This is indeed a challenge for theistic evolutionists (e.g. BioLogos, Catholic intellectuals):
When you look at the full picture of evolution and you consider the 3.5 billion years during which this unfolding drama played out, when there were millions and millions of species that evolved only to be snuffed out and pushed into evolutionary dead ends, and during which time there was at least 5 mass extinctions in which some 70-95 percent of all the living species on earth at that time went extinct, I'm being asked by theists to believe that this was all part of a divine creator's plan who was sitting back and taking pleasure in watching millions of species (whose evolution he allegedly guided) get wiped out one after the other, and then starting all over again, and then wiped them out again and repeated this process over and over, until finally getting around to evolving human beings – which I'm told was the whole purpose of this cruel and clumsy process.
http://www.atheismandthecity.com/2017/10/why-im-atheist-13-reasons-arguments-for.html
This argument is interesting, and I'm an OEC guy. But this argument follows the "if I were God I would do X and this is not X". I'm not a fan of this argument. Gets you into a whole bunch of areas, even outside of evolution.
ReplyDeleteWhile I think there is an initial challenge for theistic evolutionists, I actually think this is more of a problem from the mindset of the atheist, because he's assuming a theistic outlook on the universe throughout. Not just in a presuppositional sense either.
ReplyDeleteThere are also some scientific flaws. For example, there's the anthropocentric use of saying this process was "cruel". The vast majority of organisms that have ever lived and died in extinctions almost certainly lacked the capability to feel pain, at least in any resemblance to the way we do. Think of insects and even lobsters who, while they certainly react to stimuli, lack the nervous system capable of experiencing pain unless they do so in a completely alien way to the way mammals do. So in that regard, preceding organisms could be viewed as organic robots and, as such, the moral "sting" is really mitigated. In fact, it could be argued that the only animals with "high enough" functioning to be able to experience pain didn't even come about until after the Fall anyway, even with evolution in mind.
Secondarily is the aspect that clearly the author here implies that it's somehow wasteful to go through all these "evolutionary dead ends" and the like and says that it's "clumsy." But that, of course, presumes the purpose of the events. If one thinks of these organisms as providing the necessary foundation for current life to exist, it makes sense--just like you have to mix certain ingredients together to make a cake. The Earth needed certain bacteria and other organisms to, for lack of a better word, "terraform" the planet to make it suitable for us to live here now, and if some of those organisms still survived to this day they would be competing with us and taking resources we need, etc. So it's not at all a given that it's "wasteful" for God to have used "primitive" organisms to terraform aspects of the Earth before removing them and starting over with the next needed lifeforms, culminating in our current existence today.
On the other hand, the *idea* that it would be wasteful to do so comes about from an ethical view of life that is completely alien to the atheistic worldview and has to be stolen from Christian principles. So, this really seems a bigger problem for atheists to me.
Something of an odd objection: any good Augustinian knows that God doesn't owe salvation to humans. Seems odd to side with the atheists and say "Wait, humans can still call God to account for not providing a world without extinctions. He owes it to us!"
ReplyDeleteI am more an ID proponent. I do not 'feel' any pinch about the opening post, though. Steve has written posts about predation and 'natural evil' before the fall. In this post (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/01/is-natural-evil-postlapsarian.html) he said ""Natural evil" is a term of art. Many natural evils are natural goods. They are necessary to maintain the balance of nature." I'm inclined to think "so what if any species were dead ends". They lived while they lived and are part of what makes the world as it is today. Over the period of a species existence, there would have been many highs for that species. If that were not the case, the species would have been extinct pretty much from the time it existed.
ReplyDeleteThe primary issue isn't mass extinction. Rather, a theistic evolutionist takes the position that man is the goal of evolution. That's what God is aiming for. But surely evolution is an terribly clumsy means to achieve that goal. Dumb luck more than anything. Mass extinction is problematic in that context because it highlights how pointless it would be to use that process to eventuate in human beings.
ReplyDelete"... a theistic evolutionist takes the position that man is the goal of evolution"
ReplyDeleteI haven't read much of their literature, but that sounds weird. Why wouldn't they say that the whole history, from beginning to end, is God's creation, not merely with the objective of man? Other species, including dead end species, could be reflective of God's creativity and/or necessary for other ends.
As regards extinctions, from what I have heard, the extinction of the dinosaurs (say) was necessary to allow the thriving of mammals. And the dinosaurs were a necessary part of creating the atmospheric conditions for later life, the spread of seeds, etc.
"But surely evolution is an terribly clumsy means to achieve that goal"
Couldn't you make this point more generally (if true) and say that God doing anything aside from directly (occasionalism) would be clumsy in the sense that He could simply by-step secondary means and do things directly?