Between November 29, 1949 through February 15, 1950 Martin Luther King Jr wrote three essays detailing why he believed that God worked through the evolutionary process. I too believe that God works through the evolutionary process. The following are excerpts from Martin Luther King's three essays:
"...With the rise of the scientific interpretation of the origin of the world and the emergence of the theory of evolution many thought that the basic Christian view of creation was totally destroyed. This belief might be right in seeing the invalidity of the older view of a first creation, but it is wrong in thinking that all views of creations were destroyed with the rise of scientific interpretation. It seems quite possible to get an adequate religious view of the world in the light of emergent evolution and cosmic theism...."
"...Emergent evolution says essentially that in the evolutionary process there is a continuous incoming of the new. The question arises, from whence comes this emergence of new elements in the evolutionary process. The religious man answers, with a degree of assurance, that God is the source of the new emergents. In other words, God is working through the evolutionary process. As cosmic theism would say, there is an intelligent conscious mind working out its purpose through the evolutionary proces. So that in the light of emergent evolution and cosmic theism we can come to an adaquate religious view of the world, viz., creative evolution. Here we find creation and evolution existing together..."
"... I feel that the most valid conception of God is that of theism. God, for me along with other theist is a personal spirit immanent in nature and in the value structure of the universe. This theistic view carries with it many additional assumptions. First it means that God is conscious mind and spiritual personality. It is not conceivable that an unconscious impersonal God could have given rise to consciousness in man. So that any view of God which emphasizes "his" impersonality fails to explain adequately how consciousness arose. Moreover any view of an impersonal God fails to explain adequately religious experience. It is only a personal God who can confront man in a religious experience. So we conclude that God is conscious mind and personal spirit...."
"... A God who is totally transcendent and out of touch with the world cannot come to man in religious experience. Moreover, this view of the immanence of God is more in as accord with the theory of evolution.
The theistic view also means that God is more than nature and in a real sense not dependent on it. Here the transcendence of God is emphasized. This does not mean that God is spacially transcendent but it means that he is not dependent on the world for his existence. God has aseity. He exist in his own rights. Frankly I feel that unless God were transcendent he would not be God at all. For the above reasons I feel that theism is the most valid conception of God. With pantheism it stresses the immanence of God. With deism it stresses the transcendence. So that it synthesizes the two and come to a working philosophy..."
"... life seems to be the emergent of matter and mind seems to be the emergent of life. Now the question arises, from whence comes these new elements? Do they result from the working of unconscious forces or do they result from the working of a purposeful, intelligent conscious mind? The religious man answers with a deal of assurance that it is God who is bringing the continuous flow of the new into being. In other words it is the work of a personal spirit who is immanent in the world of nature and its value structure. This theory does in some measure break with the old religious view of the world, but it does not at all destroy a creator God. May it not be that God is creating from eternity? This certainly seems to me a valid conclusion. Such a view of the world is far from unscientific. It still insist on a creative God and at the same time remains in the orbits of recent scientific findings. The religious will not be content to see the world as a result of chance combination (the interaction of atoms of molecules); neither is he content to see it as the result of unconscious quasi purposeful forces. Rather he is convinced that the world is the results of the workings of a creative mind who {is} still working through the evolutionary process. So that for the religious man emergent evolution serves as a scientific explanation of the continual workings of God..."
MLK's views beliefs are similar to Professor George Wald who said:
“In my life as scientist I have come upon two major problems which, though rooted in science, though they would occur in this form only to a scientist, project beyond science, and are I think ultimately insoluble as science. That is hardly to be wondered at, since one involves consciousness and the other, cosmology.
The consciousness problem was hardly avoidable by one who has spent most of his life studying mechanisms of vision. We have learned a lot, we hope to learn much more; but none of it touches or even points, however tentatively, in the direction of what it means to see. Our observations in human eyes and nervous systems and in those of frogs are basically much alike. I know that I see; but does a frog see? It reacts to light; so do cameras, garage doors, any number of photoelectric devices. But does it see? Is it aware that it is reacting? There is nothing I can do as a scientist to answer that question, no way that I can identify either the presence or absence of consciousness. I believe consciousness to be a permanent condition that involves all sensation and perception. Consciousness seems to me to be wholly impervious to science.
The second problem involves the special properties of our universe. Life seems increasingly to be part of the order of nature. We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds life?
It has occurred to me lately - I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities - that both questions might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.”
