Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect For Religion In The Age Of Evolution [Hardcover]

John Haught (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 13, 2003

In his acclaimed book God After Darwin, John Haught argued that religious belief is wholly compatible with evolutionary biology. Now, in Deeper Than Darwin, he advances his argument further by saying that religious belief is even more revealing about life than Darwinism. Haught looks hard at the question of how, after Darwin, religions may plausibly claim to be bearers of truth and not just of meaning and adaptive consolation. While he assumes the fundamental correctness of evolutionary biology, he firmly rejects the non-scientific belief that evolutionary biology amounts to an adequate explanation of living phenomena. Even though Darwinism is illuminating, Haught argues, it by no means tells us everything we need to know about life, even in principle. To find the deepest, though certainly not the clearest, understandings of life and the universe, we may still profitably consult the religions of the world. Deeper Than Darwin takes up where God After Darwin left off, arguing that Darwin's vision is important and essentially correct but that we can still dig deeper in our understanding of what is going on in the life-story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Haught, director of the Georgetown Center for the Study of Science and Religion, makes a solid and sometimes elegant case that an evolutionary universe can still manifest divine purpose and promise, whatever some interpreters have said. The basic idea of "evolutionary theism" is nothing new, and Haught's theological touchstones-Whitehead, Tillich and Teilhard de Chardin-are not exactly cutting edge. But this book invigorates the debate by interacting with more recent literature while introducing some fresh lines of argument. Haught takes issue with mutual antagonists from Daniel Dennett to Philip Johnson (whose only point of consensus seems to be that Darwin and God don't mix), by showing how they themselves tend to amalgamate scientific and religious beliefs. At the same time, Haught distrusts the most obvious strategy for making Darwinism and religion "compatible" by partitioning religious from scientific truth, reading in Michael Ruse and the late Stephen Jay Gould a patronizing-if superficially polite-attitude toward religion. Haught prefers to relate Darwinism and religion in another way, by showing that the evolutionary story itself, or even the existence of a universe in which evolution is possible, raises "deeper" religious questions. This is a volume full of methodical argument, fine distinctions and some measure of rhetorical stretching; a few chapters, adapted from academic journal articles, become abstruse at points. But on the whole, Haught succeeds in making the metaphor of "depth" deeper, and more illuminating, than it has been in some previous discussions of evolutionary theism.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

John F. Haught is professor at Georgetown University and Director of the Georgetown Center for the Study of Science and Religion. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1 edition (May 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813365902
• ISBN-13: 978-0813365909
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,357,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God survives Darwinism, May 19, 2003

By 

John A Gurley (Santa Barbara, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect For Religion In The Age Of Evolution (Hardcover)

John Haught has no problem reconciling his religious beliefs with evolution. He argues that evolution, and all science, only goes so deep in explaining the world. He points out his objection to scientists, such as Dawkins, using evolution as a weapon to promote their own atheistic beliefs. He sees this as science overstepping it's bounds and becoming a religion of it's own. I am an evolutionist, butI agree with him here.

He also takes strict creationists and "intelligent designers" to task for trying to recast their religious beliefs as science. The "God of the Gaps" approach of taking anything currently under debate in the scientific community as evidence of evolution being wrong, and therefore creationism or intelligent design being right, ultimately will backfire as science progresses to fill in the gaps. He sees this as poor reasoning, since science isn't done yet.

But Haught goes on to say that untimately science cannot provide the final answers or final truth, and this is where religion can step in and reach deeper. I agree with this; science can only explain so much and religion has plenty to explain after that.

All in all, a very positive book that presents a "middle way" in the current evo-creation debate. Science and religion are compatible if the two side will recognize where science ends and religion begins.

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars FLAWED BUT AMAZINGLY INTERESTING, August 30, 2003

By 

Jon Fobes "jonfobes | www.fobes.net" (Lorain, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect For Religion In The Age Of Evolution (Hardcover)

This is one of the most annoyingly schizophrenic books I have ever read.

