The following written by an 'evolutionist' and published in a widely read secular magazine, is remarkably compatible with the Biblical view of mankind.

My comments in -[ bracket ]-

From .......... Time

August 15, 1994

page 52

Last section of 9 page article by Robert Wright entitled-

Behavior .........OUR CHEATING HEARTS :

Devotion and betrayal, marriage and divorce

How evolution shaped human love

A MORAL ANIMAL

The problem of divorce is by no means one of public policy alone. Progress will also depend on people using the explosive insight of evolutionary psychology in a morally responsible way.

Ideally this insight would lead people to subject their own feelings to more acute scrutiny. Maybe for starters, men and women will realize that their constantly fluctuating perceptions of a mate are essentially illusions, created for the (rather absurd, really) purpose of genetic proliferation, and that these illusions can do harm. Thus men might beware the restlessness designed by natural selection to encourage polygyny. Now that it brings divorce, it can inflict great emotional and even physical damage on their children. And men and women alike might bear in mind that impulses of wanderlust, or marital discontent, are not always a sign that you married the 'wrong person.' They may just signify that you are a member of our species who married another member of our species. Nor, as evolutionary psychiatrist Randolph L. Nesse has noted, should we believe such impulses are a sign of psychopathology. Rather, he writes, they are 'expected impulses that must, for the most part, be inhibited for the sake of marriage.'

The danger is that people will take the opposite tack: react to the new knowledge by surrendering to 'natural' impulses, as if what's 'in our genes' were beyond reach of self-control.

They may even conveniently assume that what is 'natural' is good. This notion was common earlier in this century. Natural selection was thought of almost as a benign deity, constantly 'improving' our species for the greater good.

But evolutionary psychology rests on a quite different world view- recognition that natural selection does not work toward overall social welfare, that much of human nature boils down to ruthless genetic self-interest, that people are naturally oblivious to their ruthlessness.

-[compare to: 'Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually'. Gen. 6:5]- [.... JP ]

George Williams, whose 1966 book ÔAdaptation and Natural SelectionÕ helped dispel the once popular idea that evolution often works for 'the good of the group,' has even taken to calling natural selection 'evil' and 'the enemy.'

The moral life, in his view, consists largely of battling human nature.

-[compare to: 'For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so;' Rom. 8:5-7]- [.... JP ]

'But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,' Gal. 5:16,17,19]- [.... JP ]

'A moral being is one who is capable of comparing his past and future actions or motives, and of approving or disapproving of them,' he wrote.

In this sense, yes, we are moral. We have at least the technical capacity to lead an examined life- self-awareness, memory, foresight and judgment. Still, chronically subjecting ourselves to moral scrutiny and adjusting our behavior accordingly is hardly a reflex.

We are potentially moral animals Ñ which is more than any other animal can say Ñ but we are not naturally moral animals.

The first step to being moral is to realize how thoroughly we aren't.

-[compare to:

'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,' Rom. 3:23]- [.... JP ]