Introduction

In some quarters of contemporary culture, evolution has been taken as fact, and this has the effect of making the interdisciplinary conversation between Christian theology and science an increasingly important theological topic. It may come as a surprise that this resurgence is happening in the context of postmodern pluralism with its disillusionment with comprehensive systems of thought. Nevertheless, this interest has risen, on the one hand, partly because of the seemingly successful postmodern challenge of the assumed superiority of the rationality of the natural sciences. The result has been openness to dialogue. Also, because of developments in contemporary studies in cosmology which treat the universe as a single object, a way seems to have been paved for meaningful dialogue between science and theology.¹ Theistic evolution represents one of the more serious attempts to reconcile the Christian view of reality as expressed in the Bible with the scientific view as represented by contemporary evolutionary thought.

Among Christian thinkers, theistic evolution has been advocated and condemned at the same time. Bemoaning the prospect of having to choose between the Christian gospel and evolution, which he describes as a highly credible scientific concept, Howard J. Van Till writes, “If scientifically knowledgeable persons are led to believe that in order to accept the Christian Gospel they must also reject a scientific concept that they have judged, by sound principles of evaluation, to be the best way to account for the relevant observational and experimental evidence, then a monumental stumbling block has I believe, been placed in their path.”² At the same time, no less than a dozen Christian scholars have recently embarked on an all front scientific, philosophical, and theological critique of theistic evolution.³ In the introductory chapter where theistic evolution is defined, Stephen Meyer comments that the form of theistic evolution which accords creative power to neo-Darwin and/or other evolutionary mechanism, “generates either (1) logical contradictions, (2) a theologically heterodox view of divine action, or (3) a convoluted and scientifically vacuous explanation.”⁴

Seventh-day Adventist scholars, however, have for the most part distanced themselves from all forms of theistic evolution.⁵ Given the centrality of the doctrine of creation in Seventh-day Adventists’ theological system, it is understandable why theistic evolution is seen to represent such a serious theological threat to the church’s belief system. For obvious reasons protological questions are generally connected with eschatology. But for Seventh-day Adventists in particular, their interpretation of the Genesis creative account is so intricately connected to their configuration of eschatology that without it, the latter would simply disappear. Since theistic evolution’s protology stands in sharp contrast to Adventist interpretation of origins, it would be instructive to examine what the implications might be for Adventist eschatology if theistic evolution were to be embraced. The goal of this presentation is to explore this very issue. So, what is Adventist eschatology which cannot be friends to theistic evolution? And what is it about theistic evolution that makes it stand in a dialectic relation to Adventist eschatology. Procedurally, I will first outline Adventist eschatology. Next, I will give a sketch of some key evolutionary principles that inform theistic evolution, and finally I will compare and contrast Adventist eschatology with some outlines of theistic evolution’s eschatology.

Adventist Eschatology: An Overview

I should begin by exploring the general concept of eschatology. The term is derived from the Greek word eschatos, with the basic meaning of “last” or “final.” But the word has a variety of meanings. Within a broad frame of reference, it may mean farthest extent in space, final element of time, or last piece of money. In theological discussions, however, it refers to “the last things in a worldwide and historical sense, e.g., an apocalyptic, cosmic cataclysm and a new age of conflict followed by utopian bliss.”⁶ Eschatology, then, for our purposes is the branch of Christian teaching about “the last things,” but in terms of content, “It refers to a time in the future when the course of history will be changed to such an extent that one can speak of an entirely new state of reality.”⁷ Most religions address “last things” in some respect, yet more specifically, “the term eschatology is usually linked to the Abrahamic tradition and, most often, is associated with Christian doctrines concerning the Second Coming of Christ and God’s final judgment of mankind.”⁸

The wide variety of theological views within the Abrahamic tradition requires that, for the purpose of this conference, we delineate Adventist views on eschatology. In his Christian Theology, Millard Erickson provides some helpful key questions by which Christian eschatologies may be distinguished.⁹ Taking a cue from Erickson’s questions, we will distill four themes with which Adventist eschatology will be outlined: in terms of form, it is historicist; in content it looks for a general worsening of the circumstances of human existence under human control, until God intervenes and rectifies what is occurring; from the point of view of agency it is supernatural and looks for the genuinely transcendent working by God; and in terms of focus it is otherworldly.

The Form of Seventh-day Adventist Eschatology

As noted above, biblical eschatology has to do with issues pertaining to the “last things” or “the end of times.” The Bible has quite a bit of material that speaks to the future, especially in its prophetic and apocalyptic portions. By introducing the issue of the form of Seventh-day Adventist eschatology, we wish to approach the subject of how Seventh-day Adventist configure biblical material regarding the future. Our view is that, to a large extent, Seventh-day Adventist eschatology may be described as historicist. Basically, the historicist view “holds that the events described [in biblical prophecies] were in the future at the time of writing, but refer to matters destined to take place throughout the history of the church.”¹⁰ Hans La Rondelle saw great hermeneutical significance attaching to L. E. Froom’s view that among the three unique characteristics that the early church, the Reformation, and the Second Advent Awakening recognized in the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation was that “both books contain several series of outline prophecies that unfold an unbroken sequence of events leading up to the establishment of the eternal kingdom of God.”¹¹ Jon Paulien, likewise, states that “the Seventh-day Adventist Church derives its unique witness to Jesus Christ from a historicist reading of the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and Revelation.”¹²

