I was discussing with a friend the notion that God might
have used evolution to complete the creation.
We were talking about Wilder-Smith’s wonderful book God: To
Be or Not To Be and came to the conclusion that for God to have used evolution
he would have had to make it do that which it is not able to do.
That is, he would have to use change processes not to
produce chance outcomes, but purposed outcomes. He would have to inject
teleology into that which is purely stochastic.
But that means he would have made a thing (chance) which
could not achieve his ends (a creative purpose) and so work against the thing
made (chance); which is to say, that he couldn’t have used chance at all,
because chance leads to dissolution, not creation!
So God could only conceivably use chance to create by not
using chance at all, but by over-riding (guiding, people might like to
suggest!) it. The very notion breaks down under the weight of its own
incoherence.
