Letters from the Edge of Elfland
David Russell Mosley
12 August 2013
Beeston, Nottinghamshire
Dear Friends and Family,
Here is my review of Conor Cunningham’s Darwin’s Pious Idea. I hope you enjoy.
This is an excellent book and a must read for any and all (Christian and atheist) who think evolution and Christianity are firmly at odds. Cunningham shows that traditional readings of Genesis (i.e. Genesis as read by Jews and early Christians) does not require a Young Earth Creationist conclusion. Nor, however, does Darwin’s theory of evolution lead purely to an Ultra-Darwinian reductive materialism. As the subtitle says, both the Creationists and Ultra-Darwinists get it wrong.
Cunningham upholds God as the creator of all things out of nothing, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is both truly God and truly man, and that life on this planet came into its current form through evolution. Full of scientific research and jargon, Cunningham painstakingly shows why fundamentalists (Christian or atheist) cannot say that evolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive.
The book is not perfect, Cunningham can, on occasion, come off as harsh toward both Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists, but it because he finds the positions so untenable. Admittedly, however, the main aporia in Cunningham’s argument comes in the final chapter where he begins to discuss the nature of sin. Cunningham cites dozens of Church Fathers and shows well that their view of the Fall is purely contingent on the Incarnation. However, when he comes to Augustine he merely notes that Augustine’s work on original sin, the Fall, etc. were in the context of polemical discussions with Donatists and Pelagians. The problem I have is that most of the early Church texts are polemical, they’re written against gnostics, Arians, Eunomians, etc. Cunningham falls short in this area.
Nevertheless, this book is well written and ought to be required reading for anyone wanting to study the interplay between science and Christianity. I highly recommend this book.
Sincerely yours,
David Russell Mosley
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In