JAMES TOEWS
The dangerous presumption

“Every human alive is an evolutionary success story. If our ancestors had failed to survive an ice age, a drought, a predator, or a plague, they would not be our ancestors. . . . As their descendants, we have inherited the passions that led to their success.”

With this introduction, David M. Buss opens his argument in a book called The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is As Necessary as Love and Sex. The argument is compelling. Our emotional make-up, as well as our physical characteristics, he says, are shaped by natural selection. Jealousy, even murderous jealousy, must therefore have been important to our ancestors’ survival at some point in human history. This makes jealousy an important survival tool passed on to us by our ancestors.

While some people might recoil at the thought that our ancestry has shaped our character, it only takes a brief reflection on the vastly different temperaments of the pit bull terrier and the golden lab to recognize that a process of selection, “natural” or directed by breeders, shapes the temperament of a population. There is no reason to believe that humans are immune to such genetic forces.

Proponents of the theory of evolution have long delighted in analyzing humanity through this lens. Accordingly, everything from the generosity of Mother Teresa, to teenage love affairs and male-dominated corporations are the result of genetic qualities passed on by our long departed ancestors. In another new book, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, evolutionary researchers Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer inform us that even an action as sinister as rape had a place in humanity’s survival toolbox.

The proponents of evolution are quick to assure us that while murderous jealousy and rape may once have had a role to play in humanity’s development, they are no longer needed or acceptable. In fact, both books claim that progress in combating jealousy and rape will naturally flow from the understanding that evolutionary development gives us. It is wonderful that these writers are so civilized, but if natural selection is our creator and guide, it is simply not possible to predict what actions or passions will prove “necessary” for an uncertain future.

Is there something wrong with this picture? It is futile to argue that we have not been shaped by our ancestry, but there is another view of human origins which begs to be heard. It is the belief that humanity was given its character, not by the process of natural selection, but rather by the design of a Creator who formed us in His own image. This assumption leads to a vastly different understanding of good and evil behaviour. There are actions, by this understanding, that are evil simply because they violate the Creator’s purpose. Rape, destructive jealousy, incest, rage and murder are among the activities which violate our position as beings created in the image of our Creator. This means that it is the responsibility of each individual to bring his or her behaviour up to the standards set by the Creator. We may have been taught or conditioned towards these evil impulses, but they should have no place in the lives of those who respect their origins.