Evolution, built on a foundation of naturalism and uniformitarianism
asserts that what we experience now, including corruption, suffering and
death, have been the norm from the beginning of life on the planet.
Death is not an enemy, but is instead part of the engine of progress
toward higher life forms. It is necessary for the weak to die so that
the strong can prosper.
In it's atheist form, there
is no purpose at all to this pattern. Life arose, but it could have
failed to arise. Creatures that survive are "better" only in the
sense that they were better equipped to survive.
In
it's theistic form, God may have devised a universe that made life
possible and may in some hidden sense be the energy behind the laws of
nature, but the "survival of the fittest" reality is nevertheless the
overarching fact of existence. Death cannot be an enemy if it is a
necessary component in the development of more complex life forms.
So
why do we suffer? Because suffering and pain are evolutionary
developments that aid our survival, a notion that is brutal if there is
no purpose in existence and perhaps far worse if this was "God's method
of creation".
In either case the traditional "free
will" explanation for the origin of evil and suffering cannot be
maintained. Evil and suffering are part of the fabric of reality from
the beginning and by design.
On occasion, when
the latest media reports of some new discovery seemed to indicate that
the "fact" of evolution was undeniable, my faith would be significantly
challenged.
But much later in a short stint in
seminary, my faith was shaken. Calvinism in its most rigid
form, asserts that God's will in the form of his eternal decrees. In
our present reality, human free will is in complete bondage to
corruption, pride and rebellion. Only by the grace of God extended to
those whom he chooses, can the will be moved to desire the ultimate
good. On these ideas Christians generally agree. Humans have been corrupted. ("Good" is a term that needs context. Bad people can do
things that are "good" in a relative sense, better than something worse,
but even the best we do is tainted, corrupted and mixed with evil).
But
the Calvinist view goes much further. Human choice and human freedom are contingent
on the will of a sovereign God. There are shades of difference but in
some forms of Calvinism, the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden
was part of God's eternal decree, thus every evil act is in some way
connected to a Master Plan that only God can ever know or understand.
It was a Calvinist who pointed out in Seminary that no Calvinist can
use the "free-will" defense to explain the existence of evil.
Hearing
this at an Evangelical Christian seminary shook me more than any other
idea that had ever challenged my view of reality.
What
then is the purpose of suffering and evil, if suffering and evil are
somehow part of the mystery of God's sovereign plan? In fact, what are
even the definitions of suffering and evil if the free choices of men are determined by the sovereign decree of God?
In
both cases, that of evolutionary thinking and the logical end of
Calvinist thinking, the universe is deterministic, free will is an
illusion, and suffering and evil are simply part of the reality of the
universe as it is or as it was intended. Evil, death and suffering are
not intruders on a reality that was intended to be good, rather they
are necessary cogs in the machine that marches toward some other end, an
end that requires evil, suffering and death.
Such a
view is not in any way emotionally comforting. Neither is it
psychologically helpful. If suffering and death are "just they way
things are supposed to be" as in the naturalistic reality post-Darwin,
then we are left with a bleak pessimism overcome only by temporary
grasping for temporary joys. If on the other hand, suffering and death
are part of God's will shrouded in some mystery hidden by His
inscrutable wisdom, then we can never know the reason why cancer ravages
the body of a human being other than "it is God's will". Calvinism
fares better in that the end of suffering is envisioned, but resting in
the eternal presence of the God who decreed that the suffering was
necessary in the first place seems a conflicted stance to take.
But
intellectually, Calvinism is fraught with contradictions that make it
entirely unsatisfactory to me. God is good but he decrees that evil will occur., Death
will be swallowed up in victory but death was part of the very plan God
put into effect from the foundation of the world. Christ will put an
end to sin, but it was the decree of God that made sin inevitable.
And
intellectually, Evolution falls short as well. For the very meaning
of suffering is confused. If infirmity, disease and suffering are
necessary for the perfection of species then in what sense do we call
cancer evil? Is it not good that a body wracked with diseased cells
slip into non-existence? Atheists recoil in horror at the charge that
Hitler was influenced by Darwin, but if one race is truly inferior to
another, and species better equipped to survive should survive, then on
what moral grounds does the atheist object to helping evolution along?
Even more to the point, if there is no God and no "cosmic guarantees of
human values" (Humanist Manifesto 1), then why is survival itself deemed
to be good? If the end of our 70 years is nothingness, then why
should we not hurry to our eventual end? And will we care what is
"good" or "bad" once we are gone?
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