PENSAMIENTO CRÍTICO

The dire implications of an attempt to validate a natural ethic, as being a parallel

approach to moral knowledge aligned with Christian ethics and doctrine, come to the fore in Patricia Williams’ attempt to reconcile Christianity with “evolutionary ethics”.192 While Williams does not explicitly define evolutionary ethics in either phenomenological or

ontological terms, it is clear from her explanation that she uses the idea in a manner typical of

our own eye” [Matt. 7:3]. Thus the authority and rightness of Christian ethical judgments will rely upon the work of the Holy Spirit in our self-examination. As O’Donovan says rightly, this prayerful approach to morality is conditioned upon “hopeful attention to the inner dialogue with God” which takes place in response to “the evangelical summons to be judge of ourselves”,WJ, 309, 312.

190

We may include contemporary versions of “modern paganism”, rooted in secular humanism, along with the classical, historical varieties of paganism without departing from our line of inquiry here. For inasmuch as our culture has moved beyond the old paganism of pre-Christian roots, never to return, our present age of post- Christendom persists in embracing anti-Christian values of “paganism” or “polythesism” as Taylor attests;A Secular Age, 770-1. David Bentley Hart agrees, concluding that although “We are not pagans” as of old, “we live after the age of Christendom, and cultures do not easily turn back to beliefs of which they have tired or with which they have become disenchanted”; Hart,Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) 240. And thus the gods of antiquity have been merely replaced in some sense by new gods conforming to “the moral metaphysics of modernity”, 228.

191

After all, as O’Donovan concludes regarding moral behavior: “acting and living cannot be self-aware and self-possessed without prayer; and therefore they cannot ultimately be acting and living to good effect”; ‘Prayer and Morality in the Sermon…’, 33.

192

Patricia A. Williams, ‘Christianity and Evolutionary Ethics: Sketch Toward Reconciliation’,Zygon 31, no. 2 (1996) 253-268. Hereafter, “Williams”.

various attempts to explain ethics as an emergent characteristic of human behavior which arose naturally through the process of evolution, as the human creature developed a

sufficiently complex social mind as to become aware of possessing moral consciousness. For Williams, this is common sense: human beings have evolved dispositions including a bias for rules, along with an acquired habit of judging in terms of right and wrong.193 Based on this view of morality, she arrives at the conclusion that “most of the ancient doctrines [of the Church] are either factually or morally unacceptable to those who live on the threshold of the twenty-first century.”194 This is a common refrain among advocates of evolutionary ethics,195 and understandably so, for in order to rationalize the claim that ethics is grounded in, and determined by, “natural” evolutionary process (i.e., interpreted as being determined by non- teleological process), it becomes essential to deny the Gospel as the source and ground of ethics; otherwise, the so-called “natural” processes would be found to lack authority as a hermeneutical path to meaning.

The doctrines of Atonement and sin are called immediately into question in any attempt to reconcile Christian and evolutionary ethics; for if nature is the determinant of our morality, then how are we to understand the human need for a Savior to save us from our sin?196 We are not surprised therefore to hear Williams argue that that “the logic of the Christology of Chalcedon requires an incarnation but not an Atonement.”197 In the same manner she rejects doctrines of original sin which would suggest humans might be “naturally indisposed to obey God”.198In lieu of these doctrines she suggests that there is only one interpretation of

Atonement that conforms to “modern scientific thinking, namely, the educative

interpretation.”199 Though she does not develop a clear statement of this educative doctrine of the Atonement, she makes it clear in her conclusion that we are not saved through the passion and resurrection of Christ—these being unnecessary and troubling artifacts of

outdated mythically inspired doctrines200—but rather, we are saved byeducation, with Christ

193

Williams, 257. 194

Williams, 263-4. 195

E.g., Melvin Konner, Francis Ayala, Frans Van de Waal, Richard Dawkins, Michael Gazzinga. 196

Sir Alfred Ayer anticipates proponents of evolutionary ethics when he justifies his contempt for Christianity on the basis of “the allied doctrines of original sin and vicarious atonement, which are intellectually

contemptible and morally outrageous.”Guardian Weekly, August 30, 1979, quoted by John Stott,Evangelical Truth(Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 1999) 84.

197 Williams, 263. 198 Williams, 258. 199 Williams, 264. 200

Williams, 256, quotes Bultmann,Jesus Christ and Mythology(1958)— “The course of history has refuted mythology”—in support of her argument that older Christian doctrines need to be reoriented to a modern scientific worldview.

Chapter 6: Transformation of Persons 182 being the principal teacher who sets an “example of how human beings should live with one another by serving the stranger and the outcast even unto death.”201

So much for the doctrine of Atonement. What of the doctrine of sin? Concomitant to the view that salvation comes not through the presence of Christ the Savior, but rather through the perfection of human nature, Williams describes original sin as an outdated and spurious doctrine.202 She suggests sin would be better understood as “an acquired taste”, rather like the taste for bitter, and that “like acquired tastes, it might be passed from generation to generation through familial, clan, or national culture.”203 By recasting the doctrines of sin and Atonement in this fashion, Williams can proceed with her case for reconciliation by arguing that any moral lapses in human behavior are not due to any original sin, nor indicative of a need for a Savior, but rather they illustrate the wide range of moral and immoral behavior exhibited in human beings which are “not part of God’s teleological plan but an unforeseen result of evolution”.204

What are the implications of this reconciliation for theological anthropology? We can hear a distinct echo of Emil Brunner’s doctrine of the “formal”imagoand the cognitive capacities implicated therein—

[I]n high human moments, in the human ability to think abstractly and logically about moral questions and to apply that thought to human lives, people see that the strong interpretation of the Love Command is a logical extension of natural morality.205

My final observation on Williams’ approach to reconciliation is this: she avoids discussion of relationship with Christ, choosing rather to focus on the attributes of God, in parallel with the attributes of thehumanum, which she takes of course to be outcomes of the

201

Williams, 266. In support of her educative doctrine of Atonement she names Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Teresa in the same sentence as illustrative moral leaders (260). 202

Gregory Peterson makes essentially the same claim in his pursuit of an evolutionary ethic: “the origins of sinfulness... are rooted not in the act of an original, historical couple, but in the complicated evolutionary process itself”, and admits this “may seem to be at odds with a genuinely theological account of human nature”; Peterson, ‘Falling Up: Evolution and Original Sin’, inEvolution and Ethics, Philip Clayton and Jeffrey Schloss, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004): 268-286, 283.

203

Williams, 260. 204

Williams, 264-5. 205

Williams, 261. Although Williams reaches conclusions similar to Brunner’s, she does not develop any dogmatics to support them. Apparently, she considers it sufficient to claim that the materialistic presumptions of her cosmology are obvious. We may also detect in Williams’ epistemological arrogance a fainter echo of O’Donovan’s concern that ethics not be construed as operating in the “burning bush” modality; O’Donovan, ‘The Moral Authority of Scripture’, inScripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s Bible, Markus Bockmuehl and Alan J. Torrance, eds. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008) 165-175, 169. Williams echoes this aversion to domination by the Holy Spirit when she cautions that theologians should be careful to avoid characterization of moral agents as “God’s robots acting out of character and against human inclination”; Williams, 261.

evolutionary process.206 I would suggest that this preoccupation with the attributes of God is an unavoidable corollary to the denial of the real saving presence of Christ in the

transformation of persons as being of the essence in Christian ethics.207