Reggie, thank you for taking the time to answer, in detail, why you think Darwin wrote his theory of evolution in order to show that God was not involved in the development of nature.
The most famous quote proving this is:
“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.” (Darwin’s letter to Asa Gray)
The purpose of Darwin’s theory was to explain the suffering and death that he saw in nature.
I’m not so sure about that. It would be easier to imagine a God who is brutal and largely indifferent to the suffering of animals (as some Protestants do). That Darwin would reject such a God, I think shows he still clung to some of the Christianity to which he held previously. I don’t think the quote indicates he was on a task to develop a non-religious explanation for animal suffering. You are attaching an interpretation to his words which isn’t contained within them.
Its an intriguing speculation that Darwin was driven by a need to push God behind the curtains. But I think we should be careful about conflating a person’s religious troubles with the scientific enterprise.
The idea of natural selection proposes that there is a ruthless competition in nature and some species win and others lose – and ugliness, death and cruelty are the accidental, random, unconscious results or mutations and selection pressures. Thus, God is removed from nature entirely.
I don’t think there is any question that nature involves a ruthless competition for life. Growing up in cities, we are often far removed from nature and have a romanticized notion of it, thinking of wild animals as potential pets. But nature is all about competition, predation, and the struggle for survival.
Darwin’s genius is to extend this easily observed notion into something larger, involving entire species and not just individuals. Yes, the mechanics of natural selection doesn’t invoke God. But it is entirely reasonable to view God as pulling the strings of evolution.
I think we need to remember that scientific explanations of natural phenomena need to be provable. An explanation of observations which relies on God is unprovable - it is an interpretation which falls outside science, and more properly within religion.
Here’s a quote where he makes that clear:
"The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. … Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws." (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin)
This is the foundation of evolutionary theory. “Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws”.
I think it is a very reasonable assumption that God made the world to run according to set laws. It would be hard for mankind to understand and hold dominion over the world if it were any other way. This doesn’t mean that God isn’t involved, nor does it reduce God to a Deistic clockmaker. When God intervenes it is most notable when he sets aside the laws of nature - what we call miracles. But that doesn’t mean that God can’t be involved in less noticeable ways.
Darwin’s enterprise seems basic science: making observations, then proposing generalizations and theories which would allow predictions of future observations.
This indicates Darwin’s theological motive.
The quote indicates that Darwin was clinging to a rather rosy image of God and that he had trouble reconciling this God of his with the suffering in nature. But the theory of evolution doesn’t explain away suffering in nature, either.
Here are a few more quotes that give proof of the same thing:
The Descent of Man was written to show Lyell, Gray, and Wallace that a God-less account, relying on random variation, natural selection, and sexual selection, could explain every aspect of human nature that might appear too elevated, too divine-like, to have been caused by natural processes alone. Morality was just one aspect Darwin attempted to explain, but it is important that it must be understood as an attempt to remove any need for God. Darwin’s is strictly and exactly speaking, a God-less account of morality.
discovery.org/a/9591
I am unfamiliar with Darwin’s views about morality. And I’m not sure the Discovery Institute is an objective judge of Darwin. At any rate, the gentlemen your quote mentioned were contemporaries of Darwin, but this was also the time of the development of the scientific method. So debate about the scientific enterprise, and whether it could be freed from reliance on God as an explanation, probably was inevitable.
Thank you for taking the time to explain your thoughts in detail. I remain skeptical, but I can see why you might accept your points.
