Evolution: Necessary for the Continuation of Life

One of the common objections to evolution put forward by Christians is that:

A) The evolutionary process is dependent on death and
B) God would never use a process dependent on evil to accomplish his purposes

Now B) is a theological statement that can be disputed on many levels (eg. equating death with evil, or implying that God can not utilize bad situations for his purposes – one of the major themes of the bible clearly contradicts this implication eg. enslavement of Joseph, death of Christ). However, it is statement A) that I’d like to address here.

The Problem is Limited Resources
Paradigms on Pilgrimage is a book written by paleontologist Stephen Godfrey and Baptist minister Christopher Smith. Both are former YEC advocates who now advocate an evolutionary creationist position. In his chapter on dealing with the theological implications of evolution, Smith directly addresses claim A) above. It is not primarily evolutionary mechanisms like genetic mutations, or even natural selection, which is the problem. It is in fact, the limited amount of resources available to God’s creatures.

It is true that new characteristics take root in a population, under circumstances where they confer some survival advantage, as organisms with those characteristics displace those without them. But the effective cause of the demise of the organisms without the new characteristics is not the emergence of these characteristics themselves, through genetic variation, but rather the availability of only limited resources for the population as a whole. When resources are abundant, a greater range of organisms will survive, even those with less of a survival advantage. And finite resources pose just as great a theological problem for the [old or young earth] creationist. (page 167)

Evolutionary Mechanisms: A Creative Tool
With respect to the Fall and death in God’s good creation, I am not going to deal with the many (theological & scientific) arguments against young earth creationism (A very interesting paper somewhat related is Randy Isaac’s The Chronology of the Fall). What should be noted is that an OEC position has the exact same theological challenges as an EC position with regards to physical death before the fall, and the fact that pain, death, and extinction have been going on for a very, very long time. In many ways an EC position is much easier to defend; the evolutionary mechanism of genetic variation is an excellent strategy for the continuation of life in a changing environment.

Far from being dependent on death, the evolutionary process as seen in the fossil record is actually the antidote to death. If new species were not formed by the process of genetic variation, there would be no survivors when environmental conditions did change and existing species proved so poorly adapted to the new conditions that they became extinct. So death is not necessary for evolution, but evolution has been necessary for the continuation of life. (pages 167 and 168 – emphasis mine)

Evolution is not dependent on death and extinction; rather, given the world we have, it is the antidote to death and extinction. In the world God has created, evolutionary mechanisms enable the continuation of life. They are one of the tools God uses to accomplish his purposes.

Polkinghorne Quotes #9: Timid Theologians

I have previously commented on the dearth of evangelical theologians willing to tackle the implications of biological evolution. While evangelical scientists, and in particular evangelical biologists, are grappling with the theological implications for their Christian faith, evangelical theologians for the most part have remained silent. Some, no doubt, fear retribution from the constituents and institutions they serve; others may simply fear exploring new ideas.

Here is what Polkinghorne has to say on the latter:

As a scientist I am often struck by theologians’ persistent fear of getting it wrong. [In science] a willingness to explore ideas which might prove mistaken, or in need of revision, is a necessary price of scientific progress. One would have thought that the intrinsic difficulty in doing theology would encourage a similar intrepidity. At times (the patristic period, the Reformation) that has been so, but not always. I am not of course, denying the existence of many wild flights of contemporary theological fancy, but saying that within the sober core I detect a degree of disinclination to take intellectual risk, particularly where it involves interaction with another discipline. Hence the widespread neglect of natural science by theologians.

From Science and Christian Belief, page 44

In some ways, Polkinghorne’s admonishment is too gentle. If theology is “faith seeking understanding”, then it is imperative that theologians deal with current issues, issues that may have been irrelevant to Christians in the past, but issues that puzzle, bewilder, and confuse us today. It is not sufficient to understand historic approaches to theology that may have been appropriate for the church fathers and the reformers. For the good of our faith we also need approaches that make sense of our modern and post-modern world.

Polkinghorne later continues:

Theology without natural theology would be in a ghetto, cut off from knowledge of the physical creation; natural theology by itself would be vulnerable, apt to seem little more than a competing possibility alongside a thoroughgoing naturalism. Once again one sees how essential it is that theological inquiry is conducted as a fully integrated discipline.

Over the past half-century Evangelicals have (thankfully) realized that the fundamentalist cultural ghetto serves only to silence the gospel, and we have begun to (slowly) break down those walls. What I’m not so sure we understand is that our theological ghettos are just as dangerous. If we cannot speak to the issues of the day, how can we expect others to be interested in the gospel? If we aren’t answering the questions that are being asked, why are we surprised when people (including our youth) look elsewhere for answers?

Evangelical theologians: This is not so much a complaint as a request for help.

Other Polkinghorne Quotes: [Introduction] [Previous]

Reconciling the Fall and Evolution

The origin of sin in a universe created by an omnipotent, omniscient, and all loving God is a perplexing theological challenge. Traditionally, the disobedience of Adam and Eve is seen as the event that inaugurated the Fall. The rest of humanity is thought to have inherited Original Sin either biologically (if the couple is seen as the ancestor to all of humanity) or through some mysterious process of representation (the federal view). However, this story of sin’s origin is becoming increasingly difficult to defend. Genetic evidence indicates that humanity cannot trace its ancestry to a single pair of recent humans, so our shared biological parentage to a couple of Neolithic farmers is impossible to reconcile with the scientific record. On the other hand, the federal view runs into difficult theological issues (eg. were humans that pre-existed or coexisted with Adam and Eve only sinful after the curious incident with the forbidden fruit?)

As I indicated earlier in my post on the Theological Implications of an Evolving Creation, the origin of sin, and the related issue of reconciling the scientific record with the theology of the Fall, particularly as articulated by the apostle Paul (eg. Romans 5), are two of the most difficult theological issues for me personally. Although I can’t say I’ve come to any definitive conclusions, I’d like to point to two helpful resources for others that are thinking through these same issues. The first is a lecture given by Denis Alexander at the joint CIS / ASA / CSCA annual meeting last year. The second is a series of posts by Stephen Douglas on his blog Undeception.

Darwinian Evolution: The Really Hard Questions

Denis Alexander is not as well known as other Evangelical scientists that support an evolutionary creation (eg. McGrath, Polkinghorne, Collins), but he has made some significant contributions to the science-faith dialogue. (My selected bibliography has 4 entries for Alexander). I suspect his lecture entitled “Darwinian Evolution: The Really Hard Questions” was one of the conference’s more thought provoking presentations (You can download the audio, his powerpoint, and his accompanying handout from the ASA website).

Reconciling the Fall is one of the “Really Hard Questions” that Alexander discusses in his presentation. Before dealing with this question, he makes some pertinent introductory remarks:

Some Christians have a habit of making up the science to fit their apologetics. That’s not good enough. Integrity demands an equally robust stance towards both the science and the theology. Second, in practice that means that we have to get used to not knowing the final answers to some issues, which is clearly the case here, and yet at the same time doing the best we can in building sensible models that integrate both the science and the theology. And we need to discuss those models tentatively, because there simply aren’t enough data to be too sure.

He provides a quick scientific, biblical, and theological background to the problem, and then asks the key question:

So how, then, do we understand the Fall and the Adam & Eve narratives in conversation with our current understanding of human evolution? Of course some would say that the conversation shouldn’t even be attempted – it’s like comparing anthropological apples with theological oranges. But the fact remains that at some stage over the past few hundred thousand years anatomically modern humans gradually emerged, and it’s also a fact that personal knowledge of God must have started sometime when it wasn’t there before.

Alexander then provides three models for defining the relationship between the biblical and the scientific accounts. (Actually, there were 5 models – but I’m going to ignore the 2 models that discount the scientific evidence for biological evolution).

1. Model A is the “Ahistorical View”. The Fall in this model is a theological narrative that is not related to historical events.

2. Model B is the “Gradualist Protohistorical View”. This view defines the Fall as a process happening over a long period of time.

3. Model C sees the Fall as a specific event at a specific time in history whereby a covenant couple (or perhaps a covenant community) is called by God, but then through disobedience brings spiritual death on humanity.

Each model has unique strengths, but also unique flaws. Alexander indicates that he personally leans toward Model C, but admits to some vacillation between all 3 and quips that he holds to “Model A on Mondays, Model B on Tuesdays and Model C the rest of the week”. It is a good discussion that I recommend to others grappling with this issue.

