God and Evolution
Christianity After Darwin

Sermon preached at Odyssey on Sunday 6th August 2006
at St Edward’s Church, Cambridge,
by the Revd Dr Fraser Watts, Vicar-Chaplain

Nearly 150 years ago Charles Darwin's set out his theory of evolution, and it caused quite a storm. Many people were outraged. There was a debate in the Oxford Unionbetween Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford (known as ‘Soapy Sam) and Thomas Huxley (known as ‘Darwin's Bulldog’). Wilberforce is reputed to have asked Huxley whether he was descended from a monkey through his father or his mother. Huxley is said to have replied that he would rather be descended from a monkey than from a bishop of the Church in England. All good knock about staff, though it may never have happened quite like that, and with hindsight it seems just a storm in a Victorian teacup.

A lot of mythology has grown up around about the reactions to Darwin's book. There was certainly fierce debate about it, but not all the opposition came from religious quarters. There were scientific doubts as well, and we probably still haven't got a definitive theory of evolution. There seems to be more going on than natural selection, but we still don't know quite what more. There was also religious support for Darwin, for example from Charles Kingsley, Professor and Cathedral Canon at Oxford, a friend of Huxley, but best known to some of you as the author of the children's book The Water Babies. The Church of England adapted to Darwinism and, by the end of the 19th century, there was a Darwinian Archbishop of Canterbury.

At first blush, Darwin seemed to be an enemy of Christianity. However, I want to argue that, though he appeared in the guise of an enemy, he actually prove to be a good friend of Christianity. Christian doctrine has been rethought in the light of Darwin and, I believe, at every point it has been rethought for the better. This is not an original idea. It is something Aubrey Moore said at the height of the Darwinian controversies back in the 19th century, but I want to argue it out in my own way, in relation

• to reading the Bible,
• to God's creation and provenance,
• to our understanding of the evil,
• to our view of human nature,
• and finally to our understanding of Christ.

Some people saw Darwin's theory of evolution as contradicting the Bible. To some people it seemed a straight fight. The first chapter of Genesis 1 that we heard this morning sets out one view of how different species came into existence, Darwin's theory set out another. It seemed that they couldn't both be right. However, Darwin has helped us to see that Chapter 1 of Genesis is not meant to be a scientific textbook, and never was. It is making different kinds of points, answering different kinds of questions. It was never meant to be taken literally, in the way we now take a scientific textbook about evolution.

One reason for saying that is that the first two chapters of Genesis tell different stories about how human beings were created. If the authors of Genesis had meant them to be taken literally, they would have worried about the contradiction, but they were happy to include both stories because they both make the same basic point that human beings owe their existence to God. Actually, the sequence by which Genesis 1 says things came into being is probably roughly correct, though what Genesis calls ‘days’ are enormously long epochs, but I still say that Genesis is not trying to describe how the world came into being. It is saying that the world owes its existence to God, and hammering home the refrain that God saw that his creation was good. Darwin has helped us to see that Genesis is not competing with modern scientific theories but making important religious points of its own.

That has led on to recognising that the Bible contains a great variety of different things, and they shouldn't all be taken in the same way. For example, the Gospels contain many parables. Like the story of creation at the beginning of Genesis, Jesus’ parables make important points, but no one imagines that they are literally true; no one tries to argue that there really was a Good Samaritan or a Prodigal Son. Darwin has helped us to rediscover the important point that there are parts of the Bible that are not supposed to be taken literally. Actually, there was nothing new about that. Centuries earlier, St Augustine had said that parts of Genesis ought not to be taken literally, and warned that. if you do. it risks bringing the whole of the scriptures into disrepute. St Augustine's wise teaching about that had been forgotten; Darwin has helped us to recover it. So, as far as reading the Bible is concerned, Darwin may initially seemed an enemy, but has proved a good friend.

