Darwin and divine design
by David Catchpoole
Image Wikipedia.com
While Charles Darwin, in his writing,1
made it very clear that he did not accept the Genesis account of creation,2 the picture we have of Darwin’s
views about the existence of a Creator is, at best, confusing. In the 1st
edition of his Origin of Species, Darwin wrote, in his Conclusion:
“ … I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings
which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form,
into which life was first breathed.”3 [emphasis added]
That almost sounds like biblical language (Genesis 2:7). However, Darwin cannot be referring to the
God of the Bible, as the biblical Creator breathed life into the first human directly—Adam was not “descended from some one primordial form” along
with “all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth”. Nevertheless,
it does seem that Darwin was leaving the reader with the impression that he believed
in some kind of a creator. In fact, in the 2nd edition, Darwin added
“by the Creator” to the end of the sentence.4
Why the addition?
Perhaps science historian James Strick’s observations about Darwin are pertinent
here.5 He writes that Darwin’s
public writing was framed so as to not alienate people who, while taking a liberal
view of the Bible,6 nevertheless
believed in a Creator:
“Darwin went out of his way, even misrepresenting his own views on life’s
origin, to use language that gave these readers some breathing room.”5
If so, given the controversy that erupted with the publication of the 1st
edition of Origin, Darwin might well have considered that adding “by
the Creator” would be strategically prudent.
Public vs private
Darwin’s private dealings present a different picture. His famous advocate
Thomas Huxley, often dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog”,7 was a man “anxious to banish from science
all supernatural explanations for the origin of life”.5 According
to Strick:
“Judging by his private correspondence, Darwin seems largely to have concurred
with Huxley’s version of a naturalistic origin of life. … But Darwin
never aired his thoughts on the subject in public.”5,8
Perhaps some of today’s evolution-accepting church leaders would be well-advised
to read some of that private correspondence. For example, in a letter to the American
biologist Asa Gray, Darwin wrote:
“Your question what would convince me of Design is a poser. If I saw an angel
come down to teach us good, and I was convinced from others seeing him that I was
not mad, I should believe in design. If I could be convinced thoroughly that life
and mind was in an unknown way a function of other imponderable force, I should
be convinced. If man was made of brass or iron and no way connected with any other
organism which had ever lived, I should perhaps be convinced.”9
In light of that, the polite concession made sometimes by creationists today that,
“If Darwin had known what we know today about biology and genetics,10 he might not have become
a Darwinist”, appears overly generous.11
In contrast, Romans 1:20 is unquestionably hard-hitting: anyone who denies
the existence of God, given the evidence of what has been made, is “without
excuse”. And that applied just as much in Darwin’s time as it does today.
References and notes
- The contents of various editions of Darwin’s Origin,
(refs 3,4) along with much of his other writing (e.g. refs 8,9), can be viewed
at: The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, darwin-online.org.uk. Return to text.
- Grigg, R., Darwin’s arguments
against God: How Darwin rejected the doctrines of Christianity, creation.com/darwinvgod,
13 June 2008. Return to text.
- Darwin, C., On the origin of species by means of natural
selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life,
1st edition, John Murray, London, 1859, p. 484. Return
to text.
- Darwin, C., On the origin of species by means of natural
selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life,
2nd edition, John Murray, London, 1860, p. 484. Return
to text.
- Roth, N., Review of Strick, J., Darwin and the origin
of life: A historical perspective, American Association for the Advancement
of Science—Origin of Life Workshop, 21–23 February, 2003; www.aaas.org.
Return to text.
- In Roth’s words (Ref. 5), “Darwin himself wanted
not to alienate liberal Christians, noted Strick.” Return to
text.
- Grigg, R., Darwin’s bulldog—Thomas H. Huxley,
Creation 31(3):39–41, 2009. Return
to text.
- In Origin of Species, Darwin actually devoted very
little space to the issue of the origin of life. In an 1871 letter to the botanist
Joseph Hooker, Darwin wrote: “It is mere rubbish, thinking at present
of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.” The
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by his son Francis Darwin, John
Murray, London, 1887, Vol. 3, p. 18. Evolutionists still largely skirt around the
origin-of-life issue (with some even disingenuously claiming that “evolution”
has nothing to do with the origin of life despite the accepted term “chemical
evolution”). Hardly surprising, given that there is no known non-intelligent
cause that has ever been observed to generate even a small portion of the literally
encyclopedic information required for life. Return to text.
- Darwin, F., (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,
John Murray, London, 1887, Vol. 2, p. 377. Return to text.
- Darwin erred in thinking that variety in offspring meant
new features arising spontaneously, whereas we now know, following the pioneering
work of the famous creationist scientist, Gregor Mendel, that the variety is due
to the recombination of existing genes, not the creation of new ones. See
Lester, L., Genetics: no friend of evolution,
Creation 20(2):20–22, 1998.
Return to text.
- For more on this topic, see Batten, D., Would Darwin be a
Darwinist today? Creation 31(4):48–51, 2009.
Return to text.
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