Torch, Fall/Winter 2009

Fall–Winter 2009 | TORCH 3 In Darwin’s theory, the power behind the design and complexity of the world — long held as evidence of God as Creator and Sustainer of all things — is reduced to unintelligent and unguided forces. We no longer needed God to explain the order of the natural world. As William Provine of Cornell University said, “Evolution is the greatest engine for atheism that has ever been invented.” In his early years, Darwin seemed an unlikely person to cause a revolution in every field of science, not to mention theology and philosophy. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh for two years before leaving to take up theology at Christ’s College in Cambridge. Captivated by William Paley’s scientific approach to the proofs for Christianity, he practically memorized Paley’s book Natural Theology . Darwin also considered the Bible to be authoritative and frequently went to it for comfort and guidance. His interest in science grew through a number of friendships at Cambridge, but the exploits of naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt were the spark that ignited Darwin’s imagination. In 1831, Darwin accepted an offer to serve as an unpaid naturalist on a journey to chart the coast of South America. During his five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle , he made notes on the geology of the coastlines and collected specimens of everything from plankton to beetles to fossils of large mammals. Reading Charles Lyell’s three volumes of Principles of Geology introduced him to the idea that geological changes occurred uniformly over long periods of time. This not only challenged the accepted religious view of Creation but also provided a framework for Darwin’s ideas about the developmental changes in plant and animal life. By the time he returned to England in 1836, publication of his journal had made Darwin somewhat of a science celebrity. Over the next decade, he began to slowly turn away from his faith and look to the new assumptions of science as the means to understand life and the world. As he explained, “I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.” By his 40th birthday, he had given up Christianity completely. Ten years later, in 1859, he wrote the work that has altered the thinking of the Western world for the past 150 years: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life . In the decades following, Darwin continued his study and writing but found little solace in life or hope in death. “I must look forward to Down Graveyard as the sweetest place on earth,” he wrote to a friend. He died in 1882 at the age of 73. In the realm of science, evolutionary theory is now the indispensable explanation for everything. The study of geology assumes it; current life sciences are worthless without it. Debate of any kind is not allowed. Darwin made his bed, and modern culture sleeps restlessly in it. Dr. Bill Brown became president of Cedarville University in June 2003. A graduate of the University of South Florida, Brown holds a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary. As a nationally recognized worldview expert, he has authored three worldview-related books and is the executive producer of the worldview study re:View ( www.re-films.com ). T JESSE KARJALAINEN / ISTOCKPHOTO