Evolution and Divine Action

One of the issues Daniel Harrell deals with in his excellent “Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith” is the problem of divine action.

“Divine action” is the question of how God acts in history. Biological evolution raises questions about divine action because the process of evolution is “random.” Christians have historically believed in a God who is sovereign — that is, a God who is “in control” of history. How can “random” evolution be reconciled with a “sovereign” God?

Some Christians argue that these notions cannot be reconciled. The “Intelligent Design” movement, for example, is fueled in large part by a belief that “purpose” or “design” must be empirically detectable in order to demonstrate God’s sovereignty over creation. /FN1/

In my view, most of these “strong” Intelligent Design arguments about “randomness” are misplaced. The theological notion of God’s sovereignty has never required that all of God’s activity in history be empirically demonstrable. In fact, the Calvinistic understanding of “providence” is that God’s purposes often are hidden from human understanding. What seem like a set of “random” circumstances from the human perspective are sensible and ordered from God’s perspectives. The assertion that God is sovereign is a theological claim based on revelation and faith. This claim is supported by some important empirical data — most notably the historical resurrection of Jesus — but it is not primarily an empirically testable claim.

Thomas Aquinas wrestled with the problem of the hiddennes of providence when he addressed the problem of evil in the Summa Contra Gentiles. Aquinas wanted to show that God is not the cause of the evil acts of human beings. A standard response to this problem is the “free will” defense: human beings are free to chose or not choose evil, and God is not culpable for those choices. But if God is sovereign even over human affairs, how is it possible to claim that God did not ultimately cause human evil?

Aquinas framed his response in terms of different levels of causality. God determines the ultimate purpose, role and function of each element of creation. However, God gave some creatures, particularly humans, at least some capacity to choose among different courses of action. When creatures make choices, those choices are the secondary cause of whatever consequences result. However, God remains the primary cause in that God in His sovereignty ordained that human beings should be creatures that are free to make moral choices, and God’s will continually sustains that ability.

This notion of primary and secondary causation can help us understand how we can talk about “randomness” in nature without impinging on God’s sovereignty. As Christian theists, by “random” we don’t mean metaphysically random. We mean only “random” from our human perspective. We acknowledge that many things that appear random to us as human beings are not random to God.

In fact, the question of “random” events seems to present no problem at all to most Christians except where biological evolution is concerned. Take a pair of dice and toss them on the desk. Unless you have extraordinary skill in manipulating dice, the result will be “random.” Log onto a secure website. Your browser is using an encryption algorithm based on a “randomly” generated encryption key. Follow the stock market. Its fluctuations are “random,” or more accurately, “stochastic” — they follow no statistically predictable pattern. Observe a thunderstorm. The storm develops stochastically, which explains why predicting the weather involves so much guesswork.

In all of these cases, we have no problem asserting that God is ultimately sovereign. Indeed, scripture gives us express support for this belief: Many times in the Biblical narratives people make descions or seek to determine God’s will by “casting lots” — an activity similar to playing dice (see, e.g., Leviticus 16, Numbers 34, 1 Samuel 14, Josua 19, Esther 3, Esther 9, etc.). Proverbs 16:33 offers some wisdom about this practice: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”

There seems to be no reason why this can’t also be true concerning biological evolution. Though it appears “random” to us, there is no reason why it can’t at the same time happen within the boundaries of God’s sovereignty. There is no reason why God must have “intervened” at discrete points in natural history to maintain His sovereignty. /FN2/

Of course, this suggests only that a theory of biological evolution that accepts apparent randomness is consistent with classical Christian theism. Theories of biological evolution that insist on metaphysical randomness are not consistent with Christian theism (and further are “philosophical” and not “scientific”). Moreover, a Christian theist might insist on other grounds, particularly on the basis of scripture but also based on tradition, experience, and reason, that God did “intervene” in natural history at certain points — most notably, perhaps, in the creation of that which makes human beings “human.” But these are not meta-questions about God’s sovereignty.

For a longer and truly outstanding discussion of how a Thomistic understanding of creation relates to the question of divine action in evolution, see William E. Carroll, Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas.

Footnotes:

/FN1/ It’s important to note that Intelligent Design is not primarily a critique of the “common descent” aspect of evolution. Many Intelligent Design advocates, including Michael Behe, fully accept common descent. This means that Behe and others like him agree with mainstream science that the history of life on earth generally reflects a long, gradual transition from one common ancestor to all the diversity of life today. In other words, most Intelligent Design advocates argue for or at least implicity accept some form of “guided” or “front loaded” evolution. This, by the way, is one of my biggest arguments with some evangelical apologists: they improperly cite Intelligent Design as a refutation of common descent in favor of some kind of direct creationism.

/FN2/ At the same time, it’s important to note that not all theologians, even outside the Intelligent Design camp, are comfortable with this admittedly simplified Thomistic model of primary and secondary causation as applied to nature. This is a rich and very interesting area, which has spawned a variety of nuanced models. Many of these nuances also attempt to respond to the theodicy problem raised by even an apparently randomly evolving creation (why would God create a world that develops through predation and competition?). These range from making “space” for divine action in quantum indeterminacy to suggestions that move in the direction of open theism and panentheism. See, e.g., Robert John Russell et al., Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (Vatican Observatory Publications / CTNS 1997). In my view, however, the Thomistic model remains very useful and retains the decided advantage of falling within classical and Reformed understandings of God’s transcendence, sovereignty and foreknowledge.