What I am really interested in, is knowing whether God could have created the world in a different way; in other words, whether the requirement of logical simplicity admits a margin of freedom. (Albert Einstein, quoted in Jammer 1999: 124)

Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. (Westminster Confession chap V. sect II)

One of the enduring objections to evolution of the Darwinian variety is that it is based on chance, and so for theists who believe God is interventionist, it suggests that God is subjected to chance, and hence not omni‐something (‐present, ‐potent, or ‐scient, and most of all ‐benevolent). Darwin debated this issue in correspondence with his friend Asa Gray, and it ended up as the final pages of his 1868 Variation. Effectively, Darwin argued that we cannot “reasonably maintain” that God intended for chance events to occur that are useful to humans or to the species concerned (see Dowe 2005).

Darwin makes an argument by analogy, comparing natural selection with a builder. He argues that if the builder uses found materials, then the builder is responsible for the outcome of the building's design and manufacture, not the forces that made the stones the shapes they are. By analogy, we cannot credit God with the results of natural selection. But as God is omniscient, and hence could foresee the outcomes, there appears to be a conundrum, which we shall call Darwin's conundrum. First, let's look at the text in question. The relevant passages are emphasized, but the whole passage is worth reproducing:

 … the long‐continued accumulation of beneficial variations will infallibly lead to structures as diversified, as beautifully adapted for various purposes, and as excellently co‐ordinated, as we see in the animals and plants all around us. Hence I have spoken of selection as the paramount power, whether applied by man to the formation of domestic breeds, or by nature to the production of species. I may recur to the metaphor given in a former chapter: if an architect were to rear a noble and commodious edifice, without the use of cut stone, by selecting from the fragments at the base of a precipice wedge‐formed stones for his arches, elongated stones for his lintels, and flat stones for his roof, we should admire his skill and regard him as the paramount power. Now, the fragments of stone, though indispensable to the architect, bear to the edifice built by him the same relation which the fluctuating variations of each organic being bear to the varied and admirable structures ultimately acquired by its modified descendants.

Some authors have declared that natural selection explains nothing, unless the precise cause of each slight individual difference be made clear. Now, if it were explained to a savage utterly ignorant of the art of building, how the edifice had been raised stone upon stone, and why wedge‐formed fragments were used for the arches, flat stones for the roof, &c.; and if the use of each part and of the whole building were pointed out, it would be unreasonable if he declared that nothing had been made clear to him, because the precise cause of the shape of each fragment could not be given. But this is a nearly parallel case with the objection that selection explains nothing, because we know not the cause of each individual difference in the structure of each being.

The shape of the fragments of stone at the base of our precipice may be called accidental, but this is not strictly correct; for the shape of each depends on a long sequence of events, all obeying natural laws; on the nature of the rock, on the lines of deposition or cleavage, on the form of the mountain which depends on its upheaval and subsequent denudation, and lastly on the storm or earthquake which threw down the fragments. But in regard to the use to which the fragments may be put, their shape may be strictly said to be accidental. And here we are led to face a great difficulty, in alluding to which I am aware that I am travelling beyond my proper province. An omniscient Creator must have foreseen every consequence which results from the laws imposed by Him. But can it be reasonably maintained that the Creator intentionally ordered, if we use the words in any ordinary sense, that certain fragments of rock should assume certain shapes so that the builder might erect his edifice? If the various laws which have determined the shape of each fragment were not predetermined for the builder's sake, can it with any greater probability be maintained that He specially ordained for the sake of the breeder each of the innumerable variations in our domestic animals and plants;— many of these variations being of no service to man, and not beneficial, far more often injurious, to the creatures themselves? Did He ordain that the crop and tail‐feathers of the pigeon should vary in order that the fancier might make his grotesque pouter and fantail breeds? Did He cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport? But if we give up the principle in one case,—if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided in order that the greyhound, for instance, that perfect image of symmetry and vigour, might be formed,—no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that variations, alike in nature and the result of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief “that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines,” like a stream “along definite and useful lines of irrigation.” If we assume that each particular variation was from the beginning of all time preordained, the plasticity of organisation, which leads to many injurious deviations of structure, as well as that redundant power of reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for existence, and, as a consequence, to the natural selection or survival of the fittest, must appear to us superfluous laws of nature. On the other hand, an omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains everything and foresees everything. Thus we are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of free will and predestination. (Darwin 1868, Vol. 2, 430–432)

