| Lindberg and Numbers. God & Nature
Gary B. Deason, “Reformation theology and the Mechanistic Conception of Nature, in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 167-191. The mechanical worldview of the seventeenth century rested on a single, fundamental assumption: that matter was passive. Because matter was seen to be passive, it possessed no active, internal forces. In seventeenth century conceptions, matter possessed only the attributes of size, shape, and impenetrability. Motion, in seventeenth century, consisted of only the laws of impact and the relatively new principle of inertia.[i] Laws of nature were seen as external constraints governing change, which prescribed movement for material bodies without themselves being part of the inherent nature of matter. Richard S. Westfall, “The Rise of Science and the Decline of Orthodox Christianity: A Study of Kepler, Descartes, and Newton,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 218-237. Descartes was, for all intents and purposes, a deistic pantheist. His God was the God of the philosophers, and not the God of Judeo-Christian theism.[ii] Descartes deemed it true that God revealed himself in the eternal, unchangeable laws that He ordained.[iii] Isaac Newton denied the divinity of Christ.[iv] A. Hunter Dupree, “Christianity and the Scientific Community in the Age of Darwin,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 351-368. Darwin’s inner circle was composed of Lyell, Hobbes, Gray, and Huxley.[v] It is important to note that Asa Gray accepted, contrary to Darwin, the notion of teleology (or ‘design’) within nature. Sir William Lawrence, similar to Gray, likewise acceded to the notion of teleology being evident within nature. Lawrence ruled miracles, not design, out of science.[vi] However, Gray was a firm believer in the notion of the fixity of species.[vii] As a taxonomist, Gray was well aware of the structure and order within organisms, and he needed some manner to correlate said order and structure within organisms with the natural selection that he similarly espoused. This connection was made by Gray in positing that evolution by natural selection was itself an object of design by the Creator.[viii] T.H. Huxley’s acrimonious encounter with Bishop Samueal Wilberforce of Oxford in 1860 set the course for scientific Darwinism for the next century. Huxley had, with one debate, seemingly removed religion from the active role that it had possessed within science theretofore, especially in reference to the argument from teleology (or ‘design’). While Darwin remained affectionately respectful to his wife’s sincere and ardent devotion to Christianity, he notes within his autobiography that “disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct.”[ix] Though Darwin probably lost his faith in the verity of the New Testament sometime in the 1830’s, his belief in the notion of design as an operating principle of biology within nature persisted much longer, perhaps even up to 1859. After he came to see natural selection as a totally random process, laden with super-fecundity and excess, Darwin began to differ with Gray about the nature of design within the natural world.[x] Whereas Darwin did differ with Gray regarding the notion of design within nature, Darwin nevertheless did not attempt to dissuade Gray from adhering to some sort of teleology. In a letter from 9 May, 1879, Darwin sums up his position regarding Gray’s beliefs, Huxley’s beliefs, and his own beliefs, all at the same time. Therein he writes, “[i]t seems to me absurd that a man may be an ardent theist & an evolutionist. You are right about Kinglsey. Asa Gray, the eminent botanist, is another case in point. What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to anyone except myself. But, you ask, I may state that my judgment often fluctuates. Moreover, whether a man deserves to be called a theist depends on the definition of the term, which is much too large a subject to note. In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of God. I think that generally (& more & more as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.”[xi] Fredrick Gregory, “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 369-390. |
According to Kant, living organisms could not be produced by mechanical means alone, nor could living things be explained by something that was extraneous to the properties of mind.[xii] Indeed, living organisms are far too interactive to be by chance. Kant in effect argued that complete scientific explanation was impossible in biology.[xiii] Newton had denied the prevailing mechanistic notions of the day for his own ideas of active forces within nature. Newton’s followers, however, did not see the primacy of force as an indication of the presence of spirit or mind within nature. By the middle of the eighteenth century, scientific explanation had come to mean mechanical explanation insomuch as the reference to a “naturalistic” explanation could be intended to connote the exclusion of a final cause. Some scientists within Germany during the Romantic period adopted a teleomechanical program of explanation in which final causes were acknowledged, though not given much credence.[xiv] However, for the German intellectual community, the possibility of a complete mechanical account of organism, where there was no direct reference to mind or spirit, became the central issue.