Evolution and Theology

[The essay was written with Christian theology in mind but can, I think, apply to any theology. Although the essay assumes Darwinian evolution is the correct scientific explanation for all of life's diversity, I do not hold to this view]

Essay Title: Does Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection pose any problems for theology?

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was a nineteenth century British naturalist whose theory on the species problem published in his two well known works The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) would change the discourse of biological sciences. His influence on biology was profound not because of the originality of his ideas but because of the intense empirical rubric it was structured under and the particular scientific synthetic activity he was undertaking. Darwin’s ideas were set in the background mostly of Cuvier’s comparative anatomy and palaeontology, Lyell’s geology, Malthus’ population theory, Lamarck’s evolution of acquired characteristics, Humboldt’s naturalism (biogeography and ecology), and Linnaeus’ taxonomy. He transformed the species problem within biology from fanciful speculations into rigorous science as Lyell had done with geology. Not a field of biology was left untouched by Darwin’s ideas, of which the modern synthesis is particularly indicative. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is best described as a meta-theory under which the biological sciences operate, although the specific workings of the theory itself have given rise to an independent study of evolutionary science.

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection became widely accepted by the first half of the 20th century when the Darwinian revolution gained exceptional momentum as a result of the modern synthesis. Evolution or the transmutation of species became widely accepted in the latter half of the nineteenth century but many remained sceptical of the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection. Willaim Thomson (Lord Kelvin) (d. 1907) using calculations from the cooling process of the earth’s crust showed the age of the earth was much younger than what Darwin’s mechanism would predict and Fleeming Jenkins (d. 1885) showed how a blending/duplication mechanism of hereditary was incompatible with Darwinism. The revival of Mendelian genetics later proved hereditary to be particulate and Lord Kelvin’s calculations were shown to be erroneous. Early Mendelian genetics however was considered an alternative to Darwinism; genetic macromutations were responsible for the emergence of new species, and natural selection played a small role in creativity. This was maintained till the 1940s by the German geneticist Goldschmidt. It wasn’t until the 1920s with men like JBS Haldane, Sewall Wright and Harold Fisher that a true synthesis between Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian genetics took place. The resulting science was called “neo-Darwinism”. By the latter half of the twentieth century Darwinism became commonplace and a generally accepted scientific theory, and individuals like John Maynard Smith and Ernst Mary were particularly important in transporting Darwinism into a postmodern context.

Darwinian evolution, the most commonly accepted of the “theories of evolution” (Mayr), certainly raises some theological concerns, as was apparent in the religious crisis of the nineteenth century. The theoretical aspect of Darwinian evolution touches on elements of creation, theodicy, metaphysics, ethics and man’s place in nature, all of which are important topics of theology.
In his study of the post-Darwinian controversies, James R Moore sought to eliminate the commonly conceived “camps” of rationalistic Darwinians and dogmatic anti-Darwinian religious people and successfully falsified Huxley’s, White’s and Draper’s conflict or war thesis. Moore created his own “camps” as a more historically sound method of classifying theological and scientific thought in the nineteenth century. Darwin’s opponents were certainly not always theologians; Richard Owen and Louis Agassiz are cases in point. James Moore camps Christians into “anti-Darwinians”, “Darwinists” and “Darwinians”. He shows anti-Darwinians were generally motivated not by religion but philosophical ideas incorporated into religion, particularly the Baconian inductive method and Platonic essentialism or typology expressed in John Ray’s and Linnaeus’ taxonomies. Darwinists, on the other hand, were liberal theologians like Henry Drummond, who created their own caricature of Darwinism to support their theology. In illustrating his “theological paradox” Moore showed how genuine Darwinians were in fact orthodox Calvinists like Asa Gray and Fredrick Wright. David Hollinger shows Moore’s documentation to be selective, and it is perhaps more likely that both the “conflict” model and the inverse “confirmation” model presented by Moore are both historically inaccurate and the religious reaction was more complex than what either model suggest.

