At the beginning of this book, I told you – warned you – that I am a historian and philosopher of science, not a theologian. You may now be feeling that you should have taken that comment a lot more seriously than you did. The cobbler should stick to his last. I have plowed blithely on without once discussing that fundamental Christian notion of substitutionary atonement – the claim that Jesus died on the Cross to forgive us our sins; and as for something like transubstantiation – the claim that during the eucharist the bread and wine turn literally into the body and blood of Christ – forget it.

I certainly will not deny that you can bring topics like these into the science–religion debate, and of course in a way I have discussed them. Supposedly, we need the sacrifice of Jesus because we are tainted with original sin – the result of Adam and Eve disobeying God and eating that wretched apple – and certainly the claim that there was no sin in the world until that event has been discussed, not very favorably to this particular assertion. Again, transubstantiation may not have been an explicit topic for debate, but the discussion of miracles is surely relevant. I very much doubt that someone who thinks a literal Resurrection is not to be endorsed is going to be a big enthusiast of water into wine, let alone wine into blood.

I am not going to apologize for the approach I have taken. If you want a more familiar approach, there is a huge amount of material out there to which you can turn. Start with the Wikipedia entry on “The Relationship between Religion and Science.” Not only is it balanced and informative, but there is also a large and hugely helpful list of “Further Reading.” Nor am I going to say that the approach I have taken should supersede all other approaches. My father always accused me of being too full of myself – “Michael, you were a big-head as a boy, and you are a big-head now” – but even I am not that far gone beyond modesty. This said, there is something to taking a fresh approach, a new look at things, and (here my father is proven right) I think the approach I have taken has much to commend it.

That said, why should someone interested in the science–religion relationship bother to read this book? I will give you two reasons – there may be more. First, a historian and philosopher of science is going to take science very seriously. After all, this is what we spend our lives looking at and discussing and trying to understand. I am not saying that we are going to accept uncritically everything scientists claim, but the presumption is that way. If someone comes up with a new hypothesis in science – for instance about that structure of a particular molecule (“buckyballs” come to mind) – you might at first question it, and look for evidence, and so forth, but generally you think that such claims, perhaps modified, are extending the range of our knowledge.

With respect to the topic of this book, such an attitude is going to insist that you follow in the footsteps of Thomas Henry Huxley. It is all important to start with the fact that we are modified monkeys, not modified dirt. This is not the opinion with many, especially analytic philosophers. The saintly Reference Wittgenstein and Von WrightWittgenstein said biology had little to contribute to philosophy and went as far as to dismiss Darwin’s theory in its entirety. “I have always thought that Darwin was wrong: his theory doesn’t account for all this variety of species. It hasn’t the necessary multiplicity.” As always, gnomic remarks like this come with absolutely no hint that the speaker has ever glanced at the writings of professional evolutionists. Not that the philosophers are worse than those who come to the science–religion debate from the side of theology. The eminent theologian, the Jesuit Karl Reference RahnerRahner, for instance, writes a whole essay on Christianity and evolution, telling us that “the history of Nature and spirit forms an inner, graded unity in which natural history develops towards man, continues in him as his history, is conserved and surpassed in him and hence reaches its proper goal with and in the history of the human spirit.” Needless to say, his reading of the professional literature is about as wide and penetrating as that of Wittgenstein.

I am not asking that the reader accept uncritically the position taken in this book about the relevance of evolution to the discussion. I am suggesting that it is a position that must be taken seriously. The second point I would make about the virtue of such an approach as mine is in important ways connected to the first point. The relevance of Darwinian evolutionary theory is hotly contested. Some would argue that it is false. Others would argue that even if it be true, it is not relevant to the science–religion debate. I – and I am sure I am not alone – have often been puzzled as to why intelligent knowledgeable people can differ so much on these things; especially why, given that today there is such overwhelming evidence in favor of a Darwinian approach to evolution, so many of those who think evolution relevant to the science–religion debate adamantly refuse to take a Darwinian stance. Teilhard de Chardin for instance: why, if he was a brilliant thinker (paleontologist), should he have so firmly opted to base his thinking on Bergson rather than Darwin?

The answer, we see now, lies in alternative root metaphors or paradigms. The Darwinians are firmly in the mechanistic tradition. Many, however, go the other way. Like Teilhard they are just as firmly within the organismic tradition. They get a directed progress upwards, they get lots of support for subsidiary claims like free will and sin, and above all they get humans triumphant – the apotheosis of the evolutionary movement. Made in the image of God. Once you see what is going on, it is all so obvious. Debates that tear us apart on the Christianity/evolution front lines are only secondarily about Christianity and evolution, Darwinism even. They are about different ways of looking at things, different ways of making sense of appearances, ways that existed centuries before either Christianity or Darwinism appeared on the scene. That makes you think. At least, it should make you think. Are we comfortable being forced into arguing in frameworks developed entirely without regard to our specific interests?

Writing books is always an exploration. You start out with an idea of what you want to say, but so very often end with something quite unexpected. That is what makes it all so very worthwhile. When I set out, I knew that the two root metaphors were important, but I had no idea how deeply they structure the whole science–religion discussion. I come at the discussion from a middle position. I am not a Christian or adherent to any other religion. Nor equally am I atheist, certainly not a New Atheist! If you are raised a Quaker, such as I, you cannot hate Christianity with the passion of a Richard Dawkins. I suppose I should be described as an “agnostic,” but that doesn’t really cover things for me, as, in this day and age, I don’t think it really covers someone like Thomas Henry Huxley. Neither of us is indifferent to the questions, as are so many, like my wife. I have that mystical attitude of my Quaker childhood – queerer than we think it is, queerer than we could think it is. This makes me open to insights on both sides of the mechanism/organicism divide. As a mechanist, I could never reject Darwinism in the way that the organicists so often so blithely do. We have got to wrestle with the non-directionality of evolution, not ignore it or pretend it does not exist. Going the other way, even though I am not an organicist, I am deeply appreciative of process theology. My God would never be the God of Aquinas, unable to be part of human grief, suffering on the Cross in a disinterested way for sins committed long ago by others. My God would be in Bergen-Belsen, lying and suffering with Reference FrankAnne Frank as she died from typhoid – “delirious, terrible, burning up.” He would also be the God who conquered, who made available her diary, which has been and continues to be such a huge inspiration to her fellow human beings – especially young people. “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.”

What a privilege it has been to write this book and share my ideas with you.