Open Writing

The BBC recently screened two fascinating drama-documentaries about the time when more than one species of human lived on Earth.

The scientific name for our species of human is homo sapiens sapiens. We originated in Africa. Our ancestors left Africa and began their spread around the world 120,000 years ago.

When they arrived in Europe and Asia they found other human species whose ancestors had left Africa tens of thousands of years before. In Asia they met homo erectus. These people were stronger and faster than us but had smaller brains.

In Europe they met homo sapiens neanderthalensis, commonly known as Neanderthals.

The Neanderthals were bigger than us and had slightly larger brains. The shape of their skulls suggests that their brains were wired up differently to ours, so they may have had a very different way of thinking. There was a large bulge at the back of their heads and their foreheads were far more sloped than ours.

Modern people keep their social skills equipment at the front of their head and their visual skills equipment at the back of their head. This leads scientists to think that Neanderthals had better visual skills than us but were less socially complex. Archaeological evidence supports this idea because we know that Neanderthals lived in smaller social groups than we did.

Don't you ever wonder sometimes what God is thinking about when He looks at us? God has been with us since the beginning of human history. We struggle to think back 5,000 years to the time of the Egyptians. God was there when the first modern humans were born 200,000 years ago.

The whole 2,000 years of Christianity are a mere blink of an eye in the whole history of humankind. We humans lived in the wild as part of the animal kingdom for far longer than we have ever lived in the civilized world.

When God looks at us, does he see us in the way we see ourselves? Does he even notice if a person has nice clothes or is American or a university professor? Or does he still see us as we were for much of our history, simply a very clever species of ape, one type of human among several kinds?

When Darwin's theory of evolution appeared in the 19th century, many Christians felt uncomfortable because they believed that it undermined our special place in God's creation. If we were descended from monkeys, they thought, then surely we couldn't be special? Back in those days many people believed that animals did not have souls, and that we humans were separate to animals. If we were animals, then we were not special to God, they thought.

But does God's love for us depend on whether or not we are animals? Of course not. Does God love us more than he loves animals? Traditional Church teaching suggests yes. I think no.

Neanderthals died out around 30,000 years ago. Nobody knows why they disappeared. One theory is that they bred with us, and were absorbed into our population. Skeletons have been found that appear to be part modern human and part Neanderthal. Genetic research suggests that people of European and Asian descent have between 1% and 4% Neanderthal DNA.

The existence of several types of human being reminds us that we are part of the animal kingdom. We think that we are special because for the last 30,000 years we have been unique. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, are very far away from us in terms of intelligence and physique. If there were still types of human alive who were very similar to us, we would be forced to accept that we are part of a family of animals.

Did God love the Neanderthals as much as he loves us? I suspect so. We know that they knew love. Archaeologists have found the skeletons of aged and disabled Neanderthals who could not have survived if others had not cared for them.

Fifty thousand years ago, when Neanderthals and modern humans lived in Europe, they owned very little. They lived in nature.Their lives were about the search for the food. If they reached the age of 40 or 50 they were very old indeed.

All they really had were their relationships with the other people in their tribe and with the strangers they met on their travels. God teaches us that our relationships with each other are the only real treasure in our lives.

Our ability to form relationships with each other was an important part of our evolution and spread around the world. Humanity would not have survived if our ancestors had not looked after each other. Humans do not have strong bodies, sharp teeth or dangerous claws. We can not survive naked and alone in the wild. We have to be together.

So, I believe, somewhere in our evolution, in the biological animality of our being, in the world of nature, there is the blueprint to God's kingdom. Yes. Nature is fierce and cruel. Tribes of our ancestors killed each other in fights over food and women. But they also cooperated with each other. Even in prehistory people traded with strangers, shared ideas and formed alliances with non-blood relatives. That is the reason why humanity is still alive today.

We were made for relationships. One of the worst tortures is to be put in solitary confinement without contact with another human being. Our ability to think actually decreases when we are isolated from other people.

God made us in his image, and we can see that in our ability to work together. But we are not perfect copies of God. We still fight, kill and abuse each other. Our job as human beings is to continue doing what our prehistoric ancestors did. We have to cooperate with each other and look after each other. But we have to do it more and more and more, until nobody anywhere fights with or abuses or neglects another human being.

Some Christians believe that evolutionary theory is anti-Christian. I say that in the story of our evolution we can see God's plan for us unfolding.

What things he must have seen since the first apes walked upright. How magnificent it must all have been!