Wallstreet Journal (original article) I found your article about the origins of human empathy very interesting, but I did not agree with your underlying premise. You assume that man and chimpanzees descended from the same ancestor, and therefore traits they share are traits they both inherited from that ancestor. The Bible says that man and animals are creations of God. Empathy, then, is a trait that was hardwired into humans at their creation.
Man is God's special creation. Genesis 1:27a says "So God created man in his own image, . . ." God has empathy for his creation, and he instilled this characteristic into man.
Maternal empathy in animals is a necessary trait in caring for the young. You point to this as an example of survival of the fittest. Animals equipped with this empathy would take better care of their young and were therefore be more likely to live to pass the trait on. Animals, however, were created by a God who knew their needs before he created them. There was no need for this trait to be developed, as it has been fully functional from the beginning.
It appears evident, then, that empathy in man and in animals is a result of the empathy of the creator towards them, not the result of random chance and natural selection.
