Sir, - I have long been an admirer of Dr William Reville's column, Science Today, and his ability to write an interesting and illuminating piece, week by week. And I am in broad agreement with his view (October 13th ) that faith in God can co-exist with an acceptance of evolution.
The idea that higher forms of life emerged from more primitive ones is very ancient indeed, adumbrated by the pre-Socratics, suggested by St Augustine, and endorsed enthusiastically by Lamark and others before Darwin. That evolution might be the mode in which the world is created should pose no great problem for believers, even though the idea that species were fixed in the beginning is clearly envisaged in the Book of Genesis and was supported by the work of ancient scientists, especially Aristotle, whom Darwin recognised as one of the greatest of all biologists.
Strictly speaking, the contradiction of evolution is not creation, but rather what one might call fixism, and it was the misfortune of Bishop Wilberforce and his Anglican colleagues that they rejected Darwin's theory on the grounds of a too literal reading of Genesis. It was, one might say, their Galileo case. Unfortunately that battle is still being carried on by some, especially in the US.
I was surprised that Dr Reville felt that the theory invalidated the argument from design. I think he is right in thinking that it destroys many versions of the argument from design, but when he writes, "I think that the basic material . . . of which the universe is made is so wonderful as to make it not unreasonable to think that it exists by the will of God", I believe he is reinstating the argument from design.
I wish success to his excellent column. - Yours, etc.,
The Abbey, Galway City.