The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Evolution May Explain the Problem of Evil and Suffering

Well, it’s not quite clear to me that such a “fact” is accurate. I mean, that’s like saying just creating the universe makes God responsible for all evil and suffering that occur anywhere in it. Interestingly, the argument I have presented in this thread is almost equivalent to God’s doing just that single act of creating the universe.

I hope I am not thought to be evil just because a reader may suffer after reading this thread about evolution!

The problem with this approach to evil is there is no way to escape culpability, no matter how noble the act. For example, one saving someone from certain death can then be said to be responsible for evil if that saved person someday does something to hurt another. One who feeds the homeless can then be said to be responsible for evil if one of those fed individuals later commits a crime. There simply is no rational end to this blame game. It’s counterproductive because it could stop even noble acts done with good intentions.

The best response I’ve seen started on evil and the Christian response to it, came from the Journal of Christian Theology and Philosophy. It’s called Eternal Selves and The Problem of Evil. Here’ are some interesting Q and A from the Protestant site Got Questions. It should be noted that I’m not always in accord with their answers and theological viewpoints,

What are some flaws in the theory of evolution?
What is theistic evolution?
How does creationism vs. evolution impact how a person views the world?
What is Irreducible Complexity?
What is the difference between Microevolution and Macroevolution?
Is the similarity in human/chimp DNA evidence for evolution?[/list]

Yes, thanks for the link. That article makes a strong case for looking at the big picture, which includes postmortem existence. Of course, my argument did not imply there was no postmortem existence.

Even given the view expressed in that article, however, I wonder about (1) living things who suffer in earthly life but whose postmortem existence is not clear and (2) why so much suffering need be felt by earthly life, even given postmortem existence, if God created organisms without employing evolution. After all, our earthly suffering is very important to us now.

If God did not employ evolution to create organisms, then the excesses of natural disasters make little sense, for why are the forces causing these disasters needed otherwise? If He did not employ evolution to do the job, then the excesses of suffering felt by so many organisms lower in the food chain make little sense, too. I mean, if God’s goal in creation is to directly produce sentient beings made in His image and capable of understanding and embracing Him freely, all we really need in life are green plants (autotrophs), which have no central nervous system and so cannot suffer when they are harvested and consumed, and humans (and a few decomposer bacterial species to return elements to green plants). Why create a world ecology with so many superfluous species that do little more than contribute to earthly suffering? Only under the evolutionary scenario do these things make sense.

Lancia - I was only pointing out the obduracy of some hardcore unbelievers who say in essence that, if God had not created, there would be no suffering. I find that reasoning - what’s the word? Oh yes - STUPID :slight_smile: That’s my technical term for it, anyway.

I do like the approach you’ve taken in the posts, and Randy has some good links.

I’m sorry, but I don’t think these links are worth much. I don’t think the author is knowledgeable enough about evolution to be an authoritative critic. There are many errors and faulty conclusions made. Here is one example from the first link.

Generally speaking, it’s accurate to say that science has yet to provide consistent answers to how evolution operates at the molecular, genetic, or even ecological levels in a consistent and supportable way.”

This is a bizarre claim. Major advances have been made in our understanding of evolution at the molecular level, such as understanding how mutations occur at the DNA level, how beneficial mutations usally appear long before they are needed in a population and so they are almost certainly random with respect to their need, and how a simple change in a nucleotide can facilitate growth on a novel energy sources, such as styrene, by subtle alterations in the enzyme coded by the affected gene.

I can’t even imagine what the author means by the comment that science has yet to provide consistent answers to how evolution operates at the genetic level. Evolution is ultimately a study of genetics. Every advance in evolution is an advance in genetics, and there have been many consistent answers here.

