Religious views of Charles Darwin

thumb|[[Charles Darwin (1809–1882), who proposed the theory of evolution by means of natural selection]]

Charles Darwin's views on religion have been the subject of much interest and dispute. His pivotal work in the development of modern biology and evolution theory played a prominent part in debates about religion and science at the time. In the early 20th century his contributions became a focus of the creation–evolution controversy in the United States.

While Darwin came heavily to dispute the dogmatic prescriptions of the Anglican Church and Christianity in general, later in life he clarified his position as an agnostic in response to a letter from :

Darwin had a non-conformist Unitarian background, but attended an Anglican school. With the aim of becoming a clergyman, he went to the University of Cambridge for the required Bachelor of Arts degree, which included studies of Anglican theology. He took great interest in natural history and became filled with zeal for science as defined by John Herschel, based on the natural theology of William Paley which presented the argument from divine design in nature to explain adaptation as God acting through laws of nature. On the voyage of the Beagle he remained orthodox and looked for "centres of creation" to explain distribution, but towards the end of the voyage began to doubt that species were fixed. By this time he was critical of the Bible as history, and wondered why all religions should not be equally valid. Following his return in October 1836, he developed his novel ideas of geology while speculating about transmutation of species and thinking about religion.

Following Darwin's marriage to Emma Wedgwood in January 1839, they shared discussions about Christianity for several years, Emma's views being Unitarian like much of her family. The theodicy of Paley and Thomas Robert Malthus vindicated evils such as starvation as a result of a benevolent creator's laws which had an overall good effect. To Darwin, natural selection produced the good of adaptation but removed the need for design, and he could not see the work of an omnipotent deity in all the pain and suffering such as the ichneumon wasp paralysing caterpillars as live food for its eggs. Until 1844 he followed Paley in viewing organisms as perfectly adapted with only a few imperfections, and only partly modified that view by 1859. On the Origin of Species reflects theological views. Though he thought of religion as a tribal survival strategy, Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver, and later recollected that at the time he was convinced of the existence of God as a First Cause and deserved to be called a theist. This view subsequently fluctuated, and he continued to explore conscientious doubts, without forming fixed opinions on certain religious matters. but from around 1849 would go for a walk on Sundays while his family attended church. Though reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he responded that he had never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a god, and that generally "an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind."

Darwin's religious background

thumb|left|175px|As a child, Darwin attended [[Shrewsbury Unitarian Church.]]

Darwin was born during the Napoleonic Wars and grew up in their aftermath, a conservative time when Tory-dominated government closely associated with the established Anglican Church of England repressed Radicalism, but when family memories recalled the 18th-century Enlightenment and a multitude of Non-conformist churches held differing interpretations of Christianity. His Whig-supporting extended family of Darwins and Wedgwoods was strongly Unitarian, though one of his grandfathers, Erasmus Darwin, was a freethinker, and his father was quietly a freethinker but as a physician avoided any social conflict with his wealthy Anglican patrons. While Darwin's parents were open enough to changing social pressures to have Charles baptised in the Church of England, his pious mother took the children to the Unitarian chapel. After her death when he was only eight he became a boarder at Shrewsbury School, an Anglican public school.

Under pressure in the fourth year, Darwin worked hard at his studies, getting tuition in theology by Henslow. Darwin became particularly interested in the Revd William Paley's Evidences of Christianity and Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, which were set texts. The latter was becoming outdated. It opposed arguments for increased democracy, but saw no divine right of rule for the sovereign or the state, only "expediency". Government could be opposed if grievances outweighed the danger and expense to society. The judgement was "Every man for himself". These ideas had suited the conditions of reasonable rule prevailing when the text was published in 1785, but in 1830 they were dangerous ideas at a time when the French king was deposed by middle class republicans and given refuge in England by the Tory government, and resulting radical street protests demanded suffrage, equality and freedom of religion. Paley's text even supported abolition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican faith which every student at Cambridge (and Oxford University) was required to sign. Henslow insisted that "he should be grieved if a single word of the Thirty-nine Articles were altered" and emphasised the need to respect authority. Darwin later wrote that he was convinced that he "could have written out the whole of the Evidences with perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book and as I may add of his Natural Theology gave me as much delight as did Euclid."

