Inventing Conflict, Science, and Religion

In a recent study released by the Pew Research Centre, it was found that approximately 59% of Americans believe science and religion are often in a state of conflict. This supports other national surveys, such as the study released by the Public Religion Research Institute and the American Academy of Religion, in concluding that the majority of Americans perceive the relationship between the two disciplines to be characterised by conflict. This idea, that science and religion are locked in a state of perennial warfare, is not a new one; yet, only going back to the late nineteenth century, it is much younger than is often thought. Indeed, it is important to note that the very notion of science, as it is currently understood, did not exist before the nineteenth century. In a similar fashion, the picture that we have of religion, at least in the Western world, is profoundly different to the way that religion was portrayed before the enlightenment. It is definitely possible for conflict to exist between these two disciplines. There are ways of interpreting religion that are irreconcilable with science. Equally so, science can be understood in many ways, some of which will come into conflict with religion. However, neither science nor religion are objective concepts. By closely examining the development of these two disciplines, I will argue that the relationship they share is defined by how science and religion are interpreted. Conflict may be understood to exist between the two disciplines, but a far better approach will see mutual consonance between science and religion.

Defining Religion

Although it may at first seem simple, defining "religion" is a notoriously difficult task. Perhaps the most common approach to understanding religion sees it simply as being a belief in a god or some form of deity. However, upon closer examination, such an approach to understanding the nature of religion is clearly deficient for a number of reasons. The nineteenth century anthropologist, Edward Burnett Tylor, touches on one of these reasons when he argues that such approaches “[have] the fault of identifying religion rather with particular developments than with the deeper motive which underlies them.” Thus, Tylor extended his definition of religion to include “the belief in spiritual beings.” For nineteenth century anthropologists, and indeed for us today, it is crucial that our definition of religion should encompass the variety of beliefs, expressions, and practices performed by all people. Following this principle, Emile Durkheim expanded on Tylor's definition, arguing that religion should be understood as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things.” Durkheim did not limit religion to being just the belief in supernatural beings; instead, he argued that religion could even involve believing that things are sacred. From the common definition of simply being a belief in a deity, religion has been defined in an increasingly inclusive way. But it should be noted that, from Tylor to Durkheim, religion is still understood in this context as being primarily concerned with belief.

William James, a contemporary of Tylor and Durkheim, did not identify religion in this fashion. Instead, he argued that religion was best understood as “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.” Religion, for James, was not primarily about belief; rather, it was about experience. Similarly, Rudolf Otto emphasised the experiential aspect of religion, describing the experience as being "beyond our apprehension and comprehension, not only because our knowledge has certain irremovable limits, but because in it we come upon something inherently 'wholly other', whose kind and character are incommensurable with our own, and before which we therefore recoil in a wonder that strikes us chill and numb." Although James and Otto considered belief to be an important aspect of religion, they both asserted that, fundamentally, religion was something that was to be experienced.

Significantly, both of these approaches to examining religion were developed in the late nineteenth century, through a close examination of the different cultures of the time. More recently, however, scholars have begun to emphasise the historical development of religion. It is argued that, yes, religion does take a number of different forms among various cultures; but, equally so, the very concept of religion has changed and developed over time. At least in the West, there was no general approach to understanding or comparing religion before the fragmentation of Christendom during the reformation period. As has been pointed out by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, "the concept 'religion', then, in the West has evolved. Its evolution has included a long-range development that we may term as a process of reification: mentally making religion into a thing, gradually coming to conceive it as an objective systematic entity." 

During the Middle Ages, the Christian religion was expressed in the West through inner faith and piety. It was not to be found in something tangible like a ritual or a creed but instead, as Peter Harrison has observed, it was found in the "inner dynamic of the heart". Nowhere is this more obvious than in Augustine of Hippo's, 'Retractions', where he argues that "true religion means the worship of the one true God." He elaborates upon this further in 'Six Questions in Answer to the Pagans', arguing that while Christianity was a form of true religion, it was not to be regarded as the true religion. He argued that this was because true religion had existed since the creation of the world and therefore a long time before the birth of Christ and the inception of Christianity. Yet, for Augustine, true religion united all people. "It makes no difference," he writes, "that people worship with different ceremonies, in accord with the different requirements of times and places, if what is worshiped is holy." Thus, Augustine argued that true religion was to be seen as existing apart from the culturally bound forms of Catholic worship and ritual, writing that "different rites are celebrated in different peoples bound together by one and the  same religion." Religion, therefore, was not to be understood as a doctrinal belief, a ritual, or an experience; instead, for Augustine, true religion was an invisible and spiritual virtue .

A common objection to this view of the Medieval Church would be that creeds such as the Nicene Creed and doctrines such as the doctrine of grace and of the trinity were actually quite central to the formation of the early Church. Indeed, this is quite true. However, it is important to acknowledge the significant difference between the Christian religion of the early Church Fathers and the Christianity of today. A common approach to Christianity in recent years has been to define the religion by what its adherents believe and practice, to value Christianity first and foremost as a belief system to be compared alongside other belief systems. Yet, while the formation of doctrines and the routine recitation of creeds did give rise to a greater awareness of the rational grounding of the Christian religion, this was not their main goal. For the Church Fathers, belief was not understood to be an assertion of the existence of God, nor was it the lending of assent to propositional truths. Primarily, belief was seen to be an expression of trust. Doctrinal understanding and the recitation of creeds were not pursued in order to promote an intellectual understanding of the Christian religion, they were pursued to support upright religious living. "Look at yourself," Augustine urged, "treat your creed as your own personal mirror." In this way, the creeds were an exercise in self-examination, that through believing the creeds, a person would be living rightly. For the Church Fathers, therefore, belief meant something far more than it does today. "To believe in God is to seek him in faith," wrote Faustus of Riez, "to hope piously in him, and to pass into him by a movement of choice. When I say that I believe in him, I confess him, offer him worship, adore him, give myself over to him wholly and transfer to him all my affection." 

When did this change? When did the transformation of religion occur, that this once personal commitment of trust came to be understood as being primarily an epistemological commitment? The transformation of religion in the West, namely Christianity, from an invisible and spiritual virtue into something tangible as we encounter it today was not immediate, nevertheless by the end of the seventeenth century a noticeable change had occurred. A significant reason for this change is due to the influence of the sixteenth century religious reformers. Prior to the reformation, the laity had been excluded from certain parts of the Christian religion that were deemed too complicated. The Protestant Reformers, however, insisted that all believers should possess the ability to articulate the doctrines of the faith they professed, and to be able to do so in propositional terms. John Calvin criticised those who had gone before him, who saw little to gain in studying the doctrines of Christianity. He writes that "the true religion which is delivered in the Scriptures, and which all ought to hold, they readily permit both themselves and others to be ignorant of, to neglect and despise; and they deem it of little moment what each man believes concerning God and Christ, or disbelieves, provided he submits to the judgment of the Church with implicit faith." In response to this Protestant emphasis on the importance of explicitly defining the doctrines of the Christian faith, Catholic theologians tightened their own approach towards doctrine. Due to this greater emphasis on the importance of doctrinal knowledge, Christianity increasingly came to be viewed as primarily being concerned with propositional beliefs.

Examining how different cultures have understood religion opens up a whole new way of understanding the relationship between science and religion. People in different times and places have often held wildly disparate beliefs regarding what does and does not constitute religion. For some, religion is primarily a cognitive activity, while for others it is something to be experienced or acted upon. Nevertheless, whether religion is something that is believed, lived, or experienced, to define the relationship between science and religion as being characterised by conflict, without attending to these readily apparent differences, is to significantly overstep the bounds of scholarly authority. That being said, it remains to be seen whether religion can, despite all this diversity, conflict with science. In order to answer this question, the nature of the scientific enterprise must be examined in more detail.

Examining Science

There is a popular chart that has been circulated widely on the internet showing the supposed exponential advancement of scientific progress up to the year 2000 CE. According to this chart, science is an objective entity. Having been discovered around three thousand years ago, it led to the advancement of society until "The Christian Dark Ages". Supposedly, scientific knowledge was suppressed during this dark period until, at last, science was freed from the grip of religion during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. This chart is an example of the widespread misunderstanding that, typically, religion has impeded the progress of science. Richard Carrier, perhaps the only authority close to being considered a historian who subscribes to this view, has even made the point that, "had Christianity not interrupted the intellectual advance of mankind and put the progress for science on hold for a thousand years, the Scientific Revolution might have occurred a thousand years ago, and our science and technology today would be a thousand years more advanced." Yet, there are a number of fundamental erroneous assumptions upon which this argument is supported. Firstly, the question of whether a significant decline in scientific activity occurred during the Middle Ages is intensely debated [1]. Second, even if such a decline did take place, it is highly unlikely that religion was a significant factor [2]. But, I will not attend to these issues here, for they have been thoroughly addressed elsewhere. Instead, I will focus on the third assumption, that "scientific advancement" represents an objective measure upon which cultures throughout history can be measured against. This assumption maintains that science is a value-free and objective discipline; that it is autonomous and based on our universal principles of rationality and that, as time goes on, science will continue to build upon our knowledge of the world. I will now turn to addressing the assumption that Richard Carrier makes, that science is a discipline that is just waiting to be discovered by society as it advances, relentlessly, into the future.

