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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Darwin and the big questions
- Part I Darwin gets religion
- 2 Clash of the Titans
- 3 Design after Darwin
- 4 Darwin's God
- 5 God as gap filler
- 6 Darwin and the problem of evil
- 7 Wrapping up religion
- Part II Life after Darwin
- Part III Morality stripped of superstition
- Suggestions for further reading
- References
- Index
5 - God as gap filler
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Darwin and the big questions
- Part I Darwin gets religion
- 2 Clash of the Titans
- 3 Design after Darwin
- 4 Darwin's God
- 5 God as gap filler
- 6 Darwin and the problem of evil
- 7 Wrapping up religion
- Part II Life after Darwin
- Part III Morality stripped of superstition
- Suggestions for further reading
- References
- Index
Summary
Darwinism can only explain why some animals are eliminated in the struggle for survival, not why there are animals and men at all with mental lives of sensation and belief; and in so far as it can explain anything, the question inevitably arises why the laws of evolution are as they are. All this theism can explain.
Richard Swinburne (2002)Anything you don't understand, Mr Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence. You simply turn your mind off and say God did it.
Dr Arroway in Sagan (1985), p. 166Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1921), 6.44Life, the universe, and everything
We've seen that there is no role for God within the evolutionary process. But perhaps a role can be found for him outside that process. Darwin might have explained the origin of species, but there are still many mysteries left that believers claim support the existence of God. In this chapter, we'll consider three. First, natural selection can only occur when there is something to select, and Darwin's theory says nothing about how life began in the first place. So there we have a possible role for God. Second, even if evolutionary theory and science in general explain much of what we find within the universe, we have yet to explain the fact that the universe exists at all.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Darwin, God and the Meaning of LifeHow Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Thought You Knew, pp. 73 - 102Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010