Darwin's Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong [Hardcover]

Conor Cunningham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 3, 2010

According to British scholar Conor Cunningham, the debate today between religion and evolution has been hijacked by extremists: on one side stand fundamentalist believers who reject evolution outright; on the opposing side are fundamentalist atheists who claim that Darwin’s theory rules out the possibility of God. Both sides are dead wrong, argues Cunningham, who is at once a Christian and a firm believer in the theory of evolution. In Darwin’s Pious Idea Cunningham puts forth a trenchant, compelling case for both creation and evolution, drawing skillfully on an array of philosophical, theological, historical, and scientific sources to buttress his arguments.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Michael Rose -- The Quarterly Review of Biology "Cunningham is not shy about pulling the ontological pants of materialism down to its ankles. He supplies an unremitting attack on the scientific and philosophical views of Dawkins and his ilk in the course of his first four chapters. The level of scientific sophistication on display is remarkable for a theologian; his reading and his ruminations have been extensive, more than sufficient to provide a devastating critique of the narrative stories and metaphors of Dawkins not just with respect to religion, but also with respect to evolutionary biology itself."



"[This book] is nothing short of magnificent. Every now and then Providence sends a book to save the day. Darwin's Pious Idea may be one of those books."
— Andrew Davison, The Church Times

"Despite its length, Darwin's Pious Idea is a very readable book, engaging and often acerbically witty. It has some serious and original things to say about what always threatens to turn into a sterile debate between rather fictionalized and trivialized versions of science and religion. . . . The sheer exuberance of the presentation is a delight. . . . Certainly the most interesting and invigorating book on the science-religion frontier that I have encountered."
--Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, Times Literary Supplement

"Writing with engaging humor that betrays an extraordinary energetic intelligence, Conor Cunningham shows us why, given the Christian God, an evolutionary account of life is necessary. . . . This theological account of creation, I believe, will become a classic."
-- Stanley Hauerwas

"This book attempts to connect the debate about the nature of Darwinian evolution to the Christian theology of creation. . . . Cunningham shows that the picture of God as the great Designer of artifacts, espoused by Paley and common to both ultra-Darwinians and Creationists, is profoundly at odds with Christianity."
-- Charles Taylor
McGill University
author of A Secular Age

"Even those sympathetic to the recent wave of evolutionary attacks on religion cannot help feeling that something is missing there: Dawkins and company lack a minimum of understanding of what religion is about, of how it works. Cunningham's book is thus obligatory reading for all interested in this topic: while fully endorsing the scientific validity of Darwinism, it clearly brings to light its limitations in understanding not only religion but also our human predicament. A book like Cunningham's is needed like simple bread in our confused times."
-- Slavoj Žižek

"Cunningham brings a formidable and illuminating intelligence to a topic all too often hidden amid clouds of prejudice, polemic, and ideology. This is a splendid book!"
-- David Bentley Hart
author of Atheist Delusions

"This is an excellent book! Very well informed and written in an accessible style, it will be easily understood by lay readers, especially thanks to the beautiful, simple examples, stories, and quotations that Cunningham employs. In addition, his interpretation of genetic science is faultless. I learned a great deal from this book!"

-- Michel Morange
Center for the Study of the History of Science, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris

About the Author

Conor Cunningham is the assistant director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 580 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; First Edition edition (December 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802848389
• ISBN-13: 978-0802848383
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #580,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Conor Cunningham is assistant director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, England, author of Genealogy of Nihilism, and coeditor (with Peter M. Candler Jr.) of the Interventions series. Cunningham also wrote and presented the acclaimed BBC documentary Did Darwin Kill God? which originally aired in March 2009.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Have Come That They May Have Life, February 3, 2011

By 

G. Kyle Essary (Melaka, Malaysia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darwin's Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong (Hardcover)

David Bentley Hart and Conor Cunningham did not need to enter this debate. They did not need to write responses to the incoherent worldview of Dawkins. Any high school student having learned the difference between potency and act can dismantle the "arguments" of Dawkin's The God Delusion. In fact, if pages 100-103 of Dawkins' book are any indication of his philosophical prowess, then the high schooler knowing such a basic philosophical distinction will already prove to be Dawkins' philosophical superior.

Still, we should be thankful that they did enter the debate, because amidst their rebuttals they provided us with two excellent works. In response to the sophistry and revisionist history contained in the works of the Four Horsemen (as Dawkins has called them), the erudite David Bentley Hart entered the discussion in 2009 with Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. In the work, he echoed Nietzsche in showing how Christian metaphysics underpin some of our most cherished Western ideals, historically were the source of them and how we reject them to the detriment to our society. Institutions as diverse as the university, the hospital and even science, were motivated and supported by theological assumptions. Western values such as "personal dignity," and "human rights" are likewise grounded in the Christian metaphysic. Hart made the point that these ideals cannot be sustained when their undergirding assumptions are pulled out from underneath. They cannot float in midair without some grounding in reality.