Interacting with Paul’s Theology of The Fall

Stephen Douglas has just finished an excellent 8-part series on biblical inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. Some of the themes he develops will be familiar to those who have followed my own blog, but he goes into much more depth. You aren’t going to be able work through his whole series in a brief 20-minute browse (I suggest he consider writing a book :-) ) but it is definitely worth the time invested.

Of particular interest for me were the final two posts: Case Study: The Fall and The Fallout. In these two posts he applies the principles of biblical interpretation discussed earlier in the series to the issue of The Fall. What is noteworthy is that he focuses particularly on the New Testament (NT) discussion of the Fall, rather than concentrating on the creation narratives in Genesis.

This focus on the NT discussion is noteworthy for two reasons: First, Evangelical Old Testament (OT) scholars with a high view of the scriptures (eg. Enns, Walton, Wenham) have already laid the groundwork for the science / theology discussion with respect to the Genesis creation accounts, including the Fall narrative (eg. highlighting their place in ANE literature even while acknowledging their divine source). From a NT perspective, I don’t believe the groundwork for this discussion has been as prevalent. Secondly, it is unclear whether the ancient Hebrews believed the early part of Genesis was historical (it most likely was not an important question for them), but it is clear that the Apostle Paul, like his 1st century Jewish contemporaries, believed that Adam was a historical figure, and that the Fall corresponded to a single event in the Garden of Eden. Thus it is the relavent NT passages, and not the Genesis creation accounts, that provide the most significant challenge to the reconciliation of the Fall and modern science.

Douglas addresses this issue head on. He shows how Paul, following the traditions of his time, used typology and parallelisms as part of his interpretive framework. On the pertinent discussion in Romans 5 Douglas states:

Here (as well as in 1 Corinthians 15) Paul draws the parallel between the first Adam and the last Adam, Jesus, because he saw symmetry between the two. Notice, though, that the validity of Christ’s work for all is not stated to be dependent on sin coming through one man, as is often construed. Paul’s intention was to relate this brand new theological doctrine to something that was familiar to them: if they could see sin coming into the world through one man, they should be able to accept that one man could bring life to all. The symmetry he saw between the two was no less valid for one of the characters being non-historical.

Later Douglas sums it up with this:

In short, it doesn’t matter whether Paul believed an historical figure named Adam literally fell and passed death down to all his descendants in some genetic or federal fashion through resultant “original sin”. Christ’s work was not dependent on the sin of one man alone: every man’s sin necessitates Christ’s work.

I can’t possibly do justice to Douglas’s arguments in this post. If you want a more detailed account, I encourage you to visit his blog. I can’t say I’m completely convinced by his argument, but it has given me much food for thought.

Concluding Thoughts

Understanding the Fall is difficult, and it is likely that there will be much disagreement within the Evangelical community on how the theology can be reconciled with modern science. What we can agree on is the following:

A) The Fall, whatever it is, and whenever it happened, occurred in the distant past. No amount of theological teeth gnashing will change what has happened.

B) the "sting of death" that resulted from the Fall has been vanquished by Christ's death on the cross. So theological teeth gnashing seems somewhat inappropriate. (Why worry about losing the shutout, we won the game!).

C) Our hope that sin and death will not only be vanquished, but will also be destroyed, is assured. The Fall happened but we need no longer worry about "falling". We can say with Jude:

To him who is able to keep you from falling
and to present you before his glorious presence
without fault and with great joy—
to the only God our Savior
be glory, majesty, power and authority,
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
before all ages, now and forevermore!

Theological Implications of an Evolving Creation: Part 2: Five common Faithstoppers

Evangelicals generally reject biological evolution because the theological implications are perceived to be incompatible with the Christian faith. And it is not simply one or two tough theological nuts to crack – at times the list of irreconcilable differences seems endless. So it is understandable when Evangelicals struggle to reconcile the scientific evidence with their theology. In this post, I will briefly survey five of the most common theological challenges to evolution. Anti-evolutionists repeat all five of these challenges frequently; all five are considered “Faithstoppers” ie. Christians can (and have) used these to categorically state that “Choose this day whom you will serve” applies to the evolution / Christian faith dialogue. However, I believe that none of these five challenges demonstrate an incompatibility between evolution and Christian theology.

1) The theory of biological evolution contradicts the Genesis creation accounts. Therefore anyone who takes seriously the integrity of scripture must reject evolution.

