Evolutionary Theory and Christian Belief

The Unresolved Conflict

David Lack

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135028299
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas

Originally published in 1957. This book is concerned with the conflict between "Darwinism" as the Victorians called it, and Christianity, a conflict here re-stated in modern terms because it so vitally affects our understanding of human nature and human values today. The opening chapter describes the historical background. There is a short account of evolution and the argument over Genesis. The importance of natural selection is stressed, and rival theories as to the means of animal evolution are criticised. Discussions follow on whether the course of evolution has been random or determined, on the argument from design, death in nature, the biologist's methods and the difficulties in evolutionary ethics.

1

Historical Introduction

Grant that the building now to be erected on this spot may foster the progress of those sciences which reveal to us the wonders of Thy creative powers. And do Thou, by Thy heavenly grace, cause the knowledge thus imparted to fill us with the apprehension of Thy greatness, Thy wisdom and Thy love.’With this prayer, specially composed by the Professor of Medicine, the foundation stone was laid in 1855 for the Oxford Museum of Science; but the implied unity between religion and science was broken at the first important meeting to be held there, that of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1860, when Samuel Wilberforce and T. H. Huxley held their famous debate on evolution (H. M. and D. Vernon, History of the Oxford Museum, 1909).

In 1858, the Linnean Society of London heard the joint contributions by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on evolution by natural selection, and Darwin’s The Origin of Species appeared in the following year, the first edition being sold out at once. But in popular imagination the conflict was truly joined in June 1860, when the Bishop of Oxford was put up to oppose Darwin’s new theory in public debate. T. H. Huxley, though attending the British Association meeting, had meant to stay away from the debate in question, but was pressed into coming at the last moment. What was said on that occasion has been reported, in confident quotation marks, in many books, but no verbatim account was kept, and different persons recollected both the words and the emphasis differently. Even Huxley himself could not recall what he said. It is agreed that the Bishop made a polished and witty but superficial speech, ending with an objectionable allusion to human descent from an ape. The historians of science often imply that he was personally abusive to Huxley, and this version goes unchallenged, since the meeting was mentioned with suspicious brevity in the three-volume life of Wilberforce by his son. But such rudeness does not seem in keeping with Wilberforce’s character, and Professor Farrar, who was present, thought the words used were ‘flippant and unscientific rather than insolent, vulgar or personal’ : ‘“If any one were to be willing to trace his descent through an ape as his grandfather, would he be willing to trace his descent similarly on the side of his grandmother?”’, thus with misplaced humour trying to arouse a sentimental objection to the idea of woman being so degraded. Even so, it seems inexcusable, and Huxley, murmuring to his neighbour ‘The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands’ (strange comment from an agnostic), gave a plain and honest account of Darwin’s scientific views and ended to the effect that he would rather have a monkey for his grandfather than one who used great gifts to stifle truth. (Huxley, Life, 1903.)

One cannot say what might have happened if the Bishop of Oxford had been more earnest and Huxley had replied in the spirit of the New Testament not the Old, but probably the debate of the next thirty years would have been no less violent. For after a short time, it was not concerned solel with the truth of a particular theory; biologists regarded it as a fight for the freedom of scientific enquiry against religious dogma and prejudice, of truth against authority, and theologians as a fight to preserve the spiritual relationship of man to his Creator in a rising tide of materialism.

Before continuing, it is worth glancing at the two antagonists in this famous encounter. One pictures Huxley as in his later portraits, the eminent and forceful Victorian, but he was only thirty-six at the time and as yet unpractised in debate. A great anatomist, he devoted the rest of his life to what he held to be his public service; battling in lectures and essays on behalf of Darwinism and in later years against Christian beliefs, in a style that was vigorous and incisive because he so fervently believed what he said; and labouring with great industry, force and tact as secretary of the Royal Society and as a member of ten Royal Commissions and of the London School Board. Various views of his will find place in later chapters, and his general attitude may be summed up in two quotations. In 1856, as his wife lay in the next room awaiting the birth of their first child, he listed among his aims for the future: ‘To smite all humbugs, however big; to give a nobler tone to science’. In 1860, just after that same boy had died, he wrote in a long and moving personal letter to Charles Kingsley: ‘Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.’ (Life, 1903.)

