There is a sense in which I - & I suspect many other Christians who accept evolution - DON'T "want to believe" it. & specifically, there's a part of me that doesn't want to believe the neo-Darwinian version of it. It would be more comfortable to believe in a God who created humanity (& me!)separately from other animals, and the idea of a God who would create through the processes of natural selection with the attendant suffering & death is disturbing to standard brand religion. But the scientific evidence that evolution in something like its neo-Darwinian form has happened is overwhelming, & if I'm going to have any degree of intellectual honesty I need to accept it. As is probably the case for many of us, I "accepted" evolution - i.e., agreed that it had happened - before I was fully aware of all the disturbing implications of the neo-Darwinian view of it. Fortunately my growth in understanding of evolution took placew at about the same time that I was growing in theol!
ogical understanding &, in particular, understanding of the theology of the cross. I.e., real Christianity isn't standard brand religion. The realities of evolution were in fact one of the things - though certainly not the only one - that helped me to grasp the real world significance of the theology of the cross.
I would suggest that when confronted with someone like Randy's correspondent, it might be appropriate to suggest, gently but firmly, that some theological growth is in order.
Shalom,
George
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Received on Sun Aug 30 20:51:07 2009
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