Finally, evolution has proved incredibly valuable at the ecological level. Many changes in prey coloration, toxicity, and evasion tactics induced by predation have been carefully documented in the ecological literature. Major changes in virulence of pathogens as well as in host resistance have been observed in pathogen-host complexes. Laboratory studies have shown how amenable to natural selection are various life-history characteristics, such as age of first reproduction and longevity, and how they are sometimes coupled in unexpected ways.

Here is a second example from the first link.

“First, there is a contradiction between ‘punctuated equilibrium’ and ‘gradualism.’ There are two basic possibilities for how naturalistic evolution can occur. This flaw in the theory of evolution occurs because these two ideas are mutually exclusive, and yet there is evidence suggestive of both of them.”

It’s unnecessarily provocative and confusing to call these two explanations mutually exclusive and to say there is a contradiction between them; it’s like calling the color red and the color blue mutually exclusive and contradictory. Punctuated equilibrium and gradualism are simply different descriptions of the tempo of evolutionary change. They each can be true for different times or in different species. In fact, they are! Fossil support exists for each of these explanations.

Yes, I suspected that. Thanks.

I agree a hundred percent, Lancia, and I’ve been positing this same point of view for, I don’t know, a couple of years now. IMO it’s the perfect answer for the POE. You obviously know more about evolutionary theory than I do, but I’m still not certain that the actual planet isn’t going through the process too. Before we became able to make choices of any kind, presumably we were going through that process. Why not dogs and dolphins and octopi and maybe even :confused: cats. (I said that for you, Dave & Jason.) :wink: As for me, I’m allergic to cats; I cannot breathe in their presence, so maybe I’m not all that impartial when it comes to kitties.

But I’m getting sidetracked. Yes, blaming evil on the necessity of the evolutionary process does place evil back in God’s lap. I don’t have a problem with this any more than I have a problem with the messy process of building a beautiful edifice. I think likely this is the only way that God could have created individuals destined to be truly free. Thanks for a great post!

Cats are no longer evolving; they have arrived, and are waiting for the rest of Creation to finally catch up. :smiley:

Got Questions site probably doesn’t include scientists in their mix. Therefore, their answers might not be scientifically accurate. However, CARM (i.e. Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry) has a comprehensive link, devoted to this topic at evolution. There’s even a link called Debate, if you wish to try your pro-evolutionary viewpoints against founder Matt Slick. I must warn you in advance - he’s pretty good at logic and debates. For the record, I am neither pro nor anti evolution. If I were to embrace Christianity and evolution together, it would be with the vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Phenomenon of Man. It’s entirely within the realm of scientific possibility, but I’m currently agnostic on this topic. But I definitely belong to the "Old Earth " camp. It might be refreshing to have scientific friends to discuss these things with, like the crew from The Big Bang Theory.

I think we are still evolving. We may not see much evidence for recent evolution because of our long generation time. But many potential natural selective forces are active in our environment. One comes to mind immediately, and that is the rapid increase in the number of C-sections. C-sections make it possible to deliver larger babies with bigger heads and brains, which are very likely to be advantageous. In the past, such births were not possible, and the mother and baby died. To the extent that larger babies have a genetic component for their largeness, evolution can occur so that we should see larger and larger babies born over time. This result may not be observable in the near future, again, because of our long generation time. But if the trend continues and if genes for largeness exist, and I think they do, the expected result should be inevitably observed.

As an academic biologist, I could no more reject evolution than I could my own identity. The situation I’m faced with is having to find a theology that is compatible with evolution, which I see as a near fact. It hasn’t been easy! Theistic evolution is a possibility, and I find Universalism very appealing, though I have yet to fully embrace it. So, theistic evolution within the framework of Universalism is an attractive option.

Interesting… I am always puzzled why people think religion and science cannot co-exist. Science explains the ‘how’ and religion, at least in simple terms explains who was behind it all. I fully respect a true atheist, or an agnostic because I can see their point and from their perspective. I also am not distressed when people are atheistic or agnostic. God is the one who grants faith and in due time all will be granted it. In the end, all we really have is conjecture. No one knows for sure… I guess we will all know someday, or if the atheists are correct, we won’t know. After all, the dead know nothing.

