How Christians Kept Evolution Alive

Nisbet, Robert. Social Change and History.

Under the heading “Change proceeds from uniform causes”, Nisbet discusses how the idea of uniformity came to dominate the thinking of the Victorian social theorists, just as it dominated their peers in natural history. Uniformitarism says that the changes we see in the world are the result of uniform or common causes “working through infinitesimally small, gradual, and continuous variations, also to be seen now working in the world.” [184] The idea is, of course, not correct; but Christians helped keep it in the forefront by attacking it so effectively.

I mean by this [uniformity], not any uniformity of evolutionary change from area to area, but rather the uniformity of fundamental causes of change involved in evolution. This is the meaning of the word that reigned in the late eighteenth century and throughout most of the nineteenth century. [182]

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Even [the great natual historian Charles] Lyell saw fundamental difficulties iwth the theory of uniformitarianism; the evidences of catastrophic events in teh geological past were too pressing to disregarded by a mind as fine as his. It is entirely possible that thoroughgoing uniformitarianism would have lost its monopolistic position in the physical sciences before it did in fact had it not been for two conditions. The first was the great attack that nineteenth-century agnosticism mounted against Christian fundamentalism; the second was the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of the Species. Christian creationism was, in a manner of speaking, a “catastrophic” theory of the terrestrial past; and the principles of uniformitarianism laid down by [Scottish philosopher of natural history James] Hutton and Playfair were admirably designed to cast doubt on castatrophism not merely of the Cuvier variety but also of the fundamentalist variety and, with it, the whole edifice of Christian dogma. Once the war on Christian fundamentalism began in earnest, and once the fundamentalists began to counter-attack the theory of uniformitarianism, it was inevitable no doubt that rationalists and secularists would rally for polemical reasons alone to advancement of a theory that, as Lyell realized, presented great difficulties. [183]

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It is hard today to realize the degree to which the attack on Christianity obsessed intellectuals of rationalist and utilitarian will. Christianity had much the same position that capitalism was to hold in the first half of the twentieth century. It was the enemy in the minds of most intellectuals. Uniformitarianism, above any other single element of the theory of evolution, was the perfect point of attack on a theory that made external manipulation its essence and a succession of “catastrophes” its plot. And the uniformitarianism that figured so prominently in Hutton, Playfair, Lyell, and Darwin figured with equal prominence in the works of the social evolutionists. [184]

[emphases in the original]

We forget just how much the early supporters of Darwinism hated Christian belief. It was “superstition” at best, something that prevented progress and led to wars. I’m not sure why they didn’t end up in full disrepute after the world wars, but they didn’t. Even eugenics kept going at a quick pace.

There’s something evil about over-rationalization of our world, including that by Christians. Trying to get every mystery solved isn’t the same as investigating every mystery. Perhaps it’s the Modernist’s Dilemma.

Anyway, certainly a lesson in the past for Christians fighting similar battles today: be careful what you win. By taking the fight public only on certain points, you may create an entrenched foe whose goal is no longer a conversation but to win. Being aware of that penchant in your own argument is useful, too, I’d suppose.

That’s a good lesson for all of us to consider when we are in a position of being in complete opposition to someone else, whether religious, political or personal.

Nisbet is a social theorist of more than some note; the book is a rare classic in the field that still has much to say. That just jumped out at me as I reread it today.