Samuel Wilberforce was also a great man. Like Huxley he had rare personal charm, energy and zeal, and could hold an audience of Lords or workingmen, being far more than the glib speaker of the historians of science, though his facility led him astray at times. He effected much-needed reforms in episcopal administration, introduced parochial missions, founded the theological college at Cuddesden and supported in his diocese the first Anglican order for men since the Reformation. Mr. Gladstone wrote of him in a letter to Queen Victoria that he believed ‘there does not live the man in any of the three kingdoms of your Majesty who has by his own indefatigable and unmeasured labours given such a powerful impulse … to the religious life of the country’ (C. P. S. Clarke, The Oxford Movement and After, 1932). He loved nature, and in lighter vein is credited with the lines on a Cassowary on the plains of Timbuktoo, that ate a missionary, coat and bands and hymnbook too. He was forty-five at the time of his encounter with Huxley.

In the same year, 1860, Wilberforce reviewed The Origin of Species in the Quarterly Review, helped, it is thought, by Sir Richard Owen, England’s leading but by then very conservative anatomist. The review was adverse and prejudiced, though not so unpleasant in tone as that by Owen himself for the Edinburgh Review three months earlier. The style was brilliant, but the scientific arguments were confused, apart from a few shrewd points, such as that Darwin supposed the spots of the young Blackbird useless, but Wilberforce (with more justification) that they were protectively coloured. Wilberforce accepted the idea of natural selection, but forcibly argued that it could not account for man’s peculiar moral and spiritual condition (a view later supported by some of the leading Darwinists). The Bishop was at his best in setting forth what he held to be the Christian attitude towards scientific truth: ‘We have no sympathy with those who object to any facts or alleged facts in nature, or to any inference logically deduced from them, because they believe them to contradict what it appears to them is taught by Revelation.… To oppose facts in the natural world because they seem to oppose Revelation … is … but another form of the ever-ready feebleminded dishonesty of lying for God, and trying by fraud or falsehood to do the work of the God of truth. It is with another and a nobler spirit that the true believer walks amongst the works of nature. The words graven on the everlasting rocks are the words of God, and they are graven by His hand.’… They cannot ‘contradict His Word written in His book.… There may be to man difficulty in reconciling all the utterances of the two voices. But what of that? He has learned already that here he knows only in part, and that the day of reconciling all apparent contradictions between what must agree is nigh at hand.’This passage suggests sincere conviction, and it may be regretted that the controversy was not to be continued in a like spirit.

Soon after a great man has died there is a tendency to denigrate his achievement, and Darwin’s turn came, though later than is usual, his reputation being lowest from about 1920 to 1930. Unfortunately, three widely read histories of science, by Nordenskiöld, Rádl and Singer, were written in this period, so that the general reader may get a false impression of Darwin’s contribution. It is true, as these writers pointed out, that others had advocated animal evolution before Darwin, but they carried little weight; and their more important criticism, that Darwin’s theory of natural selection was later shown to be of little value and mainly disproved, is definitely wrong. Of Darwin’s greatness and originality there is no serious doubt. It is apparent in the majestic ordering of facts and arguments in the pages of The Origin of Species. Moreover he anticipated many of the biological objections that were to be raised to his theory and admitted the main gaps in his evidence, gaps that are to his credit rather than discredit, since he was able tosee beyond them to his grand design. He was ignorant of the true nature of heredity, but so were all biologists of the time; and his theory of natural selection has been re-established as the corner-stone of modern evolutionary theory. Only an intellectual giant could have initiated so great a turmoil. He himself took no part in the resulting controversies when they were outside the field of biology, except for a few comments in private letters. He therefore finds little further place in this book, though it may be added that he gradually and unobtrusively lost his belief in Christianity.

