EVIL & EVOLUTION: A THEODICY

Chapter 2

Almighty Goodness

Either God cannot abolish evil or He will not:
if He cannot, He is not all powerful;
if He will not, then He is not all good.

This unsettling statement, attributed to St. Augustine, succinctly states the basic question, or the "general abstract problem," of evil. God's power and his goodness: - Few doubt that these two qualities should belong preeminently to God. Yet in the face of evil, are these not the first attributes of God that we begin to question?

Elie Wiesel, the modern Jewish writer, relates in his autobiographical account, Night, how, as he and his father were herded from one Nazi "Stellag" to another, he never once doubted God's existence. Nor initially did he doubt God's power - that was to come later. But after his horrifying exposure to the vast death camp of Auschwitz, he began to doubt, and still does question, the goodness of God.

Many thinkers, shocked by these and other atrocities, have not only questioned God's goodness and his presumed "omnipotence," but also his very existence. Stubborn in their questioning and relentless in their doubts, they conclude that a God whose power falters or whose goodness is limited is no God at all. Such a God is dead -- in name as well as in fact. The question arises, however, as to whether these two notions, of unlimited power and goodness, are necessarily inseparable from the idea of God.

A. God Almighty

The traditional Western concept of God sees him as almighty and omnipotent. "He has made the heavens and earth and all that dwell in them." Christians share this conviction with their Jewish cousins in the Biblical faith. So too, cries the Muslim: "Allah akbar"-- God is great. There appears little room for doubt. Does not the very concept of God imply that everything has its origin in him? Especially in the exalted language of philosophy and theology, this rootedness of all existence in God, who is described alternately as the "Prime Mover" (Aristotle) , "Pure Act" (Aquinas), "Being as Such" (Augustine) and "The Ground of Being" (Tillich), or in countless variations on the same themes, is constant. All seem to stress that everything without exception has its origin in God and depends on his power for existence.

Without exception? Yes, and this is the apparent root of the problem. Evil can be no exception. However you may describe or define evil, there could be no evil if there was no creation. So God seems to be ultimately responsible not only for good but for evil as well. At least this is the way it looks at first glance. (Non-existence itself as "evil" is another question.)

There are other ways around this problem. The ancient Babylonians and the Persians after them"solved" the problem by supposing there are two "gods," one good, the other bad. One then simply divided the world into two parts: the spiritual, good world and the material, bad world. Each had its own creator. A pragmatic solution, and one that seemed to answer every question except the big one: could either "god" really be God in the face of another having its origin elsewhere? Such a solution leaves much to be desired. At least the writer of Genesis thought so. For him, God made everything, without exception, and "God saw that it was good." So, for Western man the issue seemed to be settled at least in principle, even if in practice the logic of this strict monotheism may sometimes have led to doubt about God's justice.

Other, more subtle suggestions have been made. Could God, though Creator of all, not have unlimited power over all things? As has so often been pointed out, even God cannot make square circles. Must not God be constrained by the logic of his own creation? Yet, I would suspect that if it were logically possible to have square circles, there would be little doubt in the uncritical believer's mind that this too would be within the power of God. Thus God's power can be commonly understood (according to M. B. Ahern in The Problem of Evil, p. 14) to consist in "the possibility of bringing about anything that is logically possible for a being of unlimited power to bring about."

This logic of language, however, may raise more difficulties than it can solve. Suppose God started something he could not handle. Could it be that God created a process that got out of hand, like Frankenstein's monster or the computerized space ship in Zubrek's movie 2001, which turned on its human crew and began to do them in, one by one? It is precisely because our idea of God's omnipotence would be severely compromised by the idea of a runaway creation that the concept of God's omniscience or all-knowingness is generally understood to belong to the fullness of his power.

However, far from being a complete answer, the idea of God's omniscience presents another whole set of problems, especially when it is meant to convey the idea that God not only knows all the possibilities but also all the probabilities and even all future actualities: It may be argued whether or not such foreknowledge (and the additional problem of "predestination" which it raises) is a product of Biblical religion or of Greek philosophical speculation about what people understand to be Biblical religion. Yet, literally read, the Bible does seem to attest to such divine foreknowledge, as in Psalm 139, "...my days listed and determined, even before the first of them occurred." What then? How can we be free agents?