Metaphysics and Materialism

Does Darwin’s theory of evolution rule out God? A major ingredient of Darwin’s theory is its intrinsic naturalism, that nature is self-sustained and all material effects including life have naturalistic explanations. This particular scientific method, “methodological naturalism”, has sustained science since the beginning of the twentieth century. Supernatural elements were successfully ruled out and science became a holistic explanation of nature. This “autonomous view of nature” though congruent with most conservative Christian viewpoints has led many to consider Darwinism synonymous with atheism or at least in favour of it. If, as with William Paley in Natural Philosophy and his teleological argument from biology, God can no longer be discerned from creation God becomes superfluous and an unnecessary contrivance. This is how Charles Hodge (d. 1878), the famed Calvinist and his protégé Robert Watts (d. 1895), both professors at the Princeton Theological Seminary, saw it. However it seems Charles Hodge was predisposed to being antagonistic to science, as Herbert Hovenkamp remarked “Hodge was particularly paranoid about science”, and this was perhaps a result of the increased antagonism of Christianity by scientists like John Tyndall. Nonetheless Hodge grasped Darwinism well and it was what he saw as the inherent naturalism of Darwinism which was opposed to orthodox Christianity. In his What is Darwinism? Hodge explains the very use of “natural” in natural selection as “antithetical to supernatural” and thereby Darwin intends to exclude design and final causes (purpose). For Hodge those Darwinian Christians like Asa Gray, were not Darwinians at all for they had not comprehended the “antiteleological nature” of the theory.

Was Charles Hodge correct in asserting that Darwinism was atheistic in that it was an attempt at pushing out God as an explanation? Darwinism undoubtedly constituted a physical theory that had to compete with the contesting idea of “special creation” or “independent creation” hence was constructed as a response to the prevailing supernaturalist view of creation. In this context, it is unsurprising that Darwin chose to emphasise the “naturalness” of his theory, but this obviously does not mean that design and purpose cannot be imposed on the self-contained Darwinian process itself although Darwin himself never acquiesced to this view.

More recently biologist Richard Dawkins (b. 1940) has expressed the view that Darwinism is congenial to atheism: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist”. It seems, however, that Dawkins approves of Darwinism as the only plausible explanation by eliminating “doomed rivals”. This approach, by which he showed Lamarckism cannot explain the immense variation and creationism postulates an unexplained creator, is philosophical and arguably fallacious. Dawkins at one stage does not only say that God is superfluous but that we cannot invoke God as an explanation because it is “lazy” and creates an unexplained explanation. Elsewhere Dawkins suggests that a sudden appearance of disparate organisms certainly implies creation or “divine intervention” which begs the question why a simpler explanation or one that does not require the explanation of a creator, such as random molecular rearrangement, is not invoked? Dawkins is not only arguing for a deductive evidential support for Darwinism, but its uniqueness in being capable of explaining the diversity of life, and this appears to be primarily motivated by a philosophical adherence to materialism.

Both Hodge and Dawkins are correct to the extent that Darwinism is purely naturalistic and eliminates God as an explanation in biology. That being said, Darwinism as a purely theoretical discipline does not make any assumptions about God and as Darwin wrote “I see no good reason why the views given in this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feeling of anyone”. The reason for hostility to religion on the part of Darwin’s supporters like Huxley and Spencer was a wider concern for scientific autonomy and removal of ecclesiastical authority. Darwinism worked as a catalyst to this process as it certainly did implicate on the philosophy of religion if not on religion itself.

Finally, Darwin in The Descent of Man suggests religion may be a social phenomenon favoured by natural selection for its survival value. Reducing religion to a psychological and social phenomenon has become common in sociobiology in the works of men like EO Wilson, Richard Alenander and Richard Dawkins. The latter considers religion and God a mass “delusion” which once served an explanatory function but is now obsolete. Though this discipline has been severely criticised on scientific and empirical grounds, it assigns no truth-value to religion. Science itself may be described as an enterprise which humanity are predisposed to for the aid of their survival, but that would not make science any less true.