This is a passage of great subtlety, dealing with several concerns raised against his view of evolution. It has significance today because there is widespread agreement that Darwinian evolution is incompatible with a providential creator deity, both by atheists and many theists writing on the subject. For example, intelligent design proponents hold that “theistic evolution,” in which God is, as Asa Gray held, the ultimate reason for the variations on which natural selection works, is as inadmissible for a theist as the “chance evolution” of atheists (or more properly, of Epicureans ¹ ). Darwin had written to Gray on May 22, 1860, after the publication of the Origin:

With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.—I am bewildered.—I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I should wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ ² with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can.—

Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistic. The lightning kills a man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively complex action of natural laws,—a child (who may turn out an idiot) is born by action of even more complex laws,—and I can see no reason, why a man, or other animal, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws; & that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future event & consequence. But the more I think the more bewildered I become; as indeed I have probably shown by this letter. (Burkhardt and Smith 1985, v6, 504)

Darwin's argument is roughly this: unless we want to ascribe meaning to every random event, which seems to make God a micromanager of monumental proportions and undercuts the raîson d’étre for there being natural law at all (and hence the foundation of science itself), we cannot maintain that God would have chosen the random variations on which both artificial and natural selection operate. Hence, natural selection is inconsistent with the notion that God is responsible for everything. The problem with which Darwin is struggling is clearly related to the problem that Leibniz discussed in his Monadology and Théodicée:

53. Now, as in the Ideas of God there is an infinite number of possible universes, and as only one of them can be actual, there must be a sufficient reason for the choice of God, which leads Him to decide upon one rather than another. …

54. And this reason can be found only in the fitness [convenance], or in the degrees of perfection, that these worlds possess, since each possible thing has the right to aspire to existence in proportion to the amount of perfection it contains in germ. …

55. Thus the actual existence of the best that wisdom makes known to God is due to this, that His goodness makes Him choose it, and His power makes Him produce it. … (Leibniz 1925).

This was the view satirized by Voltaire in Candide as the view of Doctor Pangloss, that all is for the best, in this best of all possible worlds. Note, however, that Leibniz only requires that the world be the best of all possible worlds, and not that all events within it be the best possible events. So the crucial question is how God chooses which world to create.

Theist creationisms (i.e., views that God is the creator of all that physically is ³ ) come in a number of forms. One is the Deist or Platonic ⁴ view under which God once set the world in motion, and thence abandoned it to its law‐like fate. God here is the primum mobile, the primary cause of motion and causation, and is uninvolved in subsequent events. The deist account of Aristotle, however, puts God on an ontological par with the world created (Figure 1). Judeo‐Christian theisms treat God as of a higher ontological order (Figure 2), outside time and space, a point that will become significant. On the deist account, God is part of the causal order, and sets off a chain of causal processes of which she, it, or he is a part. On the traditional theist view, however, God is not part of the [secondary] causal order, but is the [primary] cause of there being one. When the Aristotelian tradition of the primum mobile was amalgamated with the theological traditions of Christianity and Judaism, it was substantially revised in this way. Asa Gray is taking the traditionalist view of creation and supposing that God makes sure things stay on‐track according to the Plan when secondary causes either go off‐track or fail to realize the Planned outcomes, and it is this view that Darwin is objecting to. I shall introduce two other conceptions in which creationisms take distinct forms later.

1

The Deist Conception of God as Prime Mover.

2

The Simple Theist Conception of God as Different from the World.

Choosing the World

To answer Darwin's condundrum, let us consider a less‐than‐omni‐something creator deity, a “toy god,” or a neo‐Leibnizian God, who has some set of utility functions or goals, and seeks to fulfill these using only what theologians used to call secondary powers—see the epigram from the Westminster Confession, for example; also Summa contra Gentiles III.70.5–8 ⁵ (Aquinas 1976)—and which we now call natural laws. I choose this approach on the understanding that if the solution offered works for a limited and constrained being capable of instantiating a universe, then the problem should be soluble for an unlimited and physically unconstrained being. However, there are problems that omniscience, omnibenevolence, and omnipotence jointly generate that do not apply in the case of the limited neo‐Leibnizian deity, and which I do not consider here.

This God chooses merely the best world of which he, she, or it knows, in which the events occur that satisfy whatever utility functions such deities have when creating worlds. A neo‐Leibnizian God need not have even beneficence as a goal or utility function (he, it, or she may be malevolent, as in the Manichaean, Gnostic, and Zoroastrian dualisms, according to which the creator god has deliberately made an imperfect world). All that this entity requires is the capacity to simulate possible worlds, and not even all of those, but only a large enough subset to find a world that satisfies the goals he, she, or it has. A Leibnizian deity would have all eternity, and an infinite degree of simulation power, to find a best possible world. In contrast, our neo‐Leibnizian deity need have only the opportunity (which might be time, or if time is a meaningless concept in connection with creator deities, sufficient degrees of logical freedom to represent enough worlds) and the computational capacity to find a satisficing world—that is, a world that satisfies the relevant utility functions (Simon 1972, 1981). It need not be the best world. In fact, it may overall be a very poor world in many other respects, just so long as it satisfies the utility functions.

