According to evolutionary doctrine, death and suffering long preceded the existence of humans and, in fact, are an inextricable part of the very process by which living things came to be.

The other is that a slow evolutionary development of life and humankind in particular seems to contradict the Christian doctrine of the fall from a paradisical state. One is that the process of evolution, with its competitive, frequently bloody, struggle for survival is incompatible with the purposes of a benevolent or loving God. Of course, evolution presents its own set of problems. If this is right, then it wouldn’t be such a vast leap of speculation to think that a supremely intelligent creator might intend the evolutionary process to create finite personal beings who can appreciate the intelligibility and beauty of the universe, and, perhaps, enter into relationships with the creator.

That is, “given suitable sorts of progressive genetic change, there will be some organisms that climb to fill the ecological space available for intelligent agents” (p. Ward suggests that there are reasons for thinking that consciousness and intelligence describe an evolutionary “niche” that tendencies inherent in the structure of the universe will seek to fill. So likewise in the case of the evolution of life on Earth. The universe starts to look like it was “fine-tuned” to allow for the emergence of beings very much like ourselves. For one thing, it’s now believed that if the values of ceratin fundamental constituents of the universe, such as the strong and weak nuclear forces, were even slightly different the emergence of life as we know it, much less intelligent life, would’ve probably been impossible. While it’s possible to see evolution as simply an interplay of randomness and the pressures of survivial, it’s also possible, he thinks, to discern some kind of tendency toward greater complexity, toward consciousness and intelligence.

Ward takes the theory of evolution as established, at least in its main outlines, but he does question some of the interpretations often given of evolution, especially by “evangelical atheists” like Richard Dawkins.

Pascal's Fire by Keith Ward