We often get questions about our name, and so I thought I’d take a few moments to explain what it means to me. Without some knowledge of its etymology the modern English connotation of “evolution” is deceptive, having wrongly acquired an agnostic taint which overemphasizes change in the material world without acknowledging the eternity of what lies beyond it.

 In Latin, the noun evolutio means literally “the act of rolling out”. In ancient times, written works were produced as scrolls of papyrus, not as books or codexes, the form that we commonly use today. To read each scroll or volumen (from which we get our modern word volume), a reader had to unroll it little by little—and the text would thus be gradually revealed over a period of time.

 Already in the Golden Age of Roman literature, this act of unrolling scrolls was beginning to be identified with the unfolding of Fate. Through later ages, the word evolution has come to assume even more of an abstract quality, symbolizing any process that gradually changes (“unfurls” we might say) over time.

 As a writer, it comes naturally to think of God as the great Author of Time, which like a scroll is gradually unrolled before human eyes. His Word is perfect and unchanging and complete—just as a book is always complete no matter how much or how little of it is read. But a reader in the middle of things does not see the complete design at once—he winces at the tragic, then laughs at the comic, then wonders at the mysterious. One moment he is thrilled, the next frightened, the next serene. Yet for all these shifting moods in the reader, the book never once changes.

 In the timeless mind of God, the book of fate is already written—the great Author has written His glorious Word throughout history, and he knows every last detail of it, for it is His work. But we, who are the receivers of His creation, we who are the readers of this Word, cannot hope to fully understand its purpose until it “unrolls” before our eyes.

 We make, therefore, a great error in assuming that evolution of any sort—biological or spiritual, natural or human-directed—conflicts with the immutability, permanence and eternity of God. He is who is: the very essence of being itself, unconstrained by any finite time or space or dimension.

 As mere creatures, we cannot hope to have God’s totality of being. But as creatures made in His likeness, we can reflect aspects of His divine majesty in even our common and ordinary lives. None of us artists who contribute to the catalog of this publishing house can claim to have created a story so splendid, a Word so pure, as that which was fashioned so lovingly by our Creator in heaven. But we can with great joy hope that our creations are making His even more apparent, and that our humble gifts are making His eternal truth a little more apparent in our evolving world.

-CRS