Although currently the Seventh-day Adventist church is one of the major Christian denominations that officially endorses the use of the historicist method,¹³ Adventists often point out that the historicist method was not their invention, listing some of the prominent interpreters who used the historicist approach to include the following: Jewish apocalyptic writings (e.g. 1 Enoch and 2 Baruch), Jesus (e.g. in Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14; and Luke 21:21); Early Church Fathers (e.g. Epistle of Barnabas, Irenaeus on Daniel 2 and 7; Clement of Alexandria on Daniel 9, and Cyril on the fourth kingdom in Daniel).¹⁴

The historicist approach has its home in prophetic and apocalyptic material, and scholarship both within and without the church on these subjects engender discussions among Adventists on the proper use of the historicist approach. It appears that a key focus in these discussions involve the question of the proper genre of books and passages, especially in Daniel and Revelation. Paulien admonishes in the context of recent scholarship,

Seventh-day Adventist interpreters have had the tendency to treat most or all of Daniel and Revelation as historical apocalyptic, without specific attention to the textual markers that would indicate such interpretation. As a result, texts like the seven letters of Revelation 2 and 3 or the “seven times” of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream were interpreted in a historicist fashion even though there was no specific textual evidence for doing so. This approach was plausible when Daniel and Revelation were thought of as completely apocalyptic. But a more nuanced approach is now called for by the evidence.¹⁵

As important as these discussions are, I do not think they are particularly opposed to my core description of Adventist eschatology as historicist. Using “historicist eschatology” as a formal hermeneutical identity marker for Seventh-day Adventists serves to bring out what is critical to the church’s understanding of biblical prophetic/apocalyptic material, namely, its predictive element. Paulien is correct in his assessment that the Adventist “view of God-ordained prophetic history is dependent on the possibility of predictive prophecy,”¹⁶ or that “the primary point of difference between the Adventist understanding of Daniel and the scholarly majority has to do with the date of the book, whether the visions are predictive or interpretations of history after the fact.”¹⁷

The Content of Adventist Eschatology

In most standard theological treatments of eschatology, one finds such topics as the Second Coming of Christ, the millennium, judgment, and the final states of the redeemed and the lost. Adventists also speak about these topics when dealing with eschatology, although in some cases, there are significant differences on each of these subjects. To review Adventists teachings on these topics,¹⁸ they believe that the Second Coming of Christ represents the grand climax of the gospel, after He ends His high priestly mediatorial work in the heavenly sanctuary. The coming will be literal, personal, visible, and worldwide, during which time the righteous dead will be resurrected, and, together with the righteous living, will be glorified and taken to heaven, but the unrighteous will die. Furthermore, Adventists believe that, on account of their historicist reading of most lines of prophecy, together with the present condition of the world, Christ’s coming is near. It is imminent. When Christ appears, the resurrected righteous and the living righteous will be glorified and caught up to meet their Lord. The will be a second resurrection, the resurrection of the unrighteous, which will take place a thousand years later. This thousand years is the millennial reign of Christ with His saints in heaven between the first and second resurrections. The wicked dead will be judged at this time; the earth will be utterly desolate, without living human inhabitants, but occupied by Satan and his angels. At the close of the millennium Christ with His saints and the Holy City will descend from heaven to earth. The unrighteous dead will then be resurrected, and with Satan and his angels will surround the city; but fire from God will consume them and cleanse the earth. This will be the new earth, in which righteousness dwells, an eternal home for the redeemed and a perfect environment for everlasting life, love, joy, and learning in His presence. For here God Himself will dwell with His people and suffering and death will have passed away. The great controversy will be ended, and sin will be no more. All things, animate and inanimate, will declare that God is love; and He shall reign forever.

Several of the views expressed above are unique to Adventists but our interest is not to compare and contrast Adventist teachings on these topics with other Christian views. Our interest is to point out the distinctive Adventist approach to these teachings with the view to understanding how they fare in the face of theistic evolution. What is distinctive about Adventist teaching on these topics is that they are framed by what is called the great controversy or cosmic conflict motif. Christ’s parable of wheat and tares (Matt 13:27-30; 36-43), tersely outlines the cosmic conflict narrative. In the parable, a farmer sows only wheat in his field but he is surprised by a report from his servants that tares have sprung up among the good seed. The servants enquire from the master how such a thing could happen, whereupon the master replies, “an enemy has done this.” The servants would just as quickly go in and uproot the tares, but the master instructs them to allow both the wheat and tares to grow together, warning, “for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest.” When Christ later interprets the parable, he identifies the “one who sows the good seed” as “the Son of Man” (Matt 13:37) and “the field is the world” (Matt 13:38) and the “enemy that sowed” the tares as “the devil” (Matt 13:39). Some Bible commentators see an explicit depiction of a conflict between Christ and Satan in this parable.¹⁹

The Cosmic Conflict

For Seventh-day Adventists, the full chronological exploration of the cosmic conflict motif begins with the wisdom of God by which he predestined “the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19) “before the ages” (1 Cor. 2:7).²⁰ The “mystery” anticipated God’s creation of a universe (heaven and earth, Gen. 1:1) with intelligent, free, and moral beings capable of either rendering loving allegiance to the Creator or rejecting his authority. To provide an antidote to the possibility of rebellion on the part of the creatures, a rescue plan was also put in place. The latter plan, rooted in God’s mercy and lovingkindness, involved the atoning death of Christ which would provide salvation and character restoration for penitent sinners (2 Tim. 1:9-19).

