ethos of evolution which does not assume that there must be a brutal struggle for survival for advancement. The distinction between higher and lower forms of life is the degree of co-operation. A protozoan is the lowest form of life since, being single-celled, it is the most individualistic. The sacrifice of individualism is far outweighed by the benefits brought by harmonious intergration. If a few billion cells relinquish their individuality and co-operate highly, the result is a thinking, rational human being — far more than any of the individual cells could ever attempt to achieve.
What moves things to integrate and co-operate? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit anthropologist, claimed that there was a force within each entity, from the smallest sub-atomic particle to a human being, which drives it towards unification. He asserted that it was the presence of Jesus Christ in each object which pushed it to advance. That is, it is God who makes evolution occur by encouraging greater co-operation.
Teilhard named this driving force hominisation. It is the process whereby individual entities come together to produce something greater than they were separately. Thus love is the process which unites all things. Sub-atomic particles experience this in a primitive form, without emotion or feeling, but as life develops the possibilities for love increase dramatically.
It does not take much thought to realise that evolution is by no means finished. People and the earth still exist as separate individuals. God’s creation will not be completed until there is a single entity, united by love — the Kingdom of God.
So how is this to be achieved? This can be seen clearly in the way development has occured to far — by closer and closer co-operation.
We must sacrifice our individualities and work for the whole of creation. This means loving all people by helping them, and loving the rest of creation by putting its needs above our own. We must harmonise our existence with that of humans, animals, plants and the very material of the earth.
This is no easy thing to do — self must be put firmly in last place, and service to the rest of creation made the number one priority.
But the benefits gained from this are beyond comprehension, just as an amoeba cannot begin to think what it would be like to be a human being. Try to imagine a world where everything worked together as one. A new entity would emerge, just as a person is more than the cells of which they are made up.
If these last few paragraphs sound a little familiar it should not be surprising — they are precisely what Jesus told his disciples. He told them to sell all they had and give to the poor, to love their neighbour as they love themselves, even to love those they might think of as their enemies. His one overriding instrustion was to love each other as he had loved them.
How did he love them? By serving them. He washed their feet, helped the needy, healed the sick. He loved us all so much he was prepared to die for us so that we might live — the ultimate self-sacrifice.
Each person is part of the body of Christ — so we must unite ourselves by helping each other, even the very least of us. Jesus is hungry and thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, in prison — today. Will you help?
Further reading:
- P. Teilhard De Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (see also other books by this author. Note: Biographies of Teilhard are often easier to follow than his works!)
- Dr. Anthony Campolo, A Reasonable Faith