Daily Archives: 08/11/2013

A striking feature of current syntheses of Christian theism with evolutionary theory is an abandonment of the historic Christian doctrine of providence. It often seems as though we have a quasi-deist, hands-off God, who simply “lets things happen” without in any sense directing the outcome. The motivation behind this weak account of providence is, perhaps, a desire to “absolve” God from aspects of the evolutionary process and its products that many modern minds find problematic – e.g. animal suffering over geological time, species extinction, dysteleology (poor design).