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What is Darwinism?
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.
50 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1874
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About the author
Charles Hodge
490 books34 followersCharles Hodge (1797–1878) was an important Presbyterian theologian and principal of Princeton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878. He was a leading exponent of the Princeton theology, an orthodox Calvinist theological tradition in America during the 19th century. He argued strongly for the authority of the Bible as the Word of God. Many of his ideas were adopted in the 20th century by Fundamentalists and Evangelicals.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 10, 2023
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" -Theo Dobzhansky, evolutionary biologist, 1973
Charles Hodge’s What Is Darwinism? was originally published in 1874 and contains essays written as early as 1862, a scant three years after Charles Darwin’s landmark publication of On the Origin of Species. The fact that almost no one today is familiar with the works of Charles Hodge points to the significance, or rather the insignificance, of Hodge’s ecclesiastical claptrap.
Charles Hodge was on staff at the Princeton Theological Seminary when he first wrote of his objections to Darwinistic thought. In the July 1862 issue of Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review he asserted his advocacy for biblical inerrancy and his staunch commitment to the “truthful” origin of humanity as described in the first chapter of Genesis. (pg 49) Less than a year later Hodge wrote the following to the editors of the New York Observer:
“. . . the Bible can teach no error, whether in reference to doctrines, morals, or facts; whether those facts be historical, geographical, geological or astronomical . . . every enlightened Christian votary of science knows that if his investigations seem to lead to conclusions contrary to the Bible, there must be some error in his process.” (pg 53-55)
Those who assert that Charles Hodge was actually “pro-science” aren’t entirely wrong. He did indeed write on numerous occasions that science had an important purpose—that purpose was to help theologians interpret the bible. In fact, he insisted that Christians “treat scientific results with all the respect possible within the general framework of faithfulness to Scripture.” (pg 57)
According to the Gospel of Hodge, the misinformation in the bible isn’t really misinformation at all—it is just a correctable misinterpretation of scripture. He concedes that, when painted into a corner by incontrovertible science, theologians have been obliged to make concessions:
“The Church has been forced more than once to alter her interpretation of the Bible to accommodate the discoveries of science. But this has been done without doing any violence to the Scriptures . . . [emphasis mine]” (pg 59)
Of course there was never any “violence to the scriptures.” That would be ghastly. But what about the violence to the human beings who dared question the unquestionable? What of those who had the audacity to declare that the earth isn’t really flat, or that the sun doesn’t really orbit the earth, or even that the earth is really billions of years old? While theologians were standing guard over their precious narrative Hypatia was literally being ripped apart by an angry mob and Giordano Bruno was being staked and burned alive. Their only crime was telling the truth too soon. Charles Hodge leaves them (and the thousands like them) completely out of the conversation. How convenient.
HODGE vs DARWIN
“Men who are assiduously poisoning the fountains of religion, morality, and social order cannot be let alone.” (pg 136)
It’s obvious that Hodge saw Darwinism as a threat. In his mind, Darwin’s theories eliminated the necessity of the supernatural and thus the necessity of God. He equated Darwinism with atheism and he unequivocally DESPISED atheism. Hodge is a relic whose legacy, like a parasitic tapeworm, lives on today in the teachings of people like Ken Ham and Michael Behe. He was a monkey on the back of knowledge and progress and I, for one, am ready to lance this festering boil of a book and move on. One star.
Charles Hodge’s What Is Darwinism? was originally published in 1874 and contains essays written as early as 1862, a scant three years after Charles Darwin’s landmark publication of On the Origin of Species. The fact that almost no one today is familiar with the works of Charles Hodge points to the significance, or rather the insignificance, of Hodge’s ecclesiastical claptrap.