The history of science reveals a far more complex picture. "Science", contrary to what Carrier implies, has changed significantly over time. The type of "science" that occurred before the Middle Ages was very different to the "science" that was practiced afterwards. Indeed, the ancient Greeks had no role in their society equivalent to the role we attribute to scientists; rather, those who studied nature were considered to be philosophers of the natural world, or natural philosophers. Because their discipline was actually understood to be a form of philosophy, Greek"scientists" operated with entirely different motivations and assumptions than their modern counterparts. It is important to recognise that the study of philosophy, for the early Greeks, was intended to aid in the pursuit of eudaimonia: the good life.  

Philosophy, then, was primarily concerned with how life was to be lived, and natural philosophy studied the natural world to gain insight into this question. Indeed, it was commonly assumed that a moral order was built into the structure of the cosmos, and it was through an understanding of that order that a person could endure the difficulties faced in life. In the Timaeus, Plato reflects upon this common assumption, writing that "the motions which are naturally akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. These each man should follow, and by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, should correct the courses of the head which were corrupted at our birth, and should assimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his original nature, so that having assimilated them he may attain to that best life which the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and the future." Thus, the study of nature primarily represented, to the Greek natural philosophers, not an attempt to understand the universe, but a means of aligning oneself with the rational and moral order that pervaded it. Understanding the natural world may have been a part of the process, but it was subservient to the art of living. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus explains, the good life lies "in contemplation and understanding, and in a scheme of life conformable to nature." Epicurus, even went so far as to suggest that tenets of natural philosophy should be memorised and rehearsed, similar to the way catechisms have been recited in religious ceremonies, so as to align oneself more fully with the natural world. Thus, for the Greeks, a greater understanding the natural world was understood to be important, but only insofar as it could act as a buffer against the vicissitudes of life. 

It is worth noting that, although this approach understood the study of nature to be primarily a moral enterprise, a great deal was discovered about the natural world during this period. The chart mentioned above is correct to suppose that knowledge of the natural world increased during this time. The question, however, of whether this constitutes "Scientific Advancement" depends upon whether the activity that Greek natural philosophers were participating in is the same kind of discipline that scientists practiced during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. History reveals a complex picture linking these two periods. Contrary to the aforementioned chart, unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not display an active interest in studying nature. "Scientific Advancement" did not continue to exponentially increase during this period, as is claimed, but instead entered into a time of stasis. Although historians may point to philosophers such as the mathematician and astronomer Hypatia, as examples of Roman engagement with the natural world, such figures were incredibly rare. The intellectual landscape that came out of this period, greeting the growing Christian faith, was one that showed little to no interest in studying the natural world. When, at least in the first few centuries of the middle ages, Christian thinkers showed little attention to the study of nature, they were not consciously suppressing the growth of science; instead, they were deferring to the dominant attitudes that they inherited from the Romans before them.

It would not be reasonable to claim, as the chart implies, that the study of the natural world was actively suppressed by Christianity during this period, it wasn't. Equally so, it would be unreasonable to claim that the first part of the middle ages was a climactic time of scientific fervour. Nevertheless, the attitude of ambivalence towards the natural world that is displayed during the first few centuries of the common era began to change during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. With the development of universities in Europe and an increasing emphasis on translating Greek and Arabic scientific texts into Latin, scholars began to study the natural world with a renewed interest. In this endeavour they were often motivated by the radical idea that God had created two books in which his character could be discerned: the book of God's word (the Bible) and the book of God's works (nature). Due to this idea, they established an approach to studying the natural world that would most definitely not qualify as science in the modern sense of the term. Indeed, having been steeped in a culture where religious scriptures were commonly read allegorically, nature was thought to be fraught with meaning. For those who understood nature in this way, plants and animals taught spiritual and moral lessons. An example of this can be found in the third century work, the Physiologus, which was very popular during the Middle Ages. It reads that the fox should be understood as "a figure of the devil", while the owl is a "figure of the Jewish people," and the phoenix is "the person of the saviour". This view understands the natural world primarily in terms of how it is useful to humans. Radically anthropocentric, this approach understands every feature of the natural world to play some special role in the moral and theological development of humanity. Even during the sixteenth century, this approach is implicit in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen, where he describes animals as being representative of various vices such as pride, wrath, envy, lust, and gluttony.

The interpretation of both the book of God's word and the book of God's works went hand in hand. Thus, because the dominant approach to understanding the scriptures during the Middle Ages was allegorical, the natural world was understood in such terms. This changed during the early modern period, however, as reformation movements encouraged an increasingly literal approach to the Bible. The Bible, they argued, was not full of complicated signs and symbols; instead, it was written for everyone, and could be faithfully interpreted by all. Just as the book of God's word increasingly came to be viewed as a literal historical account, a literal approach to studying nature was gradually emphasised more and more. This shift is seen clearly by contrasting the way that animals were understood during the Middle Ages and the seventeenth century. As has already been referred to above, scholars in the Middle Ages understood the natural world to be composed of cyphers. Rather than study animals for themselves, on a biological level, this anthropocentric approach sought to understand animals for their symbolic significance. In contrast to this approach there developed, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, two polarised alternatives on how best to understand animal nature. The first was that of the sixteenth century French essayist Michel de Montaigne who argued that, like humans, animals possessed rationality, morality, and emotions. Through his study of animals he concluded that "we ought, from like effects, to conclude like faculties, and from greater effects greater faculties, and consequently confess that the same reason, the same method by which we operate, are common with them, or that they have others that are better." On the other side of the spectrum, the French philosopher Rene Descartes argued that animals were not like humans, being neither rational nor moral, and, beyond that, not even conscious. He based this assertion on the belief that the world was made of two types of fundamental elements, described as thinking and material substances. The philosopher Michael Ruse has observed that this approach led Descartes to assert that "God is pure thinking substance; the physical world is pure material substance; we humans (and perhaps angels) are uniquely in the middle, both thinking and material substance." Thus, for Descartes, animals were understood as merely material beings, for unlike humans they (apparently) did not possess the ability to reason. Now, evidently, these views still stand in stark contrast to modern science, yet they do represent a significant shift from the approaches to the natural world that were developed during the Middle Ages. As Peter Harrison has observed, the science of the seventeenth century "concentrated on tracing causes from physical effects, rather than seeing effects as signs. The natural world had come to be regarded as a complex web of cause and effect rather than [a] book of signs which had moral or transcendental meanings."

Science is a developing discipline. It is not some autonomous, universal key to unlocking the deepest secrets of the universe. Rather, it is an entirely social enterprise, grounded in the ever-changing assumptions of everyday people throughout history. Just as the science of the fifteenth century may seem antiquated to those living in the twenty-first century, it is likely that those living 500 years from now will make similar judgements about our own scientific perspectives. This does not mean that we do not study science today, nor does it mean that scholars living in the Middle Ages did not engage in science; rather, it means that science is an ever changing discipline. Our talk of conflict between science and religion should reflect this fact.

Reconsidering Conflict

Science and religion are not objective concepts; they have altered over time and changed from culture to culture. Consequently, it is not possible to talk about the relationship between science and religion as if it is some fixed and immutable notion. It is definitely possible for conflict to exist between science and religion, but this comes down to the way in which the categories of science and religion are interpreted! I have sought to argue here that the concepts of science and religion that have been developed in the twenty-first century are relatively recent ideas, having been increasingly shaped by historical contingencies. It is due to the categories of science and religion, as we understand them (rather than their underlying ideas), that conflict is so commonly understood to exist between science and religion. As the scholar of science and religion Alister McGrath has observed: 

Science and religion are two of the greatest cultural forces in today's world. When rightly framed, a mutual conversation can be enriching and elevating. When rightly constructed, a 'bigger narrative' of reality creates intellectual space for divergence and disagreement, while affirming the intelligibility and coherence of our world.

Notes:

1. See James Hannam, God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science, (London: Icon Books, 2009).

2. See David C. Lindberg, "Medieval Science and Religion," in Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction, ed. Gary B. Ferngren (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002); Michael H. Shank, "Myth 2: That the Medieval Christian Church Suppressed the Growth of Science," in Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, ed. Ronald L. Numbers (London: Harvard University Press, 2010); Michael H. Shank, "Myth 1: That There Was No Scientific Activity between Greek Antiquity and the Scientific Revolution," in Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis (London: Harvard University Press, 2015).

