…or evolutionary teleology – here – worth reading (post & comments).
This relates to the so-called ‘problem’ that if God used evolution to create (only!?) humans, then all of the extinct species were ‘wasted’. How anthropocentric! What was God doing, we are asked, for the over-whelming majority of the universe’s supposed 13+ billion years?
The reason this problem is not a problem is that just because God desires a particular and unique kind of relationship with humans doesn’t mean animals (extinct and non-extinct) were unwanted or that God does not delight in the existence (however fleeting by some human standard of time) of each and every creature (and let’s not forget the non living species) that has ever existed or will ever exist.