St.Martins Bookshelf
Bookshelf for June 2009
It is commonly-assumed that Charles Darwin has killed off God. It follows that no-one can be a believer, let alone a Christian with any integrity. Richard Dawkins and other atheists have made this point many times.
Nick. Spencer's new book Darwin & God (S.P.C.K. 2009 Pbk. £9.99) invites those with an open mind to reconsider the evidence. Spencer considers Darwin as a person who began his life as a conventional, if not particularly-devout Christian. Darwin 's studies brought him face to face with the sheer brutality of the world. This became a deeply-personal matter for him in the deaths of three of his children, one of whom was a favourite daughter. Darwin 's beliefs crumbled. He adopted a position of agnosticism, leaning towards atheism, rather than atheism itself. This has not stopped people regarding Darwin as the Atheists' champion.
Spencer asks us to consider what “Christianity” looked like for Darwin or for us when it ceases to put the cross and the crucified Jesus at the centre of its thinking and belief. Do this and it has no answer to the suffering of the world, because it ignores the greatest certainty of life; pain and death.
Spencer reminds us that Darwin 's agnosticism about God was shared with an agnosticism about human ability to resolve other deep metaphysical questions about the purpose and meaning of life and how such questions ever arise if we are no more than surviving and reproducing machines.
In his life time, Darwin was accused of an anti-faith bias . This he denied.
In a letter to J. B Innes in November 1878, he wrote: “ I hardly see how Religion and Science can be kept distinct…but there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness” .
This book is 124 pages with 282 footnotes. Spencer has examined both Darwin 's writings and notebooks and letters. The sources can be read on-line at www.darwinproject.ac.uk and www.darwin-online.org.uk
The Leicester Secular Society gives as one of its principal aims “We challenge religious teachings that divert people away from reality” . What that last word means and how it can be measured, is not stated. We might equally say that the cross of Jesus Christ points people to reality. We may measure pain, count deaths and predict life-span. Can the question Why be either explained or answered?