So what about the passage that God made man in his image and likeness?? Doesn't that contradict mere chance creation of some creature which could appreciate Him?
Well, of course it all depends on how literally you want to go in reading the Bible. Miller, Being Catholic, has no problem using his judgement in determining which passages can be literal & which ones only make sense as allegorical or poetic.
And what about the immortal soul? If the latter was the case, did the soul as well as the body evolve, or is the soul somthing God created just for man?
Well, I've never heard anybody say that souls mate & have little baby souls, so I don't see how evolution could work in Heaven. (Nor for that matter, how whether our souls go on living after we die could possibly influence evolution. How could there be any natural selection pressure for or against what happens to our souls after we die?)
Then, do animals have immortal souls?? Perhaps they do, but just like intelligence, they are qualitatively different from the soul of man.
Personally I think the concept of a "soul" is a combination of reification/anthropomorphization and wishful thinking, so I have no such conundrum to grapple with. :-) I do, however, think that animals have consciousness, which is what the "soul" is an analogy for, IMO. But of course they have definite limitations, even though they do have personalities & identities of their own.
Now, if humans have souls & the whole Christian framework is true, then how perfect is heaven if I get there only to find that Lightbulb (RIP) was prohibited from getting there too?
