When it comes to man, what is the problem with believing that this process culminated in a particularly advanced line of hominids, a pair of whom God chose to, as He had planned to all along, "breathe" living souls into, a state (ensoulment) that God contracted Himself into providing for all of their descendants? Geneticists may counter that humanity as we know it could not come from only one set of parents; OK, who's to say the first descendants of this first couple did not reproduce with biologically identical – though unensouled – hominids, and these offspring (by virtue of at least one ensouled parent) were also granted ensoulment by God? After all, a) in this primitive state, I imagine it would have been nigh impossible to tell the difference, and b) God, in shepherding His people toward righteousness, permitted things in the Old Testament that He (as articulated by His Son) condemned in the New Testament; therefore, God would have allowed the mating with the nonensouled as necessary for the time being. Eventually, as humans came to grasp their difference from unensouled hominids, they would have only mated with each other. The hominids, having gone as far as they could go in the evolutionary process, would be separated from the human population, which was not only a result of evolution, but the revolution of becoming a living soul.

As far as God’s “designing” activity, I think of it in accord with his omnipotence in that he foresaw the outcomes of evolutionary events and said “OK. That’ll do. I can work with that.” If the outcome had been unacceptable to God, He would have “designed” the process and/or forces that drive it differently. As it is, the process He designed gave Him what He wanted: a diverse and fascinating array of creatures great and small, and a particularly advanced line of hominids, a pair of whom God chose to, as He had planned to all along, “breathe” living souls into. The robustness of this process allowed Him, instead of constantly having to interfere with it, to do what He loves most: loving and sheparding His creatures.

Therefore, life as it exists on earth in all its variety is the result of the design of God, as He a) designed the process of its creation, and b) foreseeing its evolutionary outcomes, including you, me, and everything around us, gave it the “thumbs up”, or at the very least "OK, I can work with that…".

The above account is useful to me, as it does not dispense with the evidence of evolution by natural selection, which has greatly aided man's understanding, but neither does it try to make evolution by natural selection account for absolutely everything, a corner atheistic champions of Darwin are ever-so-eager to paint themselves into. Though I'm sure those more theologically and/or scientifically advanced than I could challenge parts or all of it, it is by no means the end of my journey in understanding God and His creation.

Of course, I would happily trade a complete understanding of the Mind of God for an even partial understanding of the mind of a woman.

1. Those who then toss out every other tool in their "understanding the universe" toolbox. As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and therefore anything that cannot be nailed down by this tool (free will, altruism, etc.) is either explained away, explained out of existence, or accounted for by ludicrous and logically faulty scenarios.

2. Those who not are content to merely reject this wrongheaded overemphasis-to-the-exclusion-of-all-else approach, but insist on rejecting the tool itself. In doing so, when confronted by evidence of evolution by natural selection, they tend to produce some rather specious explanations and scenarios themselves.

I hope the thoughtful and educated commenters in this thread will forgive me, but I really cannot adhere to either of these approaches, as I really don't see how Evolution by Natural Selection should threaten any thoughtful religious person. Even if you grant the status of truth to each and every tenet of Darwinism (that is, the science of evolution by natural selection – excluding the theologically immature claims attached to it by many of its adherents and even its formulator), one still has not moved one micron** toward dispensing with God as creator and designer of the universe, nor has one remotely accounted for all the traits of the strange creature known as man.

[** - 1 micron = 0.001 of a millimeter, for those of you without device physics in your background....]

I suppose it most accurate for me to describe my impression of God as a "hell of an engineer". To illustrate what I mean, I propose a question: Which of the following is a more impressive figure?

A. an engineer who makes a structure
B. an engineer who designs elements that can assemble themselves into a structure, with him having to intervene occasionally or even somewhat regularly
C. an engineer who can design even simpler elements in such a way that they can assemble themselves into more complex elements (based on environment and need), which in turn can assemble themselves into more complex elements (based on environment and need), and so on and so on until you reach a diversity of advanced species resembling life on earth.

I would say 'C', and the farther back you trace the evidence of the universe and the forces that shape it, the more impressive this Engineer becomes. In this way, I think God had set creation into motion long before the first measureable entity came into being, by his design (and willing) of forces that we are just beginning to understand and many of which we may never understand. This 'design' was genius enough that the 'nitty-gritty' engine and elements of creation could pick up the ball and run with it from there.

This is not to take the Deist view that God merely set the whole thing in motion and walked away. No – as He is reality itself, He kept it in being, and furthermore was very active in the lives of each of His creatures – mainly, loving them, guiding them (in His infinitely subtle way), and sharing in their woes and joys. And whether or not He may have intervened in His creation along the way – in His unbelievably subtle or unsubtle (think 'miracles') manner – is not something science has the capacity to speculate about.

(..to be continued)

What I was pointing out, the relationship of real science, per your description, to "Climate Change science." There are too many who point to facts then say this is science therefore settled (as in permanent), not realizing nothing in science is settled, everything is subject to possible revision or replacement. That is what makes in science.

My worry was that he was trying to fit everything (e.g. shoehorn) into the Torah, which would be bad, instead of doing something like "Interesting… six distinguishable eras to the age of the Universe. Hey, wait a minute…" I mean, what if there were only four or five, or eight or nine?

The idea I had for explaining such a thing is simpler: the general knowledge base for humans back in the Bronze Age wasn't developed enough to understand such things. So it's a parable.