Although this challenge is the one most frequently raised, it is also the one that is most easily reconciled. The theory of biological evolution does contradict one specific (fallible human) interpretation of the Genesis creation accounts (ie. that the days of Genesis are 7 literal 24 hour days). But this interpretation is becoming increasingly discredited. For a background on why I believe biological evolution can be completely compatible with the Genesis creation accounts, see my posts Literal or Liberal: Our only Choices for Interpreting the Bible, and Genesis 1-11: Background, Context, and Theology, as well as Gordon Glover’s post Interpreting the Genesis creation accounts in the light of ANE history.

2) The theory of evolution implies that a) there was no historical Adam and Eve, b) there is no single pair of recent ancestors from which all humanity is exclusively descended, c) therefore there was no historic instantaneous Fall or specific moment in time that corresponds to the origin of sin, d) therefore sin does not exist, and e) therefore Christ’s death is meaningless. This is incompatible with the Christian faith.

First, statement a) is clearly false and many (perhaps most) evolutionary creationists believe in a historical Adam and Eve. (See Is Genesis 1-11 Historical? Many Evolutionary Creationists say Yes.) I agree that statements b) and c) are very difficult to reconcile with traditional Christian theology. Statement c) is in fact the most difficult implication of biological evolution for me personally. However, I do not agree with the logical connection between statement c) and statements d) or e). The existence of sin has been called the “most empirically supported doctrine”. That you and I are sinners is without question. That Christ died to redeem us, and through his resurrection conquered death, is the foundation of our faith.

But Christ died because I sinned. His death was retroactively necessary because almost two millennia later I would turn away from God. This is true whether or not there ever was a historical Adam, or for that matter a historic fall. The good news is that “God will forgive you”, not that “God forgave Adam and Eve for eating the apple”. I am not making light of the problem of identifying a historic instantaneous Fall, nor of the New Testament references to Adam’s sin. I personally find this very challenging and will discuss this in future posts. I am merely saying that the good news of redemption does not necessarily hinge on positively identifying a historical instantaneous fall. That our entire faith rests on the notion of a historic instantaneous Fall is, for me anyways, categorically false.

3) The theory of evolution implies that a human is no more special than a chimp, a lizard, an ant, or bacteria. Therefore it is incompatible with humanity being created in the image of God.

I disagree with this implication. How we were created is irrelevant to the final product. That evolution implies a close connection to our animal forebears does not minimize our role in God’s eyes. We are his representatives on earth because he declared it to be the case, not because of who we are. Biological evolution does not challenge Christian views of human identity, our relationship to God, or our mandate within God’s creation. Evolution may have implications on how and when God bestowed his image on humanity so, for example, "How did humanity’s special relationship with God come about?", "How was this relationship damaged?", and "How do the spiritual & physical aspects of humanity interact, particularly in the light of modern neuroscience?" are all excellent (and difficult) questions. But our perplexity with respect to the historical narrative of the “ensoulment” of humanity should not in anyway minimize how we view ourselves in the eyes of God.

For more background on this topic, see my post: Created in God’s Image or Evolved from Apes?

4) Evolution is a process that includes an unfathomable amount of pain, death, and extinction. It is incompatible with a Loving Creator.

Theodicy is a very difficult problem for Christians. How can an all powerful, all loving God allow so much evil to exist? Why did he even allow the possibility of evil in his creation? Couldn’t an omniscient designer have done a better job? These are excellent questions but ones that, I believe, are unrelated to the process of evolution. Whether one explains the fossil record by many progressive creative acts, or the gradual creative process of evolution, the fact remains that much pain and death have occurred. Theodicy is a challenge for Christianity and theism in general, not just for evolutionary creationists.

(Note: I can very much understand the allure of YEC for Christians that struggle with the issue of theodicy. It seems to provide such a simple answer. Leaving aside the scientific evidence against YEC, and the poor scriptural interpretations used to support it, I think a closer examination of YEC’s version of theodicy provides no better solution. That too is a post for another day.)

5) Accepting the scientific evidence for evolution leads to moral relativism. It is thus a belief that is incompatible with a Christian worldview based on scriptural principles.