The conflict proper began in heaven, with the fall of Lucifer, an angelic being (Isa. 14:4-21; Ezek. 28:12-19), over the issues of God’s law (1 John 3:4, c/f. 1 John 3:8), and by implication His character, and the autonomy of the creature (Isa. 14:13, 14). Lucifer’s questioning ultimately led to an insurrection in heaven which resulted first, in his physical expulsion from heaven to the earth, together with his loyal angels (Rev. 12:3-4; c/f. 2 Pet. 2:4, Jude 6), and subsequently his spiritual banishment (Luke 10:18; Rev. 12:7-9).

The conflict eventually moved onto the earth where Adam and Eve, who like the angels, had been the first created free moral beings placed in the garden of Eden. The temptation by Satan (Lucifer) of the first human pair in the garden, designed to plant seeds of doubt in them about God’s integrity, yielded the results he was hoping for. Adam and Eve fell (Gen 3:1-7). The result of humanity’s fall, which in sum meant estrangement from God, involved death (Gen. 3:19), Satan’s wresting of the rulership of the earth from humans (2 Cor. 4:4,5; John 12:31), and depravity of human nature (Jer. 17:9; Eph. 4:18).

Humanity, however, was not abandoned to doom. With the fall in the garden of Eden came the promise of deliverance (Gen. 3:15), in anticipation of the Seed to “descend through the line of Abraham (Gen. 12:3; 22:18; cf. Gal. 3:16), his great grandson Judah (Gen. 49:10); and through the latter’s descendant David (Ps. 89:20-37; Jer. 23:5, 6).” ²¹ With sacrificial rituals (Gen. 4:4; Heb. 11:4) and prophetic representations (Micah 5:2; Dan. 9:24-27; Isa. 42:1-7; 53; 61:1-4) the promise of the Seed (the Messianic Redeemer) was kept alive. But Satan was not to be outdone, at least not yet. With his “spirit…now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), wickedness, idolatry, and corruption of true worship became rampant, not only in the people who lived before the flood (Gen. 6:5-12), but even among the chosen people of God, Israel (Ps. 106:34-40). Yet throughout the history of the nation of Israel God always maintained a faithful “remnant” through whom the knowledge and worship of the true God was preserved (see for example 1 Kings 19:18; Ezra 9:15; Amos 9:9-12).

Finally, “when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son [the promised Messiah], born of a woman, under the law so that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). This was the first “coming” [advent] of Christ. The conflict intensified and would eventually come to a crisis at the cross. In the meantime, Christ registered systematic defeats over Satan, first, in His temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11) and subsequently in daily victories over demons (Matt. 8:29; 25:41; Mark 3:11-12; Luke 4:33-35, 41). And, on the cross, several of the goals of Christ, the Messiah were accomplished: judgment secured against Satan (John 12:31-32,) the plan of salvation confirmed (Rev. 12:10-12), atonement made for human sin (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24, cf. Isa. 53:6-12), and the moral law and character of God upheld (Rom. 3:25-26, cf. Heb. 9:15).

From a historicist point of view, Revelation 12 depicts the church phase of the cosmic conflict following the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. William Shea agrees “with the majority of commentators who see the woman as the church,”²² and sees three phases of conflict involving the church—the early church (vss. 1-5), the pure church of the middle Ages (vss. 6-16), and the church of the last days (vs. 17).²³ Revelation 12:17 simply says that “the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (NKJV). Revelation 13 and 14 depict just how the conflict will unfold. While the devil brings heavy oppression and persecution to bear on God’s people (Rev. 13), God’s two major actions include first, the proclamation of God’s last worldwide warning and invitation to accept the gospel (Rev. 14:6-13), and second, the first of three phases of the final judgment (Rev 14:6-7). Revelation 14 ends with the second coming of Christ depicted as a farmer who comes to reap the harvest of His redeemed, but also hinting at the reaping and destruction of the impenitent (Rev. 14:14-20).

To summarize the content of Adventist eschatology, the eschatological topics of the Second Coming of Christ, the millennium, judgment, and the final states of the redeemed and the lost are cast within the context of the cosmic conflict motif. These topics acquire their intelligibility through this motif, which is really a philosophy of history. The motif is a philosophy of history, a worldview developed by Adventists out of the application of the historicist method to apocalyptic materials of the Bible, especially Daniel and Revelation. It is a metanarrative of cosmic and world history which has a specific temporal, historic beginning and a definite historic end. As we have seen, the beginning goes back to the fall of the intelligent beings which God’s created in the universe. Thus, the cosmic conflict motif inextricably links a creation protology to a re-creation eschatology. More importantly, the cosmic conflict narrative is marked by genuine historicity, meaning, it involves entities and events in real space and time. In this way, it is distinguished both from an idealized as well as a realized eschatology.

The Agency of Adventist Eschatology

One of the clear implications of the Adventist cosmic conflict motif is God’s overarching control of history. Although the conflict may be severe, and more so as history winds down to a close, its outcome is never in question. God will be victorious. This is the expected role of God within the cosmic conflict motif, nurtured as it were, in the apocalypticism of the books of Daniel and Revelation. As a worldview that characterized a strand of religion in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity²⁴, apocalypticism saw the present world order as evil and under the control of Satan and his human collaborators. That world order would shortly be destroyed by God and replaced with a new one.²⁵ The replacement was not envisioned as one that would occur naturally over a prolonged period of time, but something that would happen supernaturally in the form of God ordained cataclysmic events preceding the new order.²⁶ The view is correctly expressed that “for Adventists the books of Daniel and Revelation are not marginal works; they are foundational to the Adventist worldview and its concept of God.”²⁷ God’s agency in Adventist eschatology, then, is based on a view of a God who transcends His creation and yet governs it providentially through indirect and direct means.²⁸ It is a view that runs counter to conceptions of God’s activity that are pantheistic as well as panentheistic in nature.²⁹ It will be through God’s direct providential activity that the eschaton will be realized.

