From Mr Stratford Caldecott SIR – Clive Copus claims that in my analysis of the challenge of evangelisation (Comment, October 2), I ignored the “elephant in the room”, namely the Darwinian world view which lies at the root of modern atheism.
But in an online article called “Theories of Evolution” I suggest that Darwin does leave room for religious belief. We do not have to take Richard Dawkins at face value, nor should we ignore respected theistic evolutionists such as Simon Conway-Morris (Cambridge). Darwin himself seems to have lost his faith for other reasons than the theory of natural selection. Atheistic evolutionism is a result of the split in our culture that I was writing about – the three-way split between science, art and faith.
Unfortunately the debate on evolution too often gets bogged down in the discussion of atheism versus creationism or Intelligent Design. It needs to be broadened out, with reference also to psychology, neurophysiology, the nature of the soul and the human person. Religious believers have nothing to fear from facts discovered by modern science, although we must be wary of interpretations that may be placed upon them.
Yours faithfully, STRATFORD CALDECOTT St Benet’s Hall, Oxford