Evolution and Calvin: A Speculation (but what isn't?)

I have been reading the amazing book by Michael Polanyi, a distinguished chemist and philosopher, called Personal Knowledge and came across this very interesting passage on the evolution of man:

"A further step was achieved by the aggregation of protozoan-like creatures to multicellular organisms. This enabled animals to evolve a more complex physiology based on sexual reproduction, a manner of propagation which greatly strengthened their personhood. The story of the Fall presents a strangely apt symbol of this event. For as one part of the body took over procreation and the animal ceased to survive in its progeny, lust and death were jointly invented. And as the achievement of metazoic existence established the rudiments of this tragic combination, a finite personal destiny arose to challenge the surrounding deserts of deathless inanimate matter." - Polanyi, emphasis added

Now my brother, being an evolutionary biologist, would be able to go further and such in explaing this significance, but what strikes me as theologically important is the "Fallability" of human (and all) nature which Calvin so aptly described in his sermons on Job. Being a Reformed Christian I happen to believe in a "historical, personal Fall" of Adam and Eve and how this reconciles with evolutionary theory and structure is well beyond the scope here; so I leave that fact as something you can either accept with me or allow you to call me a raving "hardcore fundamentalist." What interests me in this is that as a Calvinist it is always a hope that the requirement of the Fall will be made more clear since we affirm that it was ordained and superintended by God.

Calvin deals with this through Job by answering the question of how Job is "perfect" yet can still be righteously afflicted by God. He does this by making a distinction, almost three levels of perfection. The first is God's perfection and rightness, which is the definition and highest for of all perfection:

"There is also another kind of righteousnesse which we are lesse acquainted with: which is, when God handleth us, not according to his lawe, but according as he may do by right. And why so? Forasmuchas our Lord giveth us our lesson in his lawe, and commandaundeth us to do whatsoever is conteined there: although the same do farre pass all our power, and no man be able to performe the things that he hath commaunded us: yet notwithstanding we owe him yet more, and are further bound unto him: and the lawe is not so perfect and peerlesse a thing, as is the sayd infinite rightfulness of God, according as we have seene heretofore, that by that he could find unrighteousness in the Angels, and the verie daysunne should not be cleere before him. Thus ye see how there is a perfecter righteousnesse than the righteousnesse of the lawe. And so God listed to use that: although a man had performed all that is conteyned in the lawe: yet shuld he not fayle to be condemned." -Calvin, emphasis added.

What Calvin is saying is there is "Creator" righteousness and "creature" righteousness, and the latter is far from the former, even if the entire revealed law of God is followed. As Paul Helm says: "God's own perfect righteousness is a se, underived and maximal, while Job's own righteousness observance of the law is an instance of the creaturely righteousness of one who, though 'sound', is sinful and imperfect and who in any case has whatever goodness he has from God." So even if Job is righteous as accords to the law and human righteousness, he is still not perfect or righteous as compares to God, and never can be. Thus there is an intrinsic "unrighteousness" and "Fallability" in all of creation. Calvin uses the Angels as a perfect example because even though they have never been given the law, they are yet condemned outside of God's saving work:

"Paul calls the angels who stood in their uprightness 'elect' [I Tim. 5:21]; if their steadfastness was grounded in God's good pleasure, the rebellion of the others proves the latter were forsaken. No ther cause of this fact can be adduced but reprobation [!], which is hidden in God's secret plan." - Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

Helm sums this line up by saying: "According to Calvin the righteousness of the unfallen angels is a righteousness for the continuance of which they are dependent moment by moment on the goodness of God for giving them that righteousness, or at least for not withholding it." Does this mean the creation was not "very good" as Genesis records it? Absolutely not! It just means that "very good" does not mean perfection in the fullest sense. The creation was "very good" but also inevitably "Fallable" in the sense that Calvin has outlined - it is good but not perfect.

Polanyi's discussion of the evolution of inanimate to animate creation seems to give us some specualtion on this - for the essense of life requires the essense of fall and death. There was immortality in lifeless creation until the reproductive aspect, or "lust as Polanyi calls it, entered the picture. But with this advance in the first signs of "personal" life came the existence of death, the final enemy of Christ in the Scriptures. So life as created is inherently "Fallable" in the sense that to achieve its original created righteousness it was outside of divine righteousness, and thus the Fall was inevitable and necessary to life itself as creation found itself with Adam and Eve. But this of course opens the door for the full redemption of creaturely righteousness with the "divinization" of the Christians in Christ. For we are now and will be finally clothed with righteousness and perfection in Christ and live in a new heavens and new earth. As John writes:

"Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." - Revelation 21:3-4.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Note: I am not supporting or attacking evolution in this article, only pointing out some interesting overlaps and implications. Reformed theologians have taken both sides of the debate; Calvin (a version of the theory was around in his day) and Alvin Plantinga denying evolution whereas B. B. Warfield and Charles Hodge defended it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Christomonic Radically Orthodox Ethic!