Darwinism conflicted, or was thought to conflict, with Christian belief in a number of different but interconnected ways. It contradicted the account of creation in Genesis and hence challenged the truth of the Bible. It undermined what was at that time the most popular rational argument for the existence of God, from the presence of design and apparent purpose in the animal body, claiming instead that such adaptations had come into existence by wholly natural means, of a seemingly random and rather bloodthirsty kind. It ran counter to the historical occurrence of the Fall, suggesting that man had risen from the beasts not fallen from a state of blessedness, thus questioning whether man was in a state of sin. Further, if man’s higher capacities had been evolved by natural means from those of animals, they might have no ultimate value or significance. Darwinism thus challenged, or was believed to challenge, the fundamental view that man was created by God in His image and stood in a special relationship towards Him.

These issues were not raised in The Origin of Species, but it was obvious that they soon would be raised, so that many theologians feared that Christian belief would be undermined. Before criticising the churchmen, however, it is as well to recall that various biologists, notably Sir Richard Owen, were equally hostile, and that in 1864 the President of the Royal Society, in giving the Copley Medal (its highest award) to Darwin, announced that ‘speaking generally and collectively, we [the Council] have expressly omitted it [the theory of evolution] from the grounds of our award.’ (Huxley, Life, 1903.) It is almost impossible for us, a century later, to think ourselves back into the position of people of the time, and only too easy to criticize at this safer distance statements made under great emotional stress. Moreover, later events showed that churchmen were right in supposing that Darwinism would lead many away from Christianity, though some might argue that this was due less to Darwinism itself than to the mistaken ways in which theologians tried to refute its claims. Further, the two leading propagandists for evolution, T. H. Huxley in Britain and Ernst Haeckel in Germany, were notoriously opposed to Christianity on other grounds, and wrote against miracles and dogma. It was, of course, T. H. Huxley who coined the term ‘agnostic’. Finally, the Church was at the same time strongly attacked from another direction, since the applications of historical and textual criticisms to the Bible were destroying belief in its complete accuracy and thus challenging its authority; but this battle the orthodox theologians appear to have fought much more effectively than that against the biologists.

As just one illustration of the intense excitement aroused by Darwinism, both of England’s great Prime Ministers made contributions, very different in tone, but equally in keeping with their respective characters. The depressing point about Disraeli’s shallow witticism is that it was not recognized as such. Addressing the Oxford Diocesan Society in the Sheldonian Theatre in 1864, he announced: ‘I am not prepared to say that the lecture-room is more scientific than the Church (cheers). What is the question now placed before society with a glib assurance the most astounding? The question is this—Is man an ape or an angel? (loud laughter). My lord, I am on the side of the angels (laughter and cheering). I repudiate with indignation and abomination those views (cheers).’(B. Disraeli, Church Policy, 1864.) We still smile, yet for the true Christian as much for the scientist it was a ghastly frivolity, especially coming from the leader of the nation. Twenty years later, W. E. Gladstone found time in his busy career to demonstrate (in the Nineteenth Century for 1886) that the order of creation in Genesis was that accepted by scientists, his laboured erudition being almost as misdirected as in his earlier attempt to wed the Bible with Homer.

There is no need to repeat here either the ill-founded attacks of churchmen on Darwinism, which have often been recalled, or the ill-founded attacks of Darwinists on the Church, which are usually forgotten. It is enough to say that, while many churchmen, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, showed a lamentable ignorance of the findings and the principles of biology, the same could be said of various Darwinists in relation to theology. Mixed up with the truth, there were ignorant, unjustifiable, absurd and violent assertions on both sides, and it is perhaps through the spirit of the age that we remember the arrogance of conservative theologians rather than of revolutionary Darwinists.

