[2] Supposed challenges from the evolutionary sciences to theology

In 1859 Darwin’s theory of natural selection dealt a devastating blow to the argument from design based upon contrivances in biology. It also painted a picture of biological history vastly different from the Genesis account. For many, the Christian conception of a providentially active God had become so strongly associated with the kind of argument that Paley had devised that its refutation was in effect a refutation of theology as a whole.

In the following section I shall explore several ways in which evolutionary biology is held to challenge theological commitments, focussing on how these challenges are tied to the diminished credibility of special providence.

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