Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Darwin’s materialism

“Christians cannot, of course, be expected to display superhuman insight at every new turn taken by intellectual fashion. Nor can they be held accountable for Darwin’s motivation, which was not so much scientific as countermetaphysical. The inept philosophizing of Darwin and Darwinians is not of Christian provenance. Christians are certainly not the source of the stereotyped descriptions of Darwin as the genius who staked everything on natural selection. Compared to another issue, natural selection was relatively unimportant for Darwin. That other issue was special creation. Darwin left no doubt as to the lesser importance he attributed to natural selection. His statements are, however, misleading if taken at face value, namely, that his overriding concern was the overthrow of the special creation of each and every species. It is safer to say that Darwin wanted to discredit the notion of creation as such. He realized that creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive, but materialism and creation certainly exclude one another.”

~Stanley L. Jaki: Angels, Apes, & Men, Chap. II—Glorified Ape.