Re: Deep Blue

Murphy (gmurphy@imperium.net)
Tue, 13 May 1997 18:27:32 -0400

Geoff Bagley wrote:
> A similar scenario arose in another discussion recently, when it was
> suggested that in the normal run of evolution, humanity could become
> extinct and another species could eventually be seen as the 'rulers of the
> earth' in the sense that dinosaurs once 'ruled the earth'. If this should
> happen and I have had one theistic evolutionist suggesting to me that it
> could and if this new species were not derived from the present hominid
> lineage and were sentient, then what would their relationship be to God.
> Also, would the life, death and resurrection of Jesus have any significance
> for them.

As to their relationship with God, Job 39-41 makes it clear that
God is interested in animals humans don't have much to do with. (Cf.
also Sirach 18:13 - "The compassion of human beings is for their
neighbor, but the love of the Lord is for every living thing.)
But more deeply - because of our evolutionary relationship with
other species, there is a sense in which God, in the Incarnation, took
on not human nature in isolation but that of other living things. Thus
the reconciliation of "all things" (Col.1:20, Rom.8:18-25) can take
place through the Incarnation - something which, BTW, doesn't work
without evolution. More details are in my _Journal ASA_ article of 1986
(Vol.38, p.19) & book _The Trademark of God_.

George L. Murphy
gmurphy@imperium.net
http://www.imperium.net/~gmurphy