*Much of this post is a reflection of Peter Harrison's recent work, The Territories of Science and Religion. For a far more comprehensive analysis of much of what has been argued here, one should read his book.

Augustine. Augustine: Earlier Writings. Edited by John H. S. Burleigh. London: SCM, 1953.

Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1915.

Epictetus, The Works of Epictetus. Consisting of His Discourses, in Four Books, The Enchiridion, and Fragments. Edited by Elizabeth Carter and translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1865.

Faustus of Riez, "De spiritu sancto." In The Splendor of the Church. Edited by Henri de Lubac. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999.

Hannam, James. God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. London: Icon Books, 2009.

Harrison, Peter. The Territories of Science and Religion. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Harrison, Peter. "The Virtues of Animals in Seventeenth-Century Thought." Journal of the History of Ideas 59, no. 3 (1998): 463-84.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Lindberg, David C. "Medieval Science and Religion." In Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Edited by Gary B. Ferngren. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002.

McGrath, Alister E. Inventing the Universe: Why We Can't Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015.

Montaigne, Michel de. "Apology for Remond Seybond." Translated by Charles Cotton. In Selected Essays, edited by Wiliam Carew Hazlitt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Translated by John W. Harvey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Physiologus: A Medieval Book of Natural Lore. Translated by Michael J. Curley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Plato, Timaeus. Translated by Peter Kalkavage. Indianapolis: Focus, 2015.

Ruse, Michael. Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Shank, Michael H. "Myth 2: That the Medieval Christian Church Suppressed the Growth of Science." In Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. Edited by Ronald L. Numbers. London: Harvard University Press, 2010.

Shank, Michael H. "Myth 1: That There Was No Scientific Activity between Greek Antiquity and the Scientific Revolution." In Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science. Edited by Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis. London: Harvard University Press, 2015.

Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. The Meaning and End of Religion. London: SPCK, 1978.

Spenser, Edmund. "The Faerie Queene." In Selected Poetry: Revised and Enlarged, edited by Leo Kirschbaum, 7-580. New York: Hold, Rinehard and Winston, 1966.

Tylor, Edward Burnett. Primitive Culture: Researches Into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. London: John Murray, 1871.

Chance and Purpose in Evolution

An Examination of Evolutionary Biology and its Teleological Implications

The relationship between science and religion has been characterised by the diverse range of interactions between the two disciplines. The conflict thesis advanced in the nineteenth century by John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, which sees science and religion as being in a state of constant warfare, has been thoroughly repudiated in recent years and replaced by a model that acknowledges the complexity of the issues involved.[1] One such issue concerns the relationship between Darwinian evolution and Christian theology. Initially, this relationship would appear to be characterised by conflict; for, on the one hand, it is central to a Christian worldview that humans are understood to be the purposeful creation of an all-powerful creator. They bear the image of God, having been chosen “in Christ before the foundation of the world…”[2] On the other hand, a scientific worldview maintains that humans are the product of evolution, a seemingly directionless process that is governed by chance and contingency. The chance-like nature of evolution seems to undermine the notion that humans are the deliberate creative act of a purposeful God. However, this essay will argue that this conclusion is not necessarily warranted. The question will be posed: Do the contingent and chance-like processes inherent in Darwinian evolution undermine the belief that human beings have been purposefully created? In order to answer this question, this essay will be examining the extent to which teleological conclusions, particularly those that refer to purpose and chance in evolution, can legitimately be inferred from biological observations. Firstly, the history of the relationship between teleology and biology will be explored so as to provide a context within which to situate the current debate. Secondly, the teleological implications of Darwinian evolution will be examined. This essay will argue that evolutionary biology supports a theologically neutral, teleological approach to the development of life. It will also argue that a theistic understanding of teleology is not undermined by evolutionary biology.

Examining Teleology

Before continuing, it is important to establish what is meant by the term “teleology”, for it is susceptible to misinterpretation and oversimplification. Essentially, teleology is a mode of explanation that seeks to understand a phenomenon with reference to its specific telos, a Greek word denoting a ‘goal’ or an ‘end’.[3] In this essay, the term teleology will be understood to indicate the recognition of a phenomenon that is purposeful or directional. As an approach to the natural world, teleological thinking has played a prominent role in the sciences. Although, during the scientific revolution, a significant shift occurred away from thinking about the telos of an object or phenomenon, teleological thinking remained prominent in the biological sciences.[4] It wasn’t until around 1970 that the rejection of teleology in evolutionary biology came to be regarded as axiomatic truth.[5]  For Paul F. Lurquin and Linda Stone, any notion of teleology lies outside the realm of scientific inquiry. They write that “teleology, the notion that natural events occur for a predetermined reason imagined by a designer, is unscientific and unprovable.”[6] David Hanke agrees, but goes further still, asserting that any talk of teleology or purpose “is entirely subjective because purpose has no real existence outside the mind of the animal thinking of it.”[7] Both of these approaches reject the notion that teleology has any place in evolutionary biology. However, these assertions rest upon two presuppositions which, if found to be false, will call the elimination of teleology into question. The first is that teleology cannot avoid a theistic interpretation, necessarily having religious implications. The second presupposition is that teleology is unobservable, that it is an a priori assumption that has been imposed upon the scientific process, which cannot be inferred from biological observation.

It is understandable that teleology would be conflated with theism. This is largely because various teleological arguments, such as the design argument, have come to be associated with the strident claims made by the advocates of creationism and intelligent design.[8] Nevertheless, there is good reason to suppose that teleology is open to both non-theistic and theistic interpretations. Alister McGrath writes that teleology “can be a neutral term, more phenomenological than theoretical, designating simply the observation that certain behaviours or functions appear to be goal-directed; it can also be used in a more developed sense, articulating the idea of processes being directed or driven toward a goal by internal or external forces or agencies.”[9] Indeed, when one considers the initial development of teleological thinking, it becomes apparent that teleology lends itself to neither theistic nor non-theistic approaches. Although the term was introduced in the eighteenth century, the idea of teleology goes back to the classical period and the works of Plato and Aristotle.[10] Aristotle and Plato argued that a process can only be properly understood if its end, or telos, takes explanatory priority. For Plato, the appearance of design that is exhibited in the universe should be attributed to the purposeful work of a powerful being, or demiurge, that stood outside the creative process. Although often considered to be a being of great power and knowledge, this demiurge did not create the universe but moulded it. However, as Robert J. Richards has noted, the demiurge “may simply have been Plato’s stand-in for the rational structuring of the universe. [11] Aristotle, on the other hand, avoided talking about external causes; instead he attributed the teleological drive within nature to a network of internal causes. Referring to the building of a house, he argued that each step of the process can only be fully appreciated if the overall layout of the structure is understood. He then extended this approach to the natural world, arguing that the generation of living organisms, and their parts, can also only be fully appreciated if the end or goal of the process is understood.[12] Aristotle’s approach clearly permits a theological interpretation of teleology, which Thomas Aquinas developed in the Middle Ages.[13] Nevertheless, Aristotle avoided interpreting teleology in theistic terms such as the design of an external creator. Instead, he understood teleology to denote internalised purposes.[14] It is imperative, therefore, to distinguish between design and teleology. McGrath emphasises this when he writes, “design is to be understood as conscious intent and artifice applied externally to the order of nature, in order to achieve some end or external goal; teleology can be interpreted simply as evidence of function or purpose within nature, as an expression of natural laws and natural order.”[15]

During the seventeenth century, the Aristotelian approach to natural philosophy gave way to a more mechanistic view of the universe.[16] Although teleology did not remain unchanged, it continued to be a significant consideration in this new mechanistic approach. Two quite dissimilar understandings of teleology were developed in very different contexts. In England, natural theology promoted a theistic understanding of teleology; while in Germany, a neutral understanding of teleology was advanced. Natural theology gained widespread acceptance in England, and continued to gain popularity into the early nineteenth century with the works of William Paley.[17] This system of thinking sought to prove God’s providential nature by appealing to the apparent design displayed in the natural world. Because of this, design arguments became an essential part of English scientific culture.[18] However, while English natural theology understood teleology to be primarily concerned with fulfilling the plans an external creator imposed upon the universe, the approach taken in Germany was quite different.[19] Immanuel Kant was critical of English natural theology. Essentially, he argued that natural theology assumed the existence of God and his moral wisdom, while trying to argue for these characteristics.[20] For him, “there was no proof for the existence of God.”[21] In contrast to the approach of English natural theology, Kant argued that teleology was best understood as a method of interpreting how the structure of an organism relates to its processes. Rather than invoking a creator or a design, Kant sought to understand specific phenomena by referring to the goal or end that is achieved through them. In some cases this could be production, such as the production of a house; whereas in other cases this could be reproduction, such as in an organism. With this in mind, McGrath asserts that “biological explanation thus has an ineradicably teleological dimension, even though Kant interprets this in terms of the goals of the production, reproduction, or maintenance of the biological organism, rather than the imposition of the ‘will’ of an external agent, such as God.”[22]

