(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.")

The Selfish Behavior of Primates and Other Animals

As we saw in "Evolution According to Contemporary Science," selfish behavior of some sort, whether in a literal or an abstract sense of "behavior" (and in the evolutionary but not necessarily the psychological sense of "selfish"), is the mainspring of Darwinian evolution. To understand the origins of our own selfish and sinful actions, it is worth considering the behavior of those "subhuman" creatures most similar to ourselves.

Modern studies of animal (especially primate) behavior offer the theologian much challenging food for thought. They show that practically all of the overt acts regarded as "sinful" in humans are part of the normal, natural repertoire of behavior in other species. For example, the pioneering studies of wild chimpanzees by Jane Goodall and others have revealed that these animals naturally engage in acts ranging from petty quarreling, bullying, and theft, to deliberate deception; political intrigue; premeditated murder (even serial killings) of members of their own species; systematic infanticide and cannibalism; and organized, aggressive, and lethal warfare against neighboring groups. Even prideful behavior, proverbially the deadliest of all, is not absent: when seeking to make up after a fight, chimpanzees use not only third-party mediation but elaborate, mutually-agreed-upon public pretense simply to save face (de Waal 1989, 238-239). Nor is it necessarily even the case that their abilities in such regards are inferior to our own: "Deception seems to permeate all aspects of chimpanzee social life, and chimpanzee skills in deceit are a match for human lie-detecting abilities" (de Waal 1986, 240).

Many of these unattractive, self-centered traits have also been observed in bonobos, gorillas, and the other great apes. Monkeys too are practiced in deceit, status-seeking, and interfamily vendettas. Indeed, it is hard to think of any form of human misbehavior that is not somehow foreshadowed among other primates. And many of these practices pervade the animal kingdom as a whole. This is conspicuously true of intraspecific killing, cannibalism, and infanticide, as well as deception. Though not morally responsible for their actions or guilty of "sin," these creatures behave in ways no different than we do, and for reasons plainly explicable in Darwinian terms. Such behavior has "selective value"; it benefits them as individuals in terms of their own survival and reproduction. It is "selfish," it is effective, and it is consequently enforced by natural selection, as was explained in "Evolution According to Contemporary Science."

How do we explain shared traits among animals? Whatever their inner workings, these acts of animals do bear an uncomfortable outward resemblance to our own worst efforts. What are we to make of this? The evolutionary biologist will apply to these data the principle of parsimony: barring evidence to the contrary, detailed resemblances (good and bad) between species are most plausibly and economically explained by inheritance from a common ancestor, rather than by independent acquisition of the similar traits. Similar behavior among the higher primates, including humans, is most logically and straightforwardly explained as a common legacy retained from an earlier stage of evolution, rather than as a set of traits separately evolved by these different species. Hence it is legitimate (parsimonious) to apply the term "selfish," in the evolutionary (non-psychological) sense, to both humans and other organisms.

Likewise, the human behavior patterns denoted by our words "murder," "theft," "deceit," "possessiveness," etc., are shared with other species precisely because the common ancestor of all these species possessed them. In biologists' jargon, the selfish acts of humans and other species are homologous: similar because derived from a common source. While the same logic also applies to our more amiable traits, here we are concerned not with human behavior in general but with its dark side, sin, in particular.

The common source of our and other species' selfish acts must therefore be a nonhuman common ancestor. It cannot be any "sin of Adam" or otherwise identified with the biblical Adam and Eve. The heritage in question is far more ancient than the earliest apes, or primates, or even animals or plants. The primate behaviors that are homologous with our human sins are no more than particular (albeit dramatic) instances of the "selfishness" that, in its broadest, evolutionary sense, is the common heritage of all life—animals, plants, even the lowliest microbes. And we can certainly suppose that Adam was not the first bacterium! Rather, we must conclude that the first human beings were simply 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.

What about morality, love, and care? If morality, love, and care are also anciently rooted in our evolutionary history, why might not they, rather than selfishness, be described as the central (or at least an equal) driving force of evolution? The answer is that they are indeed ancient, but not as ancient (or as fundamental) as selfishness. The self-interest of organisms has repeatedly led them to cooperate, even at the most primitive levels. This cooperation gave rise to altruism (at least of a limited sort). Selfish behavior, even cooperative behavior, is compatible with unconscious, mechanical programming (as has been demonstrated in computer simulations). But true altruism (if it exists in nature at all) requires consciousness of another's existence and needs, empathy with that other's situation, and a decision to act despite the cost to oneself. True altruism therefore presupposes an intellect and will of a caliber that cannot exist in the simplest life forms, and could not have been there at life's beginnings. The origins of altruism can thus be explained in terms of selfishness, but not vice versa. Self-interested cooperation is still self-interested, and is thus a very long way from what we like to think of as true altruism: in Jesus' words, laying down one's life for one's friends (John 15:13).

