Similarly, to describe the process of growing complexity, convergence and the rise of consciousness in the course of evolution is not to explain why living matter has the capacity to make itself and why creatures evolve in these ways. Nor can such descriptions give an answer to the "what for" type of question. What is the world for? What are we here for? Have we a destiny and is there ultimate purpose to our short lives? Teleology is extremely important for our understanding of the world in which we live and of ourselves. Such an understanding will surely influence how we treat the creation around us, our fellow human beings and what estimate we have of ourselves. 

The biblical idea of Time, as a progressive, forward movement, underlies not only our sense of history, but the very possibility of development and progress. This is a quite unique gift of the Hebrews, which has largely been distributed by the Christian Church. Ancient ideas of Time are usually cyclical with endless repetition and rebirth. They would have been quite useless to an open, progressive and scientific civilisation. A Christian view of Time also provided for periods when we would be taken "out of ourselves" and become more aware of transcendence. The processes of secularisation have "flattened" Time into mere chronology. Tellingly, Holy Days have become holidays. 

We have to admit that fine Christian ideals about a society based on divine justice and mutual obligation have been violated and spurned by ruthless and wicked rulers. Human dignity, based on the Bible's teaching that we have been created in God's image, has been honoured more in the breach than the observance. There is both light and darkness in our history; both honour and shame. We have to repent of the perfectly vicious pages of our history: whether it is the reprehensible institution of slavery, or depriving indigenous peoples of their land and wealth, or the exploitation of men, women and children in the fields, mines or factories of this country. 

There are, however, also the "perfectly virtuous pages" of our history, which have been lamentably neglected. At least as far back as St Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th century, slavery was condemned as contrary to Christ's teaching. The struggle, stemming from the Evangelical Revival in the 18th century, against the slave trade and then slavery itself, was explicitly based on the Bible. Reformers held that we could not enslave those who shared a common humanity with us and had been created for the same freedoms as we were ourselves. It should not be forgotten that this struggle went hand-in-hand with the battle to improve the working conditions of men, women and children in the mills, mines and factories of early industrial Britain. Universal education is a creature of the churches, of Christian men and women, not of government of any political hue. It began because literacy was regarded as vital for an informed faith and a moral life. Such an aim is worthy of education even today. The revival of nursing as a profession was, once again, the result of Christian commitment to the sick and needy. It is ironic, indeed, that nurses cannot now pray at work, under threat of dismissal, when their ward duties often began with prayer right up to the middle years of the 20th century.

So many of the precious freedoms that we value today, the fair treatment of workers and the care of those in need, arise from values given to us by the Judaeo-Christian tradition. These values, however, are grounded in the moral and spiritual vision of this tradition. It cannot by any means be taken for granted that these values will survive for long if the tradition itself is jettisoned.