As a Pastor with a background in biology, I have learned to see our shared evolutionary history as a part of God’s redemptive work through the Holy Spirit. Evolution doesn’t have to be a black box of suffering that we don’t dare to unpack for fear of what we will find. Suffering is real, but so is the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit. And evolution is no exception.

I believe that our best hope for understanding suffering is to start with Christian theology and use it to look at evolutionary history.

Over the years, I’ve noticed many parallels between our evolutionary history and the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit. It’s helped me make better sense of suffering, and better help people like Susan work through evolution, suffering, and the Christian faith. Here, I unpack some of these parallels and draw our attention to the many ways the Holy Spirit is at work in everything. For a more in-depth review of these ideas, you can consider reading my new book “Evolutionary History in Theological Perspective: Exploring the Scientific Story of the Cosmos.”

Redemption and the Holy Spirit

I love patterns. It’s how my brain makes sense of things. So, when I first noticed the pattern of how the Holy Spirit works in human redemption, I got really excited because I noticed a similar pattern in evolutionary history. It was this pattern that I explained to Susan to help her understand how evolutionary suffering might fit with Christianity.

Theologians like to describe human redemption as occurring in three phases: regeneration, sanctification, and glorification. This is sort of like watching a three-act play. In Act I, believers (through the Holy Spirit) have their origin in Christ. In Act II, believers are progressively sanctified over the course of their life (typically with some amount of suffering). And after their physical death, comes Act III, where believers are resurrected in a renewed glorified life in the new creation. This pattern of origin, progress, and final renewal in human redemption seemed to me to be a good lens to use to look at evolutionary history. When I did, what I saw got me even more excited!

Evolutionary history can be divided into three similar three acts just like human redemption: origin (big bang), progress (cosmological and biological evolution), and renewal (eschatological new creation). By understanding evolutionary history in this way, then Christian theology begins to tell a redemptive story that not only makes sense about creation, but it also reminds us that we already know the ending!

Suffering and Sanctification

I shared this with Susan, and when I did I could see her getting excited as she made the same connections that I did. But amusement quickly turned to concern when she asked, “But what about all the suffering?” That does seem to be the question that most people come back to, isn’t it? Suffering. What do we do with the suffering that only leads to pointless pain and death without any seeming redemptive purpose?

This is where that lens comes in handy again. Just as the Holy Spirit is present in human suffering to accomplish redemptive purposes (sanctification) in humans and deliver them to their final renewed state (glorification), so too, the Holy Spirt is present in the suffering of creation to accomplish redemptive purposes and deliver it to its final state of renewed creation. What may seem to us to be purposeless to us, indeed has an ultimate purpose. Even if it is not immediately apparent, we know that suffering has an overarching purpose: final redemption.

I could see Susan’s mixed feelings about this answer written all over her face. She eventually blurted out, “Sure, it’s nice to know that the suffering of billions of organisms over millions of years serves some big ultimate purpose, but what about the very real and immediate suffering being experienced now?” Fair. “There is good news for that as well, let me explain,” I replied.

The Holy Spirit is not a cold companion who remotely observes suffering unempathetically. The Holy Spirit walks right in the middle of suffering, empowering and comforting us through it. Think of it in a similar way to how a midwife empowers and comforts a mother in labor to deliver her baby.

The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 8:18-27 that the creation groans in labor pains for its redemption. Not only the creation groans, but also “we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly” (vs. 23). The suffering in evolutionary history is not a brutal, isolated, pointless pain. It is being midwifed by the Holy Spirit, who is empowering and comforting creation through its suffering until its delivery into final redemption.