"Whoever wishes to take up the problem of a Christian ethic must be confronted at once with a demand which is quite without parallel. He must from the outset discard as irrelevant the two questions which alone impel him to concern himself with the problem of ethics, 'How can I be good?' and 'How can I do good?' and instead of these he must ask the utterly and totally different question "What is the will of God?'"

Bonhoeffer's ethics is in line with the RO project in that he sees no 'secular' space for thought or being, there is only God. "The knowlefge of good and evil seems to be the aim of all ethical refelction. The first task of Christian ethics is to invalidate this knowledge." His project is a little different from RO in that he emphasises Jesus Christ in his incarnation as central to all life and knowledge whereas RO works with the Trinity, but this is a minor different as long as Bonhoeffer is understood to view the Trinity in his reconciliation of God and Man through Christ. What about Christ though?

"Jesus Christ said of Himself: 'I am the life', and this claim, and the reality which it contains cannot be disregarded by any Christian thinking, or indeed any philosophical thinking at all. This self-affirmation of Jesus is a declaration that any attempt to express the essence of life simply as life is foredoomed to failure and has indeed already failed."

Here we have a radical ethic, one which demands the Christian perspective first and foremost; no ethical thinking or speaking is possible unless one does so under the rubric of Christ. This is because for Bonhoeffer it is in Christ that life exists, and only in Christ. Through him the world was created, loved, condemned, and reconciled. Speaking of the world or man without Christ is speaking about something that does not exist. Because of the incarnation we are forced to speak of Christ when we talk about the world, life, or man; to do otherwise is to be speaking half-truth at best and a nihilistic lie at worst (thank you RO).

According to Bonhoeffer the entire reason for existence is to become "real men", which means nothing other than to correspond to reality - but not a 'secular' or 'neutral' reality, for reality is nothing other than the life of Christ; or more exactly Christ.

"Reality is first and last not lifeless; but it is the real man, the incarnate God. It is from the real man, whose name is Jesus Christ, that all factual reality derives its ultimate foundation and its ultimate annulment, its justification and its ultimate contradiction, its ultimate affirmation and its ultimate negation. To attempt to understand reality without the real man is to live in an abstraction to which the responsible man must never fall victim; it is to fail to make contact with reality in life."

Like Barth Bonhoeffer sees Christ as the "Ja" and "Nein" to all in the world; his incarnation brings condemnation and salvation, it declares the world bankrupt and broken but also restores and recreates it through the death and resurrection. Reality then is not some abstraction, it is the personal presence of Jesus Christ, or in RO terms the participation of the Triune God with his creation. This means that any thinking, especially ethically, does not come from the abstract but from the personal; ethics is responsibility, responsibility to God and man but lived in the life of Christ.

There can be no "abstract" ethic then if Christ is reality; ideologies will simply not do. "All ideological action carries its own justification within itself from the outset in its guiding principle, but responsible action does noy lay claim to knowledge of its own ultimate righteousness. Ultimate ignorance of one's own good and evil, and with it a complete reliance upon grace, is an essential property or responsible historical action. The man who acts ideologically sees himself justified in his idea; the responsible man commits his action into the hands of God and lives by God's grace and favour."

This is not to say that there are no moral "principles" in life; rather it is to say that they are all derived and will be found in the personal incarnation and life of Jesus Christ. All ethics is a following of him in the most serious sense. We do not live life according to abstract rights and wrongs, we live them in conversation and partnership with the real man, Jesus Christ. Ethics is personal - we are always making decisions for or against a person, not a principle. This is a truly radical ethics in that it denies the Roman Catholic principle of "natural law" and makes grace the only possibility. All our actions are done in shame and guilt, we depend on the grace and favour of Jesus Christ and his work to sanctify any.

Any action must go through and be done by Christ in order for it to be considered righteous. In Bonhoeffer then we have a truly Protestant ethic; one which demands the continual intercession and grace of Christ baptizing all our thoughts, words, and deeds. To do something outside of Christ is to fail in the sight of God, no matter what action is taken. To live outside of Christ is to live to yourself and ultimately only to damnation and condemnation, for you live to an abstraction and a nothing - nihilism in its ethical form.

To act ethically then is to act as Christ and nothing can be conceived of except in Christ - for the world only exists in his reconcilliation of it to God. This reconcilliation means a curse on all our deeds, for although they may be "reasonable" or "right" before man, they are always condemned before God. "Before other men the man of free responsibility is justified by necessity; before himself he is acquitted by his conscience; but before God he hopes only for mercy."

Bonheoffer's ethics is both Protestant and Radically Orthodox - it both forces all action and life through the reconcilliation of God and Man by Jesus Christ and denies the existence of any "secular" reality. Reality is nothing other than Christ continually reconciling the world to God - his eternal priesthood and kingship until the final consummation of the new heavens and the new earth. "Behold, I am making all things new! (Rev. 21.5)"