I have a friend who tells me that the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) is not unique to Christianity or to religion. He believes that the Golden Rule is a result of the evolutionary process and can be seen in nature. He claims that the Golden Rule doesn’t come from God or religion, but from the evolutionary process.
I don’t subscribe to that (obviously), but I haven’t really set out to test the hypothesis. I have done some thinking on the Golden Rule found in religion. I have compared the Golden Rule as it was expressed by Jesus to the expressions of a golden-like rule in other religious traditions.
I am not shocked or surprised to find expressions of an ethic like the Golden Rule in all (or nearly all) world religions. Truth is truth, right? Shouldn’t we expect to find truth and expressions of truth wherever we look?
I wonder, why we wouldn’t expect to find some expression of the Golden Rule in nature too? If the world was created by God, shouldn’t the world exhibit the character of God that is expressed in the Golden Rule?
Ok, does anyone really think that the world expresses God’s love as summarized in the Golden Rule?
I have heard many atheists say they don’t believe in God precisely because the world doesn’t exhibit God’s love. Christians, of course, find reasons for this reality expressed in the Scripture (the fall and sin). I don’t intend to address them here, but I think the point is a good one: that the demonstration of the Golden Rule is difficult to find in nature.
In the end, we can see something of the Golden Rule in nature, but the demonstration of it leaves something to be desired. It doesn’t explain why the Golden Rule exists. It doesn’t prove the evolutionary paradigm, and it doesn’t negate the existence of a creator God in whose nature and character the Golden Rule finds its source.
Continue reading “Did the Golden Rule Result from the Evolutionary Process?”
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