Response to Darwinism

Yet the impact of the science of the laboratory was tremendous. The publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) culminated a long history of increasing acceptance of the concept of evolution in the natural sciences. In the hands of its popularizers (Thomas Huxley, Ernst Haeckel, and others) Darwin’s teachings were somewhat modified and became widely accepted. Man was no longer viewed as the creature of God, but as the product of an infinite process of development necessitated by the demands of environment. Creative intelligence had been banished from the universe; there was no longer any need for God. The reaction of established religion to Darwinism was threefold: some capitulated and turned their backs on Christianity; others repudiated the claims of science; the majority worked out some sort of compromise between their faith and the new science. The struggle was especially vehement because at the time Darwin’s publications hit English bookstores the country was largely controlled by adherents of a biblical orthodoxy that interpreted the Bible literally. Not only did the concept of evolution invade the fields of the natural sciences, cultural interpretation, and social theory, but it invaded the field of religion as well. That man started out with no religion and finally advanced to the elevated viewpoint of monotheism was commonly taught. The Bible was not a product of revelation, but a collection of myths, legends, and a few historical facts; this collection developed over the years and finally was edited and put in the form we now know it. The Tübingen and Wellhausen schools of thought were two of those that subscribed to the evolutionary and higher critical viewpoint in religion. The German biblical critic Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) was a pivotal figure in the rise of liberal scholarship. His Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1878) gave him a place in biblical studies considered by many comparable to that of Darwin in biology. Building on a long development in German scholarship, he denied Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and concluded that it was postexilic. The Old Testament, he believed, was put together by later editors using a variety of source materials. He applied to religion and the Old Testament the same evolutionary principles that Darwin and others were applying to the natural sciences. The system he constructed was destined to have impact worldwide during the twentieth century. The Resurgence of Biblical Christianity But while industrialism, antisupernaturalistic science, theological liberalism, and spiritual indifference made great inroads against Christianity during the nineteenth century, opposition forces were at work also. The Roman church asserted itself under the leadership of Pius IX (1846–1878), who issued the Syllabus of Errors (1864) and called the first Vatican Council (1870). The former condemned almost all the tendencies of the age, including pantheism, naturalism, rationalism, socialism, and Communism. The Council declared the dogma of papal infallibility, which extended to official pronouncements of the pope on faith and morals. Attacking higher criticism were such scholars as E. W. Hengstenberg and Franz Delitzsch in Germany and Abraham Kuyper in Holland. The latter founded the Free University of Amsterdam, destined to become a great center of orthodoxy. To meet new social and religions conditions brought on by the industrial revolution, William Booth organized the Salvation Army, George Williams started the YMCA, and the Anglican church launched the Church Army. New mass evangelism efforts of D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey and others sought to reach the unchurched masses that had come to inhabit the cities. In short, throughout Western Europe there were individuals and groups who landed telling blows on behalf of biblical Christianity. And it would take pages to list the Spirit-sent revivals that fell on England and the Continent during the century. Howard Frederic Vos, Exploring church history [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1994 by Howard F. Vos.