Excerpt: … theological claims are common in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (Darwin 1859), where they are essential to his science. The religion is not a tangential message, and one need not read between the lines to see it. In the Origin, it would not be an exaggeration to say the religion drives the science. Darwin’s religion is not merely present, it is prominent and has primacy over the science. The religion is foundational.
The importance of religion in Darwin’s theory is also apparent in the science he presented. As Section 5 shows, Darwin did not have sufficient scientific arguments and evidence to advance his theory. Finally, as Section 6 and Section 7 demonstrate, these roles and relationships between religion and science persisted after Darwin. This religious foundation was by no means peculiar to Darwin’s thought. It has remained foundational since Darwin in motivating and justifying the theory. What we find in Darwin continued in later evolutionary thought. Therefore, the thesis of this paper is that evolution is best understood as a theological research program.
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The paper is open access.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
Since Darwinists have no real time empirical evidence to support their grandiose claims, faulty theological presuppositions are essential to Darwin’s theory.
As Dr. Hunter pointed out, this dependence on faulty theological presuppositions, instead of any compelling empirical evidence, was true of Darwin’s theory at its inception,
,,, and the Darwinist’s dependence on faulty theological presuppositions remains true to this day,,,
The fatal problem for Darwinists with their vital dependence on faulty theological presuppositions, instead of depending on any compelling scientific evidence, to try to make their case for Darwinian evolution, is that Darwinists hold, via their false doctrine of ‘methodological naturalism’, that God has no place in science,
And the reason why Darwinists are vitally dependent on faulty theological presuppositions, instead of empirical evidence, is simply because, Modern science was born out of, and is STILL dependent on, essential Judeo-Christian presuppositions, and modern science was certainly not born out, nor is it currently dependent upon, naturalistic presuppositions (as atheists falsely claim).
Again, modern science is STILL very much dependent on Judeo-Christian presuppositions. As Paul Davies succinctly put the situation, “even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”
In fact, directly contrary to the oft repeated false claim from Darwinists that intelligent Design is not a science, the fact of the matter is that ALL of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of Intelligent Design and is certainly not based on their false doctrine of methodological naturalism,
Again, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism.
Moreover, assuming ‘methodological naturalism’, instead of Theism, as the ‘ground rule’ for ‘doing science’, as Darwinian atheists insist that we do, drives science itself into catastrophic epistemological failure,
Thus although the Darwinian atheist may firmly, and falsely, believe that he is on the terra firma of science, (in his appeal, even demand, for naturalistic explanations over and above God as a viable explanation), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists themselves are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
So thus in conclusion, it turns out that the primary reason that Darwinists are vitally dependent on faulty theological presuppositions, instead of on any compelling scientific evidence, is simply because all of science is itself based on essential Judeo-Christian presuppositions. You simply can’t do science without those essential presuppositions. Thus, in order for Darwinists to try to have a semblance of scientific credibility, they are forced to try to use faulty theological presuppositions about what God may or may not do in this universe, in order to try to counter the necessary Judeo-Christian presuppositions that were, and STILL are, essential for the successful practice of modern science.
In short, Darwinists are vitally dependent on faulty, even false, theological presuppositions about what God may or may not do in this universe just in order to try to have the capacity to argue against the necessary reality of God for a ‘rational’ universe in the first place.
As Cornelius Van Til put this self-refuting position for atheists, the atheist needs God just in order to have the capacity to oppose him.
Verse:
It’s the “Darwin had an axe to grind” motivation for the theory of evolution. That’s totally in keeping with IDers having an axe to grind motivation for the “theory” of intelligent design. Looks like the old grinding wheel is working overtime….