Teleology in Biology

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the French scientist Georges Cuvier developed an approach to biology that emphasised the role of teleology in the lives of specific organisms. Although, towards the beginning of the century, theories of evolution were becoming increasingly popular in scientific circles, Cuvier was not an evolutionist. Indeed, he advanced a teleological approach to biology that would later come into conflict with evolutionary biology. Cuvier argued that living organisms were not simply thrown together in a random fashion, but that the individual parts of each organism were coordinated so as to promote the well-being of the whole.[23] This principle came to be referred to as the ‘Conditions of Existence’. Cuvier wrote of these conditions that “as nothing may exist which does not include the conditions which made its existence possible, the different parts of each creature must be coordinated in such a way as to make possible the whole organism …”[24] It was his belief that these ‘Conditions of Existence’ operated according to general laws which meant that specific parts of an organism would operate as if there were specific goals for their activity. For example, the skeletal structure of a vertebrate would be teleologically incompatible with the respiratory system of an arthropod, because an insect would require a rigid external surface for gas exchange through spiracles. Such a surface would make an internal skeleton redundant.[25] The point that Cuvier was making was that the potential of each individual part of an organism could only be understood in reference to the organism as a whole.[26]

A significant consequence of this view, however, is that it would come into conflict with the increasingly popular evolutionary approach to biology. Cuvier had argued that the individual parts of an organism were correlated in a tightly organised manner. These parts were unable to deviate, unless they all somehow changed together, because they were united in their teleological goal: the sustaining of the whole.[27] Cuvier stressed this point, writing that “none of these separate parts can change their forms without a corresponding change on the other parts of the same animal, and consequently each of these parts taken separately, indicates all the other parts to which it has belonged.”[28] This tight teleological interrelationship between the individual parts of an organism precludes the possibility of any considerable variation, for if any single part were to diverge from the overall telos, it would “fail to serve in an integrated fashion the end of the organisms’ overall well-being.”[29] Cuvier’s teleological approach to biology found much approval, particularly in England where it was worked into the thriving and increasingly diverse natural theology movement.[30]

Teleology in Evolutionary Biology

On November 24, 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. It was an instant bestseller, with all of the first edition copies being bought by booksellers on the first day. This cannot be attributed to any unfamiliarity on the part of his contemporaries, regarding evolutionary thinking.[31] Thinkers such as Comte de Buffon and Denis Diderot had long since suggested, albeit somewhat more speculatively than theoretically, that life could develop and change through natural processes. Nevertheless, these suggestions were taken up by the likes of Erasmus Darwin and Jean Baptiste Lamarck, who then began to advance their own theories of transmutation.[32] Yet, Darwin’s theory of natural selection was seen by his contemporaries to have been different from these. Natural selection seemed to minimise the role that any sort of purpose could play in the process, while simultaneously emphasising the relevance of chance. As Timothy Shanahan has observed, “it wasn’t so much Darwin’s advocacy of evolution that was novel or disturbing… Rather, what was disconcerting was the idea that natural selection operating on chance variations produced the diversity and apparent design in nature.”[33] Since then, the apparent contradiction of purpose and chance has been the source of much apprehension among religious believers.[34]

In the early nineteenth century, William Paley’s approach to natural theology dominated much of the intellectual landscape of biology. This approach, which emphasised the significance of design in nature, was studied closely by Darwin at the University of Cambridge. Initially Darwin seems to have been intrigued by Paley’s ideas; indeed, much of his later writings were profoundly influenced by the work of the Anglican clergyman.[35] Nevertheless, he came to reject Paley’s approach. “The will of the Deity,” he wrote as early as 1938, is “no explanation – it has not the character of a physical law & is therefore utterly useless.”[36] Darwin was adamant in his conviction that life did not arise or develop through the interventions of an immaterial designer. Already by the 1820’s, it had become common practice for geologists to reject any appeal to the supernatural in their scientific explanations.[37] Now, it was time for biology to follow their example, for Darwin was convinced that there was no teleological impulse driving evolution.[38] Likewise his ‘Bulldog’, Thomas Henry Huxley, held the view that “teleology, as commonly understood, had received its deathblow at Mr. Darwin’s hands.”[39]

While comments such as these would seem to suggest that both Huxley and Darwin thought all forms of teleology to be undermined by natural selection, the reality is somewhat more nuanced. In Huxley’s case, he was clearly referring to a specific approach to teleology that had been undermined by Darwin’s work: Paley’s approach.[40] He had argued that it was not necessary to invoke an external agent to explain the apparent design in living things, for natural selection could operate at such a level that it could counterfeit design.[41] Yet, Huxley well knew that there were other approaches to teleology, besides the one advanced by Paley, that remained unaffected by Darwin’s work. Indeed, in a lecture given in 1887, while examining the deficiency of the ‘commonly understood’ approach to teleology, Huxley made the point that evolution points to a ‘wider teleology’ that is part of the deep structure of the universe.[42] It is unclear what he was referring to, when speaking of a ‘wider teleology’; but, it is clear that while rejecting some forms of teleology, Huxley did not extend this rejection to all forms of teleology. Instead, he seems to have perceived there to be some teleological impulse embedded in the structure of the universe.

As with Huxley, it initially seems as though Darwin also opposed teleology; for he strongly opposed the suggestions of his advocate in America, Asa Gray, that evolutionary variations could be directional so as to be designed. For Darwin, such issues were beyond the capacity of science to adjudicate, so one could not justify making an observation-based decision either way.[43] Gray came to agree with this notion, concluding that such issues “must after all rest mostly on faith.”[44] Nevertheless, despite these declarations, Darwin advanced an understanding of evolution that saw the history of life as an account of progress, from lower to higher life forms. This notion of progress that he advanced was already widespread in England during the Industrial Revolution, especially in sociological circles. Darwin comments that “as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.”[45] Such a statement clearly resonates with a teleological understanding of evolution, for Darwin undoubtedly believed that natural selection brought about the development of life in an upward trend. It was his belief that natural selection compelled life to progress because those that survived were better than those who died, or as Michael Ruse has spelled out: “the winners overall will be better than the losers.”[46]

Despite the popularity of these notions of biological progress in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in contemporary biological circles they have largely been abandoned.[47] This is not because scientists have necessarily stopped believing in biological progress; rather, it is because of a shift that occurred in the philosophical approach to science that emphasised the necessary objectivity of the scientific observer.[48] For the philosopher Karl Popper, values and beliefs had no place in science; instead, he asserted that science should only consist of purely objective knowledge. According to Popper, science should be “knowledge without a knower.”[49] Such an approach to science, and to evolutionary biology, is clearly at odds with the value-laden notions of progress that had been advanced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than a phenomenon that has been observed in nature, the notion of progress has been seen to have been imposed upon the scientific endeavour. David Zeigler has commented that “progress is an entirely human concept that many humans have applied in this case to a process decidedly not concerned with what humans are – or what they think.”[50] Accordingly, any reference to progress is considered to be thoroughly unscientific.[51]

Likewise, it has often been argued that this neo-Darwinian approach to evolutionary biology has undermined the notion of teleology.[52] The biologist C. S. Pittendrigh acknowledged the fact that processes in science can be end-directed. Nevertheless, he argued that there is a difference between end-directedness and teleology.[53] ‘Teleonomy’, as he termed this end-directedness, referred to the idea that there may be underlying mechanisms that lead biological processes towards certain ends. However, while conceding this point, he asserted that teleonomy rejects the added notion that there must therefore be some sort of purpose or goal that these processes are built upon. For Pittendrigh, biological processes may arrive at certain ends, but that does not mean that they operate according to some purpose.[54] In Chance & Necessity, the molecular biologist Jacques Monod applied this notion of teleonomy to evolutionary biology. For Monod evolution was teleonomical, in that it led to survival of increasingly diverse organisms; but it was not teleological, for he saw no goal or purpose to the process. Instead he saw “pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution.”[55]

