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Chronic Vigour: Darwin, Anglicans, Catholics, and the Development of a Doctrine of Providential Evolution. BY GREGORY P. ELDER Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1996. x + 217 pp. $27.50.
Analyses of theological responses to Darwin's theory of natural selection have produced some excellent books. Why do we need another one? Gregory Elder's study, a revision of his doctoral dissertation in history for the University of California, San Diego, is interesting for the way the issue is framed, and in the major role suggested for John Henry Newman.
Elder's study is "a history of ideas" as he seeks to trace the development and acceptance of the doctrine of "providential evolution" in the Church of England. This doctrine asserts that God created life by means of biological evolution. Elder argues that the development of the doctrine was facilitated by two factors. The first factor, widely recognized in the literature, was the rise of higher biblical criticism which...