“I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design.... There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [parasitic wasps] with the express intention of their [larva] feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.” (The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 8:224)
Theologian Ben Myers agrees with Charles Darwin that the created order often reveals a a god of tyrannical fashion and malevolence (see 'Darwin on Intelligent Design' post at http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/) And yet in this concession to Darwin he has inadvertently allowed a bottom-up if/then theology of the creator God. If this type of larvae does this and it is designed as such, the designer must be cruel. Such is a rather avant-garde conclusion given the reflections God makes on the created order near the end of Job. After all of the destruction of Leviathon and Behemoth, after Job by divine permission loses house and family and health, God still remains the 'I Am' to be feared and worshipped and loved. God as wholly other can author chaos and still remain unswervingly Love. We know this by the revelation of Christ on the cross, where God the Father had His own beloved Son crushed and cut off for our sakes. We know this because as Christ was cut off by God He was also coronated by God (Phillipians 2:9,). We know that as Christ stood before the judgment of God he stood before the Love of God. "The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life-only to take it up again." (John 10:17)
If the cross is the Revelation of God, then it is our starting point for the doctrine of creation. I propose that with this 'top-down' analogia fide we can sufficiently articulate the created order in all its cruelties and glories. We can proclaim in faith that God is indeed the Creator of all things, from the butterfly to the parasite, and that He loves all things in Christ.
