I have a hard question about theistic evolution.
In most historical Christian thought, the main answer to the origin of sin is that it came from the Fall of Man. Adam sins, suffering begins. However, if you're a Christian who believes in evolution, there may be a problem. It seems like there must have been animal suffering before anything like a Fall, and maybe even the suffering of early humans. Not only that, it seems like the system itself is driven by death. The reason evolution works is the generations come and go with successive changes. Some populations succeed, some fail, and it's competition and survival of the fittest.
Now if you're a deist or something like that, this might not be a big deal. But it's a lot hard when talking about the God of love. Does this say something pretty negative about the character of God?
(This isn't intended as a gotcha. I'm a theistic evolutionist myself. I just don't know what to think about this particular point.)
What people don't understand, and even Christians sadly, is that creation is good as a
whole, when God said in Genesis that all that he made and saw was very good, it didn't say that this part of the world is good and this other part is bad, no, the
whole world is very good and it isn't defined by its individual parts sticking out, but instead, everything that was, will be and is. The combine of the blessings and the curses, our downfall and our success, light and dark, is greater than just good, for evil contextualize good and vice and versa. David sin severely against God, but God still considered him to be perfect regardless just like Adam. Quantitative sinlessness isn't for us in this life, he didn't made us for it nor he made us to like it as much because he already has that, just look at how many violent movies, games and etc. that we like compared to wholesome media. As for death in nature, we were send here to submit to death as punishment, power in real life and in the political sense can be describe in the most simple and primordial terms as power to
kill, every other form of power is just an emanation of that and has its roots on that, the state and the powerful are minions of Death, for we are in its dominion where the prince reign. God quite literally gave Death power over us and the other living things in our world, and why he did it? Well, you can guess why, you are on KF right now where we can see it on full display.
But look, he made you knowing you will sin, knowing that you
will fail at some point, but when it is all done, symbolized by the six sides of a coffin that represents the days of creation, is when the greater good can take place, like a seed that is meek, silent and subtle, for we aren't define only for our presence, but also our absence. Death will degenerate so much, it will become nothingness, just like Life will regenerate so much, that it will feel like death didn't even existed. Death will become part of the past, and the future will belong to Life forever after the end times. For that it is their logical conclusion.
God is a God of love, but love isn't only pleasure, it is suffering too, a long road. If you never felt the pleasure and the pain of love at the same time, I don't know how I could describe it to you. It also important to understand that he look at us for what we are deeply in eternity, there is a reason why I feel like he dislikes weakness, I guess because to him it is just a lie, you aren't weak, and this world and flesh is just vain despite everything. And all of this so he can ask you a question, to be or not to be?
All of this is just my opinion, of course.