Is this genetic determinism? Since most "lower" creatures have no cultural mode of inheritance on which we can blame their selfish behavior, they must have a genetic predisposition to act in self-serving ways. And that same predisposition must still be there in us, no matter how deeply buried under the later accretions of culture and mental versatility which dominate our overt behavior (and which can, if we choose, keep those old instincts from surfacing). Human free will can override whatever genetic (or learned) leanings we possess, so we are not exclusively and inevitably programmed by our genes to lie, kill, or steal. Our bad behavior is no more and no less "determined" from the perspective of evolution than under the traditional doctrine of original sin. Our self-preservational instincts may point us in such directions, and the culture around us may reinforce or counteract those tendencies, but in the end, the DNA doesn't make us do it. Truly ethical behavior requires freedom from genetic or any other kind of compulsion. All the same, this ethically necessary freedom can resist a certain amount of pressure, short of absolute compulsion–just as gravity draws me powerfully toward the center of the Earth, but I can still choose to climb a ladder, even if it takes some effort.

Nature: The good, the bad, or the ugly? How could "selfishness," with all its negative connotations, be not only a part of God's creative plan but a necessary part, the very driving force of the whole creative process, all of whose products were pronounced "very good"? Evidently this purely biological, amoral "selfishness" has not only not been evil in itself: it has been positively good (in a natural, not moral, sense), since it was the means God employed to achieve a good result.

Many people, however, hold an opposite view: that there is eternal hostility between humanity and nature, between our ethical progress (even our survival) and a hostile cosmos. Like every deeply persuasive idea, this one has some truth to it. Our moral striving is clearly a striving against something, which I too argue is a phenomenon of nature: the natural selfishness built into our biological makeup. But to brand the entire universe as our implacable enemy is going too far. Our earthly and cosmic environments are stacked neither in our favor nor against it; though the universe permits life, it is otherwise neutral toward it.⁶ And while we must struggle as we adapt to the conditions we encounter, the surrounding cosmos in no sense struggles back. It cannot be called our enemy, any more than the golf course is hostile to the frustrated golfer, no matter what paranoid fantasies enter his head. Challenging, yes; hostile, no. Even our inbred selfishness is morally neutral, aiding our survival even as it impedes our ethical advance.

It is time to put behind us the archaic notion that nature is our foe, to be battled and subdued: the Gnostic and Manichaean idea that spirit must forever war against matter. St. Paul's interior struggle against his bodily nature (Romans 7:14-23) should be balanced with St. Francis of Assisi's more patient view of "Brother Ass." Even (perhaps especially) the atheist should have no trouble seeing that the universe is no more malevolent than it is benevolent. And to the theistic evolutionist, the indifferent stuff of the universe is but the medium and instrument of the Creator; it is no more the author (or the adversary) of created order than are the canvas and brush of the painter, or the stone and chisel of the sculptor. In calling the entire creation "very good," the Creator was not ascribing to it a moral quality that only moral agents can possess; its goodness is that of the admirable tool and the admirable work.

From a biblical perspective we can see the physical world—with its blind, "purposeless" Darwinian processes—as simply the servant unaware of what its Master is doing. Through the service of these blind processes, however, the Master has brought into being intelligent creatures, capable at last of understanding their Master's purposes and of being called no longer servants but friends (John 15:15).

God's purposes and evolution. Although we speak of God having purposes in mind for evolution, detailed divine "guidance" of the evolutionary process may have been quite unnecessary, despite the instinctive belief of many theistic evolutionists to the contrary. Scientists disagree on whether the evolution of either life or intelligence is likely to be common in the universe, but in my opinion, both will arise predictably under conditions that may plausibly exist on many planets. The universe as we are getting to know it is a natural hothouse for life, and for intelligent life. God does not need to step in and fiddle with things along the way to coax it into producing the moral equivalent of us. (Physical appearance may be much less predictable!)

This statement is in no way an acceptance of deism or of an idle God no longer concerned with the world. The autonomy of the universe, and the self-sufficient laws governing its evolution, support a truly biblical theology that envisions a self-humbling, self-emptying God of selfless love. The Creator "withdraws" from the world, inviting rather than commanding it, precisely because "love by its very nature cannot compel" (Haught 2000, 112). This withdrawal makes room for the Darwinian laws (unpleasant to us), which are the only laws we know of that can assemble the living things we see. 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.

6. Even proponents of the "strong anthropic principle," which holds that the physical constants of the universe were custom tailored to support human existence, would not argue that the universe's intrinsic congeniality to life spares living things the need to struggle for their existence.

Words highlighted in green appear in the Glossary.