III.

Darwin and Evolution

One of Darwin's objectives in writing On the Origin of Species was to replace current theories of separate creations with a theory of natural evolution. Darwin nevertheless left room for an initial act of creation: “I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number,” he wrote at the conclusion of his book. He added that the presence of analogous physical structures across many different species implied “that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed” (see Adaptation). Darwin later expressed regret over this concession to creationism, and for the rest of his life he ruled out any role for God in the origin and development of living things.

Within 15 years of the publication of On the Origin of Species, most well-known American naturalists had followed Darwin in embracing the theory of evolution, although few shared his desire to eliminate God from the process altogether. For example, botanist Asa Gray, one of Darwin's leading American disciples, embraced a form of theistic evolution (the belief that the process of evolution was divinely supervised). However, in the case of human beings and complex organs such as the eye, Gray argued for special creation (direct creation of a particular organ or organism). Geographer-geologist Arnold Guyot, an anti-Darwinist, insisted on at least three supernatural interventions: one for the creation of matter, one for the creation of life, and one for the creation of human beings. The blending of creation and evolution in the views of scientists such as Gray and Guyot makes it difficult at times to distinguish special creationists from theistic evolutionists.