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Charles Darwin's views on religion

Charles Darwin (1809 — 1882), who proposed the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
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Charles Darwin (18091882), who proposed the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

Charles Darwin's views on religion have been the subject of much interest. His work was pivotal in the development of evolution theory which some argue helps show that God is unnecessary, while others feel that attacking Darwin and restricting teaching of evolution helps to evangelise their faith.

Contents

Darwin's religious background

Charles Darwin was born during the Napoleonic Wars and grew up in their aftermath, a conservative time when Tory dominated government closely associated with the established High Church of England repressed Radicalism, but when family memories recalled the 18th century Enlightenment and a multitude of Non-conformist churches held differing interpretations of Christianity. His Whig supporting extended family of Darwins and Wedgwoods was strongly Unitarian, though one of his grandfathers, Erasmus Darwin, was a freethinker even less restrained by religious dogma. While his parents were open enough to changing social pressures to have Charles baptised in the Church of England, his pious mother took the children to the Unitarian chapel. After her death when he was only eight he became a boarder at the (Church of England) Shrewsbury School public school.

Edinburgh — medical studies and Lamarckian evolution theory

The two universities in England, Oxford and Cambridge, were under the Church of England and required students to sign the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican faith, so many English Non-conformists sent their children to the Scottish universities which had a better reputation in fields like medicine. Charles initially attended the University of Edinburgh, and while he was put off medicine because of the gore and the poor quality of professors corruptly appointed by the Tory town council, in his second year he became active in the Plinian student society which was a hotbed of Radical naturalists. Here he met Robert Edmund Grant, joining him on field trips and learning from Grant's enthusiasm for Lamarck's theory of evolution by acquired characteristics.

Natural history had grown from the idea that the different kinds of plants and animals showed the wonder of God's creation, making their study and cataloguing into species worthwhile. In Darwin's day it was common for clergymen to be naturalists, but scientific findings had already opened up ideas on creation and evolution. The established churches (of England and Scotland) and the English universities remained insistent that species were miraculously created and man was distinct from the "lower orders", but the Unitarian church rejected this dogma and even proclaimed that the human mind was subject to physical law. Erasmus Darwin went further and his Zoönomia asks ..would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality....possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!, anticipating Lamarck's thesis. Many were outraged at such sacrilege, and after his death in 1802 he was attacked for doubting the Bible and a story was started that he had called for Jesus on his deathbed. Charles would thus have had a perception of Christianity comfortable with ideas of evolution while being very aware of the outrage of the establishment and the patriotic mob.

Cambridge — theology and geology

While Charles' father Robert had followed his own father Erasmus in medical practice and freethinking, he kept the latter quiet. When Charles proved unable to persevere at medical studies an option was for his father to purchase at auction a country parish "living" as an Anglican parson. Charles overcame his initial uncertainty by reading divinity books and then followed his father's bidding by enrolling at Christ's College, Cambridge for the required BA course.

He joined the natural history course of the Revd. John Stevens Henslow who gave him tuition in theology, and Charles became particularly interested in the writings of the Revd. William Paley. Paley's Evidences of Christianity and Moral and Political Philosophy were set texts, and after doing well in his theology finals Charles read Paley's Natural Theology which saw a rational proof of God's existence in the complexity of living beings exquisitely fitted to their places in a happy world, proving their design by a Creator. While this was a odds with the ideas of Grant and Erasmus Darwin, it convinced Charles and encouraged his interest in science. During this time Cambridge was briefly visited by the Radicals Richard Carlile and the Revd. Robert Taylor on an "infidel home missionary tour", causing a stir before being banned, and Taylor would be remembered by Charles as "the Devil's Chaplain", a warning example of an outcast from society who had challenged Christianity and had been imprisoned for blasphemy.

Before leaving Cambridge, Charles studied geology with the Revd. Adam Sedgwick, then got the opportunity to join a survey expedition as gentleman's companion to captain Robert FitzRoy on HMS Beagle. Before they left England FitzRoy gave Darwin a copy of the first volume of Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology.

The developing science of geological strata and the finding of extinct fossils appeared to contradict the Biblical account of Noah's flood, but this was reconciled by the generally accepted theory of Catastrophism postulating a series of catastrophic floods each followed by the creation of new species ex nihilo. Lyell's book explained features as the outcome of a gradual process over huge periods of time, though he also thought that extinctions were explained by a "succession of deaths" with new species then being created. Darwin later wrote home that he was seeing' land-forms as if he had the eyes of Lyell. FitzRoy evidently shared this view at the time, but on the return of the Beagle he wrote a section for his account of the voyage recanting this and earnestly explaining his renewed commitment to a literal reading of the Bible, with rock layers high in the mountains containing sea shells interpreted as proof of Noah's Flood and ideas of the six days of creation extending over aeons dismissed because the grass, herbs and trees would have died out during the long nights. In contrast, Darwin by then had developed a convincing new theory on the formation of coral atolls which supported Lyell's arguments.

Charles Darwin then went on to develop his theory On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection and to increasingly doubt the validity of a literal reading of the Bible.

