[Pearls Ep. 123: Answering atheism Tuesday]
We’re completing our time reflecting on the blessed Trinity.
The key message of the Trinity is relationship. God holds nothing back in inviting us into His life. Which is to say, God is very active in history and in our own lives. Take, for example, Sunday’s first reading, spoken from the perspective of Wisdom:
“When the Lord established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep; when he made firm the skies above, when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth; when he set for the sea its limit, so that the waters should not transgress his command; then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race.” (Prov 8:22-31)
God, in His wisdom delights in the human race. The fallen world tries to convince us that God, if He even exists, is preoccupied with bigger things up in the heavens. He is distant and disinterested, perhaps checking Instagram and snapchat from time to time, but that’s about it.
And the latest fad is to convince us that whatever we are today is the happenstance of evolution. And that is not only our opposable thumbs and upright stature – our very personalities are the result of evolutionary psychology. Do you have a strong work ethic? Well, that’s just because you come from a long line of hunter-gatherers. While on that topic – do you think there are differences between men and women (we know, binary…), well that’s also just the residue of tribal men being hunters and women gatherers. Are you fearful for the future in uncertain times? Well, that’s just because your ancestors had to live through times of great privation.
Here’s another one – you have certainly experienced that “it is better to give than receive.” According to the evolutionary psychologists that response is actually quite selfish. Your simian ancestors learned that if they preen the ape next to them, he’ll return the favor- “you preen my back and I’ll preen yours.” And as we developed into full-fledged human beings, we continued down that path of cooperating with others because that was the best path to mutual survival.
And this is where the evolutionary psychologists (many of them Christians) get it 100% backwards.
We aren’t good to our neighbor because thousands of years ago it was hardwired into us as the best path for survival. We do good for our neighbor because it is hardwired into us by our Creator – who made us in the image and likeness of the Trinitarian God whose very nature is self-giving love.
Bottom line – we were created by and for the Trinity. The Trinity shows us what we are capable of when we aspire to the highest and best of ourself, and gives us the grace to reach for it.
Blessings on your journey with Christ.
Steve and Karen Smith
Interior Life
Postscript: OK, so what about those preening monkeys?
The question can still be asked by skeptics – don’t those preening monkeys prove that the only reason we’re not selfish is actually out of our own self-interested survival?
Here’s the first answer – No it doesn’t. Our Catholic faith allows for the possibility of *bodily* evolution (and even that is becoming more and more of a stretch) – but it categorically denies evolution of the soul. At the moment of creation of man, God “breathed” life into us – that is He gave us our spiritual soul. And it is in our soul that we are made in God’s image and likeness – in our intellect and free will; which is to say, our capacity to know and to love as God knows and loves. When we deny that we go down the ugly and garbage strewn mental path that leads to hippy-dippy conclusions like this – “Hey man, you know the real miracle of the feeding of the multitudes wasn’t that Jesus miraculously multiplied the loaves and fishes, it was just that he showed everyone how to be righteous and share what they have with one another.” And it leads to completely discounting the amazing gift of sanctifying grace that is given us at baptism and that removes the stain of original sin. Who needs that anymore, since our sin was washed away when great-great-great-great Uncle Bobo the dancing chimp learned to preen his neighbor?
So – the simple answer is, no, we did not inherit our core nature from monkeys.
I know, that won’t cut it when you’re trying to explain this to your atheist nephew who learned all there is to know on Reddit.
Ok, let him chew on this: the research to date generally shows that primates do not have the ability to delay gratification. They have little ability to deny themselves in the present for a better future outcome – a prerequisite for true self-giving love – “researchers have assessed the performance of numerous primate species on this task, and their results suggest that this bias to reach for a preferred reward is one that is quite difficult for most primate species to overcome.” (Santos and Rosati, The Evolutionary Roots of Human Decision Making) Now, those same “unbiased” researchers are hard at work redefining terms and recalibrating experiments to try to tease more human-like behavior from their primate subjects, so don’t be surprised if your nephew has his own “facts” to support that we’re just slightly-advanced monkeys.
When in doubt, go over his head and just pray a Rosary for him.