Evangelical Movement of Wales

In 1891 a thirteen-year-old boy in Georgia took out a book from a little bookshop in Gori, Georgia. He was so entranced by the book and its message that he read it all night forgetting to sleep. When his mother chided him about going to sleep he replied, ‘I loved the book so much, Mummy, I couldn’t stop reading’. A few days later that boy was lying on the grass outside town, sitting talking with some of his friends. The young boy declared ‘God’s not unjust, he doesn’t actually exist. We’ve been deceived. If God existed, he’d have made the world more just’.  ‘How can you say such things?’ exclaimed his friend. ‘I’ll lend you a book and you’ll see’ declared the boy. The book was Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and the young boy was Stalin.

On the Origin of Species and the church

On the Origin of Species was published 24 November 1859. Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) personal story and religious views are themselves of tremendous interest but what we are concerned with here is the impact of this, his most famous book. On the one hand there are those like Richard Dawkins, who regard Darwin as the prophet of a new age, liberating human beings from their bondage to theism and removing all necessity for a God of the gaps. Dawkins and the New Atheists have a very simple message. Point one – Evolution is true. Point two – because evolution is true, there is no God.

On the other hand there are those Christians who think that Darwin is the agent of the devil, sent to turn human beings away from God. They regard On the Origin of Species as having a wholly detrimental affect. In effect they agree with Dawkins that his point two is correct, if his point one is correct, (of course, it does not necessarily follow that point two is the automatic consequence of point one – a great deal of other ground has to be covered first). Both groups see On the Origin of Species as being pivotal in this perceived war between science and ‘faith’.

There is however a great deal of myth and exaggeration being served up on both sides in this discussion. Things are not quite as black and white as often portrayed. Even at the time, a considerable number of professing Christians were sympathetic to, or accepted the basics of Darwin’s theory. In a fascinating account David N. Livingstone in his book Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders shows how many evangelicals were prepared to accept at least a modified form of Darwinianism. Perhaps the most famous of all was B.B. Warfield whose statement ‘I am a Darwinian of the purest water’ is almost incomprehensible to those who claim his mantle in the twenty-first century. 

The fact is that, despite many attempts by both atheist fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists, there has always been a considerable divergence of viewpoints on how the church should react to On the Origin of Species. This continues today – on the one hand books such as Frances Collins’ The Language of God and Denis Alexander’s Creation and Evolution try to reconcile pure Darwinianism with biblical theology. On the other hand, Douglas Kelly’s Creation and Change and many others argue for a young earth creationist position. Others such as Hugh Ross’s Why the Universe is the way it is, argue for old earth creationism or intelligent design as a pointer to God.

The current impact of On the Origin of Species on the church in Britain, is sadly, that more than at any other time since its publication there is potential for it to be used as a divisive instrument within the evangelical church, with one’s attitude to questions such as the age of the earth being regarded almost as crucial as one’s attitude to the cross. It is to be hoped that on all sides, a degree of humility, a sense of perspective and a willingness to submit to the authority of Scripture, will be the determining factors. In this respect – the new book Should Christians Embrace Evolution? (IVP) is an important and helpful contribution.

On the Origin of Species and society

Whether Darwin intended it or not (and there is clear evidence that he did not), On the Origin of Species had at least one immediate and harmful effect on society. It justified the inherent racism that was an essential part of the European empires. The full title of the book (often left out by Dawkins and others) perhaps explains why – On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It is deeply ironic that ‘liberal progressives’ such as Thomas Huxley could declare, as he did in 1871, ‘No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man’. Or more shockingly H.G. Wells in 1902 in his book The New Republic, ‘And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black? The yellow man? The Jew? Those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go’. Wells goes on to argue that the way to produce the beautiful and strong is to eliminate the weak.

Despite howls of protest to the contrary, there is a direct link between the view of humanity portrayed by On the Origin of Species and the eugenics and genocide of the atheistic regimes of the twentieth century.

Traudl Junge, Hitler’s secretary, recalls Hitler’s Darwinain views:

Sometimes we also had interesting discussions about the church and the development of the human race. Perhaps it’s going too far to call them discussions, because he would begin explaining his ideas when some question or remark from one of us had set them off, and we just listened. He was not a member of any church, and thought the Christian religions were outdated, hypocritical institutions that lured people into them. The laws of nature were his religion. He could reconcile his dogma of violence better with nature than with the Christian doctrine of loving your neighbour and your enemy. ‘Science isn’t yet clear about the origins of humanity,’ he once said. ‘We are probably the highest stage of development of some mammal which developed from reptiles and moved on to human beings, perhaps by way of the apes. We are a part of creation and children of nature, and the same laws apply to us as to all living creatures. And in nature the law of the struggle for survival has reigned from the first. Everything incapable of life, everything weak is eliminated. Only mankind and above all the church have made it their aim to keep alive the weak, those unfit to live, and people of an inferior kind’.

In his book The Descent of Man Darwin argued that natural selection would not be helped if the weak were aided or allowed to have families; although he warned that to behave in such a way would mean that humans would lose one of the most valuable parts of our humanity – our sympathy. And therein lies the rub.

The most dangerous effect of On the Origin of Species is not what it teaches about God, but rather what it teaches about humanity. Richard Dawkins argues that he is not a Social Darwinianist. Perhaps so. But there is no ‘reason’ for him not to be. For the contemporary atheistic Darwinianist, the glory of humanity is that we are able to overcome our selfish genes and rebel against our evolutionary instincts. But this is a faith in humanity and human progress which is not borne out by the evidence. Indeed from a purely Darwinian ‘preservation of favoured races’ point of view, euthanasia, the elimination of the handicapped, abortion, racism and eugenics all make perfect sense. As we move towards the ‘Master Race’, there is nothing to stand in the way of human ‘progress’ – except a biblical view of humanity as being created in the image of God – in knowledge, righteousness and holiness. Such a view means that I will treat all human beings as my neighbour, whom I will love, respect and care for, whatever the disability, gender or race. Only the worldview which sees human beings as ‘red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight’, can even begin to deal with the horror of humanity ‘red in tooth and claw’. It may be that On the Origin of Species can be reconciled with the biblical view of the biological origin of man. What it can never do is replace the wonderful view of humanity as created in the image of God. To attempt to do so would be the elimination and not the preservation of humanity.

David Robertson is the author of ‘The Dawkins Letters’ and editor of ‘The Monthly Record’.