Creation and Teleology

If God is unnecessary in creation how is that tied with a personal God interested in our salvation, and how does God’s providential action take part in creation? Furthermore Darwin showed the evolutionary process to be inherently random, unpredictable hence indeterminate. How does that square with purpose and teleology? In fact evolutionary theory is part of a common trend in scientific thought displaying indeterminacy as an essential quality of the both the micro and macro world in quantum indeterminacy and the unpredictable initial conditions in chaos theory, respectively.

Ian Barbour listed several theological options as to God’s involvement in the world. Owen Thomas however considered only neo-Thomism and process theology genuinely adequate as they alone give a philosophically satisfying and coherent account of how both divine and creaturely agents are fully active in one unified event. In the philosophy of Thomas Aquinis God is primary and essential agent who works through participatory or secondary agents. Whereas in Thomism God does this voluntarily, process theology imposes on God a persuasive as opposed to coercive attribute which lures creation to a desired end. For neo-Thomists the unpredictability and randomness of evolution represents a loving risk-taking God who grants freedom in nature beyond the laws that govern it prefiguring the ultimate free creature “created” in God’s image.

Although there is no scriptural reason to adhere to an absolute omnipotence, a more conservative reading of theology would imply God’s involvement in creation as a ruler to a kingdom. Some Christians therefore found it difficult to adjust their theology to Darwinism. As James Moore has shown it is for this indeterminate nature of Darwinism that liberal theologians felt obliged to accept a more Lamarckian approach to evolution attributing “directivity” or a “resident force” in organisms allowing them to respond adaptively to the environment creating a linear development in evolution. More recently however, Simon Conway Morris has attempted to show patterns or convergences in the various “routes of evolution” making it more predictable than it would appear from the immense possibilities inherent in evolution. Critics, like Richard Lenski, have shown Conway Morris’ science to be selective (concentrating on convergence and ignoring divergence) and theologically motivated.

Creation-scientists like Henry Morris and Duane Gish, who accept a literal reading of the bible, disregard various elements of physical and biological science that makes their position implausible. A recent movement in America, the intelligent design movement, accepts the basic empirical data surrounding modern evolutionary theory: the earth is 4.5 billion years old, life began some 3.8 billion years ago and gradually emerged in more complex forms. Transmutation or the idea of a continuum between species is for “design theorists” plausible but not a necessary conclusion of the facts. More significant however, is the notion that the facts themselves point to a remarkable functional complexity in biological design that points to the “directed contingency” (choice) of an intelligent designer. The theological implications of this theory are far-reaching as it combines an evolutionary framework that embraces the supporting data but interprets it to show teleology and purpose in nature.

Theodicy

Theodicy is an important consideration since it was a result of revulsion at the cruelty of nature that led Darwin to become an agnostic. The famous “ichneumon wasps” that drove Darwin away from the notion of a beneficent God, and other examples of “nature red in tooth and claw” require a theological explanation. For modern Darwinians, suffering is but a by-product of genes “striving” to get themselves passed on to future generations. And if genes are so uncaring about suffering then may we not conclude as with Dawkins the universe “has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference”? Religion traditionally answered evil by invoking man’s inherent predisposition to bad and justified it by a salvific redemptive theology and eschatology. But now we know the origin of suffering as a natural adaptation what value do these explanations hold?

Theologian John Haught argues “suffering” as a biological adaptive by-product may have been sufficiently explained by biology but the affective content of suffering is not reducible to adaptation and suffering has therefore not been fundamentally explained. However, from a theological standpoint theodicy, the need to justify evil in the universe must now be extended to nonhuman suffering. Liberal theologians have tended to add value to the “temporal suffering” as Minot Savage put it. The Scottish theologian Henry Drummond considered struggle a method of improvement and Fredrick Temple saw imperfections part of the great cosmic design contained within the “perpetual progress” in evolution. Although new ways of wording this response has emerged, the principle response to evil remains the same: that evil is a consequence of man’s fallen nature or that temporal evil is not evil at all as it is a smaller part in the cosmic plan.

