Abstract
The core question that this article addresses is how the Darwinian evolutionary process of random mutation and natural selection relates to God’s character, especially as portrayed in the Christian tradition. The main challenge is that the process of random mutation and natural selection generally favours well-adapted individuals, whereas, in the Christian tradition, God is said to favour the weak and poor. I first spell out the problem in more detail and explain how it is different from other problems regarding the evolutionary process and God’s character that can be found in the philosophical and theological literature. Subsequently, I draw attention to various misunderstandings, especially about the nature of Darwinian evolution. Doing so weakens the tension between Darwinian evolution and God’s character, but does not provide a satisfactory solution. I therefore move on to discuss six attempts to solve the problem and argue that each of them is seriously wanting. Finally, I propose three lines of reasoning that jointly constitute a sufficiently plausible solution to the problem.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 544-564 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Modern Theology |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 11 May 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2018 |
Funding
58Sincere thanks for insightful comments and/or discussions are due to Valentin Arts, Kelly James Clark, Cees Dekker, Andries de Jong, Jeroen de Ridder, Ninya den Haan, Coos Engelsma, René Fransen, Simon Howard, Dan Howard-Snyder, Wilfred Jacobs, Bart Klink, Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen, Boaz Miller, Chris Oldfield, Stefan Paas, Eric Peels, Herman Philipse, Ewoud Schmidt, Koert van Bekkum, Gijsbert van den Brink, Anne van Mulligen, Renévan Woudenberg, Laura Rogers Ziesel, and two referees for this journal. I would also like to thank James Fodor for his editorial comments that were helpful in finalizing the manuscript. This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Templeton World Charity Foundation.
