Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology [Paperback]

As one who had never progressed beyond fourth form in the formal study of matters scientific, one of my "taken for granted" beliefs was that "science" could prove everything it asserted. That's what I was told, and I was in no position even to question it. My career lay in the ordained ministry of the Church of Ireland, and it wasn't until very late on in my ministry that I came across Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker" and "The Selfish Gene". I was absolutely fascinated by his brilliant descriptions of how everything had developed and how it worked. At the same time I was shaken by his confident assertions about the realm of religious belief, and his later, increasingly vitriolic attacks on all religion as being an insidious poison that had to be got rid of. This reached its culmination in his Magnum Opus "The God Delusion". Science, it seems, thanks to the genius of Charles Darwin, has given religion the coup de grace once and for all. He did speak respectfully of William Paley, whose natural theology had been developed before Darwin came along, but after Darwin no more could be said in its favour.

It needed someone who knows a great deal more about science than I do to challenge Dawkins (and others who were writing in the same vein). For me, Dawkins had to know what he was talking about - he was a professional scientist after all, ensconced in one of the most prestigious universities in the world. For a while it seemed as if no one could answer him. Then the critical responses began to appear (not all of them from "religious" people), and by far the most effective, it seems to me, come from the pens of people who themselves are deeply immersed in the worlds of science and theology. One of these is Alister McGrath, and his recent publication "Darwinism and the Divine" is superb. It shows the cultural, ecclesiastical (and even political) contexts in which all ideas, scientific, philosophical and theological, have emerged, and even how such an "objective" discipline as science proceeds on assumptions that are akin to faith. Unlike some writers from a religious background, McGrath takes Darwinism seriously, welcoming the insights it has given into the physical and biological evolution of the natural order. Taking Darwinism fully into account, he charts the way forward for an intelligent and sympathetic natural theology.

This is a detailed work, and (particularly for one who is not skilled in science) it is not the sort of book one could read in bed. It needs concentrated attention and several re-readings, but it is well worth the effort.

The book itself is divided into 3 sections:

1) the meaning of natural theology and Darwinism;
2) the historical situation of natural theology and Darwin's ideas - including a review of William Paley's `Natural Theology';
3) a modern discussion of Darwinism and Natural Theology

A brief synopsis of each section is as follows:

1) Natural Theology deals not with deduction but rather with inference to the best possible explanation. Unlike approaches which attempt to prove that God exists from the data, Natural Theology attempts to re-interpret the data in the light of God thus giving it new meaning. A good example of this is John Newman's quote: I see design because I believe in God, not believe in God because I see design. McGrath also recounts how a lot of philosophy of science now accepts that not all science can unanimously be proved by testable hypothesises - e.g. string theory. As such, simply because Natural Theology cannot be tested and verified doesn't automatically void it.

Darwinism it is argued is an incorrect term because the ideas commonly associated with Darwin, i.e. Evolution by Natural Selection were not wholly Darwin's. There were in fact other detractors who contributed to the debate and gave the idea its intellectual foundations. In any case Natural Selection is no longer considered to be the only influence affecting evolution (e.g. Environmental Selection) and therefore the term Darwinism should be avoided. Furthermore, Darwinism, as a theory is occasionally prone to over extending itself into fields it perhaps shouldn't.

2) Natural Theology has been around since the earliest of days. As the Psalms say: "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his handiwork". The issue became one of early philosophy. Primarily Western Philosophy was influenced by Platonism, which declared that everything had been created by God, and what we see around us are reflections of the forms/ideas which he had when creating creation. An example of this is: God had an idea of the perfect form of a dog, all other varieties of dog are just variations of this standard template. However, since the earliest of days this has caused theologians problems in terms of the errors in creation - more commonly referred to as unintelligent design or problems of theodicy. Of course many cleaver arguments have been raised to these objections, but the issues which they raise must be seen in their historical context.

Next - enter the enlightenment and the introduction of the positivistic way of evidencing claims following Newton and the likes. Add to that a growing sense of scepticism in belief of God following the reformation - and you have the fertile grounds for the introduction of William Paley. Paley attempted to use the established philosophy of his day, i.e. that God created everything whole. He them attempted to use data to prove via the positivistic method that his belief in God was not just valid, but scientifically defensible. The result of this was his famous analogy of the watch which implies a watch maker, and the eye which implies a designer.

However, contrary to popular belief Paley's theology was originally attacked by English Theologians rather than scientists. An example of this are the arguments raised by John Henry Newman. Enter Darwin and his book, the origin of species. McGrath here argues that whilst Paley's book may have been flawed but it did give Darwin the foundation for his own ideas. He proves this by showing how Darwin appropriated much of Paley's verbal imagery - again the use of the eye as an example. In this way Paley's book was useful, even if wrong.

The final point made is a throw back to section 1 - which is that Darwin's ideas were not deductive but rather were inferences to the best possible explanation. Darwin was unable to prove evolution because he could not see it in action. However, the explanations which his book gave were such that they were the best explanations of the data available and hence become widely accepted over time.

3) Finally, how can we talk of evolution and God.

Firstly there is the issue of teleology. McGrath first looks at the term in its historical context. He then says that whilst evolution does not have a goal in one sense, in another sense it clearly does. The possibilities which life allow clearly allow for the immergence of advanced life and as such a wider teleology can be interfered. This is not teleology in terms of say the eye, but rather a teleology which is due to the fined tuning of the universe and the possibilities which it allows for. The key point being here is that chance and possibilities were what the creator had intended to endow the universe with.