Charles Hodge was on staff at the Princeton Theological Seminary when he first wrote of his objections to Darwinistic thought. In the July 1862 issue of Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review he asserted his advocacy for biblical inerrancy and his staunch commitment to the “truthful” origin of humanity as described in the first chapter of Genesis. (pg 49) Less than a year later Hodge wrote the following to the editors of the New York Observer:
“. . . the Bible can teach no error, whether in reference to doctrines, morals, or facts; whether those facts be historical, geographical, geological or astronomical . . . every enlightened Christian votary of science knows that if his investigations seem to lead to conclusions contrary to the Bible, there must be some error in his process.” (pg 53-55)
Those who assert that Charles Hodge was actually “pro-science” aren’t entirely wrong. He did indeed write on numerous occasions that science had an important purpose—that purpose was to help theologians interpret the bible. In fact, he insisted that Christians “treat scientific results with all the respect possible within the general framework of faithfulness to Scripture.” (pg 57)
According to the Gospel of Hodge, the misinformation in the bible isn’t really misinformation at all—it is just a correctable misinterpretation of scripture. He concedes that, when painted into a corner by incontrovertible science, theologians have been obliged to make concessions:
“The Church has been forced more than once to alter her interpretation of the Bible to accommodate the discoveries of science. But this has been done without doing any violence to the Scriptures . . . [emphasis mine]” (pg 59)
Of course there was never any “violence to the scriptures.” That would be ghastly. But what about the violence to the human beings who dared question the unquestionable? What of those who had the audacity to declare that the earth isn’t really flat, or that the sun doesn’t really orbit the earth, or even that the earth is really billions of years old? While theologians were standing guard over their precious narrative Hypatia was literally being ripped apart by an angry mob and Giordano Bruno was being staked and burned alive. Their only crime was telling the truth too soon. Charles Hodge leaves them (and the thousands like them) completely out of the conversation. How convenient.
HODGE vs DARWIN
“Men who are assiduously poisoning the fountains of religion, morality, and social order cannot be let alone.” (pg 136)
It’s obvious that Hodge saw Darwinism as a threat. In his mind, Darwin’s theories eliminated the necessity of the supernatural and thus the necessity of God. He equated Darwinism with atheism and he unequivocally DESPISED atheism. Hodge is a relic whose legacy, like a parasitic tapeworm, lives on today in the teachings of people like Ken Ham and Michael Behe. He was a monkey on the back of knowledge and progress and I, for one, am ready to lance this festering boil of a book and move on. One star.
February 10, 2012
This is a great little book that exposes Darwinism as the atheistic philosophy of origins that it is. Rather than merely examining the theory from a scientific perspective, Hodge attacks its fundamentally atheistic worldview. He shows how evolutionary theory was proposed years in advance of Darwin. What changed in the following years was not so much the theory (though it did) but the audience.
This is a great little book and may be had for free in Kindle or iBooks formats. Highly recommended.
This is a great little book and may be had for free in Kindle or iBooks formats. Highly recommended.
August 6, 2011
Many Christians today believe that Darwin's theory of evolution is easily reconcilable with their Christian theism. But this is not some grudgingly accepted second choice that they are making; they in fact prefer the picture of God's sovereignty they get from theistic evolution over the constant miraculous interventions that they understand all forms of "creationism" to require. They would answer the question posed by the book's title "What is Darwinism?" something like this: the "ism" in the word Darwinism indicates that it is an illegitimate philosophical extrapolation from the scientific content of Darwin's theory, something for which Darwin is not responsible and therefore a straw-man attacked by creationists in their opposition to evolution.
This sentiment was also common among Darwin's contemporaries who didn't recognize that the philosophical grounds for science had shifted from one of theism to one of positivism and naturalism. In the words of Nancy Pearcey "a great many of them simply took the facts that Darwin presented and inserted them into the older philosophy of nature as an open system - not realizing, apparently, that the older philosophy was precisely what was under attack." As a contemporary of Darwin and one of the few who could discern the spirit of the age, Princeton theologian Charles Hodge makes some compelling observations in his short book "What is Darwinism?" Historian of science Neal Gillespie has remarked that "Hodge was, and remains, one of the most astute writers on the theological implications of Darwin's work." Writing in 1874 at the height of Darwin's prestige, Hodge argued that a correct understanding of the significance of Darwin's theory made meaningless any distinction between Darwin's theory and Darwinism, and thus between evolution and evolutionism.
