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COULD GOD CREATE DARWINIAN ACCIDENTS?
Author(s) -
Wilkins John S.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2011.01238.x
Subject(s) - evolutionism , darwinism , darwin (adl) , natural selection , theism , epistemology , consistency (knowledge bases) , natural (archaeology) , gray (unit) , selection (genetic algorithm) , set (abstract data type) , philosophy , computer science , history , artificial intelligence , medicine , archaeology , software engineering , radiology , programming language
Charles Darwin, in his discussions with Asa Gray and in his published works, doubted whether God could so arrange it that exactly the desired contingent events would occur to cause particular outcomes by natural selection. In this paper, I argue that even a limited or neo‐Leibnizian deity could have chosen a world that satisfied some arbitrary set of goals or functions in its outcomes and thus answer Darwin's conundrum. In more general terms, this supports the consistency of natural selection with providentialism, and makes “theistic evolutionism” a coherent position to hold.