Despite the difficulties this foreknowledge raises, a truly personal, knowing and willing God who is at the same time omnipotent would logically seem to have this power. For if God is the source of all existence and time as we know it, he also exists (stands outside of) independent of time. "There is no future thing for God," said Maritain. Thus there can be no surprises for God -- only for us it would seem!

Several things should be said regarding this delicate matter. The first is that we should be aware of the hebraic tendency to conceive all significant events as preordained events, pre-existing and fully-formed in the mind of God. Thus, typically, in later Jewish thought, the Torah or Law of God as an expression of God's wisdom is seen as pre-existing from all eternity. So too many other concepts in the Bible.

Second, we must also be aware that, despite the aforementioned tendency, that the ability to foretell the future, often displayed by the biblical prophets as an authenticating,sign of their mission as God's spokesmen, is nevertheless a distinctively "prophetic" type of prognostation. It is almost always conditional, indicating what the outcome of human decision and a certain course of action will most surely be, and it is almost never fatalistic,leaving a way out for a change of heart. This remains clear despite the tendency of Hebrew thought to skip over intermediary causes (as when the Scriptures speak of God "hardening people's hearts" - meaning that God has allowed them to become stubborn in their ways). This distinctively prophetic type of foreknowledge has often become drastically changed and absolutized in later apocalyptic literature where the events of history are depicted as entirely preordained. This change reflects a period of history when believers who existed as a scattered underground no longer had any control of their social destiny and could only make individual moral decisions in the face of overwhelming political events. Both of these later thought patterns, coupled with mythological conceptions of Fate drawn from ancient Greece and elsewhere, have probably resulted in the tendency to over-literalize our reading of Biblical reference to God's foreknowledge, and a corresponding tendency to make a theological absolute out of the concept of predestination.

On the other hand, it must be admitted that the pure logic of the situation where God is seen as the origin of all existence would also demand a certain foreknowledge of at least the possible outcome of his actions. Added to this is the realization that in a world where human "think tanks" are employed to analyze the present and prognosticate the future, we can hardly imagine a God worth worshipping who does not only know all the possibilities but the probabilities as well. Even Whitehead seems to have admitted this much. (See note 1 below.)

When it comes to future actualities, however, this matter of the omniscience of God, coupled with the doctrine of the basic dependence of all creatures on God, has occasioned endless and, it would appear, almost fruitless debate. Whether it is viewed on the natural level of providence over nature or the supernatural level of God's redeeming grace and its effect on free will, there seems to be no clear answer to this problem.

It is all too clear, however, that a serious problem remains for theodicy. In defending human responsibility, even a partial foreknowledge on God's part of the possible courses of action which a human may take would seem to lay the ultimate responsibility at the feet of God. Witness, for example, the scriptural remarks about Judas Iscariot and his betrayal of Christ.

In them there appears to be two contrasting interpretations of God's foreknowledge, and, by implication, his power. In one pair (Acts 1:16 and John 13:18) God's foreknowledge is seen as a kind of predestination that makes the event "must be" (in fulfillment of an interpretation of Psalm 41:9). While in Matthew (26:24) and Mark (14:21) we find that the stress appears to be on the tragic choice and the fate of the man who would carry out the betrayal ("...better for that man if he had never been born"). Unless we read too much into Jesus' remark, the note of bitter regret might indicate that even God's power is limited by the freedom which he gives his creatures. But would not foreknowledge of the outcome necessarily imply compliance on God's part -- at least in the chain of events that led up to the existence of this free agent in the first place?

It would seem then that any view of God's power which includes even a limited foreknowledge of future possibilities puts us in the position of laying the ultimate responsibility of having started all things, good and evil, at God's feet. Presumably, then, God had good reason, a higher good in mind. Nevertheless, if even limited power and knowledge would make God responsible for some of the evil in the world, then complete omnipotence and perfect foresight would make God all the more responsible for the eventual existence of evil. So Augustine's logic (and that of his adversaries whose logic he sums up) seems, up to this point, flawless. Thus we must confront the question: can such an almighty God, who does not or will not prevent evil, be all-good?