It is absolutely unnecessary to connect evolutionary explanations for the development of life on earth with human moral choices. Biological evolution through the process of natural selection is an explanation of how things have changed over time but provides no guidance on how humanity should act in the future. It is descriptive, not prescriptive. We can certainly gain an understanding of how God created through scientific discovery. However, for guidance on how we should relate to both our neighbour and to our God, we look to God’s revelation in the written Word and in the Word made flesh.

For more details on this, see Does Evolution lead to Moral relativism?

Summary

In summary, none of these 5 implications of biological evolution significantly add to the challenge of defending Evangelical theology. Each does seem somewhat problematic at first glance, but on closer examination provides no real reason to reject evolution.

Other Challenges

Ok, In some ways I cheated. This post dealt not with “The 5 most common challenges” but with “The 5 most common challenges that are easily addressed”. There are other implications of evolution that are not so easily addressed. These include the following:

1. Divine Action: Describing how God acts in the world in the light of an evolutionary process that provides a full physical explanation for the development of life on earth.
2. The relationship between Sin and Death.
3. The incompatibility of evolution with the New Testament references to a historical Adam, and specifically his actions related to the Fall.
4. The origin of the “Image of God” or the “ensoulment” of humanity, particularly in the light of modern neuroscience.
5. The origin of Sin

These "5 common challenges not easily addressed" are listed in ascending order of difficulty for me personally. Number 1 is simply a difficulty in articulation; with #5 I have trouble even imagining a solution.

Polkinghorne Quotes #4: The Christian God: Not Limited to nor Restricted by Edges

Theology is concerned with ontological origin and not with temporal beginning. The idea of creation has no special stake in a datable start to the universe. If Hawking is right, and quantum effects mean that the cosmos as we know it is like a kind of fuzzy space-time egg, without a singular point at which it all began, that is scientifically very interesting, but theologically insignificant. When he poses the question, “But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary, or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?”, it would be theologically naïve to give any answer other than: “Every place – as sustainer of the self-contained space-time egg and as the ordainer of its quantum laws”. God is not a God of the edges, with a vested interest in boundaries.

Creation is not something he did fifteen billion years ago, but it is something that he is doing now.

From Science and Christian Belief, page 73

Many Christians, I think, put too much stock in the implications of scientific discoveries. Thus for example, since biological evolution seems to threaten traditional ideas of a historical instantaneous Fall, many Christians dismiss biological evolution out of hand. Rarely is it asked: “Does evolution really change our ideas of a historical instantaneous Fall?” (some evolutionary creationists say no), or “Is a re-examination of a historical instantaneous Fall helpful for our theology” (possibly yes), or even “Do I really need to definitively resolve this particular tension right now?” (maybe the best question of all).

As Christians I think we can make a similar mistake with scientific discoveries that seem to cohere nicely with orthodox Christian theology. The Big Bang, a theory proposed by a Catholic priest, is the classic example. Christians have stated that it is “proof that God created the universe”. Now, I have absolutely no reason to doubt the Big Bang theory (Simon Singh’s book on the topic is one of my favourite works of popular science). As well, I must confess to some satisfaction in knowing that the theory continues to incite strong opposition from some atheistic materialists, and that it meshes neatly with the Christian concepts of creation ex nihilo and a non-eternal universe. However, my Christian faith does not rest on the theory of the Big Bang and I disagree with the statement that the theory “proves that Christianity is true". If the scientific consensus of the ultimate fate of the universe suddenly changed from "a universe accelerating towards The Big Freeze" to "a universe entering a cycle of Big Crunches & Big Bangs (of which our instantiation may not be the first)", I do not see how that is relevant to my faith.

God is neither restricted by nor limited to the edges. We should neither search for him there, nor fear that they constrain him.

Other Polkinghorne Quotes: [Introduction] [Previous] [Next]

Theological Implications of an Evolving Creation: Introduction

For the most part, Evangelical Christians are not anti-science Luddites attacking science and technology at every opportunity. Like everyone else we enjoy the benefits of the rapid changes in technology driven by modern science. However, when scientific theories seem to clash with our theology, we seem suspicious at best, and hostile at worst. Caution is actually a healthy approach towards any nascent scientific claim, but hostility is rarely helpful, particularly when a theory, like biological evolution, has demonstrated that it is well supported by the evidence over a long period of time.