The Focus or Goal of Adventist Eschatology

The issue at stake here concerns whether the promises of God will be fulfilled on this earth in a fundamental continuity with the life we know now.³⁰ The focus and goal of biblical eschatology from an Adventist perspective is the restoration of creation to God’s original intended state.³¹ In the New Testament Paul presents a cosmic sense of the fall, depicting creation in its present state as in bondage, hence it groans and awaits to be set free from its bondage to decay (Rom. 8:20-22). His depiction of the fall’s effect on humans is captured cogently by J. D. G. Dunn. “[H]ere, the primary allusion is to the Adam narratives: ματαιότης [mataiotes] in the sense of the futility of an object which does not function as it was designed to do (like an expensive satellite which has malfunctioned and now spins uselessly in space), or, more precisely, which has been given a role for which it was not designed and which is unreal or illusory”³² (emphasis, mine). Consequently, humanity is unable to alter their life situation by determination, exercise of will power, or self-reformation.

Any hope for the restoration of creation to its original ideal must point away from creaturely resources. The resolution of creation’s problem, from the viewpoint of the apocalyptic worldview of biblical eschatology, requires the supernatural intervention of God in a re-creative act. So, Isaiah says that God will make the heavens and the earth new (Isa. 65:17), and the apostle Peter speaks about the coming of the day of the Lord “in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and [its works will be [burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). Although what is in view here is clearly not a creation ex nihilo, it is a divine act that renews or regenerates the world (Matt. 19:28). “…[i]t is very clear in 2 Peter that we are not talking about repeating cycles, but about linear history punctuated with divine judgment. We are also not talking about a necessary and natural process (and that is especially the case in Stoic materialism), but about the divine word being the cause of these judgments.”³³

Having given a sketch of Adventist eschatology in its particulars, I will now try to outline the concept of theistic evolution before drawing its implications for Adventist eschatology.

Theistic Evolution

In the creation-evolution version of the ongoing debate between religion and science, the issue is usually cast simply as an either-or conflict.³⁴ There are those, however, who while refusing to accept such polarization, provide a third alternative, suggesting evolution as the physical process that God initiated and sustained to create the universe. It is this mediating position that has been referred to as “theistic evolution.” Theistic evolutionists are all in agreement on the foundational point that evolution is the means by which God initiated and sustains the created universe. Different meanings of evolution, however, lead to different conceptions of theistic evolution. Out of the three main conceptions of evolution, two are particularly relevant to our discussion—evolution as common descent and evolution as the creative power of natural selection.³⁵ Besides these two conceptions of evolution which in their essence concern biotic evolution, evolutionary thought on contemporary physics and cosmology need to be taken into account as we try to understand theistic evolution.

Some Basic Concepts in Evolutionary Thought

Since theistic evolution is based on the scientific concept of evolution, it would be helpful to outline some key concepts in evolutionary thought that must of necessity be of interest to theistic evolutionists. A first key evolutionary theme is that of common descent. Evolution as common descent is a view shared by many biologists today, and that was the basic sense in which Charles Darwin conceived of his notion of evolution. The idea of common descent, depicted as a great branching tree, has the bottom of the trunk representing the primal organism whereas the branches stand for the new forms of life that have grown out of it. If this idea were to be portrayed graphically, we would have a vertical axis on which the tree is plotted to be the “arrow of time” while the horizontal axis would represent changes in biological form.³⁶ Since common descent requires all organisms to be related as a single family, this meaning of evolution leads to what is called a “monophyletic” view of the history of life. Furthermore, this view of evolution implies gradual, continuous, and virtually infinite biological change.

A second important evolutionary theme is the fact that the creative power by which the change mentioned above occurs has been accorded to the mechanism of natural selection. Natural selection works on random changes that occur in the chemical units of DNA to bring about the adaptive complexity of life.³⁷ Furthermore, evolutionary biologists account for the appearance of design in biological systems by the same mechanism of natural selection and random variation.³⁸ The idea is that nature itself, through environmental changes and other factors has the same effect on organisms as an intelligent agent would.³⁹When discussion on evolution centers on common descent and the mechanism of natural selection, it is usually the history of “life” that is in view.⁴⁰ Similar evolutionary thinking, however, lies behind the conception of the world of galaxies, stars and planets. The American physicist Howard J. Van Till writes in support of his claim for the validity of biotic evolution, that “It is a conclusion entirely consistent with the conclusion reached by physical scientists regarding the formational history of the universe of galaxies, stars, and planets.”⁴¹ The scenario he puts forth for this formational path includes movement from quarks to protons and neutrons, to atomic nuclei, to different atomic nuclei, to atoms, to molecules, and in the large context of space, to massive clouds of atoms and molecules that act and interact to form immense physical structures such as galaxies, planets, and the like.⁴²

A third notable theme of discussion in evolutionary thought is the notions of chance. The concept is used generally in connection with the description of Darwinian evolution as a “random” process. Thus, the French atheist biologist Jacques Monod (1910-2002) proclaimed that the evolutionary process is governed and directed by “pure chance, absolutely free, but blind.”⁴³ This understanding of randomness or chance suggests that it is meaningless to talk about purpose and direction in the evolutionary process. But others, such as Arthur Peacocke, have interpreted the concept of chance in a more positive light. For him, it is through the agency of rapid and frequent randomization/chance at the molecular level of DNA that the potentialities of living matter are explored.⁴⁴ Charles Darwin had argued that daily and hourly, natural selection scrutinizes the world for every variation and rejects what is bad, while preserving and adding up all that is good.⁴⁵ Meanwhile, those variations are caused by chance, although the outcomes are not determined by it, since the evolutionary process has a tendency to navigate its way to certain apparently predetermined outcomes.⁴⁶

A fourth significant theme in evolutionary thought is the notion of teleology. The word teleology is used to describe behavioral observations in phenomena that appear to be purposeful, directional, or tending towards goals, whether driven by internal or external forces. Already in the days of Darwin, Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895) argued for what he called a “wider teleology” in the theory of evolution.

