So, it looks like Rick Perry is going to be shoving creationism down our throats for the rest of the campaign season. Lovely. This, of course, is wearying to me as a theologian because it will only harden the idea that "science=evidence-based shit/religion=Bible-based shit." This is an idea that gets on my nerves, whether it's coming from Fundamentalist Christians or people devoted a particular understanding of science as salvific.
Earlier this year, I wrote a monster diary on theological affirmations of evolution that made people cross-eyed due to it's length. This is a shorter excerpt of just the nineteenth-century sources. As some historians of science have noted - creationism was not a continuation of a theological consensus. It was a refutation of a theological consensus that had accommodated to evolutionary science by the end of the nineteenth century.
For a readable overview by a scientist who gets some liberal theologians wrong, but is generally reliable, see Peter Bowler, Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design. For the best historical exposition of the literature in question, see Jon H. Roberts, Darwinism and the Divine in America: Protestant Intellectuals and Organic Evolution, 1859-1900.
1799, Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers
My first example of a religious voice in favor of evolution is Schleiermacher because he is where modern liberal theology starts. His argument in this text is that religion is primarily neither a matter of metaphysics nor of morals, but of contemplation. This experiential approach to religion shifts the meaning of revelation from a supernatural dictate captured by religious stenographers to a core insight derived from the feeling of awe that comes with genuine contemplation. Schleiermacher affirms that all such insights are historically and culturally conditioned - to the point that he affirms that God is not a necessary outcome of religious reflection. In his Speeches on Religion, he doesn't defend organic evolution, but the historically changing character of experience is so pivotal to his argument that it is a small step to extend affirmation of change in human affairs to affirmation of change in the natural world. Indeed, the acceptance of the implications of evolution is precisely the kind of historical change Schleiermacher is talking about.
(When I read this text many, many years ago, I remember my jaw dropping open, and jumping up to show my mom a passage, saying "Wow! He was talking about evolution in 1799!" My mom didn't disagree with my reading back then when I showed it to her, but I didn't find the passage on this read, so my understanding of "what counts as evolution" must have shifted.)
1844, Robert Chambers, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges was a pre-Darwinian attempt to argue from the geologic record for the necessity of evolution. It was widely sold and read in both England and the United States, thus preparing people for Darwin's arguments fifteen years later. Chambers was not especially religious, but his argument proceeded in a manner intended to reach Christian readers, who at this time had largely synthesized Newton's science with Anglican theology. In this synthesis, intelligent design was a reigning assumption, best spelled out in William Paley's Natural Theology, which was a major influence on the early Darwin. Darwin's later works, of course, posed a challenge to design, a challenge that has only grown increasingly insurmountable over the last century and a half.
1860, Baden Powell, "On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity" in Essays and Reviews
The 1860 publication of Essays and Reviews was a major event in nineteenth-century English theology. It introduced "higher criticism" of the Bible, in which German scholars attempted to identify its human authors, to England. It was this biblical criticism that aroused more furor than scientific approaches, but it was also an example of a speedy acceptance by liberal theologians of Darwin's theories.
Mr. Darwin's masterly volume on The Origin of Species by the law of "natural selection" - a work which now substantiates on undeniable grounds the very principle so long denounced by the first naturalists - the origination of new species by natural causes: a work which must soon bring about an entire revolution of opinion in favor of the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature"
1860, Asa Gray, "Natural Selection not Inconsistent with Natural Theology" - Atlantic Monthly article reprinted in Darwiniana
The scientific community did not rush to accept Darwin's theories all at once. One of the most illustrious naturalists of the day, Louis Agassiz, resisted Darwinism strenuously. One of Darwin's early scientific defenders was the Harvard professor of botany, Asa Gray. In 1860, he wrote a series of articles for the Atlantic Monthly, asserting that Darwin's theories did not pose a challenge to natural theology, which for Gray meant there was room for design in Darwinism:
The whole argument in natural theology proceeds upon the ground that the inference for a final cause of the structure of the hand and of the valves in the veins is just as valid now, in individuals produced through natural generation, as it would have been in the case of the first man, supernaturally created. Why not, then, just as good even on the supposition of the descent of men from chimpanzees and gorillas, since those animals possess these same contrivances? Or, to take a more supposable case: If the argument from structure to design is convincing when drawn from a particular animal, say a Newfoundland dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from similar parents, would it be at all weakened if, in tracing his genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came (as is suspected) from some wolf? [...] And if the argument from structure to design is not invalidated by our present knowledge that our individual dog was developed from a single organic cell, how is it invalidated by the supposition of an analogous natural descent, through a long line of connected forms, from such a cell, or from some simple animal, existing ages before there were any dogs? (123)
1862, Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
In this fairy tale, a liberal religious affirmation of scientific approaches to evolutionary theory results in a conservative political vision, basically a Protestant work-ethic that translates into social Darwinism.