Ethics

Two elements of Darwin’s theory, one with its roots in Darwin and the other Darwinistic as opposed to genuinely Darwinian raise ethical concerns for Christian theology. Sociobiology, the study of how social behaviour evolved in animals to favour their survival, is generally considered antithetical to religion since with Wilson our actions are reduced to “genetically influenced behavioural predispositions” and this contrasts the egoism inherent in this analysis and the self-sacrifice valorised by religion. Evolutionary biologists like Stephen Jay Gould have strong reservations about sociobiology as a genuine Darwinian subdiscipline. Gould, though non-religious, believes religion and science occupies different “domains”, one descriptive and the other prescriptive, which is why he considers ethics and morals fundamentally non-scientific. Many theologians like Stephen Pope, nonetheless, have attempted to appropriate Christian ethics into a sociobiological framework. He distinguishes four levels at which a particular behaviour can be considered: 1. The stated reason, 2. The conscious decision, 3. The unconscious intention, 4. The biological drive (instinct). Pope suggests sociobiology considers human nature at the level of desire and instinct, why a particular behaviour evolved to hold survival value, which correspond to levels 3 and 4, whereas Christian altruism and ethics is associated primarily with the second level of a conscious decision to help another without the ulterior motive of “reciprocity”.
Social Darwinism was invented by Darwin’s contemporary Herbert Spencer before the production of The Origin of Species. It was based on a Lamarckian understanding of “linear progress” (whereas Darwin envisioned a more “bush-like” tree of life) and incorporated progressivism into a social philosophy. Ernst Haeckel was probably responsible for transporting social Darwinism to Germany. The “struggle” in social Darwinism and the subjugation of the weak is opposed to Christian morals. Social Darwinism was more a potent cause of rejecting Darwinism itself though it had little if anything to do with Darwin, and is therefore largely irrelevant as to how the science would pose problems for theology.

Man’s Place in Nature

A difficulty with Darwin’s theory is the continuity of man with other organisms and their organic as opposed to godly nature. Many religious contemporaries of Darwin including Darwin’s greatest supporter in America Asa Gray did not accept human evolution. The anatomist Richard Owen and critic of Darwin rejected man’s evolution on the basis of his dissimilarity with other species. St George Mivart who attempted to harmonise teleology, typology (essentialism) and transmutation posited a direct and immediate creation of a rational soul in every human, similar to the Popes’ views. For Henry Beecher however evolution itself created a gulf between man and other species allowing man to become in the image of God. The concept of imago dei however is itself inert, as it has historically been given multiple meanings, including simply a capacity to communicate with God (Augustine).

Conclusion

As shown earlier, atheism is certainly not a conclusion of Darwinism. Darwinism doesn’t exclude God from existence. It just doesn’t posit God as an explanation in biology and the transmutation of species. Apart from this consideration, I think Darwinism does direct theological discussions in various topics but as to crediting or discrediting theology, Darwinism is mostly neutral except with regards to using a teleological argument to prove God.

Theology is not an immutable discipline but depends strongly on interpretive and scholarly discourse. God’s revelation can be understood in multiple ways and ultimately science with its constrained naturalism cannot interfere with the notion of God as a self-subsisting Being on whom creation is contingent. Theology when reduced to this metaphysical claim about the nature of reality and God becomes easily reconcilable with biological evolution as understood by orthodox science. However, difficulties do arise when introducing corollary philosophical, metaphysical and naturalistic claims that were shaped by human civilisations in their attempt to understand God and the causal relationship between God and creation.

Bibliography

The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
The Post-Darwinian Controversies, James Moore (and review by David Hollinger)
The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
An Evolving Dialogue: Theological and Scientific Perspectives on Evolution, James Miller
Evolution as Religion, Mary Midgley
Life’s Solution, Simon Conway Morris
Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe