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God-Nature Progressing: Natural Theology in German Monism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2007

Bernhard Kleeberg
Bernhard Kleeberg
Affiliation:
International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen
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Abstract

Argument

During the 1860s Ernst Haeckel, German zoologist and one of the foremost popularizers of Darwinism, proposed a natural philosophy called “Monism.” Based on developmental thinking, natural selection, and sound natural laws, the scientific Weltanschauung of Monism was to supersede Christian religion in all its accounts of nature. Haeckel's new scientific religion, this essay argues, fused the religious joys of reveling in the beauty of “mother nature” with the assurance of progress based on scientific certainty. Even though Haeckel and his followers polemicized against dualistic and teleological interpretations of nature, and despite their fierce struggle against the Christian churches, Monism cannot conceal its roots. All central arguments of natural theology reappear – albeit sometimes in causal or reductionist phrasing. Haeckel's aesthetics of nature in particular shows his indebtedness to the concept of a divine economy of nature. His Monism is an evolutionary and pantheistic natural theology.

Type
Articles
Information
Science in Context , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 537 - 569
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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