1871, St. George Jackson Mivart, On the Genesis of Species
Mivart's text is a scientific critique of Darwin, defending a Lamarckian view of evolution. Before the rise of genetics and a full documentation of the fossil record, this was a reasonable tack to take. He furthermore reconciles scientific enquiry and religion - he was Catholic - with the insight from Aquinas that investigating creation is not a matter of looking for miracles, but discovering natural laws.
1874, Alexander Winchell, The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Data, Its Principles, Its Speculations, and Its Theistic Bearing
Winchell was the missionary of evolutionary theory to the Methodist church. His book on evolution is primarily a summary of the then-current state of scientific inquiry on evolution, with a brief ending section asserting its compatibility with theism. The final recapitulation of the whole argument closes
There exists no a priori ground for denying that some phase of the doctrine of filiative evolution in the organic world may yet become fully proven and established, or that even the work of creating new forms directly from inorganization may be now going on. These are simply questions of fact, to be found out by searching.
Should these doctrines become proven, even in their extreme phases, there will be no proof of the absence of immediate divine agency from any of the operations of life; and, having seen organization emerge from inert matter, we can believe more easily than before that "God made man of the dust of the earth." In any issue of scientific investigation in a new development of truth, Christian Theism has nothing to fear, but only a new truth to gain; and should entertain a gratitude above all other interests for being placed in possession of new, solid material to incorporate into its system. (123)
Winchell is, unfortunately, representative of a distinct racist strain in pro-evolutionary thought, both religious and non-religious. In 1878, he published a pamphlet, Adamites and Pre-Adamites, in which he made a biblical argument that Adam and Eve were not the first humans in an attempt to reconcile the historicity of the Bible and the evolutionary record.
Adam was the "first man " only in the same sense as Christ was the "second man;" for Adam "was the figure of Christ" (v. 14.) 7. All men are of one blood in the sense of one substance -one "matter." The Jews are descended from Adam; the Gentiles-from Pre-Adamites. The first chapter of Genesis treats of the origin of the Gentiles; the second, of the origin of the Jews.
And then, he goes on to say
It is agreed, then, that the enlightened nations of the world belong to one race. This is the race of white men. [...] The Negroes are about to cause us trouble. The Negroes have made us a great deal of trouble. The whole group of black races recedes from the white and dusky races. These tropical ebonites are now regarded as comprising four races.
1874, John Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy: Based on the Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms of the Positive Philosophy
Fiske developed a general philosophy based on evolutionary theory, which left room for movement into a spiritual appreciation of a vague "unknown," which his ecclesiastical contemporaries found a horrifically impersonal approach to deity, but which many current theologians would be perfectly comfortable with.
1879, Newman Smyth, Old Faiths in New Light
Remember Schleiermacher from the beginning of the list? Smyth was the theologian who brought Schleiermacher into American theology, which generally distrusted German idealism and relied more heavily on Scottish "common-sense" philosophy.
Smyth's Old Faiths in New Light opens with a discussion of the state of evolutionary theory, and the fact that all thought of his era stands before its judgement. Like many nineteenth-century theologians, Smyth turned to historical criticism of the Bible to treat it as an evolving document, part of the general evolution of humanity in the larger picture. He devotes a chapter to a comparison of natural observation in the Bible to the science of his day; he makes a case for the Bible being a relatively "secularized" text, freer of mythic outlooks than other ancient texts. In his conclusion, he reiterates the importance of evolution as the basic starting point for all thought about religious matters:
We began by accepting loyally the results of scientific research into the present constitution of things. We trust our senses, and the logic of the senses, just so far as the human understanding can work out a positive science. We admit that the course of visible nature can be best summed up in some general law of evolution. We do not question, and have no moral interest in questioning, a physical evolution, and a mechanism coextensive with the bounds of nature, so far as by such conceptions the sum total of our scientific knowledge can be at present expressed to the best advantage. But ours is by birthright the duty, also, of subjecting visible nature to the interpretation of the spirit, and of reading the formulas of things in the light of our own moral ideas. The science whose source is within us, can never yield to any sciences whose sources are in the world without us. Perfect knowledge must be the harmony of both. (383-4)
1881, Albrecht Ritschl, "Theology and Metaphysics" reprinted in Three Essays
Ritschl's short essay says nothing explicitly about evolution, but it was a theological articulation of what Stephen Jay Gould would later call "non-overlapping magesteria." He proposes a stark divide between facts and values: it is the job of religion to reflect on the latter, and leave science to the former. This understanding of theology gives room for scientists to follow wherever the evidence leads in describing what is, the world of objective facts. Religion is left to reflect on ethics, what ought to be, and on subjective experience. With this understanding in place, evolutionary accounts of the world simply provide material by which a theologian is liberated from outdated presuppositions. Ritschl's perspective was enormously influential for Protestant theology into the 1950s. One effect of the dominance of Ritschlianism in Protestant theology in the first half of the twentieth century is that theological engagement with evolution waned in comparison with the late nineteenth century and the late twentieth century.
