This response has been a long time coming, so I apologize for that. Hopefully I can provide you with some interesting insight that will make the wait worthwhile though. We'll see.
(Question)
A follow up question to my follow up question. You said "Most likely, it [Morality] was given to us when God bestowed the soul upon man." In reference to the origin of morality.
When you say this are you also consequently also saying that humans i.e homosapiens are the only animals with souls and morality? If so how can you explain animals taking care of young that is not their own? These appear to be moral actions.
(Response)
Your questions, as always, are interesting ones. I'll try to take them on one by one and see if I can do them any justice. For starters, yes, ultimately I do think that humans (homosapiens) are the only animals with souls and a sense of morality. From a biblical perspective at least, humans are the only animals into which God breaths life, or the nashema (soul), which we've talked about in class. The other animals that inhabit the earth are not created in the same fashion, at least not according to Genesis. Furthermore, humans are the only animals to have developed to the extent that we have. Part of this is obviously due to our capabilities, but part of it is also due to our innate sense of morality, or at least that is my belief.
But you present a good point when you talk about the seemingly moral actions conducted by animals other than humans. And your example is a good one. However, I think that we are mistaking instinctual actions for moral ones and that is what makes the difference. Using the example that you provided, when we look at a mother taking care of "babies" that are not her own, we are not so much witnessing a moral act, but the execution of both a survival tactic and the animals instinctual tendency to nurture. In other words, the animal isn't doing it because it is the right thing to do, rather they are doing it because innately they know that it will contribute to the survival of the species, but also because they, at least in some circumstances, can not help it. They are designed to nurture, so that is what they will do. I offer a counter example to further my point. When it comes to giant pandas (an animal you know that I love) in the wild, when a mother gives birth to twins, she will abandon the weaker one for the stronger one, nurturing it and allowing the other to die. I bring this up in order to show that if we are going to claim that the mother who takes in young that are not her own is performing a "moral action" then we must also claim that the giant panda is performing a terribly wicked one. But in reality, she is not. She is simply acting in accordance with her survival instincts.
There is an essay called "Amoral Nature" that is quite dense, but it deals with this topic specifically. To save you the time, essentially the drive of the essay is to show that nature (and the animals within it) is/are without morality. Its primary evidence revolves around a particular wasp that has a stinger fashioned like a large syringe. When the female is ready to lay her eggs, she finds a nice, plump, caterpillar, and paralyzes it with her stinger while simultaneously depositing her eggs, which will soon turn into hungry larvae. The caterpillar remains paralyzed by the poison administered in the initial injection while the larvae proceed to feast on the caterpillar's insides, all the while growing stronger. What is particularly horrific/fascinating/
(Question)
If evolution is in fact true as many people believe and that it was kickstarted by something. Why would God let nature run its course entirely until humans. Why even have evolution if he could've simply made humans from the "get go".
Stemming from my previous question and discussions in class. What makes us both in the human sense and us as individuals the desired outcome? You say we are walking arguments for the existence of God but aren't we just random biological chance? Any one person has an extremely low chance of existing but if all the same events were to happen in our ancestors time line with exceptions in the sperm and egg of an individual's parents. Someone else would exist. Not nobody.
(Response)
To address this initial question, I think that we first need to discuss this notion of allowing nature to "run its course". In a way, your phrasing suggests that God simply let things run randomly until He decided to get involved and breath some life (and probably a soul) into what we now know as human beings. I think that this notion is somewhat inaccurate though. While I do not contest that the species that occupy our planet evolved over time, I would content that their evolution was not in fact totally random. I think you got my last email, but in it, I briefly discussed the notion of the latent library. Essentially, the existence of a latent library (the presence of genes that are entirely useless to single celled organism that nonetheless appear in their genomes and then are later activated in more complex species) proves, in a lot of ways, that evolution was not running a random course, but rather a designed one. Like Aquinas suggests in his fifth way, the arrow was always headed toward the target. It did not end up there on accident. And furthermore, God did not simply correct it's course at the last minute.
As for why God would not just create humans immediately, I do not entirely know. But what I do know is that the Earth underwent a series changes, it too evolved and prepared itself to sustain life. Could God have simply set it up from the get go? Of course. But that isn't how He chose to do things. He created in the fashion that He did because it was best (for reasons beyond our understanding) and thus His timing was undoubtedly perfect when it came to the creation of humanity as well. He did not create us before we were ready. When it comes to God, His timing is impeccable.
Regarding our status as the desired outcome, the only viable explanation is simply that God designed it that way. The notion is objective in nature. There isn't a "because" followed by a long list of qualities and traits that make us worthy or deserving of this status, we are simply the desired outcome because God chose us to be. He wanted to be in relationship with us, and created us for that purpose.
Lastly, your assertion that the existence of someone consequently increases the statistical likelihood of someone else (not necessarily you) is somewhat accurate, but not entirely. When I said that you are a walking proof of the existence of God, I was asserting the fact that you, specifically, are a miracle. The statistical likelihood of your existence is outrageously low. Furthermore, the statistical likelihood of humanity in general, and the fact that there are so many of us, is even lower. You see, the chances of a random generating of life are nearly impossible and for that random spark of life to have led to us is a claim that is simply outlandish, to put things lightly. Maybe you could assert that you specifically are biologically random (and even if that is the case, your existence in my opinion still proves the existence of God, whether you are supposed to be you, or not), so all that would then suggest is that there is no purpose for you, specifically. And that is a claim you are entitled to, but it is a bleak one. There is no question that humanity did not end up here by random chance. You won't find any viable argument for that. However, whether humanity has a purpose, now that is a question that is slightly more difficult to answer. We most likely do, but that is more a question of faith than statistics. All I can say is that the design seems to point toward us, which would suggest that there is a reason everything moved in this direction, and if there is reason, there is purpose.
I promise to get to your last question soon. I miss having you in class!
MRD
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