The teleological and mechanical views of nature are not, necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences, and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe.⁴⁷

McGrath insists that we distinguish teleology from design. While the former may simply be interpreted as evidence of function or purpose within nature, the latter involves intent applied externally to the order of nature with the view of achieving some end or external goal.⁴⁸ On this account of teleology, the interrelations of structures and processes in organisms, the adaptation of organisms, and natural selection itself have been considered to be teleological processes.⁴⁹ With regards to natural selection as a teleological process, “it is directed to the goal of increasing reproductive efficiency and generates the goal-directed organs and processes required for this. Teleological mechanisms in living organism are thus biological adaptations, which have arisen as a result of the process of natural selection.”⁵⁰ But the universe as a whole is considered to embody a “wider teleology.” The idea is that the properties of elements and compounds that scientists consider to be critical to the origin and development of life, were fixed at the origins of the universe, thus placing the Darwinian mechanism in a wider context that enables one to speak of a wider or deeper teleology.⁵¹

A fifth scientific idea that is relevant to our topic is the concept of emergence. Emergence theory was formed as a meta-scientific interpretation of evolution in all its forms: cosmic, biological, mental, and cultural.⁵² Generally, the term is used to refer to “the appearance in natural history of more and more intricately organized physical and living systems over the course of time.”⁵³ It relates to the development, over time, of new and unpredictable properties and behaviors that incorporate increasing levels of complexity within the natural world.⁵⁴ It now believed that everything that exists in space and time is made up of particles that are known to physics. When these particles aggregate and attain a certain level of organizational complexity, new properties appear. The properties that emerge, however, cannot be reduced to or predicted from the lower level phenomena from which it appeared. Nevertheless, entities are higher levels have causal influence over properties of the lower level elements.⁵⁵ Biophysicist Harold Morowitz is noted to have observed that the history of the universe shows evidence of at least twenty-eight clear stages of emergence.⁵⁶

On the basis of these concepts of evolutionary thought, scientific naturalism comes to the conclusion that nature is all that there is, and science is the only reliable way to understand it.⁵⁷ Embodied in such scientism is an antagonistic approach to the science-religion debate. Theistic evolution, however, interprets these ideas differently, based on an understanding that both disciplines can have a mutually enriching dialogue. John C. Polkinghorne, for example, is committed to a principle of the unity of knowledge which leads him to observe that

God is the ground of all that is, every kind of human rational investigation of reality must have something to contribute to theological thinking, as the latter pursues its goal of an adequate understanding of the created world, understood in the light of the belief that the mind and purposes of the Creator lie behind cosmic order and history. Every mode of rational exploration of reality will have an offering to make.⁵⁸

Consequently, he shares the view that the search for the knowledge of God must be anchored in experience; “that theology stands in need of data which in George Tyrrell’s words are ‘not tacked down to the table by religious authority’”⁵⁹ Along these lines, many scientists who feel committed to both science and religion have explored possible ways and means of connecting scientific insights with religious/theological beliefs. So, Arthur R. Peacocke, a panentheist, quite early suggested that the new scientific perspective requires a reinterpretation of the classical version of creation to mean that the cosmos which is sustained and held in being by God “is a cosmos which has always been in process of producing new emergent forms of matter.”⁶⁰ Furthermore, he suggests that the most meaningful theological account ought to emphasize “that God is immanent, that his action in the world is continuously creative, and that the coming of Christ and the role of the Church are to be understood in such dynamic terms, rather than in the more classical and static images of earlier theological exposition.”⁶¹ Peacocke’s theological reinterpretation exploits three key concepts, including that of emergence, which he himself was influential in developing. He sees parallels between the natural world and the world of theological studies. These parallels involve, “first, emergent ontological features; second, higher levels of causal influences; and third, transformation of lower-level components by means of downward influences from the emergent ontological levels.”⁶² Peacocke expounds further on his work by clarifying his motivation to be the result of

perceiving a certain connectedness between the theology [he had] been developing, constructed in relation to the scientific account of the world, and the way the natural world itself, as perceived through the sciences may be interpreted. The hierarchy of complexity of the natural world, increasingly explicated by the sciences both in detail and through wider concepts, has made apparent how new realities emerge at higher levels of complexity, with all their interactions and ramifications and how these higher levels of complexity can influence, and even transform, the behavior of the lower-level entities that constitute them. It has occurred to me that this same “scenario,” if I may so put it, is also manifest in those situations we denote as spiritual or religious experiences, which theology then attempts to analyze and to formulate intellectually and conceptually.⁶³

Peacocke is only one of many thinkers (theistic evolutionists), who try to bring science and religion together by interpreting Christian teachings in the context of scientific findings. Our interest in this presentation, however, focuses on theistic evolution and its impact on the Seventh-day Adventist teaching on eschatology as outlined above. To facilitate this reflection, it would be helpful, now, to explore theistic evolution’s approach to eschatology vis-à-vis Adventist eschatology.

