The Old Testament and Christian Spirituality - International Voices in ...

Betwixt Text and Nature, God and Evolution 149
4. What Is Evolution?
When Charles Darwin a century and a half ago took up and
extended earlier antecedent ideas 33 in his The Origin of Species by
Natural Selection, he provided natural science with an explanatory
model and a vocabulary which has proven to be, albeit by now at
times in adapted forms, 34 one of the most successful theories of
modern science. Further upsetting the pre-Enlightenment’s broad
and foundational Greek-philosophical acceptance of the ideal
stability of all things, along with its influence on Judeo-Christian
theological thought, leading it to regard God as being not only the
ultimate, but also the immediate cause of all events/change, 35 this
novel descriptive framework has been one of a series of proposals,
along with, for example, the big bang theory and the theory of
continental drift, which have advanced natural science
tremendously in recent times and, as a corollary, have put nonscientific
understandings of such matters which cast themselves as,
still, more valid alternatives, under great pressure. 36
33
Cf. for a summary: P. van Dyk, “So-called Intelligent Design in Nature. A
Discussion with Richard Dawkins,” Old Testament Essays 20, no. 3 (2007):
851–52; for a more extensive treatment: J. H. Swanepoel, “Bydraes van Darwin
se Voorgangers tot die Ewolusieteorie,” SA Tydskrif vir Natuurwetenskap en
Tegnologie 10, no. 1 (1991): 11–17.
34
See Branch, “The Theory of Evolution,” 218–21; P. van Dyk, “Evolusie: die
Misverstand tussen Teologie en Biologie,” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 49,
no. 1 and 2 (1993): 286–88.
35
Van Dyk, “So-called Intelligent Design in Nature,” 848–51; cf. Marty,
Modern American Religion, 186–87.
36
Cf. P. J. Bowler, Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and
Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2007); P. J. Croce, “Is Life Worth Living?” in Religions of the
United States in Practice (vol. 1; ed. C. McDannell; Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2001), 237; C. W. du Toit, “The Contribution of Arthur
Peacocke to the Science-Theology Debate,” in Nature, God and Humanity (ed.
C. W. du Toit. Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1996), 84–85.