
Many people seem to think that
C.S. Lewis embraced modern
evolutionary theory wholesale
and that he was perfectly happy
with that thought was consistent
with Christianity and believed
in it and I've read a lot of
things by people who seem to say
that.
The interesting thing is if you
actually read Lewis, both his
public writings and his private
writings, he was really rather
sceptical of many claims made in
the name of evolution and he
became even more sceptical the
older he got.
And so by the end of his life he
was really sceptical and so
Lewis really was not someone who
just wholesale endorsed modern
evolutionary theory.
I think to sort of see this we
need to look at two particular
aspects of evolution that Lewis
thought about and wrote about.
First is the idea of common
ancestry, the idea that
everything that lives including
human beings basically
originated as a descendant with
modification from one original
ancestor.
Now Lewis did not have a
theological objection to common
ancestry.
He thought God could have used
pre-human animals to create
particularly the physical
aspects of human beings.
Now that doesn't mean he thought
that God did do that.
Actually, if you read his
especially private writings and
correspondence he was heavily
sceptical of that idea and got
really sceptical later in life
in the last few years of his
life.
It's also the case that the type
of common ancestry that Lewis
thought could fit with
Christianity is not the type of
common ancestry that really
modern evolutionary theory
teaches.
One, Lewis thought that the
original human beings did have
to be morally innocent and that
there was a real fall in nature
and that had consequences.
And many people who call
themselves theistic
evolutionists this is a real
problem for them, they regard
the fall as a myth and actually
think that if anything it was a
fall upward.
That you know we were sinful and
evil to begin with because
evolution is based on
selfishness and based on the
struggle for survival and that
somehow through self-awareness
we later became aware of God.
Well that doesn't fit the
biblical account at all and
Lewis said that the type of
common ancestry he was willing
to accept wouldn't accept that.
That in fact you would have to
have the first humans be
genuinely in moral fellowship
with God and then make a choice
to basically turn away from God
and then there are all sorts of
repercussions for that.
Lewis also insisted pretty much,
in his private life at least,
that he believed in a historic
Adam and Eve.
Now he did actually say in some
of the things he wrote publicly
that he wouldn't insist on that
theologically but he privately
did believe in a historic Adam
and Eve at least from his
private correspondence and from
his own fictional books and the
way he wrote about it is pretty
clear that he did believe in
historic Adam and Eve.
And then he also was very clear
that an evolutionary process,
particularly a materialistic
evolutionary process, a mindless
process, could not explain the
development of the human mind
and human morality.
And again that's something that
modern evolutionary theory
claims to explain.
And so so although Lewis did say
that he thought Christians could
believe in a type of common
ancestor he sharply limited what
he meant by common ancestry.
So that's one main evolutionary
claim but the other one is
really the more particularly
Darwinian claim it's that the
process of evolution, the thing
that brought about you and me
and every thing in nature was a
blind and unguided process.
The whole thing about natural
selection, according to Darwin,
is that it can mimic an
intelligent designer without
actually needing a designer at
all.
That if you just have survival
plus these random variations in
nature that you could create
everything, build everything
without the need for intentional
design.
Lewis even from the time before
he was a Christian during World
War One while he was still an
atheist, an agnostic thought
that natural selection couldn't
do all those things it just
didn't make any sense and the
evidence didn't show it.
And certainly after he became a
Christian he became even more
skeptical of natural selection.
Now he thought it could do
things like knock out things and
make things less complicated but
he was very skeptical of the
idea that Darwinian natural
selection, an unguided process
could build new form and
function and so he was very
clear on that.
And so you know Lewis did think
again that there could be a type
of common ancestry that a
Christian could believe if you
really sharply defined it in a
way that modern evolutionists
wouldn't find acceptable but
then when it came to natural
selection as an unguided
process.
He was sharply critical of that
just on evidentiary grounds even
before he was a Christian.
And then of course as a
Christian if you believe that
God is sovereign then there are
a whole realm of other problems
with that.
