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The Relationship between Science and Religion in Britain, 1830–1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Michael Ruse
Michael Ruse
Affiliation:
Professor of philosophy in the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
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Extract

It is almost a truism that when Charles Darwin's Origin of Species first appeared, in 1859, many people found its evolutionism to be unacceptable for religious reasons. They thought the theory of natural selection working by random variations conflicted with long-held and cherished beliefs about God and His relationship with man and the world. But although the general fact of the religious opposition to Darwinism is well-known, precise questions about the nature of the opposition—if indeed there was total opposition—have yet to be answered fully The present article seeks to go some way towards the asking and answering of such questions, although the discussion will keep to relatively sophisticated thinkers who took both science and religion seriously, and who were therefore concerned to achieve some harmony between the two. It will not deal with those who cared only for either science or religion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 505 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1975

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References

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