A Science Fiction Riddle

Let me have a second shot at this, from a different angle.

May I assume that we, at least, are attacking this as if there is a God, whatever his role may or may not be?

Both Vincent and Joshua deny the possibility of the evolutionary process to operate separately on two separate worlds to produce interbreeding species. And that’s obvious, because interbreeding is the usual definition of one species, and how could one species be produced in two entirely independent galaxies?

I’d suggest that even if, per impossibile, the two worlds were identical twin worlds in the initial conditions, the natural processes we know would surely have at least enough contingency to prevent convergence on an interbreeding species so long into the tree of life - the process is simply not that precise: our “accidental” chromosome fusion alone would render fertile (if any) offspring impossible.

A little thought shows that, were God to wish evolution to produce that situation in the two worlds using natural processes and initial conditions alone, “with no necessity for supernatural intervention” (Collins, Language of God) the process is still not that precise, and the means would be insufficient. Unless any of you guys know different?

But to produce two identical (interbreeding) species is actually no more difficult than producing a single one of them to match a teleological template - that it, it is no more possible for God to “plan” or “intend” mankind, as the species we are, using entirely “the laws of nature” than it would be for him to produce our identical aliens as well as us. And if God did not intend to produce us as the species we actually are, but only something vaguely like us, then it is misleading to say “God intended mankind.”

So Vincent is right - the SF scenario favours special creation - or at least highly directed evolution. But if so, then the same must be equally true for the contention that “God used evolution to produce mankind.” The natural process in both cases is insufficiently precise for the teleological purpose - there must have been divine action of some kind, whether miraculous, concurrent or occasionalist is irrelevant, during the process.

Vincent also agrees with me (in another discussion) on the impossibility of Molinism covering the problem: conceivably God might choose to create the one universe in which “chance and necessity” produce mankind - just as he might choose to create the one universe where it produces two identical species in different galaxies. But all that would tell you is that he used a rather cack-handed way of directing every mutation in the history of evolution to his desired end - which, as I said in my post on Molinism, is a designed universe by any other name.

For God to visualise a range of possibilities and to realize only the one that matches his will is exactly what I have done with this post - I have created it as it is, by design.

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