First Parish Church - Theology for Galileo, Darwin

Implications of Galileo and Darwin on Theology

Steven Matthysse
Professor Emeritus, Harvard Medical School

Presented in the panel
Galileo, Darwin, and God: Anniversary Retrospectives
First Parish Church in Weston
December 6, 2009

1. The Theodicy Problem

I am going to talk about theology, not science — but I would like to make it clear at the outset that I take all the scientific facts of evolution and cosmology for granted. Two theological problems are raised by evolution. First is the contradiction of evolutionary history with the literal interpretation of Scripture (which is not a problem for Unitarians). Second is the problem of theodicy, which is a problem for everyone. The etymology of “theodicy” is theos (God) + dike (Justice). How can God be good, in a world with so much suffering? Animal suffering is a worst-case problem for theodicy, because animals cannot grow in spirituality through suffering, as, at least sometimes, humans can, nor can their sufferings be explained as consequences of, or punishments for sin.

We didn’t need evolution to become aware of the suffering of animals, but the Darwinian struggle for existence raises it to a principle by which the world evolves. As Nancy Lewis encapsulated the theory, “Any species has the power to recreate infinitely …Therefore there is a struggle for existence … those best able to adapt will live longer and produce more of their kind.” Teilhard de Chardin, in “The Phenomenon of Man”, acknowledges the paradoxical role of suffering in evolution: “evil appears necessarily … in the course of evolution — not by accident … but through the very structure of the system.” (Wm. Collins Sons, 1959, p. 313) I would use “suffering” rather than “evil”, since I think of “evil” as suffering caused by humans. Darwin’s own soul-searching about this problem is quite touching:

I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world … On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can … But the more I think the more bewildered I become … (letter to Asa Gray, May 22, 1860. “The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin”, ed. F. Darwin, New York, Appleton, 1904, vol. 2, p. 105.)

Charles Whitney explained that, for Galileo, “science is a study of the book of nature, which is written in the language of mathematics.” The astonishing success of the mathematical description of the physical world seems only to make the theodicy problem worse. The formal elegance, precision and universal applicability of the laws of nature is evidence of an intelligent intention, reaching into every corner of the world; should we conclude that it is an intelligent but cruel intention? Harry Hoehler postulated “… a self-limiting God … a God who sets the boundary conditions in which events occur, allows for measures of freedom in the created order and is unafraid of unpredictable novelty” – but even on that hypothesis, God shares responsibility for the consequences of the framework He has established.

The claim of faith, on the other hand, is very radical. Despite the evidence, the traditional religious stance is to believe in a God so caring that “He shall give His angels charge over thee … they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (Psalm 91) To work out a solution to the theodicy problem, neither denying the factual evidence, nor diluting the claim of faith – that is the challenge. It is a serious challenge, perhaps impossible, but I think it is possible, if we are willing to negotiate new concepts that stretch our normal ways of thinking. A case could be made that we should avoid speculation about things that are beyond our understanding. Indeed, I am not enthusiastic in general about theological speculation, but it seems to me that this case is different, because the problem of suffering is a barrier to faith for many people.

2. Conceptions of God

The classical conception of God has been passed down to us from Aristotle, through the medieval theologians; it is not actually a Biblical notion. A beautiful and succinct formulation comes from the philosopher Boethius, in the early 6th century. The Divine eternity, he says, is “the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of unbounded life.” (V “De Consolatione” prosa 6) In this formulation God is, and is eternally. Consider instead an alternative formulation. God comes to be.

Charles Whitney said: “We are all stuck when it comes to the question, Why is there something instead of nothing?” That is certainly true. Moreover, it is not an ordinary question. Heidegger says of it: “we are each touched … by the concealed power of this question … like the muffled tolling of a bell … like a fleeting gust of wind …” (“Introduction to Metaphysics”, Yale University Press, 2000, p. 1-2) It can go beyond a question, to become a religious prompting, an intuition about the nature of God. What I will say next makes no sense logically, but its broken language is trying to convey this intuition.

Where there might have been blank nothingness, God has come to be. God is precariously pushing back the borders of the impossible, fighting to keep Himself and all being from the vortex of nothingness. Is it so easy to come to be out of nothing? God struggles over nothingness, with an unimaginable passion. That God should come to be is truly a miracle that the human mind cannot fathom. We need the language of risk, danger and heroic battle to describe what God has done. Words like pathlessness, loneliness, frustration and sorrow can be applied to God, alongside the traditional terms of glory, power and compassion. Which conception of God we choose — God is eternally, or God comes to be — makes a difference. In the first formulation, there is no solution to the problem of suffering. In the second, a solution is possible.

3. The Depth of Being of Creatures

The next step in my argument is to try to explain why God’s suffering spreads to His creatures. Care is needed about the direction of reasoning. Many theologians say that God suffers because the world suffers. I also think He does, but in this context, I am proposing an argument that goes in the opposite direction: the world suffers because God suffers.

Harry Hoehler led me to an anecdote told by the Quaker theologian Rufus Jones. Jones tells a story about children who lived on an island off the coast of Maine, surrounded by water, but who had no idea that the water they swam in and caught fish in was the Atlantic Ocean, in its wide sweep touching nations all over the world. So it is, he said, with people who “could not be at all without a Beyond akin to themselves, and yet they stare out upon the surrounding Sea … without knowing the name of it and without awakening …” (Rufus M. Jones, “The Testimony of the Soul”, Macmillan, 1937, p. 131) Most religious people believe in an unseen world, and moreover, that the unseen world does not only precede or follow our lives, but is connected to this present life. In the unseen depth, “we live, and move, and have our being”.

The classical conception that God is eternally is associated with a concept of the destiny of human beings as the direct vision of God, sometimes called the beatific vision. But when in Acts it is said that “in Him we live, and move, and have our being”, the text suggests that the destiny of human beings is not to gaze upon God, but to participate in God’s own life. A destiny of participation requires that we recapitulate the path traced as God comes to be, going through the anguish of being / nonbeing, purposiveness / meaninglessness, creativity / chaos, and hope / hopelessness, on the way to eventual victory. That is why I say that the suffering of God entails the suffering of the world.

My starting point was the problem of suffering in the origin of species. To make this theory applicable to the facts of evolution, humans cannot be separated from the rest of the living world. The startling conclusion is that all creatures, from the lowliest earthworm, participate in God in a deep and unseen layer of their being, and consequently in the suffering of God. All creatures share in God’s struggle and eventual triumph.

To work out a solution to the theodicy problem, neither denying the evidence of evolution, nor diluting the claim of faith – that was the challenge I undertook. A way toward a solution exists, but to gain access to it we need to negotiate new concepts that stretch our normal ways of thinking. Whether it’s too great a stretch, you have to judge for yourselves.