1882, George Frederick Wright, Studies in Science and Religion
Wright is fascinating because he went from being a defender of Darwinism in the 1880s to contributing to The Fundamentals, the founding text of American Fundamentalism, which insists on biblical inerrancy and literalism.
1885, Henry Ward Beecher, Evolution and Religion
Beecher used the theory of evolution to launch a full-frontal attack on the notion of original sin, laying an axe to the root idea of the Calvinism in which he had been raised. With this move, Beecher advanced the cause of universalism in the Congregational denomination. In terms of American religious history, the significance of this development is huge.
For myself, while finding no need of changing my idea of the Divine personality because of new light upon His mode of working, I have hailed the Evolutionary philosophy with joy. Some of the applications of its principles I have to reject; others, though not proven - and in the present state of scientific knowledge perhaps not even provable - I accept as probable; but the underlying truth, as a Law of Nature (that is a regular method of divine action), I accept and use, and thank God for it! (3)
1890, James McCosh, The Religious Aspect of Evolution
In all past ages there have been new powers added. Life seized on the mineral mass, and formed the plant; sensation imparted to the plant made the animal; instinct has preserved the life and elevated it; intelligence has turned the animal into man; morality has raised the intelligence to love and law. The work of the Spirit is not an anomaly. It is one of a series; the last and the highest. It is the grandest of all the powers. It is an inward power, convincing, converting, sanctifying, beautifying, and preparing the soul for a heavenly rest, where, however "they rest not day nor night," for rest consists in holy and blessed service. (113)
1891, Joseph LeConte, Evolution: Its Nature, Its Evidences, and Its Relation to Religious Thought
LeConte was a geologist at the University of California, Berkeley. In this book, he goes through a thorough examination of evolution, concluding that evolution is a matter of greater certainty than gravity. (276) He went on to spell out various implications for religion.
See, then, how the issue is forced. Either Nature is sufficient of itself and wants no God at all, or else this whole idea, the history of which we have been tracing, is radically false. We have here given by science either a demonstration of materialism or a else a reductio ad absurdum. Which is it? I do not hesitate a moment to say it is a reductio ad absurdum. And I believe that evolution has conferred an inestimable benefit on philosophy and religion by forcing this issue and compelling us to take a more rational view.
What, then, is the alternative view? It is the utter rejection with Berkeley and with Swedenborg of the independent existence of matter and the real efficient agency of natural forces. It is the frank return to the old idea of direct divine agency, but in a new, more rational, less anthropomorphic form. It is the bringing together and complete reconciliation of the two apparently antagonistic and mutually excluding views of direct agency and natural law. Such reconciliation we have already seen is the true test of a rational philosophy. It is the belief in a God not far away beyond our reach, who once long ago enacted laws and created forces which continue of themselves to run the machine we call Nature, but a God immanent, a God resident in Nature, at all times and in all places directing every event and determining every phenomena - a God in whom in the most literal sense not only we but all things have their being. [...] According to this view the law of gravitation is naught else than the mode of operation of the divine energy in sustaining the cosmos - the divine method of sustentation; the law of evolution naught else than the mode of operation of the same divine energy in originating and developing the cosmos - the divine method of creation. (300-1)
Like Winchell, LeConte is also a figure in the sorry history of American racism. In 1892, he wrote The Race Problem in the South, in which he asserted
There was a time, and that not more than a century ago, when slavery was regarded as the normal, and indeed the necessary, result of the close contact of civilized with savage races. This view may be regarded as the natural one, as the survival of the law of force and the right of the strongest, inherited by man from the animal kingdom.
1892, Lyman Abbott, The Evolution of Christianity
Evolution is defined by Professor Le Conte as "continuous progressive change, according to certain laws, and by means of resident forces." It is my object to show that the Christian religion is itself an evolution; that is, that this life of God in humanity is one of continuous progressive change, according to certain divine laws, and by means of forces, or a force, resident in humanity. The proposition is a very simple one; illustrated and applied, it may help us solve some of the problems which are perplexing us concerning the Bible, the church, theology, social ethics, and spiritual experience.
All scientific men to-day are evolutionists. That is, they agree substantially in holding that all life proceeds, by a regular and orderly sequence, from simple to more complex forms, from lower to higher forms, and in accordance with laws which either now are or may yet be understood, or are at all events a proper subject of hopeful investigation. The truth of this doctrine I assume; that is, I assume that all life, including the religious life, proceeds by a regular and orderly sequence from simple and lower forms to more complex and higher forms, in institutions, in thought, in practical conduct, and in spiritual experience. It is my purpose not so much to demonstrate this proposition as to state, exemplify, and apply it. (1-2)
1896, John Zahm, Evolution and Dogma
Zahm attempted a Roman Catholic defense of Darwinian evolutionary theory at the end of the nineteenth century.