Gospel & Universe 🦖 At The Wild & Fog
Darwin’s God
Hutton, Abercrombie, and Jardine illustrate how deeply pre-Darwinian views incorporated religion. Early Victorians respected science, but still saw science as subservient to religion. In the next 100 years, the explanations of science become so solid, so deeply intertwined with our understanding of ourselves, that religion becomes less convincing in terms of an overall explanation for our existence. Darwin's work brought the strands of Lamarck and other natural scientists together with the powerful observations of astronomy and geology to make a more complete case about where earth is in the universe, how the earth developed over the last billion years, and how humans developed over the last million years. This overall scientific framework was of course later bolstered by the decipherment of cuneiform (which showed how Jewish thinking fit into a Mesopotamian timeline, not vice-versa), and by further scientific developments, especially in our understanding of how DNA explains the operation of cells and bodies, as well as the operation of how cells and bodies evolve over time. To see the forerunners and afterburners of Darwin's theory magnifies the import of the revolution it represents — the greatest understatement of which was written by Darwin himself in the final chapter of Origin: “When the views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.”
Unlike Hutton, Jardine, and Abercrombie, Darwin hardly ever mentions the words God or religion, and feels no need to constantly remind his reader that whatever he says can be reconciled with the Bible or notions of Creation. The few points he makes about God and religion aren't philosophical ones, but rather scientific arguments about plausibility. For instance he writes:
[the belief that] each equine species was independently created [...] makes the works of God a mere mockery and deception; I would almost as soon believe with the old and ignorant cosmogonists, that fossil shells had never lived, but had been created in stone so as to mock the shells now living on the sea-shore.
In the final chapter, he writes:
It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the “plan of creation,” “unity of design,” etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory. […]
Several eminent naturalists [...] do not pretend that they can define, or even conjecture, which are the created forms of life, and which are those produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion. These authors seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth’s history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues?
And yet Darwin isn't dogmatic about where his theory of natural selection might lead, especially in terms of the ancient question of original causes. He admits that one could “infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.” His openness to an original breath of life might be seen in light of his opening quotes, the first of which makes it clear that he sees God as setting up laws rather than constantly intervening to interrupt these laws. Like the earlier Deists, he creates a type of secular divide, whereby we can leave the theology behind as an original yet ultimately mysterious cause, and concentrate instead on the laws themselves:
But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this—we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws. [Whewell, Bridgewater Treatise: Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 1833]
His second opening quotation comes from the famous 1605 essay by Francis Bacon, "Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human":
To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both.
On the pages which follow, Darwin leaves theological debate behind, and focuses instead on initiating the endless search into the diversity of verifiable existence, and into the laws governing this diversity. This isn’t just a practical way to get out from under the shadow of early Victorian Christianity. It’s also a sound philosophical strategy that respects religion and protects science. Darwin doesn’t waste time denying God or getting into theological arguments; rather, he values both the spiritual words and the physical works, and feels free to go deeply into the latter. It’s not surprising that in the years immediately after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Huxley both champions Darwin and defines his notion of agnosticism, which divides theological doctrine from theology, so that the individual is free to explore — or to ignore — theology.
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I’ll return to Darwin’s secularized language in later pages on Forster’s A Passage to India. Here I’ll simply note that Dickens couldn’t write with a freely secular hand, especially when he wants to get at the larger forces that operate in the world and universe. Too much of the vocabulary used to talk about those subjects was still dominated by religious concepts of God, Grace, damnation, predestination, original sin, redemption, etc. While Dickens avoids doctrinal use of these concepts, he can’t write as if the Christian Plan wasn’t the most accepted and complete Grand Explanation in 1852 England. And perhaps he wouldn’t want to escape religious language in any case, even if he had read On the Origin of Species in a crystal ball. His deep interest in science suggests he might have written in a more secular vein, yet his deep interest in compassion, second chances, charity, and religious imagery suggests otherwise.
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[In progress: forthcoming chapters on Bleak House]
Next: A Passage to Forster
Table of Contents - Annotated Contents - Layout - Core Beliefs