This chapter examines four evolutionary theories regarding religion, offers a critique of them, and then argues that our knowledge of human evolution can be compatible with Christian ethics and the religious faith that it reflects. It begins with a discussion of the place of evil in nature because that presents the central objection to Christian faith.

RELIGION REJECTED BY EVOLUTION: THE “PROBLEM OF EVIL”

The challenge posed by the “problem of evil” was based not only in a growing awareness of the pervasiveness of pain, competition, and wastefulness in the natural world but also in the recognition that these are “built into” the very structure of nature itself. The advent of evolutionary theory brought with it the question of whether a good God could be the Creator and providential Governor of such a natural order.

Young Darwin assumed the truth of conventional Anglican Christianity, and as a college student he was impressed by the argument of design put forth in William Paley's Natural Theology. His reading of Lyell's Principles of Geology on the Beagle, however, convinced him that the earth changed gradually over a much longer period of time than either conventional science or religion had been aware. Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population significantly shaped his view of human society as marked by the same ruthless “struggle for existence” that he found in the world of biological organisms.