An accidental blog

"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit." Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.

Saturday 21 November 2009

Darwin, Creation and the Fall: chapter 3

Theological challenges faced by Darwin Darrel R. Falk


Falk identifies three theological problems that faced Darwin: a good God bringing forth new species through processes that involved pain and suffering; the implications for God's providence: is God present in random chance events?; and the death of his ten-year-old daughter Annie.

Falk makes a good point that none of the challenges are new.  They are problems of 'natural theology'.  He goes on to claim that Darwin's theory raises no new theological barriers. That may be the case, however, it does, though, bring into sharper focus some issues. for example, it means that suffering is 'natural', evolution depends on suffering. As Berry put it in the preceding chapter: 'physical death was a part of the creation from the beginning' does this mean that suffering was too? This issue has so far been unaddressed.

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