Is Darwinism compatible with orthodox belief in God? Philosopher of science Jay Richards has released a new book in which he discusses the reasons why the answer to this question is "no."
I haven't seen the book, but I'm sure that the main reason why the two are incompatible has nothing to do with evolution as such and has everything to do with the metaphysical view called materialism. One can be an orthodox theist and still believe that God employed and directed an evolutionary process in order to produce living things, but Darwinism doesn't allow for such a belief. Darwinism insists that there were no forces but natural forces, no direction, no guidance, no intelligence involved in the evolution of life's diversity.
In other words, the Darwinian view is that there's no need for a superintending mind to front-load the evolutionary development of life or to direct it at any point along the way. God is superfluous. Nature can, and did, do it all, according to the Darwinian.
Thus, a theist can be an evolutionist, but it's hard to see how a theist could be a Darwinian evolutionist.
Richards' book looks like it would be very useful in helping laypeople to understand why this is so.
