Happy birthday, Mr. Darwin

Dear Mr. Darwin,

Happy 200th birthday to you and congratulations on the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species!

I thank you for your awesome contribution to science by which we have gained the privilege to view and comprehend whole new dimensions God’s creation. Without actually placing it on equal terms (I’m not venerating you — it’s just an analogy!), what God enabled you to reveal was like the tearing of the temple curtain at Christ’s death, which symbolized a new kind of access to God and intimacy with the Father. Our salvation may not depend on the new understanding brought about by your work, but it was (I think) God’s gift to us that he would at some point enable us (his sentient, image-bearing creatures) to draw aside that curtain to gaze more intimately at his creative work, to see in greater detail how we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I’m sorry that you had to lead the way and in so doing be forced to sort through some new kinds of heart-issues. Whatever else historians of today must guess about your intimate thoughts, we know for certain that you didn’t take those spiritual concerns lightly. In that, as well as in your science, you are an example for us today. You agonized over the apparent conflicts rather than flippantly dismissing Christianity or theism. I think you had at least some measure of the wisdom that knows there’s always more to the picture than we see right now — that the apparent conflicts might make sense when all is known.

I’m sorry, too, that the world has so badly abused the knowledge that God revealed through you. So many have failed to follow your example of quiet contemplation and humility. In sophmoric fashion, many have taken an elementary level of scientific understanding about “what is” and naively applied it to policy in the form of “what should be”. Others have assumed that the “conflict” perception accurately represents the truth, forcing themselves to choose between science as a way of knowing and love as a way of being known by God.

These extremes may represent the majority of popular Western culture today; they are certainly the most vocal. Don’t be discouraged, though. There are many of us who continue to explore and clarify what you first saw the glimpses of. Scientists continue to expand, refine, and discover the creative complexity of evolutionary processes. We’ve been able to reconstruct cosmological, geological and biological history in incredible detail — you’d be amazed! And theologians, especially Christian theologians, are making significant progress in understanding and appreciating how the story of science and the story of God’s love and purpose can (and do) make sense in one reality.

I can only hope and pray that you were/are able to receive and accept that even bigger, complete picture of reality that you now encounter “at the back of the North Wind”. If effectual prayer is not bound by the flow of time, may God honor my prayer for you to know his peace and rest.

Sincerely,
Douglas Hayworth