Charles and Emma Darwin's Marriage of Science and Faith

In 1836, when Charles Darwin returned to England from his five-year voyage around the world, which included his famous visit to the Galapagos Islands, he was already seeing life and creation in a new way. And as he courted Emma, he also was secretly scribbling notes about a new idea, his theory of evolution, in leather-bound notebooks marked "private."

Darwin realized that his view of creation would rock the faith of Emma and almost everyone in England, and as he prepared to propose to her, he agonized. Charles' father advised him to keep his ideas. "Conceal your doubts," he warned.

But Charles couldn't do that. He was too honest. He told Emma of his doubts about the veracity of the Bible and of his growing skepticism about religion.

Emma said she would marry him anyway. She prized his candor, and she knew he was a good and moral man. But in a letter she sent him soon after their engagement, she told him that she was sad that "our opinions on the most important subject should differ widely."

This was the first of several letters about religion that Emma wrote to Charles during their lives. She urged him not to close the door on faith. And she shared her fears that they would be separated for eternity. Charles always listened to what she had to say, and they talked about the problem. He kept each letter close. He wrote on one of them, "When I am dead, know that many times, I have kissed and cried over this. C.D." On another he wrote, simply, "God bless you."

Commenting on his wife, Charles Darwin wrote on page 97 of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin: "I marvel at my good fortune that she, so infinitely my superior in every single moral quality, consented to be my wife. She has been my wise adviser and cheerful comforter throughout life, which without her would have been during a very long period a miserable one from ill-health. She has earned the love and admiration of every soul near her."

Randal Keynes, in Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution. 2002. pg 5 wrote of a conversation Charles had with Emma before their wedding: "Excuse this much egotism, I give it to you, because I think you will humanism me, and soon teach me there is greater happiness, than building theories and accumulating facts in silence and solitude."

Charles had chosen Emma, and she had said yes in large part because they had known each other their whole lives. But they didn't really know each other. It was a big leap to go from being friendly cousins to being husband and wife ... Emma wrote to Aunt Jessie later that she was 'too much bewildered all day to feel my happiness.'" Deborah Heiligman wrote in Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith. 2009. pg. 56.

"On Jan. 29, 1839, in the little chapel in the English village of Maer, a religious, 30-year-old woman named Emma Wedgwood put on a green silk dress and got married. She believed firmly in a heaven and a hell. And she believed you had to accept God to go to heaven. She married Charles Darwin." Since the Darwin's and Wedgewood's were close and they were first cousins, Charles and Emma knew one another since they were children.

"Charles and Emma had 10 children together. Three of the children died; the death of their beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie, broke their hearts. That loss could have driven them apart forever. It strengthened Emma's faith and all but closed the door on God for Charles. But they fought for their marriage. The day after Annie died, Emma wrote to Charles, "You must remember that you are my prime treasure (and always have been)."

"Darwin worked for decades on his theory. He tried to make his argument as strong and solid as possible, and he also aimed not to offend. He showed Emma drafts, and he worked harder on a passage when she wrote in the margin, "a great assumption." In 1859, as he finally readied "The Origin of Species" for publication, he gave the manuscript to Emma. She was always his best and most trusted editor. As she read the argument that essentially took God out of creation, she did not ask Charles to soften it at all. In fact, she helped him strengthen his book by making the language clearer. (She also cleaned up his spelling and punctuation.)

"Through the years, the two continued to talk and listen to each other about this "most important subject," as Emma called it. She encouraged him not to approach religion in the same way he approached science. What leads to faith, she said, is "feeling, not reasoning."

"After he became famous, people often wrote to the sage of Down House and asked him what he believed about God. Usually Darwin demurred. And he echoed Emma. He said his views were of "no consequence to anyone except myself" and that the question of religion was for theologians, not for scientists. Still, he often pointed to his friend, the American botanist Asa Gray, who was both an evolutionist and a theist.

"Charles and Emma were married for 43 years. In his last years, Charles renewed a fascination with worms and wrote "The Formation of Vegetable Mold through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits," a bestseller in its day. Emma, never much interested in science, found herself joining him in his obsession. They spent hours together watching the worms in the garden of Down House, side by side.

"Although they never were able to see eye-to-eye on the question of religion and God, they were able to reach their hands across the gulf. In the end, each of them accepted and, it seems, truly understood what the other believed.

"If it is a sign of intelligence to be able to hold two opposite thoughts or opinions in your head, then it is a mark of a successful marriage to be able to truly see the other person's point of view. This is also the mark of a successful society.