The Relationship between Christian Theology and Science

So how should we approach science when it appears to challenge our theology? How should we view the relationship between science and theology? We do have some well-promoted options. There is Ken Ham’s approach (theology dictates science), Stephen Jay Gould’s approach (science and theology should be divorced), the “science is most true” approach (theology capitulates to science), and Richard Dawkin's approach (eliminate theology). None of these are appropriate for Evangelicals however. Scientific truth (a true description of creation) and theological truth (a true description of the Creator and his relationship to creation) cannot be in conflict.

I don’t have a completely satisfactory answer for myself as of yet but I’ll make some brief points on my own view of the relationship between theology and science.

1. The science/faith conflict is often a result of our own imperfect understanding. Creation truth and truth about the Creator are unified, but our distorted view of either or both leads to perceived conflicts. (See Loren Haarsma's presentation Christianity as a Foundation for Science, particularly the diagram in slide 12).
   
2. Theology, even good theology, cannot remain stagnant. One of the most dangerous theological approaches from my point of view (heresy alert for those looking for one) is the drive to define and document a “complete systematic theology”. I do not believe that our finite understanding of the infinite can ever be complete. Our canon may be closed, but that does not prevent God from revealing additional truth through a changeless text. Scripture may be timely (speaking to its original hearers) but it is also living and timeless.
   
3. Good science can work as a goad to good theology. (See the abstract for the essay Science as Goad and Guide for Theology by George Murphy in the theology journal Dialog). In other words, scientific discoveries can sometimes, depending on the circumstances, be used as an opportunity to expand on our existing theology, or even rectify poor theology.
   
4. Good theology can provide a context for doing good science. It can work as a motivation for doing science in the first place (discovering more about God’s creation) and it can shed light on the limits of science (eg. science should not and can not answer ethical questions).
   
5. Many scientists, however, seem completely oblivious to the limits of science, or how their own presuppositions can blind them. Thus “scientific” conclusions are often stated as fact even when the scientific data does not necessarily support the conclusion.

Scientific Challenges to Theological Assumptions: Expected but not to be Feared

We should not be surprised when science challenges some of our theological assumptions. In fact, maybe we should expect it. As we discover more about God’s creation, and particularly the part of creation that is created in God’s image, our understanding of how God relates to that creation will undoubtedly change as well. But we should never fear these challenges. There is no guarantee that we will be able to reconcile all these challenges (at least in this life), “for we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror”. But one day we “will see God face to face” at which time all our current theological wrestling and confusion will seem not only trivial, but irrelevant. This promised resolution can give us confidence to deal with our current challenges. And one of the biggest challenges of course, is reconciling biological evolution with our theology.

The theological implications of an Evolving Creation

In a series of several short posts I would like to discuss some of the theological implications of an evolving creation. The title of this series is taken from Keith Miller’s essay of the same name that can be found here on the ASA website. Miller states that:

In the debate over the proper understanding of the Genesis account, most attention has seemed to focus on the scientific merits of various creation scenarios. What has largely been lacking in these debates is a consideration of the theological implications of these various interpretations for our understanding of the character of God, the relationship of God to His creation, and the relationship of us to the rest of creation. After all, it is to these basic issues that the Genesis account is primarily, if not exclusively, addressed.

I like Miller’s approach for two reasons. First, the emphasis is on creation, a creation that is evolving. The science of evolution can certainly be studied on its own without reference to God or his creation, but to really understand it, to understand the entire truth, we must put it in the context of the theology of creation. A discussion on an evolving creation does just that. Second, Miller views the implications of an evolving creation as opportunities, opportunities to better appreciate who God is and how he acts, how God relates to us his children, how God relates to the rest of creation, and how God wants us to act given that we are his image bearers in creation. This, I believe, is a healthy approach and one I’d like to emulate in future posts.

Surveying the Difficult Challenges First

That being said, I do realize that for many Evangelicals the implications of an evolving creation are disconcerting. I myself find some of the implications troublesome. So rather than jump right into the theological opportunities, my next post on this topic will be a brief survey of the implications Evangelicals find most troublesome.

Maybe what I should do first is solicit feedback on what others believe are the most troublesome implications. So I invite you to leave a comment or send an email stating the top-3 implications of biological evolution that you find most difficult to reconcile with Christian theology. Actually, the invitation is open to non-Evangelicals and non-Christians as well since I realize that, for many of you, the perceived difficulties between evolution and Christian theology are actually barriers to to taking the Christian faith seriously.