35th Wedding Anniversary Reflections on Theistic Evolution
Frank, an intimate American friend, is a brilliant neo-evangelical. He has been trying to evolve my simplistic faith that God made Adam and Eve to a more sophisticated theory of theistic evolution.
Why?
Because highly respected, born-again, scientists such as Francis Collins advocate the God-directed-gradual-evolution of man from lower species.
During a long and lonely flight from Delhi to Los Angeles on June 21, 2010, when I was more or less asleep and trying hard to stop thinking, I told Frank that if he wanted me to follow his “scientific” faith then he had to first convince my wife and my daughters.
I was mostly asleep when I heard him trying to convince my wife, who responded to him by saying:
Look I don’t know anything about Theistic Evolution. But I’d like to know which god is directing evolution? And why did he stop? I can’t believe that the loving, kind and almighty God of the Bible has been guiding evolution because I don’t see your friend evolving. In fact, sometimes it feels that he may be getting harder to live with.

Frank, being a faithful friend, tried to cover me: Your husband must be good at camouflaging his character because I haven’t noticed any devolution. 

You’d know better, if you had to live with him. He is not loyal to me. When I say white, he always says black.

So what?

When both our daughters are also seeing something as white, and he still insists that it is black, then how do you expect me to believe that he is evolving into wisdom?

May be he has not evolved as much as you have. But why give up on him? Given enough time he may evolve to a point where he sees things as clearly as you see them.

He is a hypocrite. He doesn’t just insist that white is black. He actually thinks that I am stupid because I say white. That really hurts.

But how does that make him a hypocrite? Shouldn’t he say black when he sees black?

He is a hypocrite because immediately after suggesting that my perception is wrong, (i.e. I am stupid), he goes on to assert that he loves me with all his heart; that I am his sweetheart; that he is totally devoted to me. How could God be evolving a hypocrite? If God was guiding my husband’s evolution, he would be humble. But he insists that he has the authority to say white or black because he is the head of our house.

Do your daughters agree with your perception?

Absolutely! Just three weeks ago he was on his way to our older daughter’s home in North India. He hadn’t seen two of her four children for two years. Yet, our daughter had to tell him not to come. She is so scarred of him. She knows what an insensitive monster he can be. And you know what? Your friend even agreed to cancel his trip. He went only because I told him that he had to go and love his daughter. In the end, of course, she was very pleased that he spent a week with her.

So, what’s her problem with him?

My daughter’s husband is even more difficult than mine. And she feels so frustrated that her father would support her husband instead of supporting his own flesh and blood. His support for her husband encourages him to be mean to her. Her husband is a pastor but shows no sign of mature leadership.

In what way?

In everything she has to lead proactively, otherwise nothing gets done. But her husband doesn’t follow her.

Frank was lost. He had no clue how to answer. So he turned back to me. His exasperated looks inquired: What do you have to say about your serious character flaws?

Yes, I have often been at odds with my beloved women. But today is my 35th wedding anniversary. So, for matrimonial harmony as well as for the sake of intellectual integrity, at least today I have to say white. I have to follow my wife into questioning your theory of God-controlled-and-directed evolution.

Don’t be ridiculous, Frank was beginning to lose his patience. Intellectual integrity means following the evidence, not your heart or your love.

I’m following my sweetheart because she has described our problem accurately. More than once I have wounded her by insisting that something was black, when it was white. But sometimes she was actually right and the disputed subjected was in fact white even though it took me years to come around to see that her perception was right. In those instances, my poor wife has had to put up with my follies for years; all the time loving me, serving me, and being loyal to me even when I kept arguing that it was black.

But your wife is no scientist. She just admitted that she doesn’t even know what Theistic Evolution is.

Wait a minute! My wife dived back into the discussion: I don’t know what observing genes taught Francis Collins. But I’ve not only observed my husband for thirty-five years I have endured his foolishness, stubbornness, anger and insensitive tongue. Does that not count as observation of facts?

Okay! So what?

Those facts make it much easier to believe the Bible that man has fallen – not evolved. Often the forces at work in your friend seem to be demonic, not divine. It is much more rational to believe that the devil has been guiding and directing man’s devolution?

Exasperated, Frank turned to me again.

Look man (I had to respond even though I was really asleep), my wife has solid grounds for doubting that God is guiding my evolution. Given what your “Evolution” has done to me, God is someone I desperately need. I believe that I am a fallen, not evolving, creature because so often I have to cry out to God for His forgiveness, His grace, His Word, His Spirit and His Church so that I may be delivered from whatever happened to my genes – evolution or devolution.

Don’t tell me, my neo-evangelical friend interrupted, that you really think that the Fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 is history, not a story.

If I were not a fallen sinner, would my beloved women find me so difficult to live with? My wife and I live with our younger daughter, her husband and our fifth grandchild. My daughter loves me, but she has plenty of good reasons to not want to live with us. Fortunately, she has no choice. She needs us to look after her daughter and we love living with her and her wonderful husband and absolutely adorable daughter. Even though everyone in our family loves everyone else, the fact remains that I hurt the ones I dearly love and who love me.
I am supposed to be one with my wife, but she is wounded because I am not loyal to her: I see black when she sees white.  Our alienation is as real as our oneness. The joys of marriage are inextricably intertwined with pain because of a fundamental human dilemma: How can two sinners live happily ever after? If my wife and I are not separated or divorced it is only because God is greater than our demons. His Spirit (not our genes) makes it possible for us to love those who are difficult to love.
I thought you were a philosopher! Frank was beginning to give up on me. And here you are, still clinging to stories from your childhood Sunday School class.