B. God and Good

If the concept of "power" has long been identified with God, so has the concept of the highest good. Names for this supreme being differ and have different linguistic origins yet the close association between God and good persists -- in their Germanic root our two words are identical: So strong is this identification of God with ultimate goodness that Jesus refused to allow himself to be called "Good Master" and insisted that "God alone is good!" When trying to describe the ultimate principle of the universe without using Theous ("divinity" - the word that the Greeks too readily applied to their mythological heroes) Plato simply turned to the Good, the Beautiful, the True.

In the face of this constant association of the good in its highest form with God, is it possible to define "good" in any fully satisfactory way? Many have tried, equating goodness with harmony, love, creativity, fulfillment, happiness, and even "being" itself. Each of these attempts has its merits and special nuances, yet each falls short. Is it not because they are trying to describe the indescribable, to contain the "uncontainable," the ultimate, the nature of God himself?

Even so -- even more so -- how can evil then be compatible with good, particularly with the ultimate good which we understand to be God?

In our discussion of God's power and the problem of evil we came to the conclusion that power in itself, even unlimited power, did not necessarily rule out responsibility for or even a certain justification for allowing evil to occur for the sake of a greater good. So we have already assumed that good admits of some relativity - that while many things are "good," some are better," and at least one is "best." If this is true in any given class or category (at least we assume that a "blue ribbon" first prize winner has outclassed all its competitors, even the better ones) can it not also be true regarding all creation, and even more of the Creator in respect to creation? Was not this behind Jesus' remarks: "God alone is good?" -- because while creation is good (and Jesus himself was outstandingly good), God as such, the incomparably holy [Hebrew quadosh], stands apart from or is utterly transcendent in respect to all created goodness or holiness.

Even granting this important distinction, why consider anything to be evil at all in a world that is basically good? If everything is good, how can there be any real evil? Is it not just a question of lesser goods? There seems no doubt about it. Considering things simply as they exist, they all seem good in one way or another. I may think that mosquitoes are no good whatsoever, but as an organism displaying beauty (at least to other mosquitoes), efficiency (few airplane designers have done as well), harmony, persistence, etc., a mosquito is a wonder of creation and, in that sense, good. Yet I think that we all have some problem in following the Biblical writers and the philosophers on this point, particularly when it comes to the relationship between the mosquito and our tender skin. To us, or at least in respect to us, the mosquito is a plague which seems to serve no good purpose.

So let's try again. Let's take soda-pop, or, if you prefer, have a beer. They seem good. They taste good. We believe that they are good - but only up to a certain point. Even too much Pabst's Blue Ribbon can make us inharmoniously tipsy, sick, or worse. So we can very much experience evil in the midst of what is otherwise good. Because of the evil that can occur, some would thereby attempt to abolish these "goods"-- at one time it was "demon rum", then it was sugar, and now sugar substitutes in our soda-pop!

Certainly there are much more serious parallels to these rather light-hearted examples and we must move on to consider the real tragedies in life. But it should be obvious by now that we are speaking about a hierarchy or scale of good in that which is imperfect. Thus the insistence of Jesus that God alone, in the perfect sense, is good only underscores the relativity of all other goods.

This should bring us immediately to another aspect of the compatibility of divine perfection with the imperfect goodness of the world. During the Middle Ages one of the big questions of the time was whether or not God could have created a better world. At first glance this sort of debate might be dismissed as being in the same class of idle speculation as the question of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. It is not. While "the best possible-world" debate might appear to have been as inconclusive as the one about the angels, the stakes were extremely high. What the question amounts to is an attempt to reconcile the goodness of God with a less than perfect world, indeed, with a world that contains real evils.

While medieval theologians remained divided on the question, one thing was clear. A world that contains free beings is going to have flaws due to human error, no matter how well the rest of creation may have been put together. The possibility, indeed the inevitability, of human flaws and their consequences is the price that God is willing to pay to share the universe with free creatures something like himself. As the later philosopher Leibniz was to put it, the best possible world is not necessarily a perfect world: It all depends on your (and in this case God's) purposes.