Theistic Evolution’s Eschatology in Relation to Adventist Eschatology

In defining Adventist eschatology, I explored it in terms of its form as historicist; its content as looking for a general worsening of the circumstances of human existence under human control, until God intervenes and rectifies what is occurring; its agency as supernatural and a genuinely transcendent working by God; and its focus as otherworldly. I will try to follow the same procedure in relating Adventist eschatology to theistic evolution’s eschatology, using primarily Polkinghorne’s eschatological vision, because he has engaged more explicitly with the question of eschatology.⁶⁴

The Form of Adventist Eschatology versus Theistic Evolution’s Eschatology

I have already characterized Adventist eschatology as historicist in form, which is in reference to the way prophetic and apocalyptic material in the Bible, especially Daniel and Revelation, are interpreted. As mentioned earlier, historicism takes the view that the events described in prophetic/apocalyptic materials were in the future at the time of writing but refer to matters destined to take place throughout the history of the church. The focus here is on the events. From the historicist point of view, these events are not actions that occur by happenstance or on account of processes of present reality. They are prophetic events, and “Prophecy necessarily assumes that God is able to speak and that the God who speaks is the one who acts”⁶⁵ In sum, the suggestion of the form of Adventist eschatology as historicist presents a view of eschatology as God-ordained prophetic history, dependent on the possibility of predictive prophecy.

I wish to suggest, however, that theistic evolutionist eschatology, on the whole, is a Christian attempt to formulate a response to the eschatological implications of scientific cosmology.⁶⁶ In general, these responses take the form of transformational processes that have roots in the present world and into a transformed future. One such approach is the so-called “physical eschatology” of Frank Tipler. Polkinghorne crystallizes the core position of Tipler as follows

Humanity, and carbon-based life generally, will certainly disappear, but might not ‘intelligence’ be able to engineer further embodiments of itself, appropriate to changing cosmic circumstances and permitting either its infinite continuance within the decaying phase of an expanding universe, or processing of an infinite amount of information during the hectic, highly energetic, final moments of a collapsing cosmos?⁶⁷

Tipler’s approach has been described as reducing Christian eschatology to physical cosmology and Polkinghorne has criticized it as having physical, anthropological, teleological and intuitive difficulties.⁶⁸ On his own part, Polkinghorne presents an eschatology also based on the transformation of the universe into the new creation, using the analogy of the bodily resurrection of Christ. He distinguishes the old creation from the new creation with the phrases creation ex nihilo and creation ex vetere (from the old) respectively and explains, “the old creation is God’s bringing into being a universe which is free to exist ‘on its own,’ in the ontological space made available to it by the divine kenotic act of allowing the existence of something wholly other; the new creation is the divine redemption of the old.”⁶⁹

Clearly, Polkinghorne is committed to seeing eschatology in the form of a transformational process in such a way that there will be continuity between the old and the new creation.⁷⁰ His evolutionary framework comes through when he postulates regarding the new creation, “its process can be free from suffering, for it is conceivable that the divinely ordained laws of nature appropriate to a world making itself through its own evolutionary history should give way to a differently constituted form of ‘matter,’ appropriate to a universe ‘freely returned’ from independence to an existence of integration with its Creator” (emphasis mine).⁷¹ It is correct that in describing the new creation, the Bible intends the renewal and not abolition of creation. Nevertheless, the cosmic dissolution that the Bible describes in 2 Peter 3:10-12, for example, emphasizes such radical discontinuity between the old and the new that it is hard to see it as processive in form.⁷²

From the point of view of the form that eschatology takes, theistic evolutionary eschatology and Adventist eschatology take different paths. While theistic evolution’s commitment to evolutionary science inclines it to adopt a developmental/processive approach to eschatology, Adventists’ commitment to historicism sees eschatology as the active work of God in a God-ordained prophetic history. The two approaches are clearly incompatible.

The Content of Adventist Eschatology versus Theistic Evolution’s Eschatology

Earlier on, I presented the content of Adventist eschatology as comprising the topics of the Second Coming of Christ, the millennium, judgment, and the final states of the redeemed and the lost, cast within the context of the cosmic conflict motif. I argued that these topics acquire their intelligibility through this motif, which is really a philosophy of history. I emphasized that as a philosophy of history, the cosmic conflict motif is a metanarrative of cosmic and world history which has a genuine specific, temporal, historic beginning and a definite historic end. Thus, the cosmic conflict motif inextricably links a creation by fiat protology to a re-creation eschatology.

Polkinghorne’s notion of the new creation as creation ex vetere is a clear indication that theistic evolutionists also link protology to eschatology. “The new creation is the divine redemption of the old,”⁷³ Polkinghorne observes. Consequently, it is critical, however, to understand the nature of the “old creation” since the content of eschatology will necessarily be defined by it. After all, eschatology (new creation) is the redemption of the old creation.

It is well known that theistic evolutionists make several substantive and interpretive claims about biblical protology (Gen. 1-3): Genesis 1-3 should be read as “poetry and allegory,” and not as historical narrative;⁷⁴ creation was “brought into being in a relatively formless state, but brimming with awesome potentialities for achieving a rich diversity of forms in the course of time;”⁷⁵ “…Adam and Eve would not necessarily be envisioned as the first human beings, but would be elect individuals drawn out of the human population and given a particular representative role in sacred space.”⁷⁶ It seems that after denying the historic specificities of biblical protology as outlined in Genesis 1-3, theistic evolution’s account of the content of eschatology is bound to be vacuous.