Hodge saw that Darwinian evolution consisted of three elements. The first, evolution, is the idea that all living things share common ancestry and have evolved from a single ancestral cell. The second is natural selection, the mechanism by which evolution is said to occur. Neither of these two elements is that which gripped the imagination of the scientific community. Others had preceded Darwin in arguing that all species, including man, are descended from other species. For example Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had argued this back in 1811, as had Robert Chambers in his 1844 book "Vestiges of Creation," but the idea did not find acceptance in the scientific community. Though others had argued for natural selection in a more limited fashion prior to Darwin, he was the first to apply it in a sweeping way as the primary mechanism of change in biology. Nevertheless, the widespread rejection of natural selection until the 1930's means that this too was not the reason for Darwin's immense popularity, his being hailed "the sage of Down" within his own lifetime.
Darwin's success, according to Hodge, lay with the "third, and by far the most important, and only distinctive element of his theory, that this natural selection is without design, being conducted by unintelligent physical causes. Neither the first nor the second of these elements constitute Darwinism; nor do the two combined." "A man, therefore, may be an evolutionist without being a Darwinian." This third element is Darwin's philosophy of science, positivism. Thus it is clear that the "ism" of Darwinism, his rejection of teleology and final causes, is the core of Darwin's argument and cannot legitimately be separated from his science.
Hodge stressed that Darwin denied any form of guided evolution: "...it is the distinctive doctrine of Mr. Darwin, that species owe their origin, not to the original intention of the divine mind; not to special acts of creation calling new forms into existence at certain epochs; not to the constant and everywhere operative efficiency of God, guiding physical causes in the production of intended effects; but to the gradual accumulation of unintended variations of structure and instinct, securing some advantage to their subjects."
His answer to the question "What is Darwinism?" is "It is atheism. This does not mean...that Mr. Darwin himself and all who adopt his views are atheists; but it means that his theory is atheistic; that the exclusion of design from nature is...tantamount to atheism."
The theistic evolutionist who wants to take both science and Christianity seriously might find this to be catastrophically bad news, if he believes the only alternative to Darwinian evolution is a creationism that requires a miracle-working God. Science would seem to grind to a halt if at every difficulty we would say that "God did it." But this belief that creationism requires the external intervention of miracles into an otherwise rational natural order, is mistaken. The core of pre-Darwinian natural theology was design, that we are able to detect unmistakable marks of intelligent agency without having to tell a story about how that object came into being (eg. by invoking a miracle).
Hodge described two kinds of causality which operate in the external world: the one is physical, the other is mental (or intelligent). "The physical belongs to matter, and is due to the properties with which it has been endowed; the other is the everywhere present and everywhere acting mind of God. To the latter are to be referred all the manifestations of design in nature, and the ordering of events in Providence. This doctrine does not ignore the efficiency of second causes; it simply asserts that God overrules and controls them." Since physical causes work in tandem with intelligent causes without conflict, the problem of miracles simply does not arise for Hodge.
Theistic evolutionists need to realize that evolution cannot be separated from evolutionism. The alternative, a theory that can account for both physical and intelligent causes in biology, is not a science stopper if intelligent causes can be reliably detected. This theory, now called Intelligent Design, in its core actually predates Darwin by over a century. Darwin, rather than liberating biology, actually led it astray by tying it to the faulty epistemology of positivism, which distorted reality by trying to make physical causes do the work of intelligent causes.
This sentiment was also common among Darwin's contemporaries who didn't recognize that the philosophical grounds for science had shifted from one of theism to one of positivism and naturalism. In the words of Nancy Pearcey "a great many of them simply took the facts that Darwin presented and inserted them into the older philosophy of nature as an open system - not realizing, apparently, that the older philosophy was precisely what was under attack." As a contemporary of Darwin and one of the few who could discern the spirit of the age, Princeton theologian Charles Hodge makes some compelling observations in his short book "What is Darwinism?" Historian of science Neal Gillespie has remarked that "Hodge was, and remains, one of the most astute writers on the theological implications of Darwin's work." Writing in 1874 at the height of Darwin's prestige, Hodge argued that a correct understanding of the significance of Darwin's theory made meaningless any distinction between Darwin's theory and Darwinism, and thus between evolution and evolutionism.
