Genesis of Species
Chapter 12. Theology and Evolution
Prejudiced opinions on the subject.—“Creation” sometimes denied from prejudice.—The unknowable.—Mr. Herbert Spencer’s objections to theism; to creation.—Meanings of term “creation.”—Confusion from not distinguishing between “primary” and “derivative” creation.—Mr. Darwin’s objections.—Bearing of Christianity on the theory of evolution.—Supposed opposition, the result of a misconception.—Theological authority not opposed to evolution.—St. Augustin.—St. Thomas Aquinas.—Certain consequences of want of flexibility of mind.—Reason and imagination.—The first cause and demonstration.—Parallel between Christianity and natural theology.—What evolution of species is.—Professor Agassiz.—Innate powers must be recognized.—Bearing of evolution on religious belief.—Professor Huxley.—Professor Owen.—Mr. Wallace.—Mr. Darwin.—A priori conception of Divine action.—Origin of man.—Absolute creation and dogma.—Mr. Wallace’s view.—A supernatural origin for man’s body not necessary.—Two orders of being in man.—Two modes of origin.—Harmony of the physical, hyperphysical, and supernatural.—Reconciliation of science and religion as regards evolution.—Conclusion.
The special “Darwinian Theory” and that of an evolutionary process neither excessively minute nor fortuitous, having now been considered, it is time to turn to the important question, whether both or either of these conceptions may have any bearing, and if any, what, upon Christian belief?
Some readers will consider such an inquiry to be a work of supererogation. Seeing clearly themselves the absurdity of prevalent popular views, and the shallowness of popular objections, they may be impatient of any discussion, on the subject. But it is submitted that there are many minds worthy of the highest esteem and of every consideration, which have regarded the subject hitherto almost exclusively from one point of view; that there are some persons who are opposed to the progress (in their own minds or in that of their children or dependents) of physical scientific truth—the natural revelation—through a mistaken estimate of its religious bearings, while there are others who are zealous in its promotion from a precisely similar error. For the sake of both these then the Author may perhaps be pardoned for entering slightly on very elementary matters relating to the question, whether evolution or Darwinism have any, and if any, what, bearing on theology?
There are at least two classes of men who will certainly assert that they have a very important and highly significant bearing upon it.
One of these classes consists of persons zealous for religion indeed, but who identify orthodoxy with their own private interpretation of Scripture or with narrow opinions in which they have been brought up—opinions doubtless widely spread, but at the same time destitute of any distinct and authoritative sanction on the part of the Christian Church.
The other class is made up of men hostile to religion, and who are glad to make use of any and every argument which they think may possibly be available against it.
Some individuals within this latter class may not believe in the existence of God, but may yet abstain from publicly avowing this absence of belief, contenting themselves with denials of “creation” and “design,” though these denials are really consequences of their attitude of mind respecting the most important and fundamental of all beliefs.
Without a distinct belief in a personal God it is impossible to have any religion worthy of the name, and no one can at the same time accept the Christian religion and deny the dogma of creation.
“I believe in God,” “the Creator of Heaven and Earth,” the very first clauses of the Apostles’ Creed, formally commit those who accept them to the assertion of this belief. If, therefore, any theory of physical science really conflicts with such an authoritative statement, its importance to Christians is unquestionable.
As, however, “creation” forms a part of “revelation,” and as “revelation” appeals for its acceptance to “reason” which has to prepare a basis for it by an intelligent acceptance of theism on purely rational grounds, it is necessary to start with a few words as to the reasonableness of belief in God, which indeed are less superfluous than some readers may perhaps imagine; “a few words,” because this is not the place where the argument can be drawn out, but only one or two hints given in reply to certain modern objections.
No better example perhaps can be taken, as a type of these objections, than a passage in Mr. Herbert Spencer’s First Principles. This author constantly speaks of the “ultimate cause of things” as “the Unknowable,” a term singularly unfortunate, and as Mr. James Martineau has pointed out, even self-contradictory: for that entity, the knowledge of the existence of which presses itself ever more and more upon the cultivated intellect, cannot be the unknown, still less the unknowable, because we certainly know it, in that we know for certain that it exists. Nay more, to predicate incognoscibility of it, is even a certain knowledge of the mode of its existence. Mr. H. Spencer says: “The consciousness of an Inscrutable Power manifested to us through all phenomena has been growing ever clearer; and must eventually be freed from its imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand such a Power exists, while on the other hand its nature transcends intuition, and is beyond imagination, is the certainty towards which intelligence has from the first been progressing.” One would think then that the familiar and accepted word “the Inscrutable” (which is in this passage actually employed, and to which no theologian would object) would be an indefinitely better term than “the unknowable.” The above extract has, however, such a theistic aspect that some readers may think the opposition here offered superfluous; it may be well, therefore, to quote two other sentences. In another place he observes, “Passing over the consideration of credibility, and confining ourselves to that of conceivability, we see that atheism, pantheism, and theism, when rigorously analysed, severally prove to be absolutely unthinkable;” and speaking of “every form of religion,” he adds, “The analysis of every possible hypothesis proves, not simply that no hypothesis is sufficient but that no hypothesis is even thinkable.” The unknowable is admitted to be a power which cannot be regarded as having sympathy with us, but as one to which no emotion whatever can be ascribed, and we are expressly forbidden “by duty,” to affirm personality of God as much as to deny it of Him. How such a being can be presented as an object on which to exercise religious emotion it is difficult indeed to understand. Aspiration, love, devotion to be poured forth upon what we can never know, upon what we can never affirm to know, or care for, us, our thoughts or actions, or to possess the attributes of wisdom and goodness! The worship offered in such a religion must be, as Professor Huxley says, “for the most part of the silent sort”—silent not only as to the spoken word, but silent as to the mental conception also.