After doing particularly well in his final exam questions on Paleys' books, Darwin read Paley's Natural Theology which set out to refute David Hume's argument that the teleological argument for "design" by a Creator was merely a human projection onto the forces of nature. Paley saw a rational proof of God's existence in the complexity and perfect adaptation to needs of living beings exquisitely fitted to their places in a happy world, while attacking the evolutionary ideas of Erasmus Darwin as coinciding with atheistic schemes and lacking evidence. Paley's benevolent God acted in nature through uniform and universal laws, not arbitrary miracles or changes of laws, and this use of secondary laws provided a theodicy explaining the problem of evil by separating nature from direct divine action, drawing directly on the ideas of Thomas Malthus. For Paley, a Malthusian "system of natural hostilities" of animals living on prey was strictly connected to the surplus of births keeping the world appropriately stocked as circumstances changed, and poverty showed that the world was in a "state of probation… calculated for the production, exercise, and improvement of moral qualities, with a view to a future state", even where such divine purpose was not obvious. This convinced Charles and encouraged his interest in science. He later wrote "I do not think I hardly ever admired a book more than Paley's Natural Theology: I could almost formerly have said it by heart."

He read John Herschel's new Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, learning that nature was governed by laws, and the highest aim of natural philosophy was to understand them through an orderly process of induction, balancing observation and theorising. This exemplified the natural theology that Darwin had learnt in previous years. He also read Alexander von Humboldt's Personal Narrative, and the two books were immensely influential, stirring up in him "a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science." then went with him for two weeks surveying strata in Wales. He returned to find that his arrangements had fallen through, but was given the opportunity to join the Beagle survey expedition as a gentleman naturalist and companion to Captain Robert FitzRoy. Before they left England FitzRoy gave Darwin a copy of the first volume of Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, the subject which would be his primary work.

Darwin was questioning from the outset, and in his first zoology notes he wondered why deep-ocean plankton had been created with so much beauty for little purpose as no one could see them. He saw landforms as supporting Lyell's Uniformitarianism which explained features as the outcome of a gradual process over huge periods of time, and quickly showed a gift for theorising about the geology he was examining. He concluded that the land had indeed risen, and referred to loose rock deposits as "part of the long disputed Diluvium". Around 1825 both Lyell and Sedgwick had supported William Buckland's Catastrophism which postulated diluvialism to reconcile findings with the Biblical account of Noah's Ark, but by 1830 evidence had shown them that the "diluvium" had come from a series of local processes. They still distinguished between diluvial and alluvial deposits, but Sedgwick no longer thought these deposits were connected with Noah's flood by the time he taught Darwin, though the debate continued. Darwin's notes show him increasingly discounting "debacles" to account for such formations. It was only later that glaciation was accepted as the source of these deposits.

Lyell's second volume explained extinctions as a "succession of deaths" due to changed circumstances with new species then being created, but Darwin found giant fossils of extinct mammals with no geological signs of a "diluvial debacle" or environmental change, and so rejected Lyell's explanation in favour of Giovanni Battista Brocchi's idea that species had somehow aged and died out. On the Galápagos Islands he remained convinced by Lyell's idea of species spreading from "centres of creation", and assumed that species had spread from the mainland rather than originating on these geologically recent volcanic islands. He failed to note locations of most of his finds, but fortunately recorded mockingbirds and plant life with more care. In Australia, reflecting on the marsupial kangaroos and potoroos, he thought them so strange that an unbeliever "might exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been [at] work; their object however has been the same & certainly the end in each case is complete'", yet an antlion he was watching was very similar to its European counterpart. "Now what would the Disbeliever say to this? Would any two workmen ever hit on so beautiful, so simple & yet so artificial a contrivance? It cannot be thought so. – The one hand has surely worked throughout the universe. A Geologist perhaps would suggest, that the periods of Creation have been distinct & remote the one from the other; that the Creator rested in his labor." Darwin was struggling with inconsistencies in these ideas. As they neared the end of the voyage his thoughts about the mockingbirds shook his confidence that species were fixed and that variation was limited. Missionaries were being accused of causing racial tension and profiteering, and after the Beagle set to sea on 18 June FitzRoy wrote an open letter to the evangelical South African Christian Recorder on the Moral State of Tahiti incorporating extracts from both his and Darwin's diaries to defend the reputation of missionaries. This was given to a passing ship which took it to Cape Town to become FitzRoy's (and Darwin's) first published work.