The Adventist approach to all the topics of eschatology outlined above reflect the understanding that those supernatural interventions of God in history, especially towards its end, represent the resolution of the cosmic conflict. These are the redemptive responses of God to the fall of Adam and its consequences on the creation. On the other hand, a theistic evolutionist, such as Polkinghorne, while using the language of eschatology to describe the new creation as “the divine redemption of the old,” can still object to the biblical portrayal of the new creation in 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Revelation 21:1-4 as “pie-in-the-sky.”⁷⁷ Indeed, because Polkinghorne is committed, formally, to the view that eschatology is dependent on evolutionary/developmental processes, albeit an act of God, he is not able to accord any real historical status to the realities of eschatology. Regarding heaven he observes that “the patient process of this world will find its reflection in the redemptive process of the world to come. Our notion of heaven is delivered from any static, and potentially boring, conception.”⁷⁸ Similarly, while affirming the Christian hope that the resurrection of Jesus is the vindication of the hopes of humanity, he warns that the language of Christ ascended and sitting at the right hand of the Father (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:6-11; 2:34-36; Heb. 8:1) is so heavily symbolic that

We are not committed to the quaint picture, sometimes found in medieval stained glass, of the Lord’s feet projecting from the underside of a cloud, as he sets out on his space-journey to the heavenly realm. In Scripture a cloud is the symbolic presence of God (Exod. 19:16; Dan. 7:13; Mark 9:7), and its role in the story of the ascension is to emphasize the divine authority of the exalted Christ.⁷⁹

So, if Jesus ascending to heaven with the clouds is a quaint picture that we are no longer committed to, it is hard to know what to make of Acts 1:10-11, a core eschatological text for Adventists. The historical, literal understanding of topics such as Jesus’ second coming, resurrection of the dead, heaven, judgment, and the new earth have always characterized Seventh-day Adventist eschatology. Theistic evolution, by denying the literal, historic reading of Genesis 1-3, would so undercut the theological foundation of the Adventist historicist approach to these eschatological doctrines as to make Adventism unrecognizable.

The Agency of Adventist Eschatology versus Theistic Evolution’s Eschatology

I distinguished God’s agency in Adventist eschatology on the basis of a view of a God who transcends His creation and yet governs it providentially through indirect and direct supernatural means. This manner of God’s agency or involvement in history is a theological derivative of traditional Christian understanding of a supernatural fiat creation and direct divine providence. The manner of God’s activities regarding “last things” are correlated to the nature of His “beginnings” activities. On these two points, the approach of theistic evolution stands, necessarily, in stark contrast to the Adventist view, if only we remind ourselves that the formulators of theistic evolution intend for it to qualify as an alternative to neo-Darwinism.⁸⁰ It is true that theistic evolutionists generally affirm that it was God who created the universe and the laws of nature. Nevertheless, their commitment to the validity of evolutionary science restrains them from affirming direct divine supernatural involvement in the history of the created order. That prospect will imply a “God of the gaps” situation which would be unsatisfying for the nature of God’s work. But, once one makes the commitment to explain “beginnings” and providence not by direct supernatural causes, but by “secondary causes” such as the laws of nature and evolutionary mechanisms (natural selection and random mutations, etc), consistency would demand that the “last things” be explained in similar terms.⁸¹ So Polkinghorne explains, “the history of this universe is that of an enfolding process, and we have already said that the life of the world to come may also be expected to involve a similar unfolding process.”⁸² The notion of the universe as an unfolding process has implications for God’s knowledge that would seem to undercut the very notion of prophecy. This issue must be pointed out before proceeding further. Polkinghorne remarks that

If the universe is one of true becoming, with the future not yet formed and existing, and if God knows that world in its temporality, then that seems to me to imply that God cannot yet know the future. This is no imperfection in the divine nature, for the future is not yet there to be known. Involved in the act of creation, in the letting-be of the truly other, is not only a kenosis of divine power but also a kenosis of divine knowledge.⁸³

Back to Polkinghorne’s rejection of the “pie-in-the sky” understanding of the new creation, the logic he employed is quite instructive on how he suggests one ought to think about the new creation and the manner of God’s involvement in it. After recognizing that in traditional Christian thought the resurrection of Christ within history is understood as the anticipation of a great event lying beyond history, he suggests that there is an obvious difficulty in such a conception, and queries,

Does the future hope not devalue the present reality, by making the former the true existence and the latter only an unsatisfactory prelude to it? Indeed, one might add, an unnecessary prelude, for if the new creation is going to be so wonderful—and its nature is expressed in terms of a picture where ‘death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away’ (Rev. 21:4) —why did God bother with the old?⁸⁴

Polkinghorne seems committed to the notion of God’s use of secondary causes, even in the new creation, by suggesting that the “matter” of that world to come must be such that it will not “enforce recapitulation of the deadly raggednesses and malfunctions of the present universe.”⁸⁵ He lays it down as a non-negotiable principle that “what we must be at pains wholly to exclude is any magical notion of a divine tour de force simply putting right, through the exercise of naked power, something which had otherwise got out of control.”⁸⁶ Yet, it must be made clear that Polkinghorne seems committed to the view that eschatological hope cannot be based on a kind of evolutionary optimism that depends solely on the extrapolation of present process.⁸⁷ Thus in critiquing Frank Tipler he remarks categorically, “I regard physical eschatology as presenting us with the ultimate reduction ad absurdum of a merely evolutionary optimism.”⁸⁸ How, then, shall we reconcile Polkinghorne’s apparent commitment to the use of secondary causes in the new creation and his denial of basing eschatological hope in evolutionary optimism? It seems that the constitution of the “new matter” of the new creation is the work of the Spirit of God, but the unfolding of the new creation is subsequently the activity of appropriate laws of nature. “If the world to come is to be free from death and suffering, its “matter-energy” will have to be given a different character. There will have to be a discontinuous change of physical law.”⁸⁹