This then naturally leads onto the second section. McGrath wishes to once again re-establish Augustine's ideas regarding creation, rather than 6 day creationism. McGrath has openly written against creationism before so the inclusion of this chapter comes as no surprise. Nevertheless, Augustine talked about seeds and trees. He equated the universe to being like an unknown seed which has the possibility of blooming into whatever tree the conditions are right for. He also wrote about primary and secondary causes. God as being the primary cause of existence, but everything that came after that would have been through natural secondary causes. Nothing emerged whole but rather gradually unfolded through secondary causes. In this way everything that is is a result of a cause. In this fashion natural selection can be seen as being a secondary cause and therefore evolution is compatible with Augustine's Theology of Creation.

Having established the above, the issue now becomes - what we've just done is give deism intellectual backing, but Christianity asserts that we believe in a God who interacts with creation. However then is this done? McGrath's answer is a Trinitarian view of God. Primarily the father is the sustainer of the universe and could get involved in creation at a quantum level. Secondarily we have the son who suffers within the creation. And thirdly we have the spirit who helps change people's lives (soteriology). McGrath here raises the issue of theodicy and the suffering in nature. He argues that God is not blind to the suffering evolution produces and in fact goes so far as to suffer himself within creation through his son. The theology he uses here is typically Martin Luther's Theology of the Cross and Bonheoffer's Cost of Discipleship. McGrath argues that the theodicy issues raised by evolution are hardly new ones. Rather they have been around since the earliest of times and so answers are available for those interested in looking for them. Nevertheless, he argues that eschatologically God will redeem all creatures when he renews creation. This will include animals and humans - not just humans alone. In this fashion it sounds very much like McGrath is arguing for a form of universal salvationism.

The final section is on the God-meme theory and whether religion is adaptive or an evolutionary accident. He easily dismantles Dawkin's and Dennett's meme theory and instead argues that it is possible to argue the issue either way. In any case the answer one gives doesn't necessarily dismiss religion blankly. He briefly considers the origin of the concept of God and how this might have come about. However, the arguments raised here are quick and simply incomplete. It seems like his major aim was rather to dismantle the `New Atheism's' memetic arguments, which he succeeded in doing. Therefore, for anyone interested in going into this topic further I would thoroughly recommend a book on the issues called `The Believing Primate' by Jeffrey Schloss and Michael Murray.

McGrath ends his book by stating that his book was meant to be a call to theologians to renew their interest in Natural Theology. His book, whilst incomplete in many ways, was meant to show that Natural Theology is an intellectually fulfilling and futile ground. The rest of the work is up to the rest of us thinking Christians.

So my comments:

The primary aim seems to have been to firstly give a historical overview of how natural theology has got to where it has. It then seems to attempt to show how natural theology could be re-used today as a theological concept. However, the attempt made by McGrath was far from complete. Whether this was a rush job to get to editing, a slap dash job overall, or simply because he wanted to leave it to others to complete I really don't know. Furthermore, McGrath seems to have brushed aside concepts like `Original Sin' without so much as a glancing reference. Considering the prominence of this concept, this did surprise me a bit.

Overall it was an enlightening book. It would not say that it was an existing read purely because for most of it he simply recounted the historical situation. Nevertheless, the history is important in order to understand how we have got to where we have. Having read nearly all of McGrath's other books (see my previous reviews) there was plenty in this book which was not new to me. For example - In Dawkins God, McGrath dismantled Dawkins memetics. In Mere Theology and in A Fine Tuned Universe, McGrath set out his theology relating to Augustine and fine-tuning. And having read numerous books on the history of the evolution-creation debate before, such as Michael Ruse's 'Evolution-Creation Debate' I was familiar with much of the history also. And finally having read McGrath's 'Natural Theology' before, I was hardly new to the concept of Natural Theology. However, what was enjoyable was to see how McGrath used all of this old material to interweave a new Theology of Nature. Read more ›

Extract from the publisher:

"Darwinism and the Divine examines the implications of evolutionary thought for natural theology, from the time of publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species to current debates on creationism and intelligent design."
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Regrettably, this book does nothing of the sort - as no modern creationist work (whether McGrath agrees with it or not) is even referenced! It therefore falls well short of this description and clearly prefers to stick to `safe' academic ground. There are very limited references to Intelligent Design, but that's it.

It certainly covers a good deal of history about the approaches taken to natural theology and, I thought, very well indeed, until it finally gets to dealing with Augustine (from pg. 222 onwards). I think McGrath seriously misrepresents him - and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the word "evolution" thereby using this to try and use Augustine as a support for retrospective evolutionary thought!!

Just because Augustine interprets "God's work of creation as including both an act and a process" (pg. 226), this can only be taken to imply an evolutionary process by imputing a relatively modern idea within a much more ancient context, where the concept of literal creationism (young earth) ruled the day. Every other Church Father espoused a definite acceptance of creation ex nihilo (as does Augustine in terms of "act") and this has only been formally rejected since Darwin. The only imputation that can be applied to Augustine is that he allowed for some variation, or change, over time - which importantly all modern creationists also do!! There is no "fixity of species."

This is where it all went wrong for creationists, trying to suggest that all living things were `fixed' and unable to change (or vary) over time. What creationists reject more than anything else is naturalism and common ancestry.

His approach is also clearly wrong theologically. For instance, on page 290 he says "A Christian natural theology holds that the true meaning of nature is indeed capable of being unlocked; but this requires us to use a hermeneutical key that nature itself cannot provide." This is in direct conflict with the Apostle Paul's claim in Romans 1:20. Read it from verse 18 and weep...

Other than the historical summary, the most helpful aspect of his book, in my view, was his refutations associated with Dawkins assertion of the existence of 'Memes' (or as I think it should be written in Dawkin's case, `me, me, me').