Darwin’s 1859 publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection offered another worldview. Darwin provided a mechanism by which life could be explained without any reference to God.

Science is not separate from its times. Furthermore, the events in an individual scientist’s life, as seen in the first part of this magazine series, also affect scientific claims. Science is a human activity subject to everything that is human. There is bias. There are limits. There is human error. What happened with Darwin was that biology took a philosophical turn.

Physics had already taken this turn. Isaac Newton (1642–1727), perhaps Britain’s greatest scientist, had described the universe as completely explainable using fixed physical laws. Everything was like a clock wound up and running, so there was no need for God to actively preserve it. This allowed God to be the Creator of the laws, but his active role as preserver in day-to-day operations was deemed unnecessary.

Darwin’s uncle, Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), an agnostic before the term was invented, had espoused evolutionary changes among creatures. He emphasized the characteristics that were acquired through the artificial breeding of animals and the marriages of humans. But his statements did not attract much attention. We do know that his nephew, Charles, took note of his ideas.

French scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744– 1829) also suggested that animals could evolve. He thought that an animal could acquire helpful physical changes during its life and then pass them on to its offspring. The classic example was that giraffes would reach for the highest leaves on trees thereby slightly stretching their necks. He believed that this change would be passed on to the next generation. They in turn would stretch to add even more height to this helpful adaptation. But Lamarck lacked support for his ideas. Darwin and many others, therefore, rejected his mechanism of acquired characteristics but not the idea of evolution.

Reason added to Scripture

At the same time, in a well-meaning effort to explain all of nature, theology and science were mixed together. Human reason ended up reaching far beyond both Scripture and nature.

The Bible and nature were viewed as two revelations from God, each for our learning. Unfortunately, theologians often felt that the book of nature was clear by itself without the revelation of God in the Bible. As science produced more discoveries, this “natural theology” attempted to explain even these new discoveries of nature in terms of the moral lessons they believed God had plainly put there. The country parsons and the upper classes of England would often spend much time dwelling on questions concerning nature’s meanings.