The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality

by Rudolf Schmid

With the attempt to find the right way to end this conflict, we enter upon that part of the border-land between theology and natural science, which, among all others, is most contested, and which has offered to the most luxuriant fancy the widest field of action and the one most profitably taken advantage of.

We confess at the outset that we sympathize with those who try to keep the peculiar realms of religion and natural science apart in such a way that a collision between the two is impossible. We quietly leave the investigation of the temporal succession in creation—especially the investigation of all that belongs in the finite causal connection of natural processes—to natural science; we also do not look to the source of our Christian religion, to the Holy Scripture, for a scientific manual, least of all for the communication of a knowledge of nature, supernaturally manifested and claiming divine authority, the acquisition of which is especially the task of scientific labor. But we bestow just as decidedly upon religion the specific task of showing man the way to communion with God, especially the way of salvation; a task in which it can as little permit itself to be hindered by natural science, as the latter in the pursuit of its peculiar tasks can allow an objection from any source. On the side of religion, the bond of unity which brings

into harmony the two activities of the human mind—the religious and the investigating—in the realm of nature, and, in general, in the whole realm of exact science, consists in the fact that in all which exact science offers to religion as the result of its investigation, the latter perceives and shows the works and ways of God; and on the side of the exact sciences, the bond consists in the fact that they bring within the reach of their scientific, historical, literary, culturo-historical, and exegetical investigations all that which in the religious realm appears, or in the written word is fixed, as historical fact. Religion, therefore, concedes to exact sciences the full right of examining the biblical records as to all the relations of their historical and literary connections; it even makes these investigations a quite essential and, at present, very much favored branch of its own science of theology. On the other hand, religion reserves just as decidedly to itself the full right of drawing from them, of maintaining, and of realizing, the whole full religious basis and significance of those records.

We know very well that such a proposition is very simple in principle, but much more difficult in practice. For the quintessence of that which constitutes the basis of the Christian religion—namely, the leading back of mankind to communion with God by means of salvation—is not only a philosopheme, a theoretical or mystic doctrine, but a fact: it comes into the world as a series of divine facts; it is interwoven by innumerable threads into creation and the course of nature and history; and, as to this whole aspect of its appearance in the world of phenomena, it falls under the cognition of the exact sciences. But as soon as any given fact excites the

interest of religion as well as that of exact science, collisions are possible from both sides. Some advocates of religion, through mistaken zeal for religious interests, may think it necessary to assert and to represent as indispensable to religion facts whose cognition as to reality belongs only to exact science and which are contested by exact science; as, e.g., the creation of the world in six literal days, or the creation of the single elements of the world without the action of secondary causes. And some advocates of exact science, from reasons of a superficial analogy, may erroneously think it necessary to dispute the reality of facts, otherwise well attested, but wanting analogy, in which religion has a central interest; as, e.g., the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or the reality of his miracles. Or they may unjustifiably try, from our experiences in this world, to forbid glances which religion permits us to throw beyond the present course of the world; e.g., the eschatological hope of Christians is often enough contested, or as the laws of nature are called eternal in the absolute sense of the word, although natural science is only led to a recognition of the duration of the same, which is congruent with the circumstances and duration of this present course of the world.

We are perfectly aware of all these possibilities of a collision, and of all the difficulties of their prevention and reconciliation; but we nevertheless know of no other way for their avoidance than that simple principle of agreement which, on account of its simplicity and clearness, seems to us to be perfectly able to maintain the peace between the two parties interested, or where it is disturbed, to restore it.

Thus, we wholly agree that in the question of creation the investigation of the succession and of all modalities in the appearance of the single elements of the world, is entirely left to natural science, and that the biblical records should on the one hand be investigated wholly, and even to their remotest consequences, from a literary, historical, and exegetical point of view, and on the other hand be tested with equal fullness and completeness as to their religious contents. The literary and exegetical examination of the Mosaic account of creation will reveal that its conceptions of that which in the creation of the world belongs entirely to the natural process, do not go beyond that which otherwise belongs to the sphere of knowledge and views of antiquity, as well as of immediate perception of nature in general; and that we cannot expect any scientific explanation from it, because man really came last on the stage of earth, and is therefore not able to say anything, founded upon autopsy, about the origin of all the other creatures which preceded his appearance. Just as little could the first men possess and deliver to their offspring a remembrance of the first beginnings of their own existence. Moreover, the literary and exegetical interpretation of the Bible will also refer to other passages of the Holy Scripture which entirely differ from the succession of creations, as they are related in Genesis I; so, e.g., besides Job XXXVIII, 4-11, the second account of creation in Genesis II, 4-25: again a proof that what we read in the Biblical record of creation about the succession in the appearance of creatures is not binding upon us. Religion can have nothing to say against these results; it will not reject the information of man as to the

succession and the modalities in the appearance of the single elements of the world, which it receives from natural science, and will not expect it by means of a special supernatural manifestation; it will willingly accept it from natural science, and simply make use of it in such a way that in nature and its processes it also perceives a manifestation of God. Now, when it examines the different Biblical accounts of creation as to their religious substance, it will find in them such a pure and correct idea of divine nature and divine action—such a pure conception, equally satisfying to mind and to science, of the nature of man, of his position in nature, of the nature and destination of the two sexes, of the ethical nature and the ethical primitive history of man,—it will especially have to acknowledge in the Biblical account of creation, in spite of all points of collision with the cosmogonies of paganism, such an elevation above them, such an exemption from all theogony, with which heathen cosmogonies are always mixed up, that we are perfectly right in perceiving in these records the full and unmistakable elements of a pure and genuine stream of manifestation, which pours into mankind.

So far we find ourselves in full harmony with a theology which, in the manner indicated, reconciles the religious interest with the historical and critical interest. We find the points of view to which this perception leads, represented with special clearness and attractiveness in Dillmann's Revision of Knobel's "Commentar zur Genesis" ("Commentary on Genesis"), Leipzig, Hirzel, 1875.