The question of teleology in biology is, however, by no means resolved, for a number of biologists and philosophers have emphasised the value of teleological explanations. The philosopher and evolutionary biologist Francisco J. Ayala has argued that the notion of teleology is essential to biology. He distinguishes between different scientific disciplines such as physics and biology, by acknowledging that the fall of a stone is not teleologically directed. But in biology he asserts that “teleological explanations imply that the end result is the explanatory reason for the existence of the object or process which serves or leads to it. A teleological account of the gills of fish implies that gills came to existence precisely because they serve for respiration.”[56] Ayala argues that teleology is indispensible to evolutionary biology for two reasons. The first is that natural selection is established upon the teleological principle of increasing reproductive efficiency. The second is that this process then produces organs that have their own goals and purposes.[57] Ernst Mayr, a philosopher of science, observed in 1988 that teleology had become associated with obscurantism.[58] Despite this, he made the observation, like Pittendrigh and Monod, that nature is full of processes that are end-directed. However, he continued by criticising the semantic struggles that such biologists go through when they attempt to make teleological statements in a nonteleological manner. He writes that “the use of so-called ‘teleological’ language by biologists is legitimate; it neither implies a rejection of physicochemical explanation nor does it imply noncausal explanation.”[59] Despite their disputed status, teleological explanations undoubtedly have a significant place in evolutionary biology. They open up new lines of inquiry and provide a different perspective on old ones. Rather than being eliminated from evolutionary biology, teleological explanations are expected to prosper.[60]

So far, this essay has emphasised the historical significance of teleological explanations in science, and particularly in evolutionary biology. By doing so, it has concluded that there have been a number of approaches to understanding teleology, some neutral and some theistic. Many of these approaches have been undermined by Darwinian evolution, but not all. This essay has also examined a significant shift that occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This shift involved a desire to remove notions such as progress and teleology from the study of evolutionary biology. It was concluded that a major factor in this growing sentiment was the belief that teleology was something that was imposed upon the scientific process. But what if teleology were not imposed, but rather observed within the natural world?

Evolution and Neutral Teleology: Replaying the Tape of Life

It has already been argued that there are processes at work within evolution that could be considered teleological. The different parts of an organism appear to operate teleologically, for they seem to operate according to the purpose that they serve. Also the mechanism of evolution, natural selection, appears to be teleologically motivated for it promotes a particular goal: reproductive efficiency. However, despite these conclusions, the question of whether evolution is directed towards an end, or whether it has a specific purpose, is left entirely open. Indeed, while there are a number of teleological cases within evolution, it is not necessary to infer that therefore the overall process of evolution is teleological. This essay will now examine the evolutionary process and the significance of chance and contingency on the one hand and purpose and directionality on the other, in order to shed light on the teleological nature of evolution.

It is essential to Christianity that nature be teleological, for Christian scriptures describe the world as being the creation of a purposeful God.[61] Not only this, but for a Christian the creation of human beings is seen as being something of fundamental significance, for humans are God’s creation, made in His image.[62] J. Wentzel van Huyssteen emphasises that “being created in the image of God highlights the extraordinary importance of human beings: humans are walking representations of God, and as such are of exquisite value and importance”.[63] This intimate connection that humans share with God has historically been understood to indicate some trait or quality that humans are in possession of, something deeply significant that sets them apart from the rest of creation.[64] Recently, however, this exclusivist position has been criticised by biblical scholars and philosophers.[65] Nevertheless, regardless of whether humans are distinct from the rest of creation or not, the value and importance of humanity remains a central tenet in the Christian tradition.[66] Indeed, Keith Ward even goes so far to assert that “however many billions of galaxies there are, they will all exist as parts of a process whose goal is the existence of human beings.”[67] The point being made is that Christianity promotes a view of humanity that, at the very least, emphasises their necessity. As Stephen J. Pope observes, “if evolution is not part of a purposeful world, Christian convictions are false…”[68]

Darwinian evolution, however, seems to suggest just that. It is frequently considered a random process, because of the emphasis that is placed upon chance and contingency.[69] Firstly, chance is one of the driving forces behind natural selection, for it is through chance that beneficial mutations will occur in the genome of an organism.[70] These mutations do not appear according to some desire or requirement; rather, they seemingly occur by accident.[71] Like chance, contingent events also seem to undermine the idea of a purposeful creation, suggesting that there is no underlying plan for the universe. Contingency emphasises the fact that natural selection occurs when traits are selected in response to environmental pressures. For example, if a drought were to suddenly occur, the efficiency with which an organism manages water would be critical. But if there was an abundance of water, then other characteristics might count as being more important. The point is that there is no absolute superior or inferior adaptation; the environment determines what is good and what is bad.[72] Of course, these external events are not necessarily uncaused; rather, they are seen as contingent because they appear to occur contrary to any foreseeable purpose or plan.

These two approaches seem to be irreconcilable. The Christian cannot agree with George Gaylord Simpson’s remark that “man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.”[73] This is because, as humans, “we are the focus of God’s love and care and attention. We are the beings for whom He suffered on the Cross. All of this means that for the Christian we are not contingent beings… We are the focus and purpose of creation.”[74] But, contingency and chance must be integrated into a Christian understanding of humanity if these two positions are to be reconciled.

The late Stephen Jay Gould devoted much of his attention to discussing the implications of contingency and chance in the process of evolution. It was his view that organisms evolved the traits they did simply from the “luck of the draw”.[75] His view of chance and evolution was fundamentally shaped by his work on the Burgess Shale rock formations in the Canadian Rockies, and the Cambrian fauna found within them.[76] Of the great diversity of organisms found in the shale, only four groups of organisms, arranged by the similarity in their anatomical frameworks, survived.[77] Gould stressed the point that the selection of these four anatomical frameworks, over the others, was largely a result of contingent circumstances. If the circumstances had been different, he argues, then this would have a significant consequence for the fauna alive today. Indeed, referring to the extinction of dinosaurs, Gould remarked that “since dinosaurs were not moving toward markedly larger brains, and since such a prospect may lie outside the capabilities of reptilian design, we must assume that consciousness would not have evolved on our planet if a cosmic catastrophe had not claimed the dinosaurs as victims. In an entirely literal sense, we owe our existence, as large and reasoning mammals, to our lucky stars.“[78] For Gould, the sheer number of contingent events that must have taken place in order to allow for the arrival of human beings seems to undermine the notion that evolution is purposeful. Despite his declaration that there is no conflict between science and religion, he writes in a typically forthright way of natural history being like a tape that can be rewound and replayed again and again.[79] “Replay the tape a million times from a Burgess beginning,” he asserts, “and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again.”[80] For Gould, it is largely down to luck that humans are alive today.

Nevertheless, it is also important to recognise that there was an agenda to much of Gould’s work. It was a great concern to him that Darwinian evolution was being treated as a line of progress, where the complexity of species was bound to increase until natural selection gave rise to humans. Instead of seeing the evolution of life as being similar to a ladder, with humans at the top, he envisioned an oddly shaped bush with no real top or bottom.[81] A similar picture he utilised was of a tree. He did not cast humans in the most important position, but instead saw them as a “tiny twig on an improbable branch of a contingent limb on a fortunate tree.”[82] Gould’s point is, perhaps, expressed most ironically in the words of Mark Twain: “God’s noblest work? Man. Who found it out? Man.”[83] To view the evolution of life as leading inexorably towards humanity, without biological justification and resting instead on prejudice, was seen by Gould to be the height of human egocentricity.[84] 

However Gould did make the concession that, over time, natural selection has produced species that are more complex and intelligent. He did not attribute this pattern of development to anything teleological in the evolutionary process, but instead referred to something that he termed the “left wall” phenomenon.[85] In describing this phenomenon, he used the story of a drunken man as an example. Staggering down a path beside a street on a Saturday night, he is walking without any purpose or sense of direction. Yet every time he stumbles to the left he hits a wall of buildings. In this scenario, it would only be a matter of time before he fell to his right and would find himself lying on the street. Gould argued that the same is true of evolution. Evolution produces greater complexity because there is no room for the development of more simple organisms; all the niches have already been filled. So evolution drunkenly meanders towards greater complexity. Accordingly, the “vaunted progress of life is really a random motion away from simple beginnings, not directed impetus toward any inherently advantageous complexity.”[86]

In part, Gould intended his arguments to correct what he saw as an arrogant view, that human beings are a necessary result of evolution. Yet Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist with no motivation to promote the significance of humanity, has argued that evolution can be described as progressive. For Dawkins, natural selection leads to competition among organisms. The group that is better adapted to their specific environment will outcompete the group that is not. This process will continue, leading to the progressive accumulation of characteristics to improve the fitness of an organism to its environment.[87] This evolutionary ‘arms race’ could be considered to lead eventually to the emergence of humanity.[88] However, this presupposes that the environment does not shift over time, for as has already been observed, it is the environment that will determine the superior adaptation. Dawkins emphasises the notion of progress in natural selection, while Gould emphasises contingency; but both overstate the influence that each factor has on the evolutionary process.[89] Evolution must instead be understood as the result of the interaction between contingency and progress, between random and non-random.[90] As Ayala observes, evolution is a “’selecting’ process which picks up adaptive combinations because these reproduce more effectively and thus become established in populations. These adaptive combinations constitute, in turn, new levels of organization upon which the mutation (random) plus selection (non-random or directional) process again operates.”[91]