This insight really shouldn't surprise us. Think what the alternative might be. For example, a few years ago some clever wag got the idea of marketing "pet rocks," very successfully selling them to people who appreciated both the humor and the logic of their "advantages." After all, they are economical (at least before they started selling them), don't require feeding, are well behaved (never need housebreaking), and seldom, if ever, run away from home. They can't even be easily stolen if massive enough. They are practically immortal: However, more seriously, they leave something to be desired as pets. They cannot respond, move about at will, play, return affection, learn tricks or actively perform other useful functions, all traits that we look for in our domesticated animals that we keep for our use and enjoyment. So it is with God's creation. God could have endowed the human species with much the same stable qualities that belong to a pet rock. Or He might have even given us the mobility of a dog or cat, and perhaps even the instincts which make these animals, to some degree, independent; but God chose to do more. In the same way as a person who substitutes a pet for a child or for another human being, God would be settling for a creature incapable of the higher perfection that can be ours despite the risk of human misbehavior. God's presumed foreknowledge of these wrongdoings, did not stop him. In a very real sense, at least in the created realm,"the perfect is the enemy of the good!" Of course, it all depends on what you mean by perfect. A static and guaranteed "good," at least in the case of creation, it is not.

For most people, however, this obvious answer, failed to answer the question, at least regarding the "lower-than-human" levels of creation. Why could there not exist a better possible world, one without earthquakes, floods, diseases, and similar disasters? Apart from these apparent flaws, did not God allow even the goodness of his "sub-human" creation to be subverted by human freedom? Could there not be a freedom in which sin was an impossibility (like that which many theologians claim the saints enjoy in heaven)? Added to these questions was the speculation as to how you would recognize a "perfect" world when you saw one, assuming God alone is perfect enough to be the judge. So the famous debate, in the course of raising many questions, seems to have solved none of them. Certainly one can think of a better world -- one without natural disasters, and even possibly without sin, but thinking about it and the possibility of its existence might be two very different things. In what does this difference lie?

To some this difference really comes down to the gap between the "ideal" and the "real" world, while to others it merely reflects the incomparable distance between God and creation, despite the goodness of the former. Having granted all this, we still need to ask why the chasm between the ideal and the real worlds is so great? Or put another way, why does there seem to be such a gap between God's goodness and God's power?

C. God and the Evolution of Good

To answer this question, which concerns the difference between what we imagine and what would actually be the best possible world, we must take a closer look at the results of this famous debate. For those who, like Leibniz, would answer that this is the best possible world, it would rightly seem that God's "perfect" omnipotence and goodness is nevertheless limited by what is "best" for creation (as well as for God's purposes). But suppose one holds that there could be a better world. After all, such a world need not remain entirely imaginary. Does not the human race, with its technology, art, and even religion, attempt to make the world operate more smoothly and predictably, show more beauty and harmony, and enjoy more peace, prosperity, and fulfillment? Would not this be a sign of something? Is it not a vision of a world progressing from good, through better, to even the best?

What I am saying here is that the answer to the question as to whether this is the best possible world is both yes and no. Now if this seems like doubletalk (and in some ways it is) it is probably because the question has been phrased wrongly in the first place. Notice how the question asked if this world is the best possible world, or, in another form, whether or not God could have made or created a better world. Both forms of the question imply that God has finished the act of creation. Consequently, most of the traditional answers imply that the act of creation, properly speaking (that is making something out of nothing or "first creation" as the medieval philosophers and theologians put it) is over and done with. What remains to be accomplished is whatever God, the laws of nature or human beings do with this creation -- this subsequent development termed "second creation" or only a kind of "creation", improperly speaking.

This is a very useful distinction, despite its quaint language, for what the medieval scholastics were hinting at is that the act of creation in a broader sense is not completely finished. Seen from this perspective, the word possible in the phrase "best possible world" becomes all-important. Are we talking about the best possible world then (back when creation was started), now (as we experience it), or when (sometime in the far-off future)?

This should not surprise us. Creation is an elusive subject to discuss. Even in the Book of Genesis we find some hesitation on how to express the concept, having two versions right within the beginning chapters. In chapter 1 (the most recent version according to scholars) God is described as creating the universe from a "formless void" in stages of six days. Each stage seems to be the product of a separate act of God, which, although it builds upon each prior stage, stresses God's spontaneous creative novelty. Humans, in this version, appear as the final installment in an organized, comprehensive whole, and all is good, and, in the end, "very good." But in the second chapter (the older story, beginning with verse 4b) all these initial stages are passed over, or at least taken for granted; they are treated only as prerequisites to the major creation of man and woman. Yet even this crowning work is paradoxically only a "second creation" (in the scholastic sense) inasmuch as the "slime of the earth," from which Man's body is fashioned, is already there -- a point further emphasized in mankind's Hebrew name Adam as supposedly derived from the earth, the adamah, from which he is taken, and to which he will, ultimately, return.