FitzRoy too had seen geological features as supporting Lyell's timescale, and on his return to England extracts from his diary stressing the immense age of the Patagonian raised beaches were read to the Royal Geographical Society, but he married a very religious lady and in his Narrative of the voyage added a supplement regretting having "remarked to a friend" that these vast plains "could never have been effected by a forty days' flood", remarks he ascribed to his own "turn of mind and ignorance of scripture" during the voyage.

Darwin's changing view on faith

In his later private autobiography, Darwin wrote of the period from October 1836 to January 1839:

In seeking to explain his observations, by early 1837 Darwin was speculating in his notebooks on transmutation of species and writing of "my theory". His journal for 1838 records "All September read a good deal on many subject: thought much upon religion. Beginning of October ditto." At this time he outlined ideas of comparative anthropology, from his knowledge of different religious beliefs around the world as well as at various times in history, and came to the view that scriptures were unreliable and contradictory.

Discussions with Emma

Having decided to marry, Darwin visited his cousin Emma on 29 July 1838 and told her of his ideas on transmutation. On 11 November, he returned and proposed to Emma. Again he discussed his ideas, and about ten days later she wrote:

Darwin had already wondered about the materialism implied by his ideas, noting in his transmutation notebook "Thought (or desires more properly) being hereditary it is difficult to imagine it anything but structure of brain hereditary, analogy points out to this. – love of the deity effect of organization, oh you materialist!" The letter shows Emma's tension between her fears that differences of belief would separate them, and her desire to be close and openly share ideas. Emma cherished a belief in the afterlife, and was concerned that they should "belong to each other" for eternity. As disbelief later gradually crept over Darwin, he could "hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."

Following Darwin's marriage to Emma Wedgwood in January 1839, they shared discussions about Christianity for many years. Unitarianism emphasised inner feeling which overrode the authority of religious texts or doctrine, and her beliefs resulted from intensive study and questioning. They socialised with the Unitarian clergymen James Martineau and John James Tayler, and read their works as well as those of other Unitarian and liberal Anglican authors such as Francis William Newman, whose Phases of faith described a spiritual journey from Calvinism to theism, all part of widespread and heated debate on the authority of Anglicanism. In Downe Emma attended the Anglican village church, but as a Unitarian had the family turn round in silence when the Trinitarian Nicene Creed was recited.

Theorising

Darwin was interested in ideas of Natural "laws of harmony", and made enquiries into animal breeding. Having read the new 6th edition of the Revd. Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, around late November 1838 he compared breeders selecting traits to a Malthusian Nature selecting from variants thrown up by chance so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical & perfected", thinking this "a beautiful part of my theory". The theodicy of Paley and Thomas Malthus vindicated evils such as starvation as a result of a benevolent creator's laws which had an overall good effect. To Darwin, natural selection produced the good of adaptation but removed the need for design, On 11 January 1844 Darwin mentioned his theorising to the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, writing with melodramatic humour "I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a 'tendency to progression' 'adaptations from the slow willing of animals' &c,—but the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his—though the means of change are wholly so—I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends." Hooker replied "There may in my opinion have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject."

In November 1844 public controversy erupted over ideas of evolutionary progress in the anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a well written best-seller which widened public interest in transmutation. Darwin scorned its amateurish geology and zoology, but carefully reviewed his own arguments.