It will be difficult to distinguish the follower of this religion from the follower of none, and the man who declines either to assert or to deny the existence of God, is practically in the position of an atheist. For theism enjoins the cultivation of sentiments of love and devotion to God, and the practice of their external expression. Atheism forbids both, while the simply non-theist abstains in conformity with the prohibition of the atheist and thus practically sides with him. Moreover, since man cannot imagine that of which he has no experience in any way whatever, and since he has experience only of human perfections and of the powers and properties of inferior existences; if he be required to deny human perfections and to abstain from making use of such conceptions, he is thereby necessarily reduced to others of an inferior order. Mr. H. Spencer says, “Those who espouse this alternative position, make the erroneous assumption that the choice is between personality and something lower than personality; whereas the choice is rather between personality and something higher. Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending intelligence and will, as these transcend mechanical motion?”
“It is true we are totally unable to conceive any such higher mode of being. But this is not a reason for questioning its existence; it is rather the reverse.” “May we not therefore rightly refrain from assigning to the ‘ultimate cause’ any attributes whatever, on the ground that such attributes, derived as they must be from our own natures, are not elevations but degradations?” The way however to arrive at the object aimed at (i.e. to obtain the best attainable conception of the First Cause) is not to refrain from the only conceptions possible to us, but to seek the very highest of these, and then declare their utter inadequacy; and this is precisely the course which has been pursued by theologians. It is to be regretted that before writing on this matter Mr. Spencer did not more thoroughly acquaint himself with the ordinary doctrine on the subject. It is always taught in the Church schools of divinity, that nothing, not even existence, is to be predicated univocally of “God” and “creatures;” that after exhausting ingenuity to arrive at the loftiest possible conceptions, we must declare them to be utterly inadequate; that, after all, they are but accommodations to human infirmity; that they are in a sense objectively false (because of their inadequacy), though subjectively and very practically true. But the difference between this mode of treatment and that adopted by Mr. Spencer is wide indeed; for the practical result of the mode inculcated by the Church is that each one may freely affirm and act upon the highest human conceptions he can attain of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, His watchful care, His loving providence for every man, at every moment and in every need; for the Christian knows that the falseness of his conceptions lies only in their inadequacy; he may therefore strengthen and refresh himself, may rejoice and revel in conceptions of the goodness of God, drawn from the tenderest human images of fatherly care and love, or he may chasten and abase himself by consideration of the awful holiness and unapproachable majesty of the Divinity derived from analogous sources, knowing that no thought of man can ever be true enough, can ever attain the incomprehensible reality, which nevertheless really is all that can be conceived, plus an inconceivable infinity beyond.
A good illustration of what is here meant, and of the difference between the theistic position and Mr. Spencer’s, may be supplied by an example he has himself proposed. Thus, he imagines an intelligent watch speculating as to its maker, and conceiving of him in terms of watch-being, and figuring him as furnished with springs, escapements, cogged wheels, &c., his motions facilitated by oil—in a word, like himself. It is assumed by Mr. Spencer that this necessary watch conception would be completely false, and the illustration is made use of to show “the presumption of theologians”—the absurdity and unreasonableness of those men who figure the incomprehensible cause of all phenomena as a Being in some way comparable with man. Now, putting aside for the moment all other considerations, and accepting the illustration, surely the example demonstrates rather the unreasonableness of the objector himself! It is true, indeed, that a man is an organism indefinitely more complex and perfect than any watch; but if the watch could only conceive of its maker in watch terms, or else in terms altogether inferior, the watch would plainly be right in speaking of its maker as a, to it, inconceivably perfect kind of watch, acknowledging at the same time, that this, its conception of him, was utterly inadequate, although the best its inferior nature allowed it to form. For if, instead of so conceiving of its maker, it refused to make use of these relative perfections as a makeshift, and so necessarily thought of him as amorphous metal, or mere oil, or by the help of any other inferior conception which a watch might be imagined capable of entertaining, that watch would be wrong indeed. For man can much more properly be compared with, and has much more affinity to, a perfect watch in full activity than to a mere piece of metal, or drop of oil. But the watch is even more in the right still, for its maker, man, virtually has the cogged wheels, springs, escapements, oil, &c., which the watch’s conception has been supposed to attribute to him; inasmuch as all these parts must have existed as distinct ideas in the human watchmaker’s mind before he could actually construct the clock formed by him. Nor is even this all, for, by the hypothesis, the watch thinks. It must, therefore, think of its maker as “a thinking being,” and in this it is _absolutely and completely right_. Either, therefore, the hypothesis is absurd or it actually demonstrates the very position it was chosen to refute. Unquestionably, then, on the mere ground taken by Mr.