This human-centered second story, while it also undoubtedly considers the whole work of creation as good, not only does not choose to picture creation in successively ordered stages, but in one aspect almost reverses the order of the first story. The trees and their fruit, the animals and the like, appear after man and woman as if in response to their needs. Most importantly, there appears the sinister possibility of their misuse, and, as we shall soon see, the impending doom of the first sin. Thus, while some like to see in the first story the hint of an evolutionary plan, even while stressing God's initiatives, it is really the second story, with its depiction of human creation involving lower forms of existence and its emphasis (in chapter 3) on the human fall from a paradisal bliss, that seems to stress the ambiguous and unpredictable results of a "second creation," with humanity's part in it leading to disastrous results. What are we to make of all of this?

St. Augustine pondered this problem of the how of God's creative activity long before the scholastics made their subtle distinctions. For Augustine, it seemed obvious that the initial "something from nothing" aspect of God's creative activity was instantaneous, for before there was something, there could be no time at all - time depending on the existence of things whose movement and growth can be measured. On the other hand, taking his cue not only from the Bible, whose "six days" he saw as symbolic, but also from nature as we see it around us, he concluded that what God had created instantaneously nevertheless contained within it certain rationes seminales or developmental potentialities. These would, in time, unfold, much as acorns develop into oaks, to reveal the fullness of their nature.

What I am recounting here is not meant to claim that Augustine was an evolutionist, at least in any modern sense of the term. Even less do I wish to imply that the Bible was intended to contain, even in a vague form, a kind of evolutionary doctrine of creation. The Bible, it must be said, again and again, teaches no particular kind of scientific theory. "The Scriptures" said a very wise Cardinal [Caesare Baronius] even before the fiasco of the Galilean controversy, "were written to tell us how to go to heaven, not to tell us how the heavens go!" If that principle, translated more or less loosely from the Latin pun, applies to astronomy, it applies to biology also. What is certain is that the Bible, for its own specifically religious purposes, teaches in the language and story forms that made the most sense to the people of a particular time and culture. We, in the context of our own time and culture, must reinterpret it to extract its basic message for human salvation. Otherwise we run the real risk of confusing ancient language with timeless truth or even of losing sight of the truth in a welter of arguments about scientific theories which are basically irrelevant to the Bible's main purpose.

Nevertheless, if we combine the two creation stories and overlook their differences, much as the ancient editor(s) of the Book of Genesis did, we can make several observations. The first is that creation is, initially, out of nothing (a kind of "formless void"). Secondly, within the process of creation there is a certain ordering which, if not in precise chronological stages, is at least a kind of order logically directed by the divine mind for the benefit of humankind. Thirdly, we are definitely told that this creation is essentially good. Finally (as we shall soon see), we are told that certain modifications will have come about, partly as a result of human decisions and partly as a result of God's reaction to these human decisions.

If looked at from these Biblical perspectives, as well as from the viewpoint of such ancient theologians as Augustine and a host of others trained in the traditions of classical philosophy and science, a total picture emerges of a creation which, at least in the broad sense, seems to be a kind of on-going cooperative enterprise of God, humans, and even nature itself.

Now let us compare these observations to a more modern scientific view of the creative process, or as science prefers to term it, "evolution." According to the august body of scientists and philosophers assembled for the Darwin Centennial Celebration held at the University of Chicago in 1959:

Evolution is definable in general terms as a one-way irreversible process in time, which during its course generates novelty, diversity, and higher levels of organization. It operates in all sectors of the phenomenal universe but has been most fully described and analyzed in the biological sector. (As quoted by T. A. Goudge, 1961: see also note 2 below.)

Putting aside for the time being the more controversial question as to whether or not this distinguished group was in fact correct (at least in terms of the scientific evidence), let us simply focus on what we might call the philosophical presuppositions and beliefs contained in this all-inclusive statement.