Relevance

The theory of evolution tends to oppose one of the arguments for belief in supernatural creation by a god(s), by providing an explanation for the appearance of the organized complexity and diversity of life on Earth. (See argument from evolution.) Because of this, many from both sides of the atheism/theism debate would like to think that Charles Darwin shared their position, even though following Darwin would be an appeal to authority, which is generally considered fallacious. Darwin contributed little, if any, to metaphysics and there have been advances in that subject since then (see philosophy of science, rationalism), so Darwin's authority is questionable. Darwin's religious views are also irrelevant to the accuracy of the theory of evolution by means of natural selection which stands or falls on its evidence, and not who first published it. The theory of evolution as the central unifying paradigm of biology is not doubted by the scientific community, but is fiercely opposed by religious sects in some countries, particularly the USA, who promote creationism as having equal or greater validity.

Darwin's views expressed in his writings

From: The Descent of Man

In the introduction of The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin wrote:

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

Later on in the book he dismisses an argument for religion being innate:

"Belief in God- Religion.- There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary there is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea. The question is of course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe; and this has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed."
"The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest, but the most complete of all the distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is however impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in man's reason, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder. I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture."

From: a letter in 1873

In a letter to a correspondent at the University of Utrecht in 1873, Darwin clearly expresses agnosticism:

"I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came from and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am, also, induced to defer to a certain extent to the judgment of many able men who have fully believed in God; but here again I see how poor an argument this is. The safest conclusion seems to me to be that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect; but man can do his duty.'"

From: 1958 Autobiography

The classic image of Darwin as an old man
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The classic image of Darwin as an old man

Darwin's own struggle with faith got sharper the older he became, and his posthumously-published autobiography contained quotes about Christianity that were omitted by Darwin's wife Emma and his son Francis because they were deemed dangerous for Charles Darwin's reputation. Only in 1958 Darwin's granddaughter Nora Barlow published a revised version which contained the omissions. This included statements such as:

"Whilst on board the Beagle (October 1836-January 1839) I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come, by this time, to see that the Old Testament; from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian." (Charles Darwin: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin with original omissions restored. New York, Norton, 1969. p.85) (note that the rainbow as a sign of the covenant implies that the physics of light discovered by Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton did not apply before the Biblical flood)
"By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, --that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible, do miracles become, --that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, --that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, --that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitness; --by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can hardly be denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories." (p.86)
"Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last was complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct." (p.87)
"I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine." (p. 87)
"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 had 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. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws." (p.87)
"At the present day (ca. 1872) the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that Hindoos, Mahomadans and others might argue in the same manner and with equal force in favor of the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the Buddists of no God...This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God: but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists." (p.91)
"Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps as inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake." (p.93)

The Lady Hope story

It has been falsely claimed that Charles Darwin underwent a deathbed conversion to Christianity. Beyond being a common myth frequently applied to famous non-believers including Darwin's grandfather Erasmus, the claim can be dismissed by his never having left the church. This claim is discussed in The Survival of Charles Darwin: A Biography of a Man and an Idea, by Ronald W. Clark (Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1985), p. 199:

"Shortly after his death, Lady Hope addressed a gathering of young men and women at the educational establishment founded by the evangelist Dwight L. Moody at Northfield, Massachusetts. She had, she maintained, visited Darwin on his deathbed. He had been reading the Epistle to the Hebrews, had asked for the local Sunday school to sing in a summerhouse on the grounds, and had confessed: 'How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done.' He went on, she said, to say that he would like her to gather a congregation since he 'would like to speak to them of Christ Jesus and His salvation, being in a state where he was eagerly savouring the heavenly anticipation of bliss.'
"With Moody's encouragement, Lady Hope's story was printed in the Boston Watchman Examiner . The story spread, and the claims were republished as late as October 1955 in the Reformation Review and in the Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland in February 1957. These attempts to fudge Darwin's story had already been exposed for what they were, first by his daughter Henrietta after they had been revived in 1922. 'I was present at his deathbed,' she wrote in the Christian for February 23, 1922. 'Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A.... The whole story has no foundation whatever.'" (Ellipsis original)

Sources

  • Darwin, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Michael Joseph, the Penguin Group, London 1991 ISBN 0-7181-3430-3
  • Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin (including Robert FitzRoy's 'Remarks with reference to the Deluge), Penguin Books, London 1989 ISBN 0-14-043268-X

External links

  • Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Chapter on religion http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/letters/letters1_08.html
  • Talk.Origins Archive: The Lady Hope Story: A Widespread Falsehood http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hope.html
  • Answers in Genesis: Did Darwin Recant? (concludes no) http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1315.asp


Charles Darwin Topics relating to Charles Darwin
Family: Erasmus Darwin (grandfather) - Josiah Wedgwood (maternal grandfather) - Emma Darwin (wife) - William Darwin; Anne Darwin; Etty Darwin; George Darwin; Elizabeth Darwin;

Francis Darwin; Leonard Darwin; Horace Darwin; Charles Waring Darwin (children) - Francis Galton (cousin)

Contributions to evolutionary biology: Evolution by means of natural and Censored page.
Books: The Voyage of the Beagle - The Origin of Species - Censored page
Named in honour of Darwin: Darwin Medal - Darwin, Australia - Charles Darwin University, Darwin College, Cambridge
Last updated: 02-18-2005 23:18:01
Last updated: 05-03-2005 09:00:33