Salvation of the Fittest (or Why Creationists are Unwitting Evolutionists)

[Buzzed by me on September 28, 2010; resposted here with a few edits]

Most Creationists are unwitting evolutionists.[1]

 Here's why:

Fundamentalist Christians believe that we are each accountable to God for our decisions and we have no excuse for not meeting His standards. The Bible itself says all are without excuse, regardless of social status, race, religion, etc. If we do not meet that standard, we are not saved and perish eternally.

Evolution theorizes that the more fit an organism is to its environment, the more likely it will survive and reproduce itself. All have the same standard to meet. Some organisms adapt and some do not. Those that do not, do not reproduce, and their lineage perishes eternally.

That is why Creationists are Evolutionists.

If you disagree, then you must accept that there is a limit to accountability, and that some people are accountable for their choices and some are not. (Eg, an average socially adjusted adult is able to tell right from wrong. A child cannot. If the adult and child both die in a car accident, does God judge them equally?)

Now, if you agree that some are more accountable than others, where do you draw the line? And who draws it? Is a grown adult with an IQ of 85 (nominally functional) just as accountable as a grown adult with an IQ of 140 (Thomas Jefferson)?

The point is, as soon as you agree that some are more fit than others to make a choice to be saved, then you are saying either A) God will save those who are not fit enough to understand the importance of the choice or its consequences, or B) God will not save them, and Choice B is fundamentally the same foundation for evolution.

Of course, this all assumes a fundamentalist background. Some Christian traditions claim redemptive value for infant baptism, or allow that mental deficiency is an exception. And I understand I've introduced the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle in the paragraph above; it was to simplify the statement.

(The intellectual problems of Choice A are manifold, because of course the class of souls is not restricted to children; it includes anyone who for physical or psychological or other reasons is not mentally capable to make a choice.)

And a higher-level point is that there are a limited number of internally consistent ways to discuss the nature of being, and most elements of each system correspond to similar elements in others. We are all describing the same observations, aren't we? Rain is rain is rain, whether it's deposited by a weather system or a god, and if one person feels that a rain dance helps and another scoffs at that, it doesn't change the nature of rain.

Same for how fit something is for some purpose, whether that be an evolutionary advantage for approval by God to enter Heaven.

Call it "Salvation of the Fittest" and the analogy is fairly complete.

[1] Presuming for the moment that most Creationists are also Fundamentalists; or, at the very least, if they do not share the labels, do share many of the same preconceptions; I come out of this tradition and believe this is true; I cannot remember ever meeting a person that claims to be one and is not also the other, though I'm sure there are some.