In response to the book, believing and unbelieving intellectuals alike said that Hart had "demolished" many of the New Atheist claims. Unfortunately, the book was inaccessible to many readers requiring a level of understanding well above the level of most involved in the debate. His argument cannot be summed up in a blog post or argued in comments at a website, and therefore the masses were largely unaware of it.

Cunningham has provided an equally erudite and demolishing critique of Dawkins and the other "fashionable enemies" of Christianity. He takes a different tactic than Hart, arguing from the atheists' most prized institution (science) that the worldview of Dawkins and co. is inherently dualistic, antievolutionary and even anti-reason. Cunningham's book is incredibly researched, often containing some two or three hundred endnotes per chapter. Cunningham ably jumps from science to history to philosophy to theology with a broad knowledge in each field. I kept flipping from the content of the book to the endnotes and back. It may have been more effective to use footnotes versus endnotes, but this criticism should not dissuade any readers.

His analysis of the antievolutionary perspective of the ultra-Darwinists alone would be worth the value of the book, yet he goes further to show the anti-scientific nature of evolutionary psychology, the incoherence and self-contradictory views of those who maintain materialism, or even worse the vague and mysterious "naturalism" (which has as many definitions as it has defenders). Finally, he brings it all together in showing how a robust Christian theology of the person (as well as a theology of matter) combined with the Christian promotion of reason best comports with our experienced reality.

Unfortunately, as with Hart's book, few will read this one. It is inaccessible to the masses due to its high level of academic discourse. Many of the discussions require an awareness of current discussions in biology, philosophy and theology. He assumes the readers know of Fodor, de Lubac, Lacan, Conway Morris and others. Thus, the shallow discussions and rhetoric found in blog comments and forums, where the bulk of this debate takes place, will continue (probably even in published forms such as Dawkins books), with the proponents of such views totally unaware that their positions can no longer be held with any semblance of dignity.

Of course, these individuals do not care about dignity. In fact, their worldview can hardly account for it. Thus, the rhetoric will continue making Cunningham's play on Marx ring true, "Nihilism is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." The reductionist perspective will continue in the name of "progress" and "science," despite its anti-progress and anti-scientific nature. Against this reductionistic nihilism, the church must proclaim all the more defiantly the words of Jesus "I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but no easy read, February 21, 2011

By 

Weedar (Oslo, Norway) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Darwin's Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong (Hardcover)

Don't be discouraged by negative reviews by people who haven't even bothered to read the book. In the very beginning of the book, the author points out that he has gotten help from biologists all over the world, most of whom are atheists, in writing the book. The book is written to demonstrate that evolution and christianity are not only compatible, but that christianity makes better sense in an evolutionary world.

The term "ultra darwinist" is not created by the author, as he points out when he introduces the term. Atheists and ultra-darwinists themselves use the term, which is common, and describes those who believe evolution can explain every aspect of reality. If evolution isn't merely an (important) aspect of reality to you, but a metaphysical worldview then you are an ultra-darwinist.

At any rate, the book is a heavy read. This is no simple introduction to the subject, but it is a valuable resource if you want to understand the relationship between science and christianity.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Capable of irritating persons of all stripes, October 4, 2011

By 

Christopher Grant (Salem, UT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Darwin's Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong (Hardcover)

The good: I've never encountered anyone who could make Darwinism seem as genuinely inspiring as Cunningham does early in this book.

The fair: A large part of the book, perhaps most of it, is spent discussing the antinomies and paradoxes of philosophical naturalism. Cunningham does this well, but it's been done better before by Lewis and Plantinga and even Berlinski. While Cunningham's discussion may be more extensive, other authors have the advantage of clarity and even depth, in my opinion.

The bad:

1. Authors that spend an extreme amount of time quoting others run the risk of not putting together a coherent, systematic argument themselves. I think this is a weakness for Cunningham.

2. F-words in a theology book? Really?

3. Cunningham really lost me on the last chapter. On page 378, Cunningham dismisses the question of the historicity of Adam because it "rests on atheistic presumptions". On page 410, he informs us that "all religion is atheist". On page 397, he raises the spectre of "some sort of hellish postmodern Derridian differance", but I felt that Cunningham's own writing in this chapter suffers from the same incomprehensibility commonly associated with the worst of postmodernism. If this chapter is typical of modern theology, maybe the ultra-Darwinists' low opinion of theology is justified after all.