Read On God: An Uncommon Conversation for Free Online Page A

good growth is good, positive growth; growth of some kind is better than stasis.
    Good growth is good; bad growth is bad. The growth of suburban shopping malls has been prodigious in America—does that mean it’s good? Does it mean that, because the old family store gave way to the corporate chain, the family store was inferior? Not necessarily. Not humanly.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Let me ask you about evolution. You accept evolution. You know, the traditional Catholic belief here—the Catholics were quick to embrace evolution even as many Protestants, at least Fundamentalist Protestants, were not. The Catholics were among the earliest to embrace the notion of evolution, and they didn’t have any trouble with it. They said, People coming from monkeys—no trouble at all, that’s how the body was created. And at a certain point, God put the soul in. Is that…
    I happen to believe that dogs have souls.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Well…
    Mind you, in reincarnation, you may not come back as a human. You could come back as a dog, and, I will say in parentheses, that makes a great deal of sense to me, because so many dogs, I find, are closer to the human than humans.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Stretch evolution back—people from monkeys or dogs is no trouble at all. That’s just three million years. But going back—fifty, sixty, one hundred million years—when the creatures were coming out of the slime, do you see that at a certain point God
puts—
    I don’t think it’s answerable—even as speculation.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Well, what doesn’t have a soul?
    It makes more sense for me to believe that God was in the slime from the beginning, and God was less in those days. God has grown with us. God has grown with evolution.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Well, God created the world—
    God may have been developing along with evolution. Why must a god be independent of time?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Well, if God created the world at that point, He wasn’t slime.
    Wait: We create our children. That doesn’t mean one is able to create children on the day one is born. I’m not talking about an omnipotent, All-Powerful God but one who grows with us.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    I’m assuming that in the course of human history, God at some point began the process of creating souls.
    These souls also developed. The soul of an amoeba would be primitive but still a soul that gave the amoeba some intimation of direction, some sense that it must do its best under its own limited circumstances. God, doubtless, was superior to the amoeba from the beginning, but God was also developing even as the Creation went from the amoeba to the paramecium to the multicelled creature.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Here’s where I have a problem with your notion of reincarnation—when did God create such a process?
    It may have occurred only after God endowed a great many higher animals and humans with souls. He may then have decided, “I, as an artist, can improve on this Creation. Some could have turned out better if they had not lived their lives under grievous circumstances. Give them, therefore, another opportunity to exercise their free will. Maybe they will be wiser.” It comes down to something basic. God’s notion: Let’s make the Creation better. The Devil’s: Let’s maim the Creation. I have, says the Devil, something in mind that will supplant and replace it.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    What would the Devil want? Total destruction? Nihilism?
    For the sake of argument, let’s say the Devil would want to fashion a universe on His or Her terms.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Have we any idea what those terms would be?
    I suppose it could be an immensely technological universe where the need for