Evolution, Pain and Theodicy

One argument in favor of the conflict-view between science and religion holds that religious explanations for the reality of pain and suffering have been superseded by evolutionary (naturalistic) explanations. As James Rachels notes:

In order to survive, an animal must be motivated to act in ways conducive to its self-preservation. Pain and pleasure are the motivators. In the absence of food, we suffer hunger; and when we eat, we enjoy it: together, these ensure that we eat. When enemies are nearby, we suffer fear; when we flee, we feel relieved; together, these ensure that we keep safe. — Created From Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism

According to the argument in question, if we take the existence of pain and suffering as falling under the category of ‘evil’, then naturalistic accounts of why evil exists are to be preferred over distinctly religious ones — the Fall, Sin, Satan, and so on. Interestingly, the idea that an animal is “motivated to act in ways conducive to its self-preservation” is already foreshadowed in Aristotle’s account of teleology, namely, the view that every agent acts to fulfill certain goods that accord it as the kind of thing that it is. Hence, to the extent that a plant exercises certain plant-powers — such as the capacity to move in response to light — it is ‘good’; and, to the extent that it fails to do so, it is ‘bad’ or ‘evil’. Such a teleological account of nature is not somehow at odds with theism or its religious offshoots. On the contrary, the existence of teleology in nature has always been taken — whether in the perennial philosophical tradition or in the modern, mechanistic tradition — as a sign of a Divine Purposer.

The central problem with this argument is that it falsely presupposes that divine creation and evolutionary biology are mutually exclusive accounts regarding the nature of the world. Suppose the theist holds — as most theists have classically held long before the time of Darwin — that God allows evil for the sake of bringing about some greater good, while the biologist holds that many kinds of evil confer survival advantages on species. It is not at all clear why both accounts should be seen as incompatible; indeed, they seem to be in fundamental agreement — the latter being a proximate or partial explanation of certain kinds of evils — i.e. pain and suffering — and the former being an ultimate or more comprehensive explanation, extending not only to pain and suffering, but to further instances of natural and moral evils. [1] One could perhaps argue that, inasmuch as our perception of pain is directed toward the persistence — if not permanence — of biological forms, evolution does not constitute a challenge to theism, but rather serves as a partial theodicy for theism.

[1] Of course, if Christianity is true, then doctrines such as Sin and the Fall can be understood as specific ways of parsing out the more general claim that God allows evil only for the sake of the good.