ABSTRACT
Of all of the topics that have fueled the antagonism between science and religion, evolutionism remains perhaps the only one with power to stimulate debate even today. Following on from the impact of geology and paleontology in the early nineteenth century, evolutionary theories challenged the story of human origins recounted in sacred texts. By rendering humankind a product of nature, evolutionism broke down the barrier between human spirituality and the mentality of the “brutes that perish.” Equally seriously, some of the more materialistic theories of evolution undermined the traditional belief that nature itself is a divine construct. In the Darwinian theory of natural selection, struggle and suffering are the driving forces of natural development and, hence, the root cause of our own origin. Not surprisingly, there are many who still think that the human species must be the product of a more purposeful mode of development, and some who wish to retain the traditional view that we are divinely created.
