The presence of the divine is not necessary to the idea of evolution. However if we do accept the principles of evolution, it does significantly change our understanding of what God might be like.

What does evolution have to tell us about the nature of God?

1. The Power of creation

In an evolutionary worldview, creation is an internal ongoing process, a quality of an evolving universe rather than something prescribed from the outside. Hence the creator is not a being who exists separately to us. The creator is the process that created us, and we are both the product and extension of that process.

Evolution then removes the need for a creator outside of the universe itself. In fact, believers in a creator-god generally want to deny an internal cosmic creative process in order to reserve that creative power for god alone. These are two divergent perspectives – creation that unfolds from within or creation that is directed from without. And they lead to two different ways of seeing and experiencing god. An evolutionary god is located within the creative unfolding universe, a traditional creator god is outside it. The later we keep hoping with intervene from outside, the former we experience as working through the evolutionary process.

The idea of a creator who exists outside of the natural universe also lends itself to the idea of a “fall”. For a creator creates with an intention and if that creator is believed to be perfect then their creation must be perfect. But, from our experience, it is clearly not. This leads people to argue for some sort of fall from the original plan of the creator. It leads us down a rabbit hole, perhaps blaming humanity for that fall and looking for some sort of saviour to redeem it. You can begin to see how all sorts of unhelpful theological ideas spring from this one unproven assumption of a creator who exists outside of the cosmos.

2. Consciousness

We can also view consciousness is a natural product of evolution. The greater the interconnected complexity the greater the level of consciousness. Thus the human brain has more interconnected complexity than a frog’s so is more conscious. And so the extent to which the interconnected reality of “all of being” is conscious too. This holy consciousness of being to me is God.

So the question then becomes what kind of consciousness does God/Being have? From what we know of consciousness in our own lives, we cannot control everything, most of our body is in fact run by our unconsciousness. Then taking the principle of “nature is my scripture” then it seems likely that the universal consciousness cannot control everything … like us it can intervene in some ways, but not in all; some things it mainly observes. So prayer is limited as it assumes a god who can magically control things. I think of praying with God rather than to God. What we do know from observation is that God seems to direct things through a process of evolution.

There is not only a consciousness within evolution but what we might also describe as an intelligence, evidenced in the fit and complexity of the laws of physics. In that respect we can think about the evolutionary god being intelligent which is reflected in us humans.

3. The one and the many

Evolution informs us that god is complex. The direction of evolution is towards greater complexity. We’ve gone from the first elements of hydrogen and helium formed after the big bang, through stars which explode to form heavier elements, combining to form complex molecules, planets, singular cell life then complex living entities such as reptiles through to humans capable to reasoning and wonder. But we ourselves are not just one-dimensional for we can be lovers and warriors, mathematicians and liars, artists and predators. So through our history god often appears as “the gods’ in all their variety. Yet there is also a temptation to make God one thing, spirit as opposed to matter, love as opposed to cosmic indifference. Evolution is splendid in its variety and offers us a view of God splendid in their complex, interactive variation.