My wife’s question is philosophical: if the God of the Bible is directing evolution, why are we so bad? 

But evolution is science, not philosophy.
Evolution is a scientific theory; but Theistic Evolution is philosophical speculation. No one has observed God evolve man, nor has the Creator told us that He evolved man. If we were discussing Evolution we would indeed need to talk about science, even though you have to admit that it is non-observable science: no one has actually seen a fish become a bird. Nor is it experimental science: no one has figured out a formula for evolving a monkey into a man. Theistic Evolution is not even a scientific theory. It is theological reflection on scientific data. My wife is asking you to develop your philosophy of Theistic Evolution enough to explain the existence of evil in a process that you claim is directed by God. As far as I know the best philosophy of divine evolution was developed by Teilhard de Chardin. It grew into the New Age Movement, which grew old faster than the generation that espoused it. You have to answer my wife’s question, “Why did God stop evolving man?” It seems to me that as a philosophical theory, Theistic Evolution is based on a pretty confused theory of knowledge. It rejects divine revelation when it considers creation, but falls back on it to make sense of sin.
I respect sincere scientific-theological speculations of thoughtful Christians and non-Christians. But having studied philosophy, I find the simple account of Genesis 3 stunningly accurate in its explanation of my wife’s dilemma.

What’s your dilemma? Frank turned back to my wife.

I am trapped. I have tons of good reasons to hate your friend, but I love him and have to live with him. Genesis 3 may be only a story, but when I am mad at him, I drive to a park, read the Bible, pray and cry out loud. In those moments I know for sure that I am under the curse put on Eve, ‘Your desire will be for your husband, and he – a sinner – will rule over you.’

So you really think that we haven’t evolved, but fallen?

Why else would he say black when it is clear to me and to my daughters and all my prayer-partners that it is white? Our perceptions are irreconcilable and yet I have to live with him.

My friend switched from science to pragmatism. But don’t you see, this old-fashioned faith in a literal, historical Fall will lead you into patriarchal slavery?

What do you mean? My wife probed his reasoning.

The Apostle Paul did not have the advantage of the discoveries of modern science. He never heard of Theistic Evolution, so he took the Fall literally and drew terrible social conclusions from the story in Genesis 3.

Such as? My wife gave Frank a piercing look, to make sure that she wasn’t talking to the creature that came to Eve in the Garden of Eden.

But Frank is as stubborn as me. Undeterred, he tried to warn my wife of the unpleasant social implications of a belief in Original Sin: Writing to Timothy, Paul says that because Adam was created first and because Eve was deceived first, a “woman must learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather she is to remain quiet.” (1Timothy 2:11-12). 

 What’s that got to do with Theistic Evolution? My wife retorted.

My point is that Paul assumed that (a) the Fall of Adam and Eve, and (b) the resultant curse on their relationship are literal facts. Therefore he concluded that wives had an obligation to submit to their husbands “quietly”. If you take these Bible stories at face-value you will only create problems for yourself.

How?

Paul would not permit you to say white, at least not for both of you. If you want to say white on behalf of your husband also, then according to Paul you are obliged to first obtain his consent.

 I have heard Bible-believing women say that Paul was not giving a universally binding command. He was giving a culture-specific advice to Timothy. On the other hand, I can see Paul’s point . . . it is true that we would have far fewer conflicts, if I didn’t say white without first consulting my husband.

Oh no! For Evolution’s sake, please don’t do that. Frank began to get nervous as he realized that he may have driven my wife into the Middle Ages. You have to think about your daughters. They have to live in the 21st century. If you take the Bible literally you will have to say to your daughters what Paul said to Titus.

What did he say?

Paul told Titus to command older women to “train young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands.” (Titus 2:4-5) You belong to a generation that was culturally conditioned to submit to their husbands. How can you stifle your daughters and their freedom to pursue their happiness with puritanical notions of purity and submission? They are evolving: how can you ask them to devote their lives to their husbands, home and children?

Frank didn’t realize that as far as my wife was concerned, he had gone over the top. She terminated the conversation. 
Now I understand, why Paul keeps telling Timothy and Titus to rebuke those who teach demonic doctrines. Our lives are hard enough with our husbands but your Evolution is robbing your women of their husbands and making their lives hell: so many of your men are afraid even to marry your evolved women.
I think you should log on to www.RevelationMovement.com and watch my husband’s four sermons “Will America Become A Kingdom of Darkness.” These lectures will help you understand why your families are devolving into a demonic kingdom of darkness. My husband points out that the idea that a man should have only one wife comes from those same letters to Timothy and Titus. Monogamy is not a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or a secular idea. It is a peculiarly New Testament idea based on the creation account in Genesis that you think is a myth. Western families are falling apart, because, as my husband says, this biblical understanding of marriage as monogamy cannot be sustained without biblical spirituality. If a woman does not obey the Word of God as commanded by Paul, why should her husband obey it? Among other things, these lectures explain why “pursuit of happiness” means loving your own wife rather than your neighbor’s wife. God’s grace and my husband’s exclusive love for me make it possible to put up with who he is.

Two sinners seeking and finding amazing grace to be one, including with their wonderful (though sometimes disappointed) daughters, their husbands, and their five delightful grandchildren.