From around 1849 Darwin stopped attending church, but Emma and the children continued to attend services. His faith in Christianity had already dwindled away and he had stopped going to church.

On the Origin of Species

Darwin continued to avoid public controversy and to accumulate evidence supporting his theory against the anticipated arguments. In 1858 the information that Alfred Russel Wallace now had a similar theory forced an early joint publication of Darwin's theory. The reaction to Darwin's theory, even after publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, was more muted than he had feared. One of the first responses to review copies came from Charles Kingsley, a Christian socialist country rector and novelist, who wrote that it was "just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that He created primal forms capable of self development... as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made." For the second edition, Darwin added these lines to the last chapter, with attribution to "a celebrated author and divine".

In 1860 seven liberal Anglican theologians caused a much greater furore by publishing a manifesto titled Essays and Reviews in which they sought to make textual criticism of the Bible available to the ordinary reader, as well as supporting Darwin. Their new "higher criticism" represented "the triumph of the rational discourse of logos over myth." It argued that the Bible should not be read in an entirely literal manner, thus and would in the future become "a bogey of Christian fundamentalists ... but this was only because Western people had lost the original sense of the mythical."

Autobiography on gradually increasing disbelief

In his autobiography written in 1876 Darwin reviewed questions about Christianity in relation to other religions and how "the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become". Though "very unwilling to give up my belief", he found that "disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct." He noted how "The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered", and how Paley's teleological argument had difficulties with the problem of evil.

Even when writing On the Origin of Species in the 1850s he was still inclined to theism, but his views gradually changed to agnosticism:

Downe parish

Although he is commonly portrayed as being in conflict with the Church of England, Darwin was supportive of the local parish church. He sometimes retorted sharply, "I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God", and at other times was more guarded, telling a young count studying with Ernst Haeckel that "Science has nothing to do with Christ; except in so far as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself I do not believe that there ever has been any Revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities." He declined a request by the Archbishop of Canterbury to join a 'Private Conference' of devout scientists to harmonise science and religion, for he saw "no prospect of any benefit arising" from it.

When Brodie Innes sent on a sermon by E. B. Pusey, Darwin responded that he could "hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as he desires, as geology has to treat of the history of the Earth & Biology that of man.— But I most wholly agree with you that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness, though each upholding strictly their beliefs. You, I am sure, have always practically acted in this manner in your conduct towards me & I do not doubt to all others. Nor can I remember that I have ever published a word directly against religion or the clergy." In response to an enquiry about the same sermon from the botanist Henry Nicholas Ridley, Darwin stated that "Dr Pusey was mistaken in imagining that I wrote the Origin with any relation whatever to Theology", and added that "many years ago when I was collecting facts for the Origin, my belief in what is called a personal God was as firm as that of Dr Pusey himself, & as to the eternity of matter I have never troubled myself about such insoluble questions.— Dr Pusey's attack will be as powerless to retard by a day the belief in evolution as were the virulent attacks made by divines fifty years ago against Geology, & the still older ones of the Catholic church against Galileo". Brodie Innes deplored "unwise and violent" theological attacks on his old friend, for while they had disagreements, "How nicely things would go if other folk were like Darwin and Brodie Innes."

In a letter to a correspondent at the University of Utrecht in 1873, Darwin expressed agnosticism:

Caution about publication, spiritualism

In 1873 Darwin's son George wrote an essay which boldly dismissed prayer, divine morals and "future rewards & punishments". Darwin wrote "I would urge you not to publish it for some months, at the soonest, & then consider whether you think it new & important enough to counterbalance the evils; remembering the cart-loads which have been published on this subject. – The evils on giving pain to others, & injuring your own power & usefulness ... It is an old doctrine of mine that it is of foremost importance for a young author to publish ... only what is very good & new ... remember that an enemy might ask who is this man ... that he should give to the world his opinions on the deepest subjects? ... but my advice is to pause, pause, pause."