I am a firm believer that God smiles upon us when we invent and figure out things he has created. He obviously created us for the capacity to learn and he created a seemingly infinitely complex sandbox for us to explore. Science will never disprove God in my beliefs, it will only reinforce how great He is. Science is always (or should be, provided politics and ego stay out of it) self-correcting. So taking an agnostic approach isn’t all that bad, since a correction to a theory could be down the corner. Just some food for thought.

You know what’s interesting? It’s that mainline churches (i.e. not necessarily bible nor fundamentalist churches) would probably be more accepting to this: Someone embracing either old earth or theistic evolution viewpoints over universalist viewpoints, coupled with mainline church theological doctrines and positions. As Jerry Seinfeld might ask:

Just to clarify - so there is no misunderstandings. I’m a firm believer in the Christian faith. But I’m agnostic on the theory of evolution as scientific fact, in regards to theistic evolution.

Lancia, thank you for the thought-provoking thread.

I recognize evolution in general as factual. The only part of it that I doubt is human evolution. (That said, I don’t deny human evolution. I recognize that it is a distinct possibility, and if human evolution is indeed a fact, my religious beliefs would not change.) Tongue in cheek, I like to put it this way: “I believe in most of evolution, but not in the monkey business.” :smiley:

Consider Genesis 2:8: " The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. "

I understand this to mean that God specially placed Adam in an “enclosure” (so to speak)–a relatively small area on planet earth that He specially renovated to be free of “nature red in tooth and claw”, rather like an idealized Disney version of nature: gentle, beautiful, and harmless. But after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God kicked them out into the world dominated by biological evolution, thus subjecting them to all the stuff you mentioned in your opening post, lancia.

I found these articles interesting and thought I would share them. No theologians here who are not scientists and written for lay people:

Evolution as fact and theory
Is Evolution a Theory or a Fact?
Just How Well Proven Is Evolution?

Hey. I wouldn’t mind playing a nerd on the crew from The Big Bang Theory. Look at “Actual Salaries” and you see they probably are paid more than real life, scientific counterparts.

In your third linked reference, Morris challenges evolutionary biologists to devise an experiment to verify evolution. He suspects that such a verification could not be done. Well, such experiments have been done, and they have verified evolution without fail.

One set of particularly well-known experiments was done by Richard Lenski. He has cultured the bacterium *Escherichia coli *for thousands of generations, starting with 12 genetically identical strains. Certain bacterial characteristics evolved in every one of these cultures. One was an increase in cell size: each culture evolved an increase in cell size. Similar results have been observed in other bacterial cultures. In general, if bacterial cultures are raised on a sub-lethal concentration of some substance, they will all eventually adapt to that substance, as measured by an increase in their population size to a new stable level, without fail.

Thanks, Geoffrey.

Hi, Lancia:

I was curious how creationists might respond to this or what questions they might ask. in Creationist Answer to Lenski’s Ecoli, the author asks this:

I’m curious how you would respond to this question and criticism, for example.

You’re kidding, right??? Or is this a test?

I say that because talking about recessive traits makes sense only in the context of a diploid organism in which chromosomes exist in homologous pairs. The diploid condition produces a total of two copies of each gene. Only in diploid organisms can a recessive gene copy be masked by the dominant gene copy on the other (homologous) chromosome.

But bacteria, such as E. coli, are haploid organisms in which chromosomes do not exist in pairs. So, gene copies do not exist in pairs the way they do in diploid organisms. That single gene copy will be expressed in bacteria. It cannot be masked in the same way that a recessive gene copy can be masked by the dominant gene copy in diploid organisms.

You passed. On the other hand, the site Science Meets Religion, has this interesting article (also, the second one is good, from another site):

What are the theological advantages to an evolutionary worldview?
God’s Creation Through Evolution and the Language of Scripture