Second, Darwin has helped us to recover the sense that God's creative work is continuous. All creation is continually in the hand of God; as Jesus said, God takes care of everything from the flowers of the field to humans. Creation is not something God did once for all, and then sat back to watch what happened. Creation has been a continuing process for God. Evolution has been God's way of creating species, and his ongoing work of creation is still continuing. In Darwin's time there were many Christians, known as ‘deists’, who took the heretical view that God had created things once for all at the beginning, and was no longer actively involved in creation. Darwin helped people to understand that creation is an ongoing project for God. That is actually the point that Aubrey Moore had in mind when he first said that Darwin appeared in the guise of an enemy, but proved to be a friend of Christianity. Evolution is a remarkable way for God to have brought species into being; in some ways it is more remarkable than it would have been if God had created every species fully formed. As Charles Kingsley said, it is a ‘loftier’ thought that God should create primal forms capable of development than that he should create every species fixed at the beginning, incapable of any further development.

Third, Darwin has drawn attention to the struggle for survival in nature. Tennyson wrote a poem at the time about nature ‘red in tooth and claw’. Before Darwin, many people had clung to a romantic view of nature in which they had averted their eyes from the struggle for survival, and the evil and suffering that goes with that. Darwin rubbed people's noses in how much struggle takes place in the natural world. At first blush, that seemed to be a threat to Christianity. However it was only a threat to a half-baked Christianity that, in a pious, romantic way, wanted to pretend that everything was good and lovely in nature. Even though, as Genesis tells us, the created world is fundamentally good, evil has somehow entered into it. Exactly how that has happened is one of the great mysteries, and something that we don't adequately understand. However, it is a fact that good and evil are intertwined in creation.

We all know that from personal experience. It is evident in the natural world, as Darwin showed us. The marvellous creatures we see all around us have arisen from the struggle for survival, and from much suffering. That echoes what Christians have always known. No better thing has ever been done for the human race than the triumph of Christ over evil, death and suffering at Easter, but that arose out of the horrible suffering Jesus endured when he was crucified. Darwin may have been a threat to a naive and simplistic Christianity that wanted to pretend that everything was lovely. However, he has actually been a good friend in reminding us that good and evil are intertwined, and that goodness and beauty arise out of suffering.

Fourth, Darwin seemed a threat to an exalted view of a human nature. We human beings sometimes like to pretend that we are the pinnacle of creation, and that we are almost perfect. The Victorian world on Darwin's theory of evolution was launched had an exalted and unbalanced view of human dignity, and Darwin was a threat to that. They thought that if humans were descended from some kind of monkey, Darwin was saying that humans were just animals, and they found that very offensive. The Ecclesiastes is says flatly that humans have no advantage over animals and all suffer the same fate. That was unpalatable to people of Darwin’s time. People often imagine that an exalted view of human dignity is as central tenet of Christianity, but it really isn’t, and Darwin has helped us to recover a more balanced view of how good and evil are intertwined in human beings. We humans have evolved to the point where we have a unique capacity to do things deliberately. We can decide to be good to others, in a way no other species can. We can also decide to do harm to others, again in a way that no other species can. The struggle between good and evil has been brought to a new height in human beings, because we are more knowing than any other species. We have a unique capacity to contribute ourselves to God’s creative work. Darwin has helped to wean us off an exulted, and almost idolatrous view of human nature, and we can now take a much more balanced view of Homo Sapiens than was possible 150 years ago.

Lastly, Christ. Darwin seems to have set out a view of the world in which there was no place for Christ and, in that sense, seemed to be a threat to Christianity. However, we have now come to understand the place of Christ in evolution, and that has really enriched our understanding of the significance of Christ. For God to reveal himself to his creation there needed to be a species capable of relationship with God, capable of understanding God's revelation of himself. You can see evolution as a long march preparing the ground for that, gradually, step-by-step, leading to a point where the incarnation of God in Christ was possible.

With human beings, evolution has taken a new turn, and now seems to be more about the evolution of culture and consciousness than about basic biological forms. I believe that the incarnation of God in Christ is crucial to those further stages of evolution. Through the incarnation, God has, in a quite new way, planted himself deep within the world that owes its origin to him, deep within human nature and consciousness. The further evolution of culture and consciousness will be radically different because of God's incarnation in Christ. Creation has been changed for ever. St Paul says that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now. Evolution is the form that those labour pains has taken; we have been part of those labour pains. But now, because of Christ, the human race, and indeed the whole of creation, can look forward to a glorious fulfilment of the long travail that we know as evolution. Darwin has enriched even our understanding of Christ.