First, while this assembly made no general metaphysical or strictly philosophical judgment as to the ultimate goodness of what they were describing, still the whole statement is shot through with the dynamic of comparative values -- from the unstated qualities of sameness, lack of variety, and low levels of complexity to the "novelty", "diversity", and "higher...organization" found in the more developed forms of life. All this implies a certain significant value (may we say "goodness?") attached to the transformation from lower levels of existence to higher, from instinctive, determined organisms to those having greater freedom, from mere quantity to higher quality -- in a single phrase, from good to better. Might one also presume, from the general drift of their statement, the possibility of a best?

Perhaps we have already read too much into their statement, presuming value judgments they did not intend. However, in light of their statement, based on their reconstruction of the past plus an apparent faith in future, I don't think so, for they have pronounced this process to be "irreversible" and "one-way" in time. This statement would seem to say that, despite apparent setbacks and various losses which have occurred within the process (for example, extinct species, evolutionary throwbacks, etc.), on the whole, evolution moves forward.

Even without the benefit of our own judgments about what is good, better, or best in all of this, much that these presumably hard-nose and objective scientists had to say is astounding. For without using the word, they seem to be assuring us that the final outcome of evolution will be such that even the losses will not cancel out that unnamed element of advance that is inherent in the process -- which is to say "progress." Without a doubt, their claim of "irreversibility" for the evolutionary process, particularly in view of what our nuclear scientists have cooked up in their laboratories, borders on being a pure act of faith at least for the prospects of continued evolution on this planet. It is more than even the Bible would propose for belief. In view of its theological implications, the importance of this statement is immense.

How so? Perhaps we are jumping the gun in raising such questions, there is no point in reexamining the whole area of theodicy unless we have something new which might provide the key to certain problems. Let us suppose, for the sake of discussion, that the kind of evolutionary thinking which the assembled followers of Darwin represent is in fact, and not just in theory, the whole pattern of God's creative action and not just a hypothetical description of biological, or even cosmic, transformism. What theological possibilities might be seen?

Many, to be sure, but among them a major consequence of this assumption would be a reexamination of the tension between God's transcendence and God's immanence. Much of our problem in reconciling the existence of God with the existence of evil does not lie in our Western tendency to see God as completely transcendent to or "other" than his creation - as has often been implied by those exponents of what they believe to be an Oriental theme of God's immanence or presence with a corresponding acceptance of what is only apparently evil within creation. On the contrary, perhaps evil, or what we take to be evil, especially in the course of natural events, exists primarily because creation, understood as an evolutionary process, necessarily begins with forms of existence that are as totally unlike God as possible. This would not deny God's immanence or presence within the working of the process, but rather offer a new dynamic understanding of what Thomas Aquinas said long ago: that the basic reason for God's immanence within creation (sustaining things' existence and providentially guiding them towards their fulfillment) is to be found precisely in his total "otherness" from them as the transcendent cause of their existence. In terms of good and evil, this would mean that created things, at least in their primitive evolutionary beginnings, would be at the same time as totally unlike God and as imperfect as could be imagined!

What then about the basic goodness of things and ourselves as existing "in the image and likeness" of God? How could these Biblical affirmations be interpreted in such a case? Again, if we were to see God's creative activity as an evolutionary process, is it not possible that this image and likeness is more what God intends us to become rather than what we actually are? Or that God saw everything to be "good" because he has a good end in mind? If so, moral evil and natural imperfections are to be expected rather than wondered at. In addition, as we shall see, any process capable of greater perfection is accompanied by equal if not even greater possibilities of error and defect.

Beyond these possible reinterpretations of the relationship of God to a universe and a still-evolving humanity, we might also confront another question, that posed by the concept of metaphysical evil. Is it better to be or not to be, as Hamlet's famous question goes. Is existence itself good and non-existence evil? To many this seems an idle question, one not worth serious consideration among the other more pressing practical problems of evil. Yet, is it not the basic question? If it is not pondered much (except perhaps by philosophers and those who contemplate suicide), is it not because we generally take the goodness of existence or being alive for granted? So perhaps we have settled the hypothetical question. We exist, we live, and we usually plan on living as long as possible -- at least given half a chance at making our existence satisfactory. Yet if we were to put this same question to God (not that God could question his own existence -- he has no choice, given that God is "being as such" [i.e., aseitas] ), does God really have any choice but to bring a creation into being?

