Th e fi rst plank in my constructive proposal in evolutionary theodicy, then, is that there are indeed (logical) constraints on God ’ s creation of life-bearing worlds, and that a world of competition and natural selection was the only way God could give rise to creaturely values of the sort we know to have evolved in the biosphere of Earth . As so oft en, this is particularly well expressed by Arthur Peacocke, who wrote:
If the Creator intended the arrival in the cosmos of complex, reproducing structures that could think and be free – that is, self-conscious, free persons – was there not some other, less costly and painful way of bringing this about? Was that the only possible way? Th is is one of those unanswerable metaphysical questions in theodicy to which our only response has to be based on our understanding of the biological parameters . . . discerned by science to be operating in evolution. Th ese indicate that there are inherent constraints on how even an omnipotent Creator could bring about the existence of a law-like creation that is to be a cosmos not a chaos, and thus an arena for the free action of self-conscious, reproducing complex entities and for the coming to be of the fecund variety of living organisms whose existence the Creator delights in. 11
10 Th e latter, in particular, is Neil Messer ’ s great concern, see N. Messer, ‘ Natural Evil aft er Darwin ’ , in
M. S. Northcott and R. J. Berry (eds.), Th eology aft er Darwin (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009), pp. 139 – 54.
11 A. R. Peacocke, ‘ Th e Cost of New Life ’ , in J. Polkinghorne (ed.), Th e Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis
(London: SPCK/Grand Rapids: WB Eerdmans, 2001), pp. 21 – 42 (36 – 7).
Is that enough, then? Can one simply retort to whoever complains at God that this is the best type of system for generating creaturely value, however great the cost? Most biologists would be inclined to respond in these terms, to say that nature is a ‘ package deal ’ . You cannot have the values without the disvalues. 12 But I have argued strongly that that by itself is not an adequate defence of the goodness of God. God is not merely the God of systems, but of individual creatures. It is not enough to say to the limping impala calf picked off by hyenas; or (in Holmes Rolston ’ s famous example) 13 to the second pelican chick pushed out of the nest to starve, by its stronger sibling;
to creatures whose lives know no fl ourishing, that God is the God of the system and the system is a package deal – the bad with the good. So the ‘ only way ’ argument cannot subsist by itself. It should not be advanced as a knock-down argument in philosophical theodicy, as though we could be absolutely confi dent as to the range of worlds God might have created, and as though we could know how God might have chosen between them. Th at would be both hubristic in terms of our knowledge and impoverished in terms of our view of God. Rather, we need to insert this ‘ only way ’ understanding within a richer account of the narrative of God ’ s ways with the world. I now outline briefl y a series of moves that are needed to supplement the ‘ only way ’ argument:
First, the need to invoke the co-suff ering of God with all creatures, an increasing emphasis in the theology of the last hundred years, and applied to the non-human world in the work of theologians such as Arthur Peacocke
12 A related argument has been advanced by Robin Attfi eld in Creation, Evolution and Meaning
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), chapters 6 – 7. Th e ‘ only way ’ argument is essentially the approach defended by Michael Ruse, in his Can a Darwinian be a Christian? Th e Relationship between Science and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 130 – 38, and by R. L. Fern, Nature, God and Humanity: Envisioning an Ethics of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 152 – 53, 222. Michael Rota, drawing on the work of Peter van Inwagen, notes that a miraculous world in which suff ering was continuously prevented would not only be a world unable to evolve under selection pressure, but also a world that compromised divine hiddenness and/or divine faithfulness to the regularities of the world. See M. Rota, ‘ Th e Problem of Evil and Cooperation ’ , in M. Nowak and S. Coakley (eds.), Evolution, Games and God: Th e Principle of Cooperation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), pp. 362 – 74. Michael Murray ’ s analysis of possible theodicies also lays stress on the good of what he calls ‘ nomic regularity ’ . See M. J. Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Th eism and the Problem of Animal Suff ering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
13 H. Rolston III, Science and Religion: A Critical Survey (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press,
2006), p. 144.
and Jay McDaniel. 14 Every theologian would concede that God is present to every creature both in its fl ourishing and in its suff ering, and that therefore no creature suff ers or dies alone. In the Christian tradition this suff ering is focused and exemplifi ed at the cross in a way that inaugurates the transformation of the world. Niels Gregersen ’ s work on ‘ deep incarnation ’ emphasizes the solidarity of Christ not merely with humans but with all creatures, and particularly the victims of evolution. 15 So it is a short step from there to the supposition that God does indeed suff er with every suff ering creature, and that that suff ering, at some deep existential level, makes a diff erence, both to God and to the creature.
Second, the need to suggest that creatures whose lives know no fulfi lment may experience fullness of life in some eschatological reality, a ‘ pelican heaven ’ in McDaniel ’ s phrase. A number of theologians have explored this line recently in various ways, including J ü rgen Moltmann, Robert J. Russell and Denis Edwards. 16 If we take altogether seriously the loving character and purposes of God, I think we cannot believe that lives consisting of nothing but suff ering are the end for those creatures that experience them.
Please note where this engagement with evolutionary theodicy has taken us. We have had to part company with the notion of a perfectly good initial creation corrupted by some mysterious process. So we have had to accept the profound ambiguity of that creation. We have also had to abandon the perfect impassibility of God so beloved of classical tradition, in favour of a God who grieves and laments with suff ering creatures, very possibly in the very same process in which God takes joy from the fl ourishing of other creatures. And we have had to abandon the conviction – also strong in the tradition – that animals know no redemption, in favour of a view of a heaven rich in creaturely diversity.
14 See A. R. Peacocke, ‘ Biological Evolution: A Positive Th eological Appraisal ’ , in R. J. Russell, W. R.
Stoeger, SJ and F. J. Ayala (eds.), Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientifi c Perspectives on Divine Action (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory/Berkeley: Center for Th eology and the Natural Sciences, 1998), pp. 357 – 76; J. B. McDaniel Of God and Pelicans: A Th eology of Reverence for Life (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1989).
15 N. H. Gregersen, ‘ Th e Cross of Christ in an Evolutionary World ’ , Dialog , 40/3 (2001), pp. 192 – 207.
16 J. Moltmann, Th e Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions (trans. M. Kohl; London:
SCM Press, 1990); R. J. Russell, Cosmology: From Alpha to Omega (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008);
D. Edwards, ‘ Every Sparrow that Falls to the Ground: Th e Cost of Evolution and the Christ-event ’ , Ecotheology 11/1 (2006), pp. 103 – 23.
Th e last element in what I have called ‘ a compound evolutionary theodicy ’ 17 is a sense of the high calling of redeemed humanity as co-redeemers with God in the drawing together of all things (see below).
It will be clear that I cannot follow Holmes Rolston in his conviction that if God watches the sparrow fall, he does so from a great distance. 18 A God of love, the quality of love we see on the cross, is not distant from creaturely suff ering, nor is that God only a calculator of overall best of all possible worlds, or yet only a user of creatures for long-term goals, however profound and redemptive.
I share with Jay McDaniel, and indeed with the general thrust of all process theology, and with Arthur Peacocke, and indeed with the rather diff erent model of divine companioning in Ruth Page, 19 a conviction that indeed God is with each individual creature both in its fl ourishing and in its suff ering. As God is with every human being, and most profoundly present to them at the time of their death, so God is also with other creatures, in such a way, for each type of creature, as may be meaningful, as may make a diff erence. I return to what diff erence below.