To be more succinct: we humans care about the welfare of our species. We build hospitals in the deliberate attempt to circumvent nature and the notion of the 'survival of the fittest.' We contemplate morality and ethics, and believe in them more than basic 'survival skills.'
It is not for nothing that Maslow and his hierarchy of needs has been discredited; nothing but the presence of love within us accounts for human sacrifice and altruism.
Letβs just assume that God is like a parent who is exceptionally lenient with his children. No bedtime, no curfew, not rules against smoking or drinking or carousing: God has given us free will and hopes that his example and words are enough for us to learn to love. God set up a world in which we humans could best learn how to love. That God allows us to be free, but in being free God allows us to fail. But God loves us, as parents love their children, and God feels the greatest joy when we succeed despite our troubles. As do our parents.
It is also true that God performs miracles-- but there are no hard and fast rules for them. Some miracles prove a point, some miracles help individuals, some miracles erase mistakes, and some miracles redeem all humankind of sin.
God, by his own word, has established Laws of Nature and we have seen much tragedy at the hands of nature. That God does not intervene is not a reflection of His indifference. It is a reflection of the balance of Nature, and of the liberty of free will that God gave us. When we suffer as a result of a catastrophic natural event, God suffers with us.
But Satan is also present in the world. Lewis makes an interesting point in Mere Christianity about the existence of Satan. Perhaps, he argues, Satan controls great swaths of the universe, and that Earth and humanity are but outposts in The Great Dark Void. That the presence of evil β the utter lack of love β is greater here than in those places in the Universe that love God. Perhaps Heaven is that place? But on Earth, God is fighting a mortal battle. God has allowed Satan because God knows how important it is for we his children to redeem ourselves, of our own free will. God wants Satan to be redeemed, adn God wants us to learn to love him. He has set up conditions for us to succeed. One of the messages of Jesus is that God loves those who reform or redeem themselves more than he loves those who have always lived righteously, and Jesus uses the parable of the Prodigal Son for this very purpose: a redeemed soul is one that has returned from darkness into light.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Fascinating and extremely thoughtful (and thorough, as you noted). I agree with most of it but have a few thoughts: absolute certainly in the rightness of your own beliefs is as dangerous as moral relativism: this is what fundamentalist Muslims have - terrorists or not. I think we must all leave room in our minds that we might be wrong and therefore respect the beliefs of others as long as they do not cause us harm. In the case of Islamists, however, (and all fanatics) they are doing harm and are not to be respected.
Thanks for sharing this Paulie!
2 - JR
If evolution is such a deliberate process, why has it appeared to stop?
Actually, evolution appears not to have stopped. This group is studying the effects of living at high altitudes. From Nature news:
Not to mention all of the evidence of continuing evolution that is observed among other life forms. Didn't you learn in seventh-grade about those moths in industrial England that adapted to soot-covered trees? And why do you think they have to make up a new flu vaccine every year?
A more thorough understanding of evolution would reveal that, like entropy, it simply occurs with the passage of time. There is no stopping.