The Evolution of God

Soon after I saw “The Evolution of God” by Robert Wright listed among Amazon’s Top Ten “Christian” Best-sellers, a friend sent me a copy of a review from the New York Times. Seems it is one more, atheistic apologetic hedging its bets—simply put, the God of Abrahamic religions does not exist, but the idea of God does exist and has evolved over the centuries, leaving the existence of some sort of distant, inhuman deity or deities open for debate. According to Wright, man’s concept of God has “evolved” over the centuries as evidenced by the contradictory natures of God portrayed in the Old versus New Testaments and the changing interpretations of other sacred texts.

It mixes Islam, Judaism and Christianity into a meaningless sludge that can easily be dismissed.

My own speculation on the seemingly contradictory natures of the Old and New Testament God rests on Galatians 3:24-26 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

The old law is the “schoolmaster” that led us into the grace of Christ. God’s intent since the beginning, and pursued incessantly through both testaments, was to reconcile the world to himself through the sacrifice of his son. This purpose, like my attempts to teach English to rural Arkansas teens in the early 70’s, was hampered by a “stubborn and stiff-necked people”. I’m reminded of the humorous verse: "How odd of God to chose the Jews." God led them through every sort of deprivation and humiliation to teach them to accept a very human, very vulnerable Messiah.

When "unchosen" Gentiles recognized and accepted Christ, it became evident that God had been preparing them as well. Christians are the still-in-process result of this “evolving” theology.