During the public interest in Modern Spiritualism, Darwin attended a séance at his elder brother Erasmus Alvey Darwin's house in January 1874, but as the room grew stuffy Darwin went upstairs to lie down, missing the show, with sparks, sounds and the table rising above their heads. While Francis Galton thought it a "good séance", Darwin later wrote "The Lord have mercy on us all, if we have to believe such rubbish" and told Emma that it was "all imposture" and "it would take an enormous weight of evidence" to convince him otherwise. At a second séance Huxley and George found that the medium was nothing but a cheat, to Darwin's relief.

In 1876 Darwin wrote the following regarding his publicly stated position of agnosticism:

In November 1878 when George Romanes presented his new book refuting theism, A Candid Examination of Theism by "Physicus", Darwin read it with "very great interest", but found it unconvincing; the arguments it put forward left open the possibility that God had initially created matter and energy with the potential of evolving to become organised.

Agnosticism

In 1879 John Fordyce wrote asking if Darwin believed in God, and if theism and evolution were compatible. Darwin replied that "a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist", citing Charles Kingsley and Asa Gray as examples, and for himself, "In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind." In October of that year Aveling wanted to dedicate his book on Darwin and his Works to Darwin and asked him for permission. Darwin declined, writing that "though I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biased by the pain which it would give some members of my family, if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion."

Aveling and Büchner

In Germany militant Darwinismus elevated Darwin to heroic status. When the eminent Freethinker Doctor Ludwig Büchner requested an audience he thought he was greeting a noble ally. To Darwin this was a grotesque misunderstanding, but he felt unable to refuse. Darwin's wife Emma Darwin expressed her expectation that their guest "will refrain from airing his very strong religious opinions" and invited their old friend Innes. On Thursday 28 September 1881 Büchner arrived with Edward Aveling. Darwin's son Frank was also present. Darwin wittily explained that "[Brodie] & I have been fast friends for 30 years. We never thoroughly agreed on any subject but once and then we looked at each other and thought one of us must be very ill." Francis Darwin thought it gave "quite fairly his impressions of my father's views", but took issue with any suggestion of similar religious views, saying "My father's replies implied his preference for the unaggressive attitude of an Agnostic. Dr. Aveling seems to regard the absence of aggressiveness in my father's views as distinguishing them in an unessential manner from his own. But, in my judgment, it is precisely differences of this kind which distinguish him so completely from the class of thinkers to which Dr. Aveling belongs."

Funeral

Darwin's Westminster Abbey funeral expressed a public feeling of national pride, and religious writers of all persuasions praised his "noble character and his ardent pursuit of truth", calling him a "true Christian gentleman". In particular the Unitarians and free religionists, proud of his Dissenting upbringing, supported his naturalistic views. The Unitarian William Carpenter carried a resolution praising Darwin's unravelling of "the immutable laws of the Divine Government", shedding light on "the progress of humanity", and the Unitarian preacher John White Chadwick from New York wrote that "The nation's grandest temple of religion opened its gates and lifted up its everlasting doors and bade the King of Science come in."

Posthumous Autobiography

Darwin decided to leave a posthumous memoir for his family, and on Sunday 28 May 1876 he began Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character. He found this candid private memoir easy going, covering his childhood, university, life on the Beagle expedition and developing work in science. A section headed "Religious Belief" opened just before his marriage, and frankly discussed his long disagreement with Emma. At first he had been unwilling to give up his faith, and had tried to "invent evidence" supporting the Gospels, but just as his clerical career had died a slow "natural death", so too did his belief in "Christianity as a divine revelation". "Inward convictions and feelings" had arisen from natural selection, as had survival instincts, and could not be relied on. He was quick to show Emma's side of the story and pay tribute to "your mother, ... so infinitely my superior in every moral quality ... my wise adviser and cheerful comforter". This included statements discussed above in Autobiography on gradually increasing disbelief, and others such as the following: