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Course 14 · Lesson 5.3

Darwin and the change in the design argument

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 14 outline

Module 1: Arguments, Existence and Necessity

  1. What natural theology attempts and what it does not
  2. Necessary and contingent existence
  3. How to read and test an argument for God
  4. Philosophy of religion today: a map of the field

Module 2: The Ontological Argument

  1. Anselm and the argument of the Proslogion
  2. Gaunilo and the perfect island objection
  3. Kant: existence is not a real predicate
  4. What the ontological argument would show if it worked

Module 3: Cosmological Arguments

  1. Aquinas: the first three ways
  2. Infinite regress: what is the problem?
  3. Leibniz, the principle of sufficient reason and the argument from contingency
  4. Objections: the brute fact reply and the fallacy of composition

Module 4: The Kalam Cosmological Argument

  1. The kalam tradition: Philoponus, al-Ghazali and Bonaventure
  2. The modern argument: whatever begins to exist has a cause
  3. Did the universe begin? Philosophy and cosmology
  4. Objections and replies, and what follows about the cause

Module 5: Teleological and Fine-Tuning Arguments

  1. From Aquinas’s fifth way to Paley’s watch
  2. Hume and the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
  3. Darwin and the change in the design argument
  4. The fine-tuning argument: what is claimed and what is debated
  5. The multiverse and other replies

Module 6: The Moral Argument and Divine Hiddenness

  1. The moral argument: Kant, Lewis and contemporary forms
  2. The Euthyphro question and moral realism without God
  3. Evolution and moral knowledge
  4. The argument from divine hiddenness and Christian replies

Module 7: Contemporary Modal Arguments and Evaluation

  1. Possible worlds and modal logic in plain language
  2. Plantinga’s modal ontological argument
  3. Assessing the modal argument: what it needs and what it shows
  4. Weighing the arguments together, and what none of them prove

All courses

Program / Course 14: Arguments for the Existence of God / Lesson 5.3

What you will learn

  • Explain how natural selection answers the question Paley’s watch raised.
  • Describe the main Christian responses to Darwin in the nineteenth century and today.
  • Distinguish what evolution explains from what it leaves unexplained.
  • State why many defenders of design moved from biology to physics.

The big idea

Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) offered a natural explanation of how complex, well-adapted organisms arise: variation, inheritance and differential survival over long periods. This removed the main support of Paley’s argument, which held that only a designer could explain adaptation. Christian responses have varied from rejection to acceptance of evolution as God’s way of working. Many defenders of design now argue from the laws of physics and the conditions for life, leaving biological adaptation to evolutionary science.

Key terms

Natural selection
The process in which individuals with heritable traits that help them survive and reproduce leave more offspring, so those traits spread.
Variation
Differences among individuals in a population.
Adaptation
A trait that fits an organism to its way of life, such as the shape of a bird’s beak.
Theistic evolution
The view that God works through evolutionary processes in creating living things.
Intelligent design
A movement, since the 1990s, which argues that some features of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause. Most scientists reject its claims, and it is distinct from the older design argument.
Irreducible complexity
Michael Behe’s term for a system whose parts are all needed for it to work, which he argues could not arise by gradual selection.
Methodological naturalism
The rule in science of seeking natural explanations for natural events, without claiming that nothing else exists.

Background

Darwin read Paley closely as a student at Cambridge and admired the clarity of the argument. In his Autobiography he wrote that he later found the argument from design in nature, as given by Paley, no longer convincing once the law of natural selection was discovered. He did not announce atheism in the Origin. He spoke of life being originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, a phrase he added in later editions, and in later life described himself as an agnostic.

The reception was mixed. Some churchmen, such as Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, objected. Others, including the Anglican priest and novelist Charles Kingsley and the Harvard botanist Asa Gray, a Presbyterian, accepted evolution and argued that it enlarged the idea of the Creator. In the twentieth century, Catholic and Orthodox teaching and most Protestant churches came to allow evolution as a scientific theory, while a minority hold to special creation.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: What Darwin’s theory explains

Paley’s question was how an organ like the eye, with many parts working together, could arise. Darwin’s answer is that small differences exist among individuals, that some help their possessors survive and reproduce, and that these differences are inherited. Over very many generations, the accumulation produces complex structures. No planning is needed at each step. The result looks designed, but the process has no foresight.

This weakens the inference from adaptation to a designer. Even Paley’s strongest examples now have a candidate natural explanation.

Step 2: What it does not explain

Evolution does not explain why there are laws of nature that make life possible, why the universe has the conditions that support evolution, or why there is something rather than nothing. It also does not by itself settle questions about the meaning of human life, consciousness or morality. Many theists say these are the proper places for the argument, and that evolution is compatible with a purposeful creation.

Step 3: Responses by theists

Some theists reject evolution on biblical grounds, holding that Genesis requires a different account. Others, such as the Catholic Church in Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis (1950) and in later statements, allow evolution of the human body while teaching that each soul is directly created by God. Many Protestants, including evangelical scientists such as Francis Collins, hold theistic evolution. Orthodox theologians vary, with some stressing the Fathers’ symbolic reading of creation and others favoring a more literal view.

Step 4: The intelligent design movement

From the 1990s, writers such as Michael Behe and William Dembski argued that certain biological systems, such as the bacterial flagellum, show irreducible complexity or specified complexity that selection cannot produce. The great majority of biologists reject this, holding that such systems have evolutionary pathways, and a U.S. federal court in 2005 (Kitzmiller v. Dover) ruled against teaching it in public school science classes. Supporters reply that the case was decided on legal, not scientific, grounds. This course notes the dispute and does not treat it as settled in either direction.

Step 5: The move to physics

Many philosophers who defend the design argument now concentrate on the laws and constants of physics. They argue that the existence of ordered laws, and the fine-tuning of constants for life, are not explained by evolution, which presupposes them. The next lesson examines this argument.

  1. Does a natural explanation of adaptation remove the need for a designer?
  2. What does it mean to say a process has no foresight?
  3. Can a believer accept evolution without giving up belief in purpose?
  4. Why might a person reject evolution on religious grounds?
  5. What is the difference between a scientific and a philosophical question?
  6. Why did Darwin soften his language about the Creator in later editions?

Examples

Darwin’s own words

In a letter of 1860 to Asa Gray, Darwin wrote that he could not persuade himself that a beneficent God would have designedly created the parasitic wasps that feed within the living bodies of caterpillars. He added that he could not look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet saw no evidence of designed benevolence in the details. The letter shows his unease with both views.

Collins on evolution

Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project and is an evangelical Christian, has argued that evolution is the means by which God created life. He holds that this view honors both science and faith. Other evangelicals disagree.

The eye revisited

Biologists describe a series of intermediate stages of light-sensitive structures found in living animals, from simple patches to complex eyes. They say this shows how a complex eye could arise by small steps. Critics of this view say the story leaves some questions open. The mainstream view in biology is that the account is adequate.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching allows evolution of the human body as a scientific hypothesis and holds that the soul is created directly by God (Humani Generis, 1950; John Paul II, 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences). The Church rejects any account that denies the Creator or the unique dignity of persons.

Orthodox

Orthodox theologians hold varying views, from acceptance of evolution as a scientific account to strong reservations. Many point to the Fathers’ interpretation of Genesis, which was not uniformly literal. The Church has not issued a binding statement on the theory.

Protestant

Mainline Protestants generally accept evolution. Many evangelicals hold theistic evolution, a view promoted by BioLogos. Young-earth creationists, a significant group, hold a literal reading of Genesis. Intelligent design has support among some evangelicals. These groups disagree among themselves.

Scientific views

The scientific community holds that evolution by natural selection and related processes is well established, and that the theory of evolution is not itself a statement about God. Some scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, argue that it makes belief in God unnecessary, while others, such as Collins and Kenneth Miller, find it compatible with faith.

Skeptical views

Skeptics hold that Darwin removed the best evidence for design. Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker (1986) argues that natural selection explains apparent design fully. Philosophers disagree about whether this carries over to the laws of physics.

Why it matters

The Darwinian turn explains why the design argument took the form it has today. A student who understands it can see why some arguments have been put aside, which survive, and why many Christians treat evolution as compatible with a purposeful creation.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Darwin was an atheist who aimed to destroy belief.

Correction: Darwin was trained for the ministry, was uneasy about the religious implications of his work, and called himself an agnostic in later life.

Misunderstanding: All Christians reject evolution.

Correction: The Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church in practice, and most Protestant denominations allow or accept it. A significant minority of Protestants do not.

Misunderstanding: Evolution explains the origin of life and the universe.

Correction: It explains the diversity of living things after life began. The origin of life and of the universe are separate questions.

Misunderstanding: Intelligent design is the same as the old design argument.

Correction: It is a recent movement focused on biology and is rejected by most scientists. The older arguments are broader and do not depend on rejecting evolution.

Knowledge check

How does natural selection answer Paley’s argument?

It shows a way that complex, well-adapted structures arise without a designer planning them. Variation, inheritance and differential survival over many generations accumulate small advantages. The result looks designed, but no foresight is involved. This removes the claim that only a designer can explain adaptation, though it does not address the origin of the laws that make evolution possible.

What is the Catholic position on evolution?

The Church allows evolution as a scientific account of the development of the human body and living things, while teaching that each human soul is directly created by God. Pius XII’s Humani Generis (1950) and John Paul II’s 1996 address express this. It rejects views that deny God as Creator or the special dignity of persons.

What is intelligent design, and how is it received?

It is a movement from the 1990s arguing that some biological systems show features, such as irreducible complexity, that point to an intelligent cause. Most biologists reject it, saying such systems have evolutionary pathways. A 2005 US court ruled against its teaching in public school science. Supporters dispute these conclusions.

Why have many defenders of design turned to physics?

Because evolution presupposes laws of nature and conditions that permit life, and these are not explained by evolution itself. They argue that the laws and constants are ordered in a way that calls for explanation. This moves the argument away from biology, where natural selection offers an account, to cosmology and fundamental physics.

Think it through

  1. Does an explanation of how something arose remove the question of why?
  2. How should a believer treat a scientific theory that seems to challenge a reading of Scripture?
  3. What do you make of Darwin’s own mixed feelings?
  4. Is purpose something science can find or fail to find?

Independent assignment

What evolution does and does not answer

In your own notebook, write 350 to 500 words. Make two lists: questions that evolution by natural selection answers, and questions that it does not. Then write a paragraph on whether the unanswered questions support belief in God, in your judgment, and what a critic would reply. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study