merefaith: discipleship in the ruins of empire

NOVA premieres a 3-part miniseries on human evolution this Tuesday evening on PBS.






One of the greatest obstacles standing in the way of an evangelical acceptance of evolution is the component thesis that human beings descended from non-human ancestors. In both the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925 and the Dover showdown over Intelligent Design eighty years later the animus for creationistic education policies reflected not only a theological commitment to Genesis 1 literalism but also what can only be described as a visceral revulsion at the thought of primate ancestors. This revulsion is exemplified by the tract Was Moses Mistaken? written by H.L. Hastings, a colleague of Dwight Moody, in 1896. Hastings asks which is preferable to believe: a lineage that traces through the biblical genealogies back to Adam, the "son of God," or a lineage that makes an ape the founder of one's family and that winds its way back to its origins in "mud."
The concern is not without merit. I need not remind the reader how frequently it has been stated that evolution complicates our understanding of the imago Dei and Fall in Genesis and Paul's typology of Adam and Christ the Second Adam in Romans. But the academic focus on theological and hermeneutical issues sidesteps the very real emotional, perhaps aesthetic, rejection factor driving anti-evolution sentiment. People don't want to be descended from "monkeys" as much, or more than, they believe that such a claim is unwarranted in light of Scripture. Somehow common descent strips away our uniqueness - literally dehumanizing us - so that we are supposedly left without the orderly boundaries that mark us as something higher and nobler. The acknowledgment of non-human ancestry is perceived as an open doorway to atavistic, bestial behavior. If one is just a little above the apes instead of a little lower than the angels then why not let nature (read: desires of the flesh) determine our ethical behavior?

The thoughtful Christian can easily spot the non sequiturs at work here. Evolutionary descent need not overemphasize similarity with our purported ancestors nor, interpreted within a theological framework, does it rule out God's intervention to form a relationship with humanity at a critical juncture of the story. The great Thomistic account of nature and grace is quite amenable to this account. Grace does not obliterate nature or work apart from it but transforms it and allows it to transcend itself in the encounter with God. The grace of God at the beginning of human history may have transcended hominid evolutionary development to infuse a new character of being beyond the natural potentialities. Analogously, Adam was formed from the dust and then the nephesh was breathed into him.

But can we move forward from reactive theologizing to search out a more positive claim concerning human evolution? I believe it is possible, but first a word may have to be spoken about the evidence for common descent.

I have previously related how Francis Collins offered rather convincing evidence of evolution at the National Youth Workers Convention last year. I could not recall this information because I did not remember it until encountering it in other sources recently. Collins pointed out that our primate cousins all have 24 chromosome pairs. Human beings have 23 pairs. The extreme similarity of our DNA genome compared to that of a chimpanzee, over 99% identical, suggests we share a common ancestor. The testable prediction made by evolutionary biology was that we would discover a fused chromosome pair in the human genome. And that did in fact happen. Human chromosome pair 2 is fused. The endpoint DNA segments known as telomeres also show up in the middle. Between the middle telomeres and the actual endpoint telomeres reside two centromere packets (one inactivated) instead of the single centromere in the middle of an ordinary chromosome.

I admit that, logically, an ID theorist could argue (and one blogger in fact has) that humans were created as a separate "type" but, being morphologically close to primates, were created with a nearly identical genome of 24 chromosome pairs. At some point in our early history one pair fused. However, the fusion of chromosome 2 is not the only molecular evidence of common descent. An interesting facet of our DNA is that a lot of it is material incorporated from outside sources. In particular, an estimated 8% of the genome consists of material formerly belonging to retroviruses (a classification that includes Hepatitis B). Comparative genetics has uncovered matching inserted retroviral material at matching locations in the human genome and in genome of the chimpanzee. Odds are not in favor of a coincidence, to say the least. As Christian geneticist Graeme Finlay concluded in a lecture on human evolution, "If it could be demonstrated that we and the chimps had, at the same sites, with the same target-site duplications, the same piece of retroviral DNA, then ineluctably we would conclude...we had received that endogenous retrovirus from a common ancestor." As he was pointing out, it has in fact been demonstrated. Similar retroviral inserts link humans with bonobos, gorillas and orangutans through common descent. Finlay said he entered the creation-evolution discussion in earnest so that he could tell his fellow Christians "that there was no longer any valid controversy."



You can find Dr. Finlay's lecture at the site for the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.



But if we are to conclude that we as human beings have indeed evolved from now-extinct primates, what are we to make of this within the theological task? I offer a few tentative conclusions:



1. First, the descent of humanity can usefully serve as yet another nail in the coffin of that gnosticism which we have yet to bury for good. The evolutionary story emphatically declares that human existence is subsistent in prior natural realities and dynamics which have prepared the way for our arrival. God did not send us along a tangential line that skims the surface of creation. The world is not merely Origen's classroom for fallen souls. Rather, our creation has occurred in part through evolutionary development over time. This development has shaped the bodies, the senses, and the brains through which we offer worship to God and upon which he also acts so as to make them media for encountering his presence.



2. Correlative to this claim of our fleshly inheritance stands the ethical imperative as well. The current ecological crisis has been fueled in many ways by Christian complicity. The contribution of escapist eschatologies will have to be addressed by other means. But the story of common descent speaks a word against justifications of exploitative behavior on the basis of humanity's separation from creation and consequent dominion over it. How might the concept of "dominion" be reshaped if Christians recognized and affirmed a certain, however distant, "kinship" with the gorilla, the bonobo, or indeed the rest of the tree of life?



3. Recognizing human evolution could help us reemphasize the priority of grace in transforming human nature, particularly will and desire. On the other hand, a doctrine of special creation could have the unintended consequence of reinforcing notions of the "divine spark" or the distorted versions of E.Y. Mullins' "soul competency." In such cases, the laudable proclamation of inherent human worth and dignity morphs, implicitly or explicitly, into the kinds of affirmations of inherent goodness and spiritual independence that rot the Church. Perhaps the claimant of "just Jesus and me" is more naked ape than son of God (grin)?



4. Nevertheless, the challenge remains in articulating the historical transition from highly-developed animals to the unique creatures graced into relationship with God. If not Adam and Eve in the Garden 6,000 years ago, then where, when and who? Is it important to decide if there was an original couple or instead larger original population? Was the suggested "Great Leap Forward" 50,000 years ago evidence of God breathing spirit into "dust"?



So questions remain for this version of the beginnings of the God-human drama. But perhaps new insights and answers emerge here as well.

Labels: Faith and Reason

Posted by Chris Schelin on Friday, October 30, 2009 at Friday, October 30, 2009 | Permalink