Hodge saw that Darwinian evolution consisted of three elements. The first, evolution, is the idea that all living things share common ancestry and have evolved from a single ancestral cell. The second is natural selection, the mechanism by which evolution is said to occur. Neither of these two elements is that which gripped the imagination of the scientific community. Others had preceded Darwin in arguing that all species, including man, are descended from other species. For example Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had argued this back in 1811, as had Robert Chambers in his 1844 book "Vestiges of Creation," but the idea did not find acceptance in the scientific community. Though others had argued for natural selection in a more limited fashion prior to Darwin, he was the first to apply it in a sweeping way as the primary mechanism of change in biology. Nevertheless, the widespread rejection of natural selection until the 1930's means that this too was not the reason for Darwin's immense popularity, his being hailed "the sage of Down" within his own lifetime.
Darwin's success, according to Hodge, lay with the "third, and by far the most important, and only distinctive element of his theory, that this natural selection is without design, being conducted by unintelligent physical causes. Neither the first nor the second of these elements constitute Darwinism; nor do the two combined." "A man, therefore, may be an evolutionist without being a Darwinian." This third element is Darwin's philosophy of science, positivism. Thus it is clear that the "ism" of Darwinism, his rejection of teleology and final causes, is the core of Darwin's argument and cannot legitimately be separated from his science.
Hodge stressed that Darwin denied any form of guided evolution: "...it is the distinctive doctrine of Mr. Darwin, that species owe their origin, not to the original intention of the divine mind; not to special acts of creation calling new forms into existence at certain epochs; not to the constant and everywhere operative efficiency of God, guiding physical causes in the production of intended effects; but to the gradual accumulation of unintended variations of structure and instinct, securing some advantage to their subjects."
His answer to the question "What is Darwinism?" is "It is atheism. This does not mean...that Mr. Darwin himself and all who adopt his views are atheists; but it means that his theory is atheistic; that the exclusion of design from nature is...tantamount to atheism."
The theistic evolutionist who wants to take both science and Christianity seriously might find this to be catastrophically bad news, if he believes the only alternative to Darwinian evolution is a creationism that requires a miracle-working God. Science would seem to grind to a halt if at every difficulty we would say that "God did it." But this belief that creationism requires the external intervention of miracles into an otherwise rational natural order, is mistaken. The core of pre-Darwinian natural theology was design, that we are able to detect unmistakable marks of intelligent agency without having to tell a story about how that object came into being (eg. by invoking a miracle).
Hodge described two kinds of causality which operate in the external world: the one is physical, the other is mental (or intelligent). "The physical belongs to matter, and is due to the properties with which it has been endowed; the other is the everywhere present and everywhere acting mind of God. To the latter are to be referred all the manifestations of design in nature, and the ordering of events in Providence. This doctrine does not ignore the efficiency of second causes; it simply asserts that God overrules and controls them." Since physical causes work in tandem with intelligent causes without conflict, the problem of miracles simply does not arise for Hodge.
Theistic evolutionists need to realize that evolution cannot be separated from evolutionism. The alternative, a theory that can account for both physical and intelligent causes in biology, is not a science stopper if intelligent causes can be reliably detected. This theory, now called Intelligent Design, in its core actually predates Darwin by over a century. Darwin, rather than liberating biology, actually led it astray by tying it to the faulty epistemology of positivism, which distorted reality by trying to make physical causes do the work of intelligent causes.
Want to read
January 1, 2018read introduction to new edition
December 1, 2015
It's really refreshing to hear someone address Darwinism, and call it what it really is. If there was any weakness in the book, it was the author's heavy reliance on Plato's first and final causes.
May 22, 2021
Interesting read. A bit disappointing that so great a theologian as Hodge resorted to Scripture so infrequently in this book, preferring instead to deal with Darwinism in the world of the philosophical and scientific. He arrives at the right conclusion: "We have thus arrived at the answer to our question, What is Darwinism? It is Atheism." That said, he did not deal with Darwinism's outright opposition to Scripture, but placated what today is seen to be day-age theistic evolution. He does not measure up to Henry Morris.
to-read-eventually
November 27, 2017available for free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19192...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews