The theory of evolution destroyed the simple sense of purpose found in earlier Christian atonement theories. The idea that humankind “fell” at the Garden of Eden only to be saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus doesn’t make sense if we accept evolution. Violence was here long before humans arrived on the scene. The dinosaurs were not exactly vegetarians.
Still, creationist preachers have always warned, “if there was no fall from a perfect creation at Eden then there would be no need for a sacrifice at Calvary.” As a result of this conflict, many theologians declared war on the teaching of evolution. They claimed the theory of evolution was an assault of the Christian system of ethics.
Getting people saved from eternal torment was a very powerful system of meaning. “If human beings are just animals,” creationists reasoned, “then isn’t life just a dog eat dog struggle for survival? How can life be meaningful if there is no system of rewards and punishments in the after life?”
In my opinion, Genesis is best understood mythically. Scripture is art, not history or science. Genesis is a mythic poem attempting to illumine our lived experience from the inside out. Just as science illumines life from the outside in, mythic poetry puts us in touch with meaning as we live it. Science suspends subjectivity long enough to illumine our objective experience, mythology and other forms of art suspend objectivity long enough to put us in touch with our lived experience from the inside out.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell used to claim, “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
All this leads to my real point for today’s post. The Stoics pictured humans as cells in the common body of the Cosmos. They found a harmony between the inner myth of creation and the outer truth of evolution. Nothing is harder than finding a consistent theory about the meaning of life, but nothing is more natural than living meaningfully when we remember the ecological nature of life.
I have always found the words of the Stoic Marcus Aurelius very helpful, “We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.” In other words, meaning is found by actually feeling the tie that binds us to all of humanity and the web of life.
Preacher Fredrick Buechner used to say we find our life’s calling at “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Theologian and activist Howard Thurman famously wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
There is a vast difference between holding onto a biblical theory of life’s meaning and living meaningfully. By dispelling any claims of scientific validity in Genesis, evolution actually helps us focus on the ecological nature of human meaning. From an ecological standpoint we are cells in a common being. Nothing is more insecure than religious theories of life’s meaning, but nothing is more natural than living meaningfully as a cell in the common body of life.