Christopher Southgate, The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil (London: Westminster John Knox, 2008), xii + 196 Pps., $24.95.
Christopher Southgate is Research Fellow in Theology at the University of Exeter, England. He is the general editor and principal author of God, Humanity and the Cosmos, 3rd. ed. (T. & T. Clark, 2005), and was trained originally in research biochemistry. In this title, Southgate takes on an issue that has vexed theologians since the dawn of Christianity: the problem of evil. He offers a unique perspective on this topic, one which will be highlighted in the course of this review. Southgate is a Christian theologian, but one who admits that the God espoused by Judeo-Christian belief could be both praised and questioned when his creation is contemplated honestly. He presupposes that the world was created out of nothing by a triune God. This title does not seek to prove the existence of such a God, intent rather on exploring models of the triune God in relation to creation, and what that means for humans in relation to the same creation. It is an exploration of theodicy, particularly in reference to non-human creatures.
The book is composed of seven brief chapters. In the first, Southgate defines the nature and extent of the problem for theodicy involved in the suffering and extinction that evolution by natural selection necessarily entails. As Southgate notes, Darwin’s Origin showed the problem of suffering to be one that has stricken millions of creatures over the course of millions of years, with groanings that are innumerable. Southgate notes, though, that this ‘groaning’ may be the only way by which the ‘exalted’ objects of the present dispensation that were called ‘good’ by God could have arisen (2). However, he suggests that neither pain nor death is the actual problem, but the meaning that we attach to the term ‘good’ instead. In dialog with Westerman, Southgate notes that the deeming of creation as ‘good’ may reflect a functional definition, one that highlights its propensity to give rise to great beauty, diversity, and complexity (15). Also included in this chapter is a brief history of the debate that is lucid and well written.
Chapter two looks at various types of arguments – e.g. Intelligent Design and Creationism – that Southgate contends stand in the way of actually engaging the debate of theodicy. He concentrates particularly on some variants of the Christian doctrine of the Fall, proposals that contend – in one way or another – that created entities, angelic or human, are in some way responsible for the disvalues present in creation. He regards these proposals at least scientifically unfruitful and at most dubious. He affirms that some natural ‘evils’ are an inherent part of the natural order and are in fact required for sentient life to have arisen via Darwinian processes. In the third chapter, Southgate presents a scheme for understanding different types of theodicy, and then uses that scheme to categorize the evolutionary theodicies that are currently in discussion. He demarcates three broad classifications of theodicy arguments: those that picture it as 1) a consequence of free-will, those that stipulate that 2) good can only develop through processes that include the risk of suffering, and those that contend 3) that good and harm are inextricably and inherently connected to one another. He notes that he has sympathies with the second of these typologies (48).
Chapter four marks Southgate’s unique contribution as to a theology of creation and redemption. Most of the contents within this chapter are thoroughly speculative, though great effort is taken to maintain the inherent goodness of the triune God who always desires the good. The key motif of this fourth chapter is that the God of Christian theism is also a kenotic God, one who has actually entered into the web of creation, with all its potential destructive powers, in the life and death of Jesus. The fifth chapter builds on this theology of creation and redemption with a consideration of eschatology, especially related to the idea of the afterlife being a recompense (of sorts) for suffering in the present era. In his projection, not only shall humanity be present in the afterlife, but also shall other entities within the created order.
In chapter six, Southgate fleshes out what it means for humans to be created co-creators with God in a priestly manner with respect to creation. Chapter seven builds upon the sixth, and sets forth two interesting proposals as to how humans might decrease the suffering of creation: a move to vegetarianism, and a project to end (or at least strongly curtail) biological extinction. He contends that these proposals model the self-giving creative love that is expressed within the Trinity.
By his own admission, this book is intended for non-specialist readers, and as such the more dense material is footnoted, with attendant references for further inquiry. This book is successful in demonstrating that theodicy is not all about human suffering, a point that needs constant reiterating, especially in view of the vast suffering of creation, and the small percentage that humanity is of that whole. In sum, whereas pain, suffering, and extinction are intrinsic to the evolutionary process, Southgate herein shows how the world that is ‘good’ is also groaning in travail and subjected by God to that travail. This is a welcome addition to the current literature regarding theodicy, and as such I recommend it without hesitation.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.