(Note: the blue horizontal menu bar directly above lists the subsections of "Evil, Ethics, and Human Values in an Evolving World." Beginning with "Selfish Behavior of Primates and Other Animals," be sure to read each of these subsections before moving on to the next primary section, "Original Sin in the Bible as Read Today.")

Evil, Ethics, and Human Values in an Evolving World: Major Points

• Practically all the overt acts regarded as "sinful" in humans are part of the normal, natural repertoire of behavior in other species.



• These acts are instances of the selfish behavior that natural selection necessarily enforces on all living things. Without this kind of behavior—oriented to individual self-perpetuation and self-reproduction—life could not continue, let alone evolve.



• Traits held in common by different species (such as these selfish behavior patterns) are most likely inherited from a common ancestor.



• The first human beings were far too late on the scene to have been the originators of the unpleasant overt behaviors that in our species alone, through our moral choices, took on the character of sins. Since all living things act selfishly, the common ancestor from which we inherit our selfishness must be the common ancestor of all living things.



• This purely biological, amoral selfishness has been positively good (in a natural, not moral, sense), since it was the means God employed (through the evolutionary process) to achieve a good result.



• In calling the entire creation "very good," the Creator was not ascribing to it a moral quality that only moral agents such as ourselves can possess; its goodness is that of the admirable tool and the admirable work.



• God does not need to micromanage evolution. Through its own autonomous processes (which include suffering and death), evolution can predictably produce life and intelligence. God humbly invites our further progress rather than commanding it. The Darwinian "messiness" epitomized in the sufferings of all living creatures, and the Creator's humility epitomized in the sufferings of Jesus, are two sides of the same coin.



• Many attempts to construct systems of "evolutionary ethics" have mistakenly assumed that naked competition is the only rule of evolution. But such competition is merely the most basic, not the most refined, form of behavior through which natural selection can act. For example, the Golden Rule, in the form of reciprocal altruism, is followed by many of our fellow creatures.



• God, in the biblical tradition, has sought to lead us beyond reciprocal altruism to a purer form of altruism. What Jesus meant by the parable of the Good Samaritan was: Even the enemy you despise most is your neighbor, and it is that neighbor's interest that you are to set equal to your own. Furthermore, throughout his teaching, Jesus made clear that this pertained especially to the despised poor: in short, to those who not only would not, but could not, repay.



• Moral precepts progressed from "Treat others as you would have them treat you" to "Treat others as you treat yourself" to, finally, "Treat others as I (Jesus) treat you."



• From reciprocal altruism to pure altruism may be a small step in pure logic, but Darwin was right in sensing what an impossible leap it is in the concrete world of biology. Darwinian evolution was both necessary and sufficient to raise us to the jumping-off point for such a leap, by making us the conditionally altruistic creatures that we are; but it can carry us no further.



• Progress in our evolution has taken the forms of increases in the energetic efficiency of individual organisms, increases in the complexity of ecosystems, and a consequent expansion of the universe of realized possibilities.



• Whereas archaic worldviews see history as a futile repetition of endless cycles, the biblical tradition introduced the optimistic notion of progress, based on confidence in a good God who acted in ways beneficial to us. This confidence in a rational, law-governed universe was a prerequisite for the development of science and the discovery of evolution.