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Could Darwinian Natural Selection Be Divinely Guided?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2025

Michael Bergmann
Michael Bergmann*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: bergmann@purdue.edu
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Abstract

This article defends the compatibility of evolutionary theory and religious belief against the objection that God could not have intentionally brought humans into existence given that the evolutionary process by which humans came into existence crucially involves random genetic mutation. The thought behind the objection is that a process cannot be both random and intended by God to unfold as it does.

Keywords

evolutiontheismreligious beliefdivine providence
Type
Research Article
Information
Think , Volume 24 , Issue 70 , Summer 2025 , pp. 9 - 16
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of Philosophy.

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References

Gould, Stephen Jay (1999) Rocks of Ages (New York: Ballantine Books).Google Scholar
Miller, Kenneth (1999) Finding Darwin’s God (New York: HarperCollins).Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (2011) Where the Conflict Really Lies (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Ruse, Michael (2004) Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott (2011) ‘Evolution without Naturalism’, Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 3: 187–221.Google Scholar
van Inwagen, , Peter, (2003) ‘The Compatibility of Darwinism and Design’, in Neil, A. Manson (ed.) God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science (New York: Routledge), .Google Scholar