Traditionally, the answer has generally been yes, God did have such a choice; he could have elected to remain in solitary splendor. Perhaps it is necessary to say such things to emphasize his supreme transcendence and the gratuity, the utter "giftedness," of creation. Yet it is even more obvious that God did not choose isolation and we assume that his choice has some vital connection with his nature, his urge to share existence, something which in turn we assume is good. How can we explain this "compulsion" of God?

Here, of course, we are confronted with the nature of God as "love" or self-giving. It is here that the "God of the philosophers" (and, we might add, the God of the theologians who feel constrained to adhere strictly to the language of philosophy) seems to fall so short of the God of the prophets. Perhaps to speak of love and the impulse to share which it implies is "bad form" for a philosophy or theology which is sworn at all costs to preserve the strict line of demarcation between the absolute being of God and the complete dependence of creation on his supremely free decision to create. Yet if the Apostle John did not hesitate to tell us that "God is love", should we hesitate to speak of the urge or impulse to share through a self-giving creation that is the very nature of love, even if that impulse finds itself constrained to suffer the consequences that such self- giving entails? Perhaps the word suffer is too strong here, surely overstepping the bounds of what it is permissible to say about a transcendent God. Nevertheless, even if human language fails us, we must try to comprehend the tremendous consequences that the act of creation entails, not only for us, the creatures, but also for God, who creates.

This is doubly true when we speak of creation by way of evolution. If we can dare say that God is compelled to create by the nature of his being as love, and if we likewise conclude that to be is better than not to be or that creation is necessarily good, then, what must we say about evolution? If creation is to some degree a necessity for God as an expression of his goodness, then the same might be said about the evident manner by which God created. May we not assume that if there was a better way for God to create, than through evolution with all its pains and joys, its catastrophes and triumphs, its display of human wickedness and holiness, God would have found this better way?

This brings us back, at last, to the famous debate about the best possible world. In view of what we have considered, we might not only agree with Leibniz that we have the best possible world, but even go a bit further with C. S. Lewis and conclude that we have "the only possible world" (The Problem of Pain, p. 35). Yet, if we are to take the relationship between God and a world in evolution seriously, then we must also add that the world is not yet what God or we fully intend it to be. If people have somehow imagined better possible worlds, without sin or suffering, we may be assured that God has thought of such worlds long before. However reality must be, for the time being, something else.

Perhaps we have overstepped the bounds of a completely trusting faith. What right, asked Jeremiah (and Paul after him) does the pot have to question the potter? Still, was not Augustine's rigid logic about God seeming to be neither all-powerful nor all-good an even more devastating doubt? Yet Augustine remained a giant of faith, a man who believed that, despite all appearances, God can and will bring forth greater good to overwhelm all evil. We may not entirely agree with Augustine's interpretation of precisely how this is to come about. Still, I would be willing to believe with him, and, from the perspective of an evolutionary view of nature, perhaps even more than him, that when it comes to a manifestation of God's power and goodness there is much more to be discovered than has yet been revealed.

Notes:

1. Whitehead's "persuasive" view of God's causality, which is a major theme of the process described in Process and Reality, involve God in his "consequent nature" as the pole of all future possibilities. Insofar as God "persuades" these possibilities toward anethical and aesthetically desirable outcome, God would certainly appear to have a good idea of the possibilities as well. But as David B. Griffin points out in his Process Christology (p. 163) strict divine knowledge of the future in the classical theological sense is an impossibility for God, inasmuch as the future, in the process view, is still indeterminate. Such divine foreknowledge would be, according to Griffin, in the same category as those things theologogians have always agreed are impossible in principle, hence also impossible for God.

2. Goudge, as a philosopher, criticized the Darwin Centennial definition as quoted in his 1961 book The Ascent of Life, whereas the paleontologist, George Gaylord Simpson, defended this view in his 1964 This View of Life. More recently, biologist Stephen J. Gould has been the most outspoken critic of such claims of progress. The problem, of course, with such critiques is how to avoid the implication that the ability to make such critques is not itself a sign of progress!

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