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Full Dissertation Animal Suffering in an Unfallen World: A Theodicy of Non-Human Evolution Submitted by Bethany Noël Sollereder to the University of Exeter as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology In October 2014 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. !2 Abstract The publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 raised a host of theological issues. Chief amongst them is the question of how a good, loving, and powerful God could create through an evolutionary process that involved so much suffering, pain, and violence. The traditional Christian answers for suffering in the natural world are not plausible in an evolutionary world. We cannot blame natural evil on human sin, since earth history shows that non- human suffering long preceded humans. Nor can we say that God allows suffering because it allows opportunity for moral choice, spiritual closeness with God, and the development of virtue, as none of these apply to the non-human realm. A new approach is needed to address the question of suffering and violence amongst non-human animals. In this dissertation, I address the question of evolutionary suffering with a multi-disciplinary approach of biblical studies, philosophical theology, and systematic theology to build a compound theodicy. After a survey of the various scholarly contributions in this area, I begin with biblical considerations of the God-world relationship. I set aside, based on exegetical examinations of Genesis 1-9, notions of “fallenness” in the natural world. I therefore argue that evolution was God’s intended process of creation, and that we should not attribute it to any kind of corruption. The rest of the dissertation engages in the development of a compound theodicy rooted in a philosophical and theological definition of love. How does a God who loves creatures respond to their suffering? I argue that God’s action in creation is characterised by kenotic restraint, the giving of freedom, co-suffering with creatures, and the work of redemption. !3 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Table of Contents 3 Acknowledgements 5 List of Illustrations 7 Chapter I. Introduction and Methodology 8 A. Introduction B. Research Aims C. Research Audience D. Research Context E. Methodology II. Theological and Philosophical Positions 23 A. Philosophical Positions B. Philosophical and Theological Approaches Compared and Contrasted C. Theological Positions D. Conclusion III. Biblical Considerations 97 A. Introduction B. Genesis 1: The Very Good Creation C. Genesis 3-9: The Curse D. Romans 8 E. Conclusion IV. Creation, Freedom, and Love 142 A. Introduction B. The Philosophical Nature of Love C. The Nature of God’s Love D. The Theology of Love E. The Kenosis of the God Who Loves F. Does God Need Creation? !4 V. Special Divine Action 214 A. Introduction B. Models of Divine Action C. Character of Special Divine Action D. Conclusion VI. Redemption 269 A. Models of Redemption B. The Fractal Mosaic of Redemption C. The Place of the Christ Event D. Conclusion VII. Conclusions 313 Bibliography 321 Author’s Vitae 345 !5 Acknowledgements The idea to attempt a PhD in evolutionary theodicy was first birthed in the imagination of my 21-year old self, just as I was finishing my undergraduate. Eight years later I have finally finished what has seemed at times to be an impossibly over-ambitious task. I have more people to thank than I can possibly name, but an abbreviated list would include: First and foremost my supervisor Christopher Southgate, who has walked me through this process with amazing patience, grace, humour, dedication, and the most unflagging belief that this day of completion would come. His careful support has been far beyond what could be expected, and tutorials have included everything from how to make instant coffee to Italian art history. To the other faculty here at the University of Exeter who have had a direct part in reading, supervising, mentoring, and otherwise encouraging this work: Siam Bhayro, Jonathan Hill, David Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, Esther Reed, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, and Mark Wynn. Special thanks go to Susan Margetts who regularly saved me from the perils of the IT system. I am also grateful for the support of the other post-graduates who have given valuable support in seminars and over lunches. You are true people of valour! I am grateful to my examiners, David Tollerton and Niels Gregersen. Gregersen, in particular, had a marathon day coming all the way from Copenhagen and returning in the evening. Their kind and thoughtful reflections will help me develop this work further. I have to thank various members of the Regent College community, where I took my master’s degree, who have continued to support me, read my work, and even visit. Special thanks in particular go to Cindy Aalders, Anthony !6 Bakerdjian, Desiree DeJesus, Sharon Forsyth, Diana Gee, Christy Hildebrand, Bessie Li, Christine Perkins, Iain Provan, Jon and Thea Reimer, Jim and Amber Salladin, Gail Stevenson, Melodie Storey, Loren and Mary-Ruth Wilkinson, Paul and Sarah Williams, and Rod and Bev Wilson. Thank you to the many others who have encouraged me along the way and who have read and commented on parts of this work, in particular: Dik Allan, Elena Steers, and Tom Oord. To the Isca church community, who welcomed me warmly from the very first week and have continued to be an important source of encouragement and instruction. There are many more to thank, but they are too numerous to name. You know who you are, and the part you played in helping this project to happen. I am grateful to the whole Sollereder clan (which includes the Ross, Lam, Garon, Seto, and Yoeun families), whose support comes in strange and wonderful ways. It is to you that I dedicate this work. !7 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Example of a Photo Mosaic 287 !8 Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”1 Introduction The most famous biblical creation account concludes with the divine evaluation of the goodness of the world. However, it does not take very much experience of the natural world to see that a basic formulation of nature and its processes as the “very good” creation of a good God is not unproblematic. I have spent many nights camping in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and on one particular night I remember waking to the sounds of struggle outside my tent. A large predator (I did not get out to investigate what kind) had caught some unlucky prey, and I remember hearing the screams of the prey’s last moments on earth. It is a harsh reality that this event was not an aberration or a tragic occurrence in the realm of nature. Rather, the suffering of that creature is the very life blood of the evolutionary process. All complex evolutionary development has come at the tremendous cost of the pain, suffering, and often untimely death of countless individuals. An insistent question can not be silenced: how could a good and loving God have created through this evolutionary process, which necessarily involves so much pain, suffering, and untimely death? Could God, the all-powerful and omni-benevolent, really have chosen such somber and terrible tools to create? The pitiless operations of natural selection seem to oppose the doctrine of creation by a benevolent and powerful God. Surprisingly, what has come to light ever more forcefully since Darwin’s day is that the very beauty, complexity, and functionality of the natural world that we admire are derived specifically from the harms that we flinch from. Teeth rending flesh, parasitic larvae, 1 Genesis 1:31, NRSV. !9 devastating earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, and the erosion of diverse forms of life through extinction all seem to speak against the love of God. Yet, out of these very realities emerge the skills, values, and ever-renewed beauty of the natural world.2 Why would a good and loving God use a process like evolution––with its necessary inclusion of pain, suffering, and death––to create our world? The theologian is seemingly left with a difficult choice: to affirm that the creation––with all its bloodshed, untimely death, and suffering––is in fact the true intention of a good, benevolent, and omnipotent Creator and explain how this could be so; to deny one of these classical attributes of the divine; or, to deny that the world is in fact the “very good” world of God, and suppose that it has been taken off track––fallen––in one way or another. In this project, I intend to explore how a multi-disciplinary approach can provide a new approach to the first of these solutions. My approach will also include a revision of how the classical attributes of the divine are expressed in relation to the world, but will not deny the ontological existence of those characteristics. I will firmly reject the third solution, that of the fallenness of the world. Research Aims There are two major research aims associated with this project. The first is to guide the discussion of evolutionary theodicy along more fruitful lines of thought than have been achieved up to now, achieved at least partly by providing arguments that limit the scope of discussion. An example of where the discussion can be helpfully pruned is the work emerging out of the 2 See, for example, Holmes Rolston III, “Disvalues in Nature,” The Monist 75:2 (April 1992): 250-278.
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