To give an illustration of this, consider the Avida simulation program developed by Chris Adami and colleagues (Ofria and Wilke 2004). Avida simulates a process of evolution by selection on “animats,” or cellular automata, that simulates organisms in an environment. Suppose I want a particular outcome and I have plenty of time—not an infinite amount, but enough to run many simulations of “worlds” that will approach my utility function. After running several millions of simulations, I find the “universe” that serves my needs and build it to the specifications drawn from that (or, in theological language, actualize it). If my needs include allowing a home‐builder to make a house from rocks off a cliff, then I ensure that the universe I choose includes that outcome. ⁶ In this way, everything within the universe is the result of secondary causes, although the neo‐Leibnizian God remains the primary cause of the particular universe so actualized, which by definition includes each event that satisfies God's utility functions. So Darwin is not correct in saying that one cannot reasonably maintain that the outcome is designed by the deity. However, Darwin is entirely correct about the secondary causes—God is not a micromanager. Instead, on this view, God has chosen the best available or most satisfactory world to create (note that this doesn't require that God is omniscient, or choose the best of all possible worlds; in fact, it may even be that to choose that world God might have to abandon some of His/Her goals, unless the two are identical—i.e., unless what God wants just is the best of all possible worlds by definition). So we have a difference of levels of causes here, not unlike the distinction made by some neo‐Thomists (e.g., Mascall 1967) between creation as the instigation of each individual event (called “occasionalism”), which they rejected, and creation as the subsistence of every event as they unfold according to secondary causes (Figure 3).

3

The Neo‐Thomist Conception of Mascall.

It may be objected that God cannot create a deterministic universe such that the outcomes will arise via secondary powers from the initial conditions, but this may be overcome if God is a block theorist or four‐dimensionalist (a view also known as “eternalism”), ⁷ and who constructs the entire universe from start to end in a single act such that every event within it occurs according to the laws of nature (Figure 4). Quantum indeterminacy and other confounding factors will not prevent the world from occurring just as the simulation predicted, because the simulation is the plan of creation, as it runs. This is not a deist conception of a God who starts things and then lets them run, but a God who actualizes in every respect a world that is simulated as a formal possibility. God doesn't even need to predetermine each event in the world simulation, so long as once that simulation is “run” and achieves the utility functions, it, she, or he can pour the “ontological cement” into the mold. Another solution is that offered by Hume's Philo in the Dialogues, in which God is like an apprentice builder who tries to make a large number of actual universes, learning from trial and error until he gets the universe he wants, a solution recently also proffered by Michael Ruse (Ruse 2010, 220ff). The difference here is whether God merely simulated or actually made the universes; in either case, quantum indeterminacy is a brute fact of these universes God did not need to foresee. A third solution is that quantum events are determined by God, a kind of sub‐Planck occasionalism.

4

The Neo‐Leibnizian Conception.

Implications

Critics of theistic evolution claim that theistic evolutionists are being inconsistent: that they hold on one hand to a view of God as creator and as providential, and on the other hand to a view that humans evolved by chance; they hold that it is “Darwinism with a tinge of faith” (Nelson 2002; quoted from O’Leary 2004). The sense of chance here is ambiguous, and a solution lies in Darwin's own discussion above. He said, “The shape of the fragments of stone at the base of our precipice may be called accidental, but this is not strictly correct; for the shape of each depends on a long sequence of events, all obeying natural laws; … But in regard to the use to which the fragments may be put, their shape may be strictly said to be accidental.” The notion of “accident” that a Darwinian view of evolution requires is that the events occur without reference to their subsequent utility for the species in which they occurred. Under a more recent formulation of evolution as a process of “blind variation and selective retention” (BVSR, cf. Campbell 1987), the “blindness” here is in the lack of foresight of mutations for the future usefulness of the organisms that bear them. It is not required that there be some truly uncaused randomness, nor that these events even be in principle unpredictable.

We need to understand what we mean by “theistic evolution.” Contrary to common opinion, it need not mean that God intervened in the natural process to cause evolution to go the way he wants, the view that Asa Gray seems to have held, and to which Darwin was objecting. To take this slant means that God must prevent secondary causes from working out, as they would have done naturally. Instead we charitably interpret “theistic evolution” to be the following sort of thesis.