Bryan Fischer
Founders knew about evolution, chose intelligent design
Bryan Fischer
Contrary to popular belief, as historian David Barton points out, the theory of evolution was around long before Charles Darwin. As far back as the 6th century B.C., Greek writers Thales and Anaximander had propounded the theory centuries before the birth of Christ. Aristotle, influenced by his intellectual forbears, also advocated a form of evolution.
Other ancient writers like Diogenes, Empedocles, Democritus, and Lucretius, all writing before the time of Christ, added variations to the theory, including such things as survival of the fittest, natural selection, and mutability of the species.
Philosophers Renee Descartes in the 17th century and Immanuel Kant in the 18th century had argued for the theory of a gradual origin of the solar system as an alternative to instantaneous creation.
According to Dr. Henry Osborn, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, the Founding Fathers lived in what he calls the third of history's four periods of evolution. Osborn lists almost three dozen influential writers of the colonial period who supported evolutionary theory to one degree or another. All, you will note, prior to the advent of Darwin.
All through the history of human thought, the debate over the origins of man has been a debate between two competing theories: a theistic and non-theistic explanation. Theism attributes origins to God, while non-theism attributes it to nature.
The point here is that the Founders were not in fact ignorant of the theory of evolution. It had been around for 2400 years by the time they produced the Declaration of Independence with its flat and unambiguous proclamation that man is a created being, not an evolved one, and that there is a Creator who is the source of our civil rights.
Even Thomas Paine, the most anti-religious of those who shaped the thinking of America at the time of the War for Independence (he said the Bible is "a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy"), rebuked the French educational system for teaching science and natural philosophy apart from any reference to "the Being who is the Author of them," going on to say that "all the principles of science are of divine origin." How is it, he said, "that when we study the works of God in creation, we stop short and do not think of God?"
Benjamin Franklin, one of the few deists involved in producing the Declaration, is worth noting since he, along with Thomas Jefferson, was likely the least orthodox of the Founders. And since Jefferson actually wrote the Declaration, we know what he thought on the subject.
Here is Franklin on the subject of origins: "It might be judged an affront to your understanding should I go about to prove this first principle: the existence of a Deity and that He is the Creator of the universe." He adds, "That the Deity is a being of great goodness appears in His giving life to so many creatures."
And again: "That He is a being of infinite power appears in His being able to form and compound such vast masses of matter (as this earth, and the sun, and innumerable stars and planets)."
Franklin goes on, "[W]hat power must He possess, Who not only knows the nature of everything in the universe but can make things of new natures with the greatest ease and at His pleasure! Agreeing, then, that the world was at first made by a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, which Being we call God."
The point here is quite simple: you will hear some argue, falsely believing that the theory of evolution did not exist until Darwin, that if the Founders had only written the Declaration after being exposed to the theory of evolution, it might look different. Well, in point of fact, they did write the Declaration after being exposed to the theory of evolution, and it looks just fine.
© Bryan Fischer
By Contrary to popular belief, as historian David Barton points out, the theory of evolution was around long before Charles Darwin. As far back as the 6th century B.C., Greek writers Thales and Anaximander had propounded the theory centuries before the birth of Christ. Aristotle, influenced by his intellectual forbears, also advocated a form of evolution.
Other ancient writers like Diogenes, Empedocles, Democritus, and Lucretius, all writing before the time of Christ, added variations to the theory, including such things as survival of the fittest, natural selection, and mutability of the species.
Philosophers Renee Descartes in the 17th century and Immanuel Kant in the 18th century had argued for the theory of a gradual origin of the solar system as an alternative to instantaneous creation.
According to Dr. Henry Osborn, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, the Founding Fathers lived in what he calls the third of history's four periods of evolution. Osborn lists almost three dozen influential writers of the colonial period who supported evolutionary theory to one degree or another. All, you will note, prior to the advent of Darwin.
All through the history of human thought, the debate over the origins of man has been a debate between two competing theories: a theistic and non-theistic explanation. Theism attributes origins to God, while non-theism attributes it to nature.
The point here is that the Founders were not in fact ignorant of the theory of evolution. It had been around for 2400 years by the time they produced the Declaration of Independence with its flat and unambiguous proclamation that man is a created being, not an evolved one, and that there is a Creator who is the source of our civil rights.
Even Thomas Paine, the most anti-religious of those who shaped the thinking of America at the time of the War for Independence (he said the Bible is "a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy"), rebuked the French educational system for teaching science and natural philosophy apart from any reference to "the Being who is the Author of them," going on to say that "all the principles of science are of divine origin." How is it, he said, "that when we study the works of God in creation, we stop short and do not think of God?"
Benjamin Franklin, one of the few deists involved in producing the Declaration, is worth noting since he, along with Thomas Jefferson, was likely the least orthodox of the Founders. And since Jefferson actually wrote the Declaration, we know what he thought on the subject.
Here is Franklin on the subject of origins: "It might be judged an affront to your understanding should I go about to prove this first principle: the existence of a Deity and that He is the Creator of the universe." He adds, "That the Deity is a being of great goodness appears in His giving life to so many creatures."
And again: "That He is a being of infinite power appears in His being able to form and compound such vast masses of matter (as this earth, and the sun, and innumerable stars and planets)."
Franklin goes on, "[W]hat power must He possess, Who not only knows the nature of everything in the universe but can make things of new natures with the greatest ease and at His pleasure! Agreeing, then, that the world was at first made by a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, which Being we call God."
The point here is quite simple: you will hear some argue, falsely believing that the theory of evolution did not exist until Darwin, that if the Founders had only written the Declaration after being exposed to the theory of evolution, it might look different. Well, in point of fact, they did write the Declaration after being exposed to the theory of evolution, and it looks just fine.
© Bryan Fischer
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