It is no vulgar ‘act of faith’ that is at issue here, no ignoble acquiescence in orthodoxy or submission to an establishment. What is at issue is the faith in science itself, or in what passes as the necessary logic of science. The theory of natural selection is in many respects almost the ideal scientific theory: it is eminently naturalistic, mechanical, objective, impersonal and economical. … [Darwin] never doubted that he was a passive, disinterested observer accurately recording the laws revealed in nature. …

It was for this reason that Darwinism did not turn out to be the implacable enemy of religion that was first suspected. For Darwinism shared with religion the belief in an objective knowledge of nature. If religion's belief was based on revelation and Darwinism on science, with good will the two could be – as indeed they were – shown to coincide. The true challenge to orthodox religion came with the denial of the possibility of all objective knowledge. … Pre-Kant and pre-Kierkegaard, Darwinism appears as the citadel of tradition.