It is more profitable to record that a few churchmen, including some of the most distinguished, welcomed Darwin’s theory from the start. F. J. A. Hort wrote in a letter in March, 1860: ‘Have you read Darwin? … In spite of difficulties, I am inclined to think it unanswerable.’(Life, 1896.) R. W. Church, later Dean of St. Paul’s, also admired it (Life, 1894). Charles Kingsley both praised the book and wrote sympathetic letters to Darwin and Huxley (Life, 1877). Several other Anglicans felt similarly, while on the Roman Catholic side, Cardinal Newman wrote in a private notebook of 1863 ‘It is strange that monkeys should be so like men with no historical connection between them.… I will either go the whole hog with Darwin or, dispensing with time and history altogether, hold not only the theory of distinct species but also of the creation of fossil-bearing rocks.’(Quoted by H. Johnson, Dublin Rev., 195 : 46, 1934.)

If men with such views had not kept their approval to private letters, they might have helped to bridge the widening gap between science and religion. Hort ‘burned to speak openly’ and had meant to review The Origin of Species, but held back. Kingsley mentioned in 1863 that he would write about it, ‘but I am not going to reach into fruit this seven years’; he never did so, except to affirm the validity of both the scientific and Christian standpoints in a lecture to theology students in 1871 (Scientific Lectures and Essays, 1880). Cardinal Newman explained that his silence was due to various difficulties. ‘One of the greatest is this, that at the moment it is so difficult to say precisely what it is that is to be encountered and overthrown,’and therefore that ‘it seemed to be a time in which Christians had a call to be patient’(Apologia pro Vita sua, 1864). With this view many would agree, while regretting that less able persons showed less restraint.

So far as I am aware, the first substantial and sympathetic appraisal of animal evolution by an ecclesiastic was that in the Dublin Review for 1871 by the Roman Catholic Canon Hedley, who maintained that ‘it is not contrary to Faith to suppose that all living things, up to man exclusively, were evolved by natural law out of minute life-germs primarily created, or even out of inorganic matter. On the other hand, it is heretical to deny the separate and special creation of the human soul; and to question the immediate … formation by God of the bodies of Adam and Eve … is, at least, rash, and, perhaps, proximate to heresy.’sixteen years later, there came on the Anglican side a fuller and more sympathetic judgment, with some illuminating comments, by the Reverend Aubrey Moore (repr. in Science and Faith, 1889). Moore held that the human body was evolved by natural means from other animals, but that his soul came by divine gift.

A similar distinction was made by two of the leading biologists of the time. A. R. Wallace, a great naturalist, formulated the theory of natural selection independently of Darwin, while he was in the Malay Archipelago, and he later ascribed more importance to it as the agent of evolution than did Darwin. He held, however, that though the human body was evolved by natural means, some sort of intervention or intelligent agent was needed to account for man’s higher nature, and notably for his mathematical and artistic faculties (Darwinism, 1889). St. George Mivart, a skilled anatomist and a Roman Catholic, fully accepted evolution as against special creation, but supposed natural selection to be of very minor importance, and also held that the human soul, including that of the first man, was ‘absolutely created in the strict and primary sense of the word … by a supernatural act’ (On the Genesis of Species, 1871). For such a compromise, Wallace and Mivart were scorned in the Quarterly Review for 1871 by T. H. Huxley, whose grandson even described Wallace as ‘unorthodox’ in believing a supernatural intervention needed for man’s soul (Dict. Nat. Biogr., 1912–21). On each side extreme views found favour, though few agreed with Samuel Butler, who violently attacked both the Church and Darwinism, and hardly anyone heeded Dean Farrar ‘that true science and true...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• PREFACE
• 1. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
• 2. THE FACT OF EVOLUTION
• 3. THE TRUTH OF GENESIS
• 4. NATURAL SELECTION
• 5. CREATIVE EVOLUTION
• 6. CHANCE OR PLAN?
• 7. DEATH IN NATURE
• 8. THE NATURE OF MAN
• 9. EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS
• 10. ALTERNATIVES TO EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS
• 11. THE CONTINUING CONFLICT
• APPENDIX
• INDEX