Despite these criticisms, perhaps the most thorough critique of Gould’s position is made by Simon Conway Morris. Like Gould, Conway Morris is a palaeontologist. Both men worked on the organisms found within the Burgess Shale rock formation. However, Conway Morris came to a radically different conclusion concerning the nature of directionality and purpose within evolution. While Gould was impressed by the seeming randomness and contingency in the evolutionary process, Conway Morris was impressed by the cases of convergence.[92] He understood convergent evolution, or “the recurrent tendency of biological organization to arrive at the same ‘solution’ to a particular need’”, to point to something profoundly significant about the development of life.[93]

Conway Morris’s approach to evolutionary directionality should be distinguished from other quite different approaches, such as one advanced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who suggested that there was some sort of mysterious impulse running through the evolutionary process that led to the development of humans.[94] Such a position as this would undermine the significance of chance and contingency within evolution, which Conway Morris does not seek to do. Nevertheless, while he does not place as much emphasis on these processes as Gould, he also recognises their significance.[95] For Conway Morris, chance is the search engine that “navigates the combinatorial immensities of biological ‘hyperspace’.”[96] Indeed, when he uses another metaphor of a boat in the middle of an “essentially inhospitable ocean of maladaptivity,” chance is the motor that powers the boat in search of “islands of stability.”[97] Such a metaphor affirms the notion advanced by Gould, that there are many ways that an organism might evolve that are theoretically possible. However, Conway Morris concludes that instead of exploring these theoretical possibilities, organisms are far more likely to converge on the same solution.[98] This is because the evolutionary process is constrained by biological constraints that limit the process of adaptation.[99]

Nevertheless, despite the fact that there are a limited number of end-points that organisms are constrained to evolve into, the emergence of humans is still highly unlikely. But it is important to recognise that evolution often follows a sequence of steps, where “once one stage is achieved, other things then become so much more likely.”[100] In contrast to Gould, Conway Morris’s conclusion is that, with the emergence eukaryotes, the emergence of animals becomes far more likely. Then as animals emerge, one would expect to soon see a developing nervous system. As organisms continue to converge on these precursors to humanity, it becomes far more likely that humans would arise. Indeed, once an organism has a nervous system, to develop a primitive form of intelligence would be much simpler to develop and quite advantageous.[101] Responding to Gould, Conway Morris concludes that “however many times we re-run the tape, we will still end up with much the same result.”[102]

It would be difficult to find a more intellectually robust and scientifically grounded alternative to Gould than Conway Morris’s approach.[103] The understanding of evolution advanced by Conway Morris does not undermine the significance of chance and contingency, these factors still have a part to play in the evolutionary process. However, by emphasising the biological constraints that lead to convergence, he affirms the notion that there is a directional element to evolution, a conclusion that many evolutionists would be averse to.[104] In recent years though, the significance of directionality has been discussed far more openly and has received far more support amongst intellectuals.[105] But does this directionality necessarily demonstrate that evolution is teleological? Conway Morris certainly seems to think so, for he asserts that convergence shows there to be “a deeper structure to life, a metaphorical landscape across which evolution must necessarily navigate.”[106] Such a declaration resonates strongly with the assertion made by Huxley that evolution points to a ‘wider teleology’ embedded in the deep structure of the universe.[107] Both positions acknowledge evolution as the vehicle of creation, but both also point out that there is something deeper, beneath the evolutionary process. There is an end point, a destination which evolution is seeking, and evolution is merely the vehicle that “provides the means to get from A to B.”[108]

But what is the teleological significance of Conway Morris’s approach to evolution? Teleological statements and explanations are commonly rejected by the scientific community for a number of reasons. One reason is that teleology is frequently understood to imply a theological or metaphysical approach to evolutionary biology. Another reason is that a teleological approach to evolutionary biology is scientifically unverifiable, and is rather the result of specific assumptions being imposed upon the scientific process.[109] If these reasons were necessarily so, then teleological statements and explanations would rightly be excluded from evolutionary biology. But Conway Morris’s approach to evolution raises the question of teleology, not based upon a priori assumptions, but instead based upon a posteriori observations. Also, Conway Morris’s approach does not impose a specific theological or metaphysical agenda upon the scientific process, but instead remains neutral in these issues. These common objections to teleology being included in evolutionary explanations do not hold, “if some kind of teleology is discerned within, not imposed upon, the biological process.”[110] Thus, Conway Morris’s emphasis on the phenomenon of convergence suggests that a theologically neutral understanding of teleology is consistent with the evolutionary process.

Evolution and Theistic Teleology: God Playing Dice

It has already been argued that evolutionary biology supports a theologically neutral, teleological approach to the development of life. This essay will now turn to the question of whether a theistic understanding of teleology is undermined by evolutionary biology. There have been a number of theistic approaches to teleology in history that have been undermined by evolutionary thinking, most significantly the ‘watchmaker’ God advanced by Paley.[111] Nevertheless, when Paley’s approach to theistic teleology was undermined by Darwinian evolution, a common response was to recast God in the same position, just one level higher up, as the architect of the evolutionary process. His role as designer did not change at all, rather instead of designing human beings as a separate creation, God utilised the process of evolution for this end.[112] An example of this can be seen in the writings of the clergyman and historian Charles Kingsley, who rejoiced that Darwin had revealed how “we knew of old that God was so wise that He could make all things: but behold, He is so much wiser than even that, that He can make all things make themselves.”[113] The picture that Kingsley develops, in appropriating evolution into his Christian worldview, is of a God who endows creation with the potential to develop. Both the initial creation and the subsequent developments are equally seen by Kingsley to be the purposeful creation of God.[114] There is an important point to be made in emphasising God’s purposes in the developments of evolution, for while Conway Morris’s approach to evolution compliments a theistic worldview, its theistic neutrality means that it is equally open to a deistic interpretation.[115] However, it is essential to Christianity that God is not seen as simply setting things in motion to then let universe run, but rather that God continues to be working in creation.[116] While Kingsley’s slogan has rhetorical value, it is far too general to actually explain how God could act in and through the process of evolution. To approach this question, this essay will first consider how God might be understood to interact with His creation, before secondly exploring the possibility of divine action in the evolutionary process.

A Christian understanding of creation maintains that God existed before his creation and that he is separate from it, having created it from nothing.[117] Nevertheless God is also seen to act within creation, with the universe being dependent upon His sustaining action for its existence. Thus, God is envisioned as being both transcendent and immanent.[118] God’s transcendence is not called into question by the predominance of chance and contingency in the evolutionary process; instead, it is His immanence and intentionality in the creating and sustaining of the world that is challenged. The question raised by this apparent inconsistency concerns how an intentional God could act within a process that seems to allow him no room to manoeuver. Conway Morris’s emphasis on the biological constraints within evolution is no different, for these constraints operate as part of the structure of the universe, limiting the number of possible adaptations an organism could evolve into. Both of these approaches emphasise a naturalistic understanding of the evolutionary process, implying that God need not be involved. This seems to dispute the notion that God could have the capacity to act in a meaningful way to influence the creation of the universe, beyond what a deistic God could do.

In this essay, the restriction of God’s action in the creative process has largely been assumed to be a negative outcome, as it appears to limit the extent to which teleology may be imposed by the creator upon His creation. But, the contingencies and chance events in evolution may actually be a necessary part of God’s plan. For, hypothetically, if God did create the world through a thoroughly deterministic process, without any element of chance or contingency at all, his creation would undoubtedly be teleological. However, it would be no different from Paley’s watch: an instrument or a machine, and nothing else. This does not align with a Christian understanding of God’s creative action, nor His desire to enter into a relationship with humanity, because this would leave little room for a responsive and interactive relationship.[119] On the other hand, if God were said to act indirectly in the world, as a primary cause, through the operation of his secondary causes, then God could be seen as acting through the process of evolution.[120] Thomas F. Tracy remarks that “we can imagine God designing the laws of nature (both deterministic and probabilistic) to produce an evolutionary process that explores a bounded space of possibility… On this account, our coming to be within the natural order can be attributed to God’s action, but not to God’s specific intention.”[121] In this unfolding of life, as God draws creation to himself, so relationship is woven into the fabric of the world. This approach to teleology is consistent with the scientific understanding of evolution advanced by Conway Morris.