[xv] Against this recognition in Germany, scholars in France, England, and America did not think that any adequate scientific view could lack reference to final (or teleological) causation.[xvi] It was the publication of the Origin of Species itself that brought the matter to a head, so to speak. The Origin of Species not only totally ignored teleology, but also purported to explain apparently teleological events by mechanical means. Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection tolerated very little inconsistency by its adherents, and virtually forced full acceptance. Traditional Christian theologians sought to dismiss the notion that natural selection could account for the apparent design evident within and through nature without reference to a deity.[xvii] Charles Hodge, a leading nineteenth century theologian from Princeton, said the debate about Darwinism was whether one believed in an intellectual process guided by God, or a material process guided by chance; the two views were not compatible, according to Hodges.[xviii] Hodges identified what he perceived to be the three biggest components of Darwin’s theory according to the latest copy of the Origin that he had available: evolution, natural selection, and natural selection without design. Hodge noted that the first two of these components of Darwin’s theory were not original to Darwin, as others before him had identified them as well. However, the third component, natural selection without design, was original with Darwin.[xix] Hodge interpreted Darwin to have compiled all the information found within the Origin of Species for the express purpose of asserting that all the organs of plants and animals, all of their diversity, and all of their fecundity, could be explained through natural selection, without any recourse to God, his intentions, or his purposes. Hodge thought that Darwin’s apparent pomposity in averring natural selection overstepped scientific boundaries, even as a hypothesis, and bordered into metaphysics thereby.[xx] For Hodge, the notion that chance plus time could generate apparent design was, at the least, preposterous, self-contradictory, and senseless.[xxi] For James McCosh, natural selection was compatible with Christianity and with teleology, as the mechanism revealed by Darwinism merely served to highlight the implicit design. James McCosh extended this notion insofar as saying, “supernatural design produces natural selection.”[xxii]
[i] Gary B. Deason, “Reformation theology and the Mechanistic Conception of Nature, in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 168.
[ii] Richard S. Westfall, “The Rise of Science and the Decline of Orthodox Christianity: A Study of Kepler, Descartes, and Newton,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 226.
[iii] Richard S. Westfall, “The Rise of Science and the Decline of Orthodox Christianity: A Study of Kepler, Descartes, and Newton,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 227.
[iv] Richard S. Westfall, “The Rise of Science and the Decline of Orthodox Christianity: A Study of Kepler, Descartes, and Newton,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 228.
[v] A. Hunter Dupree, “Christianity and the Scientific Community in the Age of Darwin,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 358.
[vi] A. Hunter Dupree, “Christianity and the Scientific Community in the Age of Darwin,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 359.
[vii] A. Hunter Dupree, “Christianity and the Scientific Community in the Age of Darwin,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 360.
[viii] A. Hunter Dupree, “Christianity and the Scientific Community in the Age of Darwin,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 361.
[ix] Charles Darwin, Autobiography, ed. Nora Barlow (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1959), 87.
[x] A. Hunter Dupree, “Christianity and the Scientific Community in the Age of Darwin,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 365.
[xi] John Fordyce, Aspects of Skepticism: With Special Reference to the Present Time (London: E. Stock, 1883), 190.
[xii] Fredrick Gregory, “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 369.
[xiii] Fredrick Gregory, “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 369.
[xiv] Fredrick Gregory, “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 370.
[xv] Fredrick Gregory, “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 370.
[xvi] Fredrick Gregory, “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 371.
[xvii] Fredrick Gregory, “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 375.
[xviii] George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (Oxford: Oxford University, 1980), 19.
[xix] Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism? (New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1874), 48-51.
[xx] Fredrick Gregory, “The Impact of Darwinian Evolution on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God & Nature (Berkley: University of California, 1986), 377.
[xxi] Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism? (New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1874), 139.
[xxii] James McCosh, The Religious Aspect of Evolution, 2d ed. (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1890), 7.