Note:
the next two posts[1]
are exercises in experimental theology.
They should not be taken very seriously.
But part of what I tried to do by getting graduate degrees from top
ecology and theology programs[2]
was to try to think carefully about the interaction between theological and
physical anthropology. So I have been
doing some work on that. It is
experimental which means it has a high probability of being wrong. But there are not a lot of people thinking
carefully about this, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
_________________
Evolutionary skeptics[3]
often will say things like:
‘You can’t really believe that you are essentially just a
trousered ape can you?’ But the thing is…I can, easily. [4] I sometimes see a very distinct apeishness in myself and my species.[5] But the surprising thing is that I often find self assessing as a ‘trousered ape’ can be spiritually helpful in at least two ways.
1.
Increasing Perceived Ontological
Distance Between Ourselves and God
The constant human conceit is to underestimate the
ontological distance between God and people.[6] Those of us who actually recognize God’s
existence often project him simply as a remarkable[7],
invisible person with a few super powers.
But perceiving human ontology and culture as closer to the animals than
to God, creates a helpful head space for apprehension of the otherness of God,
a thing we call holiness. And fleeting apprehensions
of holiness is at the heart of the thing we call worship.
2.
Decreasing the Perceived Ontological
Distance Between Ourselves and Other People
Apprehending the
holiness of God is the primary tool in Christian faith and practice to help us
take ourselves less seriously. But the
surprising byproduct is that it leads to taking other people more seriously,
and investing ourselves in their lives and needs, something we call ‘love’.
Considering ourselves better than other humans is the second pervasive
human conceit. We are constantly
overvaluing our preferences and overestimating our advantages over other
people. Self evaluation in light of the
holiness of God (from any set of anthropological assumptions) ‘flattens’ the
relative distance between humans.
But what if we entertained the hypothesis that humans are ‘a
chosen tribe[8]
of apes[9]’
that God made his ‘image bearers,’ creating a strange species of ‘half way
creatures’ with ontological moorings in the material and spiritual realms he
rules. That helps us see ourselves as
more like the other half-way-apes, and makes us less likely to place ourselves
above them. Even if I am the most
talented and important monkey[10]
(which I am not, I only think I am) it is still hard to take that too
seriously, or feel too much pride about that relatively modest accomplishment.
Bonus Idea: It helps me take the
rest of creation more seriously
Finally, I think the real Christian concern about evolution
is that by decreasing the ontological distance between us and the rest of creation
we open the door to injustice and the loss of human dignity. But part of that is because we have lost a
sense that we are care takers of creation, not consumers of creation. We fear seeing each other as part of God’s
biological creation because we treat that creation so poorly.
We are unique among creation as self conscious ‘care taking’
instances of God’s makings. But we are
not the only part of creation with value and dignity. The problem may not be that we think too low
of humans, but that we think too low of the rest of creation. The answer might not be to elevate human
dignity far above the rest of creation, but to elevate the dignity of creation
in general, so that a modestly elevated human dignity is something untouchable.
Recognizing our ontological proximity to animals (which is
fundamentally how the evolutionary narrative ‘challenges’ Christianity) helps me
take myself less seriously and helps me take God more seriously. It helps short circuit the two human conceits
(that God is kind of like me and other people aren’t). That is not a bad thing.
This
post was written while listening to Thrice (and while I was supposed to be
working on other things[11]).
[1] And, including the last one,
makes kind of a trilogy of human apeness.
[2] I have a graduate degree in
ecology from UC Davis and in theology from Wheaton.
[3] I’m not ever really sure
how to describe my fellow Christians who do not buy the evolutionary narrative.
Pejoratives are silly. Many of them are
kind, intelligent, and frankly wonderful.
Many of them are more kind and intelligent than I am. So pejoratives are out. Fundamentalist doesn’t work because many of
them are evangelicals (and if you don’t know the difference, maybe you should
pause before throwing those words around, especially as pejoratives). But Creationist doesn’t work either, because
I believe that God created the earth and cosmos through a portfolio of direct
and indirect agency. So the word ‘creationist’
doesn’t distinguish my position from theirs.
So, essentially, the only difference is that I think the evidence
supports the evolutionary narrative and they do not. It is an evaluation of a data set, not a
reflection of our character. So I’ll go
with Evolutionary Skeptics.
[4] I mean, have you met
me? I’m ridiculous.
[5] Yesterday I took my kids to
a restaurant and fox news was playing in the background.* The silent talking heads were wearing ties
and $300 haircuts and were very animated about something. But all I saw was silly apes throwing poo.
*
We are in Mississippi for 6 weeks. This
would never happen where I live in CA.
But I often have the same experience with CNN or MSNBC.
[6] This is partly God’s fault
because he insists on a very close relational distance to us (you know, with
all that love and access and incarnation stuff), and we mistake relational
distance with ontological distance. Christianity
isn’t an immanence or a transcendence religion.
It insists on both. Ontologically
transcendent and relationally immanent.
But we can mistake relational familiarity with ontological proximity,
which throws our worship and life out of calibration.
[7] Or more often, an
unremarkable one.
[8] Does ‘choosing a tribe for
a special purpose’ sound like the kind of thing that the Christian God might
do? (cough-Hebrews-cough).
[9] I have another post almost
complete which is a though experiment that posits that our apeness has nothing
to do with our status as the image bearers of God; that God could have ensouled
dinosaurs instead of apes just as easily as he could have ‘chosen’ the Hittites
instead of the Hebrews to be his people of purpose. I’ll try to run it next.
[10] I KNOW…it is just such a
superior word for the purposes of taking myself less seriously. Also, monkeys are cuter. By the way, chimp culture has all of the
worst aspects of human culture (murder, war, sex trafficking*). (And I know, bonobos are more peaceful, ape
hippies, but I also think that is oversold). The more I learn about ape culture
the more I believe that the fall was the
process of God giving us back over to our ‘appetite for apeness,’ which
left us not only as half way creatures ontologically but also ‘morally.’
*Genetic
studies show that alpha males consolidate power by ‘buying’ allegiance from
secondary males by granting them sexual encounters with tribe females. The barter sex with the females under their
power for male allegiance to consolidate their power. Seriously, I haven’t been able to fancifully
linger by the Chimps at the zoo since I learned about this. Like the vampires in the Buffyverse, they are
like humans but without souls. (And yes,
I am aware about the recent science on ape morality – I may even do a post on
it sometime – but it demonstrates a pro-sociality that is economically
justifiable, not any sort of altruism which is still the great and gorgeous human
inefficiency…and, I believe, part of what Genesis calls ‘the image of God.’)
[11] But that is how most blog content happens. It starts as a footnote in my preaching or
fiction or scholarship and proves to speculative or experimental or odd to be
useful there.