The author launches off into many wonderful attacks against literalism then employs literalism himself! The author points out the problems of metaphysics and especially the problems we encounter when we are not able to put off "metaphysical gratification" then lapses into his own brand of feeble metaphysics, the idea that there is "in fact" inexhaustible "depth" to the universe or that the Cosmos is "narrative to the core."

I believe the author gets pulled off course because his personal agenda requires conclusions that his arguments do not allow him to reach, so he leaps. In fact, to some extent this book is a fascinating record of a learned mind veering away from its own awesome conclusions. I do not use the word "awesome" lightly. Indeed, I think the book's strengths far, far outweigh its weaknesses. The attacks on literalism and metaphysics (though undercut) are highly inspirational and informative, the straining toward a new view of religion essential, the attack on scientific literalism necessary.

This book does not heal the rift between science and religion as much as it shows the width and depth of a chasm that continues to open. With all its flaws, "Deeper Than Darwin" is an engrossing and important book that should be read and reread by anyone interested in religion, science or philosophy.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If we could bring the cultural wars up to this level of discourse we should be able to get somewhere, May 17, 2008

By 

J Kragt (Fort Washington, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect For Religion In The Age Of Evolution (Paperback)

While reading this book I imagined a discourse community of endless time - a Shangri-la - where all of us fully explore philosophical points from every possible angle. I'd like to think Haught's book can be a challenge for believer, non-believer, seeker, or agnostic alike. Instead of looking for weaknesses, why not find the meat of the author's thought and engage him/her exactly there--with respect? For example, his concept of depth permeates every page of the book, yet one reviewer feels it was not explained.

Depth implies one is willing to go where things are not finally or fully grasped, and Haught's point is that evolutionary science with its "irreversibly temporal and prodigiously prolonged narrative," always open to contingency, actually points toward depth and a future that is open. (Those who rest content under the banner of religion equally need to be reminded of this.)

"The unbending rigor of natural selection need not, however, lead to a philosophical fatalism, as it has done so often among Darwinians. Nature's predictable laws, abstracted in one way or another by every science, can instead be read as necessary grammatical rules that any incarnation of deeper meaning must adhere to if it is to receive embodiment. Just as the sentences on this page have to obey inviolable grammatical regulations, the novelty that emerges in evolution can become actualized only if there is an underlying constancy in the laws of nature. p. 59

"Why, we may ask again, is the universe so unaccountably composed of the compound of contingency, predictability and temporality that are essential to story? Why, in other words, is nature narrative to the core? Why does it possess the openness to novelty that is resident in the accidents essential for evolution? Why does it have the regularity and reliability that we associate with the "laws" of physics, chemistry and natural selection? And why does it unfold in such an irreversibly temporal and prodigiously prolonged manner?...

"One may, of course assert gratuitously that it is all an accident, that the universe's felicitous blend of contingency, necessity and temporality itself has no explanation itself, just as the naked existence of the universe is said at times to be inexplicable. However, such a claim is no less metaphysical than a theological one would be. Moreover the idea that the existence of our story-bound cosmos might be an absurd accident in a void of ultimate meaninglessness suffers from the disadvantage of not cohering well with the ongoing scientific search for intelligibility.

"Our view of what reality is like in its ultimate depths must be in consonance rather than competition, with scientific understanding if the latter is to have a future. Were we to suppose that the universe at bottom is an abyss of absurdity, this would hardly encourage the ongoing quest for deeper and deeper insight. On the other hand, a theological conviction that the cosmos in its ultimate depths is endlessly intelligible goes very well with science. A trust that the world is intelligible "all the way down" allows science to breathe and to have an indefinite future. Such trust can only encourage the ongoing scientific adventure of trying to figure things out.

"At the same time, a trust in the world's endless intelligibility will discourage all dreams of final theories. It will shatter the pretense that physics can capture the mind of God, or that Darwinism can give us the deepest available understand of life." (63-4)

I think this book could help us all to let go of our cherished fetishes, such as "God" or "Darwinism" (I'm imagining some participants clinging to voodoo dolls of the other) and embrace the present discussion as something to enjoy and share, trusting that a variety of views can enrich not threaten one's own view.