Darwin in Scotland

Despite some strident voices on both sides of the debate, a consensus emerged amongst Scottish theologians in the last quarter of the 19th century that Darwinian evolution was consistent with a Christian account of the cosmos. Writers such as Robert Rainy, Principal at New College in Edinburgh, argued that the world was endowed by its Maker with a fruitfulness that enabled the emergence of increasingly complex states. This could be viewed in providential terms compatible with Scriptural themes of creation and redemption. In the theology of the ensuing years, a clearer delineation of the separate provinces of science and faith emerged. This was accompanied by more modest strategies of explaining evil and suffering in the world, alongside a turn to moral capacities as a distinguishing feature of human existence. What is perhaps surprising is that while evolution arrived without much fuss in late Victorian Scotland, there was a raging controversy over the application of methods of historical criticism to the Bible.