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The Idea of Design: The Vicissitudes of a Key Concept in the Princeton Response to Darwin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

David N. Livingstone
David N. Livingstone
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, The Queen's University, Belfast BT7 1NN
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Extract

‘We have thus arrived at the answer to our question, What is Darwinism?’ wrote Charles Hodge in 1874;‘It is Atheism.’ As is commonly the fate of great men, Hodge's conclusion has frequently been reduced to mere crusade slogan, more often reported than examined, more often repeated than explained. It is for this reason, then, together with Hodge's formative role in the construction of modern conservative evangelicalism, that I want to turn in the first part of this esssay to his response to Darwin's theory of evolution. Moreover, with the recent emergence of a vociferous and uncompromising ‘scientific creationist’ movement claiming the imprimatur of theological orthodoxy, a reassessment of the reaction to Darwin by the powerful ‘Old School’ Princetonians in its broader intellectual context is, I think, both timely and instructive. And Hodge's central position in that tradition makes reflection on his response to the question a logical place to begin.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , August 1984 , pp. 329 - 357
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1984

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References

page 329 note 1 Hodge, Charles, What is Darwinism? (London and Edinburgh: T. Nelson and Sons, 1874), pp. 176–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 329 note 2 The details of Hodge's biography are available in Hodge, A. A., The life of Charles Hodge (New York: Scribner's, 1880).Google Scholar

page 329 note 3 Johnson, Deryl Freeman, ‘The attitude of the Princeton theologians toward Darwinism and evolution from 1859–1929’ (Unpub. Ph.D. thesis, University of Iowa, 1968), pp. 11fGoogle Scholar. A useful synopsis of the Scottish School's philosophy is to be found in McCosh, James, Agnosticism of Hume and Huxley with a notice of the Scottish School, Philosophic Series, No. VI (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1886).Google Scholar

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page 331 note 10 Johnson, op. cit., p. 74.

page 331 note 11 What is Darwinism? p. 48.

page 332 note 12 ibid., p. 52. Exactly the same argument was earlier presented in his Systematic Theology in a section headed ‘The atheistic character of the theory’, II, pp. 15–19.

page 332 note 13 See Ellegard, Alvar, ‘The Darwinian theory and the argument from design’, Lychnos (1956), pp. 173–192.Google Scholar

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page 332 note 15 ibid., p. 106.

page 332 note 16 Thus he commented in his Systematic Theology, II, p. 16:‘In saying that this system atheistic, it is not said that Mr. Darwin is an atheist… Nor is it meant that everyone who adopts the theory does it in an atheistic sense. It has already been remarked that there is a theistic and an atheistic form of the nebular hypothesis as to the origin of the universe; so there may be a theistic interpretation of the Darwinian theory.’

page 333 note 17 What is Darwinism?, p. 70.

page 333 note 18 ibid., p. 174. The standard biography of Gray is Dupree, A. Hunter, Asa Gray (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959).Google Scholar

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page 336 note 33 ibid., p. 135.

page 336 note 34 As Johnson, op. cit., pp. 100–1, points out: ‘According to Hodge's theory of providence, with God already working in the processes of life, it seems that the production of a new species whether of brute or man from a lower form of animal would have been far less complicated than the ordinary conception and birth of an individual … However, he did not use his doctrine of providence … to make a constructive effort to relate the theory of evolution to Christian doctrine.’

page 336 note 35 What is Darwinism? p. 173.

page 337 note 36 Sloane, William Milligan (ed.) The life of James McCosh. A record chiefly autobiographical (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1896), p. 234Google Scholar. The standard biography of McCosh is now Hoeveler, J. David Jr, James McCosh and the Scottish intellectual tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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page 338 note 39 McCosh, James, The method of the divine government. Physical and moral (Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 3rd ed., 1852), p. 136CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In some ways McCosh's reinterpretation of design in idealist terms, and its adoption by later Princetonians, runs counter to Ruse's opinion that conservatives were unable to reconcile Darwinism with their version of final causes. See Ruse, Michael, ‘The relationship between science and religion in Britain, 1830–1870’, Church History, 44 (1973), pp. 505–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 338 note 40 ibid., p. 115. One of the most characteristic arguments of this ‘idealist’ school was the specification of a numerical order in the organic world. As McCosh put it, ‘There is a conformity of structure running through the whole vertebrate series, as seen, for instance, in the fore limbs … Thus, the normal or typical number of carpal bones is ten, or five in each row, corresponding to the typical number of the digits.’ ibid., p. 123.

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page 339 note 44 Moore, op. cit., p. 246.

page 339 note 45 Dickie, it should be noted, remained hostile to Darwinism; but it is more in the work's conceptual framework — contributed by McCosh — that the modifications of conventional natural theology are to be detected.

page 339 note 46 Quoted in Sloane, op. cit., p. 142.

page 340 note 47 McCosh, James, Christianity and positivism. A series of lectures to the times on natural theology and Christian apologetics (London: Macmillan and Company, 1871), pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

page 341 note 48 ibid., pp. 90–2.

page 341 note 49 McCosh, had already repeated that argument the previous year in Energy. Efficient and final cause. Philosophic Series — No. II (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1884).Google Scholar

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page 343 note 53 Hodge, Archibald Alexander, Outlines of theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1866).Google Scholar

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page 343 note 55 ibid., p. 40.

page 343 note 56 Quoted in Johnson, op. cit., p. 140.

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page 344 note 60 See H[arper], G. M., ‘Patton, Francis Landey’, Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 14 (London: Oxford University Press), pp. 315–316.Google Scholar

page 344 note 61 Patton, Francis L., ‘Charles Hodge’, Presbyterian Review, 2 (1881), pp. 349–377.Google Scholar

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page 346 note 66 See Johnson op. cit., pp. 195–6.

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page 347 note 72 ibid., p. 649.

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page 348 note 76 ibid., p. 209.

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page 349 note 79 See Sloane, op. cit., pp. 117–24.

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page 349 note 82 Macloskie, G., ‘Theistic evolution’, Presbyterian and Reformed Review, 9 (1898), pp. 1–22Google Scholar. Reference on p. 7.

page 349 note 83 ibid., p. 8.

page 350 note 84 Macloskie, George, ‘The outlook for science and faith’, Princeton Theological Review, (1903), pp. 597–615Google Scholar. Reference on p. 602.

page 350 note 85 ibid., p. 611. A rather similar debate is still being conducted today and centres on the concept of ‘teleonomy’ which seeks teleological explanation without finalistic implications. See the discussion by Bowker, John, ‘Did God create this universe?’, in Peacocke, A. R. (ed.), The sciences and theology in the twentieth century (Henley and London: Oriel Press, 1981), pp. 98–126.Google Scholar

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page 351 note 89 Macloskie, G., ‘Scientific speculation’, Presbyterian Review, 8 (1887), pp. 617–625.Google Scholar

page 351 note 90 ibid., p. 439. For a review of the mutation theory see Bowler, Peter J., ‘Hugo De Vries and Thomas Hunt Morgan: the mutation theory and the spirit of Darwinism’, Annals of Science, 35 (1978), pp. 55–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 351 note 91 Johnson, William Hallock, ‘Evolution and theology today’, Princeton Theological Review, 1 (1903), pp. 403–422.Google Scholar

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page 352 note 93 William Brenton Greene Jr., Review of Christian faith in an age of science by Rice, William North. Princeton Theological Review, 2 (1904), pp. 504–507Google Scholar. Reference on p. 506.

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page 353 note 99 ibid., p. 549.

page 354 note 100 Price, George McCready, ‘Modern botany and the theory of organic evolution’, Princeton Theological Review, 23 (1925), pp. 51–65Google Scholar. Price's role in the emergence of ‘Creation Science’ in America is discussed in Numbers, Ronald L., ‘Creationism in 20th-Century America’, Science, 218 (5 November 1982), pp. 538–544CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also Marsden, George M., ‘Creation versus Evolution: No Middle Way’, Nature, 305 (13 October, 1983), pp. 571–574.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 354 note 101 Hamilton, Floyd E., ‘Modern aspects of the theory of evolution’, Princeton Theological Review, 24 (1926), pp. 396–448Google Scholar. Reference on p. 447.

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page 355 note 103 Hamilton, Floyd E., The basis of Christian faith (London and Edinburgh: Marshall, Morgan and Scott n.d.), p. 85.Google Scholar

page 355 note 104 Wilson, Ambrose J., ‘What Charles Darwin really found’, Princeton Theological Review, 26 (1928), pp. 515–530.Google Scholar

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page 355 note 106 ibid., p. 203.

page 355 note 107 Machen, J. Gresham, The Christian view of man (London: Banner of Truth, 1965Google Scholar; first published in 1937), p. 116.

page 356 note 108 See Marsden, George M., Fundamentalism and American culture. The shaping of twentieth century evangelicalism: 1870–1925 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 119.Google Scholar

page 356 note 109 Wm. Hallock Johnson, Review of The dogma of evolution by Louis Trenchard More, and The spiritual interpretation of nature by Simpson, James Y., Princeton Theological Review, 23 (1925). pp. 476–480.Google Scholar

page 356 note 110 See Bowler, Peter J., The eclipse of Darwinism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

page 356 note 111 Provine, W. B., The origins of theoretical population genetics (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1973).Google Scholar

page 357 note 112 Floyd Hamilton is a case in point, for as well as attacking the theory of evolution, he wrote conservative tracts on the historical trustworthiness of the Scriptures, the reasonableness of supernaturalism and the modern historical and literary criticism of the Bible.

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