Creation, Darwin and Losing My Religion

Last night I saw the new movie, Creation, about Charles Darwin and his life leading up to the publication of the Origin of Species. It is based on a book called, Annie's Box, written by Darwin's great great grandson on Darwin and his relationship with his daughter. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and believe it raises a number of interesting ideas, of which the most powerful was the devastating effect the loss of religious conviction is for the believer.

Before I discuss my thoughts on that, the movie is interesting for a number of reasons. I particular enjoyed how the film wove a number of key themes, such as Darwin's struggle to reconcile his disbelief in God with human emotions and feelings, such as 'heartbreak'. Or his discussions on theodicy, by looking at certain types of animals which cause such devastating suffering on others for survival. Which reminded me of a David Attenborough quote I heard once (i think it's on wikipedia):

My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every
individual species as a separate act, they always instance
hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend
to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of
a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's
going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that
the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who
cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created
this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's
eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's
full of mercy'.[28]

Also of interest was Darwin's belief in some pseudo-medical beliefs at the time to do with water therapy.

But perhaps the most interesting for me was the discussion on his loss of faith and how traumatic the implications of his theory and his lack of faith was for his family and wife. This is a common issue for people who find themselves changing or questioning their beliefs about things which have fundamental meaning and purpose-giving effect in their lives. It is hard to over emphasise the psychological pain that can be involved if a person who used to believe there was an all powerful God, who loved them individually and created the world for order, and everything including themselves for a purpose to suddenly (or gradually) no longer exist. This is a revolution of the mind of sorts which it seems caused Darwin incredible physical pain to go through. As much as it was an intellectual pain for Darwin's beliefs to change, it was also so painful for him to think what would happen to his family, his wife, if he changed his beliefs. I wonder how similar this issue is for many people in their lives who have grown up in faith traditions and communities only to be scared of what would happen if they didn't believe?

Throughout all of this is a moving film about a father who loves his family, and is at pains to see them drifting apart. The hardest part is to watch Darwin's daughter Annie slowly die which has the effect of killing off Darwin's belief in Christianity as Divine Revelation (or any revelation) at a similar time. This is such a difficult thing for people of theistic faith to grapple with: the suffering of children. It was the subject of Stanley Hauerwas' book, Naming the Silences. A very good book, which I won't go into the ideas he presents there, but only to say that the suffering of children is perhaps the hardest thing for people to reconcile with many tradition Christian ideas about God.

Some problems I had with the film include the exaggeration of the idea of religion and science to be at war. While those issues were certainly debated and some did want to use Darwin to "kill God" as it were, most Christians (Anglicans) did not find evolution and Christianity at odds in some form of eternal battle. Many were able to happily accommodate Darwinian beliefs into Christian worldviews. While many neo-Darwinians, such as Richard Dawkins would baulk at that idea, people in past had no problems doing so. For example, see research by historian of science and religion at University of Otago, John Stenhouse.

There a bunch of resources for churches based on the film here.

Overall this was a powerful movie for me and i definitely recommend it.