"There is an apocryphal story that Darwin accepted God on his deathbed. The true story is this: When he suffered his last and fatal heart attack, Charles told Emma that he was "not the least afraid of death." And as he slipped away, he told her, "Remember what a good wife you have been to me." Emma held Charles in her arms as he died."

Some Believers in Faith Choose Disrespect and Hatred When Discussing Atheism

I've recently had the opportunity to read an opinion written in the Los Angeles Times by Lisa Richardson entitled: "Atheists seek restraining order against God for the inauguration." The focus of the piece concerns a recent lawsuit filed by Michael Newdow, the American Humanist Association, and The Freedom From Religion Foundation that amounts to a total of 29 co-plaintiffs. The legal complaint seeks to enjoin the sponsorship of prayers by the Presidential Inaugural Committee at the presidential inauguration. In addition the lawsuit seeks to prohibit the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts, Jr., from adding the religious phrase, “So help me God,” to the Presidential oath of office. In this commentary, I would like to focus on the use of the phrase “So help me God,” and how it relates to the presidential oath of office, discuss the tenor of Lisa Richardson's opinion piece and end with a brief discussion on the non-belief in God. The presidential oath of office is a part of the U.S. Constitution and is found at the conclusion of Article II, Section 1. A simple reading of that part of the constitution will show that the phrase "so help me God" is not included in the presidential oath. The phrase in question was first recited between the Chief Justice and the President in 1881 and was only included in presidential oath oaths of office on an irregular basis until 1933 when it began to be included on a regular basis. The phrase was never added to the Constitution as a legally required part of the oath; it was simply added ad hoc to the oath and was asked by the Chief Justice to the President who then responded to the question. The legal question raised by Newdow, et al is quite specific in its scope and "states no objection at this time" if it happens to be the decision of President-elect Obama. This is because Obama has the right to request the addition of the phrase. What is specifically objected to in the complaint is that the Chief Justice has "no such free exercise rights (that) come into play on the part of the individual administering the oath to the President." What this means, according to the lawsuit, has to do with whether Roberts includes the phrase "so help me God"by his own decision, in which case he would assume the role of being a government official who is endorsing religion. The lawsuit also points out that "It is well known that defendant Roberts is a Catholic" and that the administrator of the invocation, Rick Warren has expressed exclusionary remarks against atheists numerous times in the past. Thereby inferring that the invocation and a benediction, as a part of the inauguration, is "completely exclusionary, showing absolute disrespect to plaintiffs and others of similar religious views." The plaintiffs are addressing their contentions regarding the legal merits of their arguments; a right they are entitled to, as American citizens, regardless of their standing as atheists or members of a non-Christian religious group. As regards to the opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, I am offended, by the inclusion of ad hominem remarks made by Lisa Richardson. She refers to atheists as irritating, anti-God types, and as cranks. In addition, Lisa Richardson's attacks against those who do not believe in God completely misses the legal questions raised by the lawsuit. To quote Richardson at length: "If you don’t believe God exists, then why doesn’t it follow that phrases like “so help me God” have no meaning? And if that’s the case, then why does something meaningless matter? I have news for Newdow -- even if he managed to bar all religious references from public life it wouldn’t matter. The Soviet Union tried that; all it did was send religious fervor underground until communism ended and it came roaring back Besides, what would Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts be expected to do if Obama were to defy a ruling in Newdow’s favor, snatch away the Lincoln Bible and swat him on the hand? Scott Walter, the executive director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, hit the nail on the head when he said in a statement: Newdow's lawsuit over the inauguration is a lot like the streaker at the Super Bowl: a pale, self-absorbed distraction. And anybody who looks at it carefully can see there's not much there." As a non-believer in God, I'm extremely troubled when any individuals' personal beliefs are disrespectfully attacked in a hateful manner that exceeds civil discourse. I believe it is my right to define and express my feelings when the belief in God question arises. Let me explain by paraphrasing the philosopher Bertrand Russell: once when questioned about his belief in God, Russell observed that philosophically, he considered himself an agnostic because philosophy is incapable of determining the existence of God; there is no philosophical method that can be employed to prove God's existence because God's existence is determined as a matter of faith and is thus unquestionable, something that philosophy, which seeks to establish proofs through rational thought and logical means. So from a philosophical point of view, I accept Russell's argument which defines my non-belief from a philosophic point of view as being agnostic. This point of view proves to be satisfactory to many non-believers. Atheism exceeds the philosophical view of god's existence that results in agnosticism and considers the existence of God from a civic or secular framework by making the claim that God does not exist and thus has no role in activities of the state. I believe if we would consider these divergent points of view and make every attempt to avoid disrespect and leave hatred out of public discourse we would all be better citizens for our efforts.