We repeatedly tell ourselves that God's ways are mysterious. Just because scientific investigation fails to define God's hand in evolution doesn't mean it isn't there. Several movements, promoted mainly by fundamentalist Christians, propose to rescue God's role. The more extreme is "scientific creationism". It attempts to restore the 6,000-year chronology of the Bible by a six-day creation and explains fossils as creatures that were lost in series of catastrophes such as the flood. The same catastrophes are used to explain the geological record. This idea, of course runs counter to mountains of scientific observation. A more subtle theory, "Intelligent design", accepts that life has millions of years of history but proposes that God from time to time has injected Himself into the evolutionary process by creating some structure such as the eye, because natural selection of random mutations could not come up with such a complicated organ. There is, of course, no scientific way to test such a theory. In rebuttal, evolutionary scientists point out that the evolutionary process has created eyes that function is somewhat different ways in many classes of creatures, as different as octopuses, fishes, crabs, insects, dinosaurs and mammals. This makes inventing an eye seem not too difficult for natural selection.

If we reject these theories, what role does God play in evolution? The immutable laws of the natural universe were set at the moment of the big bang. They govern evolution just as much as they do the motions of the stars. Nevertheless, both scientists and theologians see creation, not as a one-time event, the big bang, but as an ever-continuing process. Thus, God's role is a constant and creative force, expressed in maintaining these laws. Science and religion need not be in conflict in this matter, but rather their understandings of our origins, reached by different means, only complement each other.

Another issue about evolution that perturbs people of faith is that it seems to contradict biblical mandate for man to dominate all life. The book of Genesis has God say of man: "let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." That's a command that man is still working on.

Whether believer or agnostic, we often regard ourselves as the most successful species on earth because of our large brain and our ability to dominate the lives of so many other species of plants and animals. Perhaps more realistic picture, arising from studying biological evolution is one of interdependence. When we carefully nurture a fruit tree and protect it from diseases and pests, are we serving only our own interests? Or are we serving as an agent to help the tree and its progeny to find a niche in nature? The answer is simple: The relationship is mutually beneficial. So it is with all of our crops and our domestic animals.

Darwin and his early adherents tended to emphasize "survival of the fittest" and "struggle". People talked about "nature, red in tooth and claw". To many, a natural world that works only by competition for survival flies in the face of the belief in a loving God. As our understanding of evolution advances, cooperation and mutual help between species becomes a more important theme. What Darwin and his contemporaries couldn't have recognized was that neither we, nor our fruit trees, would be here if it weren't for bacteria. As a recent textbook of microbiology proclaims: "The lives of plants and animals are dependent upon the activities of bacterial cells. Bacteria and Archaea enter into various types of symbiotic relationships with plants and animals that usually benefit both organisms..."

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