What Darwin Said About God

Articles: What Darwin Said About God

Darwin did mention a Creator and God in the last edition of The Origin of Species. But he did not say that God created life or specifically created man. Those who oppose Darwin do not want to allow for the possibility that Darwin brought a Creator (with a capital C) into the picture. But he clearly did.



Perhaps Darwin was being more liberal in allowing others to choose to believe in God or not. Perhaps he had more respect for believers and atheists than they have for him. As a scientist, he felt that a priority should be placed on describing the changes to life we see in the natural world as proceeding along natural "law" which, in his time, was the a topic for the investigations of the naturalist. For example, Newton describes the "laws" of motion. Darwin sought to find those laws in the early forms of life.



In the final view, Darwin's work is like a Rorschach inkblot test: people will see what they want to see, what is consistent with their beliefs. However, as readers of his work we must factually report what he actually said, not what we want to believe he said. Critics of Darwin's work are then attacking him for not believing the same thing they believe, rather than for what he actually wrote.