I
struggle with how to think about divine intervention. While I certainly want to
believe that God intervenes in the world and in my own life, there are many terrible
things that God doesn’t intervene to stop (including many things not caused by
humans, thereby making human free will an unsatisfying explanation).
In
his new book, Evolving Faith: Wanderings of a Mormon Biologist (published by the Maxwell
Institute),
BYU biology professor Steven Peck shares some thought
provoking ideas related to divine intervention.
By way of background, Peck acknowledges the
reality of evolution, and he also believes there are “deep and unavoidable
theological implications for incorporating into our theology the belief that
natural selection structured the way life evolved on our planet.” Some of these
implications are related to the brutality of natural selection: “It is hard to
imagine that evolution by natural selection is a reasonable choice for creation
if other methods were available,” he says. Peck suggests that perhaps “God … is
subject to certain natural laws,” and natural selection may have been “a
natural law necessary for the creation of a diverse and fully functioning
universe.”
Peck
then expands upon this idea in connection with God’s intervention in the world:
