Does evolution conflict with god’s character?

Abstract

The core question that this article addresses is how the Darwinian evolutionary process of random mutation and natural selection relates to God’s character, especially as portrayed in the Christian tradition. The main challenge is that the process of random mutation and natural selection generally favours well-adapted individuals, whereas, in the Christian tradition, God is said to favour the weak and poor. I first spell out the problem in more detail and explain how it is different from other problems regarding the evolutionary process and God’s character that can be found in the philosophical and theological literature. Subsequently, I draw attention to various misunderstandings, especially about the nature of Darwinian evolution. Doing so weakens the tension between Darwinian evolution and God’s character, but does not provide a satisfactory solution. I therefore move on to discuss six attempts to solve the problem and argue that each of them is seriously wanting. Finally, I propose three lines of reasoning that jointly constitute a sufficiently plausible solution to the problem.