The Focus of Adventist Eschatology versus Theistic Evolution’s Eschatology

The concern in this section is to enquire about the end point of theistic evolution’s eschatology and relate it to Adventist eschatology. I have just spent some time emphasizing that for Adventist eschatology, God is the agent who acts directly and supernaturally in the eschaton. He does all this for the purpose of resolving the problem of the creation’s futility in a new creation which Polkinghorne characterized as “pie-in-the-sky.” So, what is the end game of theistic evolution? For Polkinghorne, the end game is “an existence of integration with its Creator.”⁹⁰ He sets this in contrast to the goal of the old creation. The old creation did not lie outside the sustaining and providential care of God, but it was “endowed with the ability through the shuffling explorations of its happenstance to ‘make itself.’”⁹¹ Suffering was a necessary part of that process. The new creation, however, is constituted with a form of “matter” that leads into an existence of integration of the world into its creator. It is a universal return, a theosis (deification), brought about by the cosmic Christ. Thus, according to Polkinghorne, “One might say that panentheism is true as an eschatological fulfilment, not a present reality.”⁹²

While espousing panentheism as a true eschatological fulfilment, Polkinghorne seems to be uncertain about universal salvation. He incorporates judgment in his eschatological vision, but he seems to prevaricate on the subject of universalism, noting: “I cannot believe that God will ever foreclose on his loving offer of mercy, but equally I do not believe he will override the human freedom to refuse.”⁹³ Also, “there cannot be a kind of curtain which comes down at death, dividing humanity irreversibly into the companies of the saved and of the damned.”⁹⁴ His solution seems to be an existential interpretation of the judgment, based, in part, on the parable of sheep and goats (Matt. 25:31-46).

Take that haunting parable of judgement, the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46). To the sheep the Lord says . . . To the goats, the Lord says the opposite. These words present us with a formidable challenge, but if we take them seriously, do we find ourselves unambiguously in one company or the other? . . . We are neither wholly sheep nor wholly goat. Perhaps then, judgement is not simply a retrospective assessment of what we have been but it includes the prospective offer of what we might become. Perhaps judgement builds up the sheep and diminishes the goat in each one of us.⁹⁵

If judgment includes the prospective offer of what we might become as well as builds up the sheep and diminishes the goat in each one of us, then it seems to be an evolutionary or developmental process and not something indicative of an end state in the eschaton. From the point of view of Polkinghorne’s panentheism as a true eschatological fulfilment and judgment as an “unfinished business,” we are far away from the Adventist understanding of the goal of eschatology as outlined above.

Conclusion

Doctrines such as the second coming of Christ, judgment, the millennium, and the new earth are well known to be in the DNA of Seventh-day Adventist beliefs. They constitute what is sometimes referred to as the pillars of Adventist belief. These are also some of the doctrines that are generally discussed under the subject of eschatology. Thus, Adventist theologically is fundamentally eschatological, and in the first part of this paper, I tried to outline the nature of that eschatology. One of the key points I tried to bring across is the fact that Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the eschatological doctrines mentioned above are shaped by a historicist perspective on the Bible, with particular emphasis on its prophetic parts. A historicist perspective, however, has clear implications for our understanding of the nature of God and His activities in both creation and providence. Furthermore, the Adventist cosmic-conflict motif provides the metanarrative within which to understand, with a significant degree of specificity, the nature of God and His activities in the history of our world. Adventists understand God to be a transcendent God who spoke, and thereby brought the world and its laws into being at a point in time. He has since intervened to care for the creation, following its fall from the created ideal, in both direct and indirect ways. His goal is, through such eschatological events as the second coming of Christ, the judgment, the millennium, and the creation of the new earth and the new heaven, to restore the creation to its original ideal. All of these ideas hang together as a coherent theological system, and a change in one aspect of it will necessarily result in a reconfiguration of the whole system.

Theistic evolution, as a theological system however, construes the nature of God and His activities both in creation and providence in a way that seeks to accommodate the findings of science on matters of origins and cosmology. Reality as we know it today is the result of evolutionary processes, based, for many theistic evolutionists, on God’s “giftedness” to the original stuff of the Big Bang. All things, including sentient beings, have evolved through evolutionary mechanisms and phenomena such as the laws of nature, natural selection, and emergence. The biblical narrative of Adam and Eve is not literal history; and so is the fall. Under this scheme, God cannot be allowed to intervene in natural processes since it will evoke the “unsatisfying” specter of “the God of the gaps.” In conclusion to an essay on eschatology, Polkinghorne makes an observation that appears to underscore his underlying methodology.

In eschatological discourse, science mostly poses some of the questions and looks to theology principally to provide the answers. Yet the form these answers take will have to bear a sufficiently consonant relation to the process of this present universe so as to be persuasive that, amid the redemptive transformation of the old through God’s gracious action, there is enough continuity to make sense of the conviction that it is indeed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who live everlastingly in the divine presence.⁹⁶

Adventist eschatology and theistic evolution’s eschatology are built on such contrasting hermeneutical foundations that they cannot coexist coherently. To adopt theistic evolution and its eschatological vision into the Adventist belief system would mean a reworking of Adventist eschatology in a way that will bear no resemblance to what we know it to be presently.