Contrary to my assumption of Charles Darwin as an atheist, due to the fact that many militant atheists today base their many arguments on Darwinian evolution, I find it really interesting when I came across the following quote of Darwin in reading an excerpt of his autobiography.
"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic." (The Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 29: “Erasmus Darwin” by Ernest Krause, p.124)
Darwin was an agnostic due to the question of origin, and unlike many atheists today he was comfortable admitting that natural selection doesn't have any explanation for the origin of life in the universe, thus the best a man can claim isn't atheism but agnosticism.
On top of his view that natural selection explains the process of the evolution of man, three of the main issues that led him to reject the existence of a personal God was 1) the immense suffering in nature, 2) the plurality of religions in the world all claiming to have the truth and 3) historical "discrepancies" of the Bible.
The main problem I find in his reasoning is that, like many atheists or agnostics, he commits a logical fallacy, in that his premises don't necessarily lead to the conclusion that he came to. There is a missing premise between his issues with the Christian faith and the conclusion that he came to. The existence of suffering does not necessarily mean a personal God doesn't exist, just as all religions claiming to have the truth does not necessarily mean that there isn't the truth, or that the existence of some historical "discrepancies" in the Bible doesn't necessarily mean a personal God doesn't exist.
Imagine a scenario, where the Microsoft Office software in my computer has some issues or viruses in it, I don't simply conclude that Bill Gates doesn't exist or that he doesn't care. There could be many other reasons why the virus came into my computer, for one it could be because I clicked some link that I'm not supposed to click that downloaded the virus into my computer system.
Here's another scenario, where different people or companies claimed to have noted down the user manual guide provided by Bill Gates himself for his products and software, or maybe where there are some spelling mistakes or mistranslation of that user manual, none of these issues means that Bill Gates doesn't exist or that he doesn't care about these issues.
Although this isn't a perfect analogy, I believe it at least highlights the logical fallacy of Charles Darwin and many atheists and agnostics.
On a more fundamental level, in order for someone to claim that something is wrong (like saying suffering is wrong), there has to be an explanation of why that is wrong or a standard of right and wrong to determine that it is wrong.
I believe a person who is on a journey of faith must at least consider the explanations that the Scripture provides when it comes to these issues of suffering, truth and the Word of God, before coming to the same illogical conclusion as Darwin. Who knows, God might actually be very caring and is doing the best He can to solve the problem of this 'virus' called evil?
