Process Theology and Evolution
By Romana Annette 05/28/2008
Charles Darwin published his epic book Origin of Species in 1859, several years before Mendel's work on inheritance, and a century
before the development of modern genetics. Evolution is the best documented
theory we have, especially since we have physical chemical evidence in the form DNA and RNA to back it up; however, we likely have a
different interpretation of the evidence than those who lived in
Process Theology has developed another interpretation of Evolution that might be labeled post-neo-Darwinism. DNA and RNA create a molecular bridge between Objective
Reality and Subjective Reality. This bridge helps create a
reality filled with sequential events that can be called stories, all of which
are related to the underlying molecular design. The design does wondrous
things, but we need to be careful about being too awe-stricken, since it is
simply part of the way things are.
How did such a design come to be? It
happened about fourteen billion years ago, when our Universe came into being.
Due to a light event horizon, we are unable to see our entire
Universe, let alone look back before the Universe was created. Speculative modern physics says that there was
likely a before, when two prior universes collided and created our Universe. During the collision,
older physical laws were replaced by newer physical laws. While it is currently
unknown what kind of a process can replace chaos with physical laws, there is
certainly an integral principle at work. Some might call this God, which refers more to ultimate mystery than to
being, since this God cannot override the second
condition (see below.).
So, Evolution is not just a feature of DNA and RNA; all of
reality is constantly evolving too. This is the Process Theology principle: that the purpose of
reality is to evolve and create new and novel things. Some say this is a quest
for ultimate perfection, but how can perfection ever be reached?
Early on, the force behind
We are constantly confronted with restrictive descriptions about exactly who
the most fit people might be. There is always an
unreasonable dream to create a secure utopia populated by the most normal people. There is simply no place in utopia for those
of us who are the off-center odd ducks. Utopia is the ultimate kind of fitness, but it is impossible, since all
of reality is subject to constant creation and perishing.
Besides the availability of the component atoms and molecules to make DNA,
evolution and even reality itself require the following four conditions:
· 1. A stable set of physical laws,
..2. An allowance for change, variation, contingency, and randomness,
· 3. A stable supportive environment fairly free of catastrophic changes, and
· 4. A very long period of time for all conditions.
Individual organisms all die, but they can leave descendents. Species also die
out and become extinct, but they can evolve into new species. Evolution
happens, because it is the characteristic of underlying DNA to evolve. DNA exhibits the following characteristics:
· It is found in the form of genetic sequences.
· It is accumulative; it contains recent and
ancestral sequences.
· It is over-defined; there are far more sequences available than are needed, so
there has to be a filtering process to build an organism.
· It is
fragile, so it is subject to mutation, the creation of new sequences of DNA.
There are thus two random processes in the creation of any organism: the
filtering of DNA sequences, and the mutation of DNA sequences. This is the driving force behind evolution.
Evolution as we know it has been operating for the last 550 million years. I
think this qualifies as a very long period of time. Prior to this last span of
time, the Earth never satisfied the third condition: a stable-enough environment.
The characteristics of DNA stated above are not the only driving
forces behind Evolution. Climate change and continental drift have been major
factors in the creation of new species. Looking back on the fossil record,
which is only a glimpse at the enormous totality of the work of evolution,
individual species seem to last an average of three to five million years, with
some lasting ten to twenty million years. Just a few survivors have managed to
last a lot longer than that.
There is also intelligence at work in Evolution. No, this is not the
intelligence of Intelligent Design, but the collective intelligence of
organisms as they influence their own Evolution. Evolution has often been
termed messy and wasteful, because many of Evolution's products seem
too bizarre for our sensibilities. Process Theology also allows that the principle we might call objective immortality or God can
influence Evolution by way of non-coercive suggestion, through the knowledge of
all past experience.
Remember, I have equated fittest to the existence of perfect, static
organisms. The perfection is in the processes, not the products. Any instance
of an evolved species is automatically imperfect, because it is
subject to being replaced by other species, especially related species. There
is a tendency to speak of competition, which can raise the specter of Survival
of the Fittest. However, the competition is actually about the development
of new diversity, so the defining attribute should be the Survival of the
Most Diverse, instead. Fittest can also carry the connotation of
isolation, but no species exist in isolation from other species.
We really cannot deduce very well why past species went extinct, because we
cannot reconstruct the totality of their interrelated reality. Organisms do not
exist simply to attain the basics: food, shelter, territory, and reproduction.
Organisms, past and present, all have subjective lives filled with
self-indulgent details, such as status, display, personality, skills, play, sexuality,
and so forth.
Billions and billions of animals and plants have come and gone. Individually, they all lived and then died. As species, they either collectively evolved or died out. In Evolution, there can be no creation without the accompanying perishing. This all seems emotionally sad, since so many individuals devoted their lives to the motivation that it was all very important.
Most human religions are out-of-step with this scheme. We dream of a static reality that is exempt from the rules of creation, rather than fulfilled lives that help build a new, and maybe even better, future.