Empedocles was an evolutionist who believed, in the words of Aristotle, that creatures "sprang up many faces without necks, arms wandered without shoulders, unattached, and eyes strayed alone, in need of foreheads," but "Wherever, then, everything turned out as it would have it were happening for a purpose, there the creatures survived, being accidentally compounded in a suitable way; but where this did not happen, the creatures perished and are perishing still.."
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza