Charles Darwin and Evolution

• Where and what did Darwin study?

  At Edinburgh he studied medicine, then went to Cambridge to be ordained
• What happened to Darwin's religion?

  He rejected it
• What year did he board the HMS beagle?

  1831
• How long did Darwin gather his evidence for?

  20 years
• What was Darwin's publication?

  On the Origin of Species, 1859
• What did evolution challenge?

  Creation and the idea humans are created in God's image
• What does evolution contradict about God?

  That he created the world with a purpose and that his will would be worked out within it
• What did Darwin believe about religious people?

  They were naive
• What does the Old Testament give a false account of?

  History and Science
• What did Darwin see God as?

  A vengeful tyrant who could not be trusted
• When did Darwin stop seeing God as omnipotent?

  After evolution
• When did Darwin stop seeing God as omnibenevolent?

  After his daughter died and when he saw ants paralyse caterpillars to eat them alive
• What did scientists think of evolution at the time?

  Not all agreed
• What did Christians think of evolution at the time?

  Not all opposed it
• When did the idea of faith and evolution conflicting emerge?

  In the 20th century when fundamentalists believed evolution denied Genesis
• What did the CofE claim about evolution?

  It was turning humans into beasts
• Who ridiculed the theory of evolution?

  The Church of England
• What do Liberal Anglicans believe about evolution?

  God initiated evolution as a way of designing the world
• How does evolution support Hick's Iranean Theodicy?

  • Evolution allows humans to be at an epistemic distance from God
  • Any evidence of divine intervention would destroy the freedom to accept or deny God
• Who was one of Darwin's most influential supporters?

  Charles Kingsley- "The idea of a God who created creatures capable of self-development was as noble as the idea of a God who needed to intervene to produce a new species"
• What do creationists or interventionists believe?

  Natural selection is not needed because God intervenes directly
• What does Richard Dawkins believe about evolution?

  It is not compatible with a belief in God and is governed by the natural laws of biology and genetics