Can a Hand say to a Foot…
4 April 2008 - 29 אדר ב' 5768 by Huw
I received an email a long while ago linking to an article (in the NY Times, I think) offering a stark commentary on Evolution. I’m going to break the scientific angle, but the sociological upstart was this: if Darwin’s theories of evolution (et al) are true, then all men are *not* equal. For we’ve evolved in different ways, based on culture, environment and genetics. The actual *stuff* that makes us up is different.
Two responses come to mind:
Firstly, there is no genetic basis for race (although recent discoveries call this into question).
But secondly - of course we’re all created different - and with different levels of skills, qualities, etc. The issue is not how far we might be “evolved” as if we can tell that one group is more or less evolved than another.
To the Church Fathers there was not a lot of individual humans running around - especially as they were thinking of salvation. As in Adam all Die - all of us - even so in Christ shall all be made alive: all of us. It’s not a bunch of individuals, but rather one humanity. St Gregory says it is a common mistake to speak of “multiple humans” when, in fact, humanity is one - all of us.
This article from Wired discusses the various way that “lower” species may all play together - evolving so that different portions of the species function together as a whole.
If these principles seem nebulous in a bacterial context — microbes are, after all, invisible to the eye — then the same principles can be discerned more clearly in the insect world, where some biologists now see certain species, especially honeybees and ants, as forming colonies that should be defined as self-interested organisms unto themselves.
In these so-called superorganisms, individual characteristics — such as the chronologically varying reproductive stages of solitary female bees — lay the foundations for highly complex organizations, such as honeybee hives in which different reproductive stages are assigned to separate worker castes.
And I begin to wonder if that’s not the way that Humanity functions at least in God’s eyes, or the eyes of Universe. I begin to wonder if it is possible to speak of us a “more” evolved at all. Assuming all life started at once it would follow that all life - from single cells to humanity - is equally evolved; that we have reached a certain place in our journey together. While we are different, we should expect to see the same level of organisation in all species.
Thus it follows not that some humans are “less evolved” and other humans are “more evolved”. All of us have evolved to different function, different roles in the creature called “humanity”. None of us are less valuable to all of us as a species. And equally all of us are evolved together (with our 9:1 bacterial colonies and the bees and our vegetables and trees) into this being we call Earth.
Does the drone understand the function of the queen? Or only his relationship to her? Is the worker responsible for knowing what the nurse bees do around the eggs and larvae or is the worker only responsible for finding food? Does it matter that all the bees function differently or is it more important that they function together?
For 2000 years the Church as sought a way to define herself in a sectarian way to the exclusion of some others - just like Israel and all other groups of humans - what if that is exactly *not* the point of the Gospel? “In Christ shall all be made alive”.
