Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-lvwk9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-05T09:13:50.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

CHAPTER TWELVE - Freedom and Determinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Michael Ruse
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Get access

Summary

I come to my final topic. Let me recap the Christian position and then see what Darwinism has to say on the subject and how the two compare.

Original Sin

Freely, God created Heaven and Earth and put us humans in a privileged place within this creation. It is an absolutely central part of Christian theology that we humans likewise are free agents. We ourselves have the power to evaluate and decide between courses of action, and to act on our own decisions. This is at the very heart of what it means to be made in the image of God. But since we have free will and are created by God, how then is it that we sin? How is it that human-caused evil comes into existence? We could not sin unless we were free – the earthquake is not sinful, no matter how many it kills – yet why do we misuse our power, if a perfect Being created us? Surely He cannot be the source of sin?

No indeed! Sin comes from within, and since there is no apparent reason why we should be innately sinful, it is here that the notion of original sin comes into play. The first humans – Adam and Eve – freely chose to disobey God's explicit command. Even those who accept today's science insist on some point of moral failure: “In the course of evolution, there must have been a first moment of conscious moral choice.

Type
Chapter
Information
Can a Darwinian be a Christian?
The Relationship between Science and Religion
, pp. 205 - 216
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Freedom and Determinism
  • Michael Ruse, Florida State University
  • Book: Can a Darwinian be a Christian?
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803079.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Freedom and Determinism
  • Michael Ruse, Florida State University
  • Book: Can a Darwinian be a Christian?
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803079.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Freedom and Determinism
  • Michael Ruse, Florida State University
  • Book: Can a Darwinian be a Christian?
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803079.014
Available formats
×