Evolution and Christianity

This text is an early example of Christian Darwinism, holding that Darwin's theories imply a coherent view of God's design.

James Iverach (Author)

9781108000680, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

248 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm, 0.32 kg

Faced with the theories of scientists and philosophers, perhaps most famously Charles Darwin's, late-Victorian theologians were preoccupied with the reconciliation of Christian teaching with their contemporaries' ideas. First published in 1894, this text forms part of a series introducing key areas of Christian theology for the modern audience. Dr James Iverach examines theories of the origins of both the universe and of life within it, finding in intelligence, morality, faith and ethics a unifying and clarifying force that he argues reveals the presence of God's creative process in the history of the universe. Nothing, he claims, occurs by chance, and natural selection simply expresses that the sum total of causes, both internal and external, results in the state in which only the forms of life now observable should exist. This text provides an insight into the late-Victorian philosophy of Christian Darwinism.

1. Evolution and beginnings
2. Evolution and law
3. Nature and intelligibility
4. The strife against purpose
5. Evolution and creation
6. Organic evolution
7. Organic evolution (continued)
8. Super-organic evolution
9. Evolution and psychology
10. Evolution and ethics
11. Evolution and religion.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]