1 - Facing the Darwinian Problem of Evil

Summary

The chapter includes a comprehensive account of the Darwinian problem of evil, centered on evolutionary animal suffering inscribed by natural selection into the conditions of existence. The author contends that the problem arises from the unveiling of a Darwinian World by modern scientists. They have unveiled four interconnected truths about the natural realm, as it has been in the past, and as it is now. The unveilings are (1) “deep evolutionary time,” (2) a “plurality of worlds” existing successively in the planetary past, (3) “aniti-cosmic micro-monsters” that cause widespread, brutal suffering for animals, and (4) “evil inscribed,” i.e., that animal suffering in nature is not accidental, but is systemic – inscribed by natural selection into the conditions of existence for animals. It seems that the source of evolutionary evils suffered by animals is not a Fall, as traditionally alleged by theists, but the design of nature itself.