The picture presented so far is consistent with Christian theology. But, if it were the only case of God’s interaction with His creation, this picture would still resemble a remodelled deism. In such a picture, God’s providence is restricted to his act of creation, for he is seen to enact specific events, but not take part in them.[122] Nevertheless, a number of scientists and theologians have proposed various ideas about how God could act more directly in evolution.[123] The scientist and theologian John Polkinghorne, for example, has recently suggested that God would be able to influence the various cases of indeterminacy that occur at the quantum level, so as to bring about a desired end result.[124] This view understands God’s interactions in a temporal sense, as being constrained to particular actions at particular times.[125] The unknown factors in the process of evolution, such as contingency and chance, would be seen as an obstruction to God’s work rather than a source of liberation. A disturbing consideration, however, would be that God, as a temporal being, would carry out providential incursions into the evolutionary process without full knowledge of the repercussions of such actions.

Polkinghorne’s view of God as a temporal being, acting in the evolutionary process at the quantum level, is a valid theistic approach to understanding teleology. Nevertheless, it assumes inadequacy in how God may intervene. On the other hand, if God were understood to be outside of time, then these limitations would be avoided. For an ‘atemporal’ God, “creation continues at every moment, and each moment has the same relation of dependency on the Creator. God transcends the world…Yet the Creator is also immanent…sustaining it in being. God knows the world in the act of creating it and thus knows the cosmic past, present, and future in a single unmediated grasp.”[126] If God is understood to be atemporal, then the role of chance and contingency in evolution need not be undermined. In this regard, chance does not undermine purpose, and contingency does not undermine teleology, for the outcome is already known.[127] To allow God to act in an atemporal way permits a recasting of the questions being posed. Chance and contingency may mean more to God than the random events as they are experienced by His creation. No longer is it necessary for these factors to be understood as deterministic forces, restricting how God may or may not act. Instead, they can be considered a vital part of the interactive process between the Creator and his creation.

Conclusion

Teleology has had a long and at times turbulent relationship with the sciences. Despite the claim that evolutionary biology can have no correspondence with teleology, it has remained a kind of philosophical ‘elephant in the room’, that refuses to dwindle away. A colleague of Jacques Monod, Francois Jacob, has likened the relationship to that shared between a gentleman and his mistress: someone that “biologists could not do without, but did not care to be seen with in public.”[128] Much of the stigma associated with teleology comes from its presumed unscientific nature; nevertheless, Simon Conway Morris’s approach to evolutionary biology is both scientific and teleological. In this sense, his approach represents a new and coherent perspective in the relationship between the two.
The question running throughout this essay has been concerned with whether the contingent and chance-like processes inherent in Darwinian evolution undermine the belief that human beings have been purposefully created. I have argued that contingency and chance do not necessarily undermine the belief that humans have been purposefully created. In doing this I have conceded that some, though not all, approaches to teleology have been challenged by evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, I have sought to argue that evolutionary biology supports a theologically neutral, teleological approach to the development of life, by exploring the notion of directionality in the work of Simon Conway Morris. On top of this claim, I have also argued that evolutionary biology does not undermine a theistic understanding of teleology. Indeed, if God is viewed as a temporal being then he is able to interact with the evolutionary process at the quantum level, and if God is understood to be an atemporal being, then chance and contingency do not represent a problem, for their outcomes would already be known. Thus, the contingent and chance-like processes inherent in Darwinian evolution do not undermine purpose and teleology.

                      

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[1] John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Ronald L. Numbers,ed., Galileo Goes To Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).

[2] Ephesians 1:4, NRSV.

[3] Neil A. Manson, God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science (London: Routledge, 2003), 1; Denis Walsh, “Teleology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Biology, ed. by Michael Ruse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 113; Ian G. Barbour, Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (New York: Harper One, 1997), 360.

[4] Walsh, “Teleology,” 113; John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 261-262; William Paley, Natural Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

[5] Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 184.

[6] Paul F. Lurquin and Linda Stone, Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 53.

[7] David Hanke, “Teleology: the explanation that bedevils biology,” in Explanations: Styles of Explanations in Science, ed. by John Cornwell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 145.

[8] Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (New York: Harper One, 2009), 349-359; Jerry Bergman, “Affirmations of God’s Existence from Design in Nature,” Answers in Depth 7 (2012): https://answersingenesis.org/is-god-real/affirmations-of-gods-existence-from-design-in-nature/; Eugenie C. Scott and Nicholas J Matzke, “Biological design in science classrooms,” PNAS 104 (2007): 8669-8676; Manson, God and Design, xv.

[9] Alister E. McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 188-189.

[10] Monte Ransome Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1; Robert J. Richards, “Michael Ruse’s Design for Living,” Journal of the History of Biology 37 (2004): 27.

[11] Richards, “Michael Ruse’s Design for Living,” 27.

[12] John M. Cooper, “Aristotle on Natural Teleology,” in Nature and the Good: Essays on Ancient Philosophy, ed. John M. Cooper (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 107-129; Stephen Gaukroger, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2013), 337-339.

[13] McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 189; Bruce D. Marshall, “Quod Scit Una Uetula: Aquinas on the Nature of Theology,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 7; David C. Lindberg, “Medieval Science and Religion,” in Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, ed. Gary B. Ferngren (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002), 67-69.

[14] Marjorie Grene, “Aristotle and Modern Biology,” Journal of the History of Ideas 33 (1972): 395-424.

[15] McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 189.

[16] Gaukroger, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture, 228-322; Margaret J. Osler, “Mechanical Philosophy,” in Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, ed. Gary B. Ferngren (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002), 143-144.

[17] Janet Browne, “Noah’s Flood, the Ark, and the Shaping of Early Modern Natural History,” in When Science & Christianity Meet, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008), 129; John Hedley Brooke, “Natural Theology,” in Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, ed. Gary B. Ferngren (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002), 163-164.

[18] Brooke, Science and Religion, 261-276; Don Bates, “Machine ex Deo: William Harvey and the Meaning of Instrument,” Journal of the History of Ideas 61 (2001): 577; Brian Garrett, “Vitalism and Teleology in the Natural Philosophy of Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712),” British Journal for the History of Science 36 (2003): 63.

[19] Timothy Lenoir, The Strategy of Life: Teleology and Mechanics in Nineteenth Century German Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 112-194.

[20] Brooke, Science and Religion, 276-284; Brooke, “Natural Theology,” 169.

[21] Brooke, Science and Religion, 280.

[22] McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 190.

[23] Michael Ruse, “Teleology: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow?” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 31 (2000): 214.

[24] Quoted in William Coleman, Georges Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolution Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 42.

[25]Jon F. Harrison, et al., Ecological and Environmental Physiology of Insects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 71-84.

[26] Ruse, “Teleology: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow?” 215; Michael Ruse, Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 84-89.

[27] Ruse, “Teleology: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow?” 215-216; Ruse, Monad to Man, 85.

[28] Georges Cuvier, Essay on the Theory of the Earth, trans. R. Kerr (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1822), 90-91.

[29] Ruse, “Teleology: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow?” 215.

[30] Ibid., 216; Brooke, “Natural Theology,” 169-170.

[31] Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 48-140.

[32] Peter J. Bowler, “Evolution,” in Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, ed. Gary B. Ferngren (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002), 220-222.

[33] Timothy Shanahan, The Evolution of Darwinism: Selection, Adaptation, and Progress in Evolutionary Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14.

[34] David Fergusson, “Darwin and Providence,” in Theology After Darwin, ed. Michael S. Northcott and R.J. Berry. (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009), 78; John Hedley Brooke, “Genesis and the Scientists: Dissonance among the Harmonizers,” in Reading Genesis After Darwin, ed. Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 100-101; James R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 245-250.

[35] David N. Livingstone, “Re-Placing Darwinism and Christianity,” in When Science & Christianity Meet, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008), 188; Thomas Dixon, Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 64.

[36] Quoted in Ronald L. Numbers, “Science without God,” in When Science & Christianity Meet, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008), 279.

[37] Ibid., 278.

[38] Michael Ruse, The Philosophy of Human Evolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 103.

[39] Thomas H. Huxley, Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (London: Macmillan, 1870), 301.

[40] McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 186.

[41] Brooke, “Natural Theology,” 171-172. A more contemporary example of Huxley’s criticism can be found in Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986).

[42] Francis Darwin, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (London: John Murray, 1887), 201; See also McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 186-187 and Celia Deanne-Drummond, “Plumbing the Depths: A Recovery of Natural Law and Natural Wisdom in the Context of Debates about Evolutionary Purpose,” in The Deep Structure of Biology: Is Convergence Sufficiently Ubiquitous to Give a Directional Signal?, ed. Simon Conway Morris (Conshohocken: Templeton Press, 2008), 195-217.

