Darwin's origin of species: a gift from God.

• Author: Polkinghorne, John
• Position: Religion - Charles Darwin's religious faith and theory regarding evolution

THIS YEAR we are celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, one of the greatest scientists the world ever has produced--and it is time to lay to rest the absurd notions that the famed naturalist somehow was a willing partner in the supposed "war" between science and religion, or that one cannot accept and understand the science of evolution fully while at the same time be a committed Christian. Ever since Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, people have tried to misuse his ideas. "Great is the power of steady misrepresentation," he complained. "... It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist."

One of the people Darwin had in mind when he wrote this was Asa Gray, a professor of natural history at Harvard University and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He supplied Darwin with important data that helped him develop his theory. Fellow Harvard professor Jean Louis Agassiz denounced Darwin's views as "a scientific mistake," but Gray championed Darwin's work. They became firm friends and wrote many letters to each other over the years. Darwin called him his "best advocate," even though the two men were quite different. This type of mutual respect is how it should be, although extremists on both sides of the "Darwin debate" would have it otherwise.

The extremists claim that an individual cannot take both science and Scripture seriously. It is one or the other. The Bible says that, in the beginning, God created the heavens and Earth--and through his creative word, order, life and humanity eventually come into being. This is a theological insight, not a scientific one. One aspect of creating human beings "in his own image" is that we are given minds able to understand, at least in part, some of the scientific principles involved. The Bible is not concerned with scientific minutiae. The fact that it gives two creation stories in Genesis (with different details) shows that they are not literal accounts.

Until Darwin, almost all of the pioneers of science believed in a creator God who had endowed humans with the ability to discover the deep principles by which He had created the universe, and this belief seems to be one reason why science developed more rapidly in Europe rather than the advanced societies of China and India. It remains a bit of a puzzle for my atheist friends why a brain that evolved to survive on Earth should be...