George Wald, 1984, “Life and Mind in the Universe”, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum Biology Symposium 11, 1984: 1-15.
Source: Examination Answers, Christian Theology for Today
"...With the rise of the scientific interpretation of the origin of the world and the emergence of the theory of evolution many thought that the basic Christian view of creation was totally destroyed. This belief might be right in seeing the invalidity of the older view of a first creation, but it is wrong in thinking that all views of creations were destroyed with the rise of scientific interpretation. It seems quite possible to get an adequate religious view of the world in the light of emergent evolution and cosmic theism...."
"...Emergent evolution says essentially that in the evolutionary process there is a continuous incoming of the new. The question arises, from whence comes this emergence of new elements in the evolutionary process. The religious man answers, with a degree of assurance, that God is the source of the new emergents. In other words, God is working through the evolutionary process. As cosmic theism would say, there is an intelligent conscious mind working out its purpose through the evolutionary proces. So that in the light of emergent evolution and cosmic theism we can come to an adaquate religious view of the world, viz., creative evolution. Here we find creation and evolution existing together..."
"... I feel that the most valid conception of God is that of theism. God, for me along with other theist is a personal spirit immanent in nature and in the value structure of the universe. This theistic view carries with it many additional assumptions. First it means that God is conscious mind and spiritual personality. It is not conceivable that an unconscious impersonal God could have given rise to consciousness in man. So that any view of God which emphasizes "his" impersonality fails to explain adequately how consciousness arose. Moreover any view of an impersonal God fails to explain adequately religious experience. It is only a personal God who can confront man in a religious experience. So we conclude that God is conscious mind and personal spirit...."
"... A God who is totally transcendent and out of touch with the world cannot come to man in religious experience. Moreover, this view of the immanence of God is more in as accord with the theory of evolution.
The theistic view also means that God is more than nature and in a real sense not dependent on it. Here the transcendence of God is emphasized. This does not mean that God is spacially transcendent but it means that he is not dependent on the world for his existence. God has aseity. He exist in his own rights. Frankly I feel that unless God were transcendent he would not be God at all. For the above reasons I feel that theism is the most valid conception of God. With pantheism it stresses the immanence of God. With deism it stresses the transcendence. So that it synthesizes the two and come to a working philosophy..."
"... life seems to be the emergent of matter and mind seems to be the emergent of life. Now the question arises, from whence comes these new elements? Do they result from the working of unconscious forces or do they result from the working of a purposeful, intelligent conscious mind? The religious man answers with a deal of assurance that it is God who is bringing the continuous flow of the new into being. In other words it is the work of a personal spirit who is immanent in the world of nature and its value structure. This theory does in some measure break with the old religious view of the world, but it does not at all destroy a creator God. May it not be that God is creating from eternity? This certainly seems to me a valid conclusion. Such a view of the world is far from unscientific. It still insist on a creative God and at the same time remains in the orbits of recent scientific findings. The religious will not be content to see the world as a result of chance combination (the interaction of atoms of molecules); neither is he content to see it as the result of unconscious quasi purposeful forces. Rather he is convinced that the world is the results of the workings of a creative mind who {is} still working through the evolutionary process. So that for the religious man emergent evolution serves as a scientific explanation of the continual workings of God..."
MLK's views beliefs are similar to Professor George Wald who said:
“In my life as scientist I have come upon two major problems which, though rooted in science, though they would occur in this form only to a scientist, project beyond science, and are I think ultimately insoluble as science. That is hardly to be wondered at, since one involves consciousness and the other, cosmology.
The consciousness problem was hardly avoidable by one who has spent most of his life studying mechanisms of vision. We have learned a lot, we hope to learn much more; but none of it touches or even points, however tentatively, in the direction of what it means to see. Our observations in human eyes and nervous systems and in those of frogs are basically much alike. I know that I see; but does a frog see? It reacts to light; so do cameras, garage doors, any number of photoelectric devices. But does it see? Is it aware that it is reacting? There is nothing I can do as a scientist to answer that question, no way that I can identify either the presence or absence of consciousness. I believe consciousness to be a permanent condition that involves all sensation and perception. Consciousness seems to me to be wholly impervious to science.
The second problem involves the special properties of our universe. Life seems increasingly to be part of the order of nature. We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds life?
It has occurred to me lately - I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities - that both questions might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.”
George Wald, 1984, “Life and Mind in the Universe”, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum Biology Symposium 11, 1984: 1-15.
Source: Examination Answers, Christian Theology for Today