[43] Ruse, The Philosophy of Human Evolution, 103.

[44] The Letters of Asa Gray: Volume 2, ed. Jane Gray (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1868), 562. See also Phil Dowe, Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking: The Interplay of Science, Reason, and Religion (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005), 130-131.

[45] Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London: John Murray, 1859), 489.

[46] Ruse, The Philosophy of Human Evolution, 107; Bowler, Evolution, 146. See also Shanahan, The Evolution of Darwinism, 285-294 for an examination Darwin’s beliefs concerning evolutionary progress.

[47] Ruse, The Philosophy of Human Evolution, 110-111.

[48] Ibid., 112.

[49] Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 109.

[50] David Zeigler, Evolution: Components & Mechanisms (London: Elsevier, 2014), 171.

[51] Ruse, The Philosophy of Human Evolution, 112-113. This is not to say that scientists do not hold the view that evolution is progressive, for distinguished scientists such as Julian Huxley and Edward O. Wilson have both supported such views. Rather, this is to say that the majority of scientists who hold to the notion of progress do not do so on account of their understanding of science. See Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 187; Julian Huxley, “Introduction,” in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (London: Collins, 1959), 11-28.

[52] Steve Stewart-Williams, Darwin, God, and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Thought You Knew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 188-198; Jacques Monod Chance & Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), 112-113; McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 190.

[53] Colin S. Pittendrigh, “Adaptation, Natural Selection, and Behavior,” in Behavior and Evolution, ed. Anne Roe and George Gaylord Simpson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), 394.

[54] Pittendrigh, “Adaptation, Natural Selection, and Behavior,”390-416;  Alister E. McGrath, Science & Religion: A New Introduction (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 164-165.

[55] Monod, Chance and Necessity, 112.

[56] Francisco J. Ayala, “Teleological Explanations in Evolutionary Biology,” Philosophy of Science 37(1970): 12.

[57] Ayala, “Teleological Explanations in Evolutionary Biology,” 1-15; McGrath, Science & Religion, 165; McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe, 187.

[58] Ernst Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 41.

[59] Ernst Mayr, Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 402.

[60] Ruse, “Teleology: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow?” 231; Michael Ruse, Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 140-146.

[61] Genesis 1:1-2:25; Psalm 8:5;  Job 38:1-42:6; Hebrews 2:7.

[62] Genesis 1:27.

[63] J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen, Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 121.

[64] David Clough, “All God’s Creatures: Reading Genesis on Human and Nonhuman Animals,” in Reading Genesis After Darwin, ed. by Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 145-161.

[65] David L. Clough, On Animals: Volume 1 Systematic Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2012); Clough, “All God’s Creatures,” 156; Gijsbert van den Brink, “Are We Still Special? Evolution and Human Dignity,” Neue Zeitschrift fur Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 53 (2011): 321; Ernst M. Conradie, An Ecological Christian Anthropology (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers, 2005), 80; David S. Cunningham, “The Way of All Flesh: Re-Thinking the Imago Dei,” in Creaturely Theology: On God, Humans and other Animals, ed. by Celia Deanne-Drummond and David Clough. (London: SCM Press, 2009), 117.

[66] Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 360-362; Psalm 8:1-9;

[67] Keith Ward, God, Faith and the New Millenium (Oxford: Oneworld, 1998), 22.

[68] Stephen J. Pope, Human Evolution and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 111.

[69] McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 192.

[70] John Tyler Bonner, Randomness in Evolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 4-7.

[71] McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 192; Cynthia Crysdale and Neil Ormerod, Creator God, Evolving World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 36-38. See also George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of Its Significance for Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967).

[72] Michael Ruse, Can a Darwinian be a Christian? The Relationship between Science and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 83.

[73] Simpson, The meaning of evolution, 344-345.

[74] Ruse, Can a Darwinian be a Christian?, 83.

[75] Stephen Jay Gould, Eight Little Piggies (New York: Penguin, 1993), 77.

[76] Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989).

[77] Stephen Jay Gould, “The Disparity of the Burgess Shale Arthropod Fauna and the Limits of Cladistic Analysis: Why We Must Strive to Quantify Morphospace,” Paleobiology 17 (1991): 412.

[78] Gould, Wonderful Life, 318.

[79] See Stephen Jay Gould, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1999) for Gould’s defence of ‘non-overlapping magisteria’.

[80] Ibid., 289.

[81] Stephen Jay Gould, “Bushes and Ladders,” in Ever since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977), 56-62.

[82] Gould, Wonderful Life, 291.

[83] Mark Twain, Collected tales, sketches, speeches, and essays, vol. II: 1891-1910 (New York: Library of America, 1992), 943.

[84] Stephen Jay Gould, The panda’s thumb: More reflections in natural history (New York: Norton, 1980), 136.

[85] Stephen Jay Gould, Life’s Grandeur: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (New York: Random House, 1997), 167-171.

[86] Ibid., 173.

[87] Richard Dawkins and John R. Krebs, “Arms races between and within species,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 205 (1979): 489-511.

[88] Ruse, Philosophy of Human Evolution, 115.

[89] Pope, Human Evolution and Christian Ethics, 115.

[90] Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Chance and Creativity in Evolution,” in Studies in the Philosophy of Biology, ed. Francisco J. Ayala and Theodosius Dobzhansky (London: Macmillan, 1974), 309-311.

[91] Francisco J. Ayala, “Darwin’s Devolution: Design without a Designer,” in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, SJ, and Francisco J. Ayala (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1998), 106.

[92] Simon Conway Morris, The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

[93] Simon Conway Morris, Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), xii.

[94] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Le phénomène humain (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1955).

[95] See also Arthur Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 94.

[96] Conway Morris, Life’s Solution, 127.

[97] McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 193. See also Conway Morris, Life’s Solution, 1-21, 127.

[98] Conway Morris, Life’s Solution, xii.

[99] See for example George R. McGhee, The Geometry of Evolution: Adaptive Landscapes and Theoretical Morphospaces (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 108-151; R.J.P. Williams and J.J.R. Frausto da Silva, “Evolution Was Chemically Constrained,” in Journal of Theoretical Biology 220 (2003): 323; Bonner, Randomness in Evolution, 120.

[100] Conway Morris, Life’s Solution, 18.

[101] Conway Morris, Life’s Solution, xii; Simon Conway Morris, “Evolution and the inevitability of intelligent life,” in The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, ed. Peter Harrison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 154-165.

[102] Conway Morris, “Evolution and the inevitability of intelligent life,” 150.

[103] Pope, Human Evolution and Christian Ethics, 119; Andrew Steane, Faithful to Science: The Role of Science in Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 67.

[104] Zeigler, Evolution, 171-174; George Gaylord Simpson, This View of Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., 1964).

[105] Christian De Duve, Vital dust: Life as a cosmic imperative (New York: Basic Books, 1995); William R. Stoeger, “The Immanent Directionality of the Evolutionary Process, and Its Relationship to Teleology,” in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, SJ, and Francisco J. Ayala (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1998), 163-190.

[106] Simon Conway Morris, “Darwin’s Compass: How Evolution Discovers the Song of Creation,” Science and Christian Belief 18 (2006): 16.

[107] Darwin, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 201.

[108] Simon Conway Morris, “Creation and Evolutionary Convergence,” in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, ed. J.B. Stump and Alan G. Padgett (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 261.

[109] Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, 39-41.

[110] McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, 190.

[111] Paley, Natural Theology.

[112] Thomas F. Tracy, “Divine Purpose and Evolutionary Processes,” Zygon 48 (2013): 454.

[113] Charles Kingsley, Westminster Sermons (London: Macmillan, 1874), v.

[114] Ibid, xxv. This view has been subsequently developed in Jurgen Moltmann, God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation (London: SCM Press, 1985), 9.

[115] Morris, “Creation and Evolutionary Convergence,” 266.

[116] John 5:17.

[117] Genesis 1:1; John 1:1-5.

[118] Tracy, “Divine Purpose and Evolutionary Processes,” 456.

[119] Genesis 2:19-20; John 1:10-13; Revelation 3:20.

[120] Tracy, “Divine Purpose and Evolutionary Processes,” 456-459.

[121] Ibid., 458.

[122] Ibid., 459.

[123] Ernan McMullin, “Cosmic Purpose and the Contingency of Human Evolution,” Zygon 48 (2013): 352.

[124] John Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 57-75.

[125] McMullin, “Cosmic Purpose and the Contingency of Human Evolution,” 355.

[126] Ibid., 355.

[127] Ibid., 359.

[128] Quoted in McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe, 186.