Introduction
Temple Chevallier (1794–1873) was a remarkable mathematician, astronomer and theologian at the University of Durham.Footnote 1 While he was hugely influential in establishing mathematics, engineering and astronomy as leading features of research at Durham, little has been written about his discussion of the relationship of science and theology. This is somewhat surprising as he is a contemporary of Faraday, Darwin and Maxwell and lived through some of the debates of natural theology and evolution central to the nineteenth century. Chevallier gives us an example of the use of astronomy in natural theology but also a strong commitment to seeing natural theology in the context of revealed theology, an example which is helpful to bear in mind in the light of the revival of natural theology in contemporary cosmology.Footnote 2
Chevallier: astronomer and theologian
Chevallier entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1813, taking a BA in 1817 with a strong mathematical flavour. He was made Fellow of Pembroke College in 1819, and in 1820 became Fellow and tutor of what became St Catherine's College. In 1818 he was ordained in the Church of England and between 1821 and 1834 was priest at St Andrew the Great in Cambridge. This must have been a formative period for Chevallier, as a scientist and a theologian, in a Cambridge heavily influenced by the work of William Paley.
William Paley had arrived in Cambridge in 1759, and in 1766 he was elected a fellow of Christ's College, acting as tutor from 1771 to 1774. In 1775 Paley left Cambridge for a series of ecclesiastical appointments but in 1794 his Evidences of Christianity was warmly received and in 1795 he received the Doctorate of Divinity from Cambridge. In 1802 he published his most significant book, Natural Theology: Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. It is generally held that his works were used at Cambridge for nearly half a century after his death. An oft quoted example is that, as an undergraduate at Cambridge, Charles Darwin read much of Paley's writings:
In order to pass the B.A. examination, it was also necessary to get up Paley's Evidences of Christianity, and his Moral Philosophy. This was done in a thorough manner, and I am convinced that I could have written out the whole of the Evidences with perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book, and, as I may add, of his Natural Theology, gave me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course which, as I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the education of my mind. I did not at that time trouble myself about Paley's premises; and taking these on trust, I was charmed and convinced by the long line of argumentation.Footnote 3
Natural Theology uses the workings of the body, the functions of animals and plants, and the arrangement of the human frame to show divine providence, although it is interesting that on astronomy he states,
My opinion of Astronomy has always been, that it is not the best medium through which to prove the agency of an intelligent Creator; but that, this being proved, it shows, beyond all other sciences, the magnificence of his operations. The mind which is once convinced, it raises to sublimer views of the Deity than any other subject affords; but it is not so well adapted, as some other subjects are, to the purpose of argument.Footnote 4
It is clear that Chevallier saw his faith, science and indeed ministry closely intertwined. When in 1834 he was offered the Chair of Mathematics at the newly founded University of Durham, he wrote:
I shall not take it, unless I see a fair prospect of obtaining at the same time some parochial duty: for having been so long engaged in a parish, I do not mean to secularise myself so completely as I should do in that case. I should not make that a point if I could have the Divinity Professorship.Footnote 5
It is also clear that Chevallier was disappointed never to be offered the Chair in Divinity. He accepted the Chair of Mathematics in 1835 and also became Reader in Hebrew. When his colleague the Revd Henry Jenkins was preferred as acting Professor of Divinity, Chevallier could not stop himself commenting, ‘an able man, but wants unction; and has never had charge of a parish’.Footnote 6
He continued to hold both of these posts until 1871. In addition, in 1841 he became Professor of Astronomy and took the lead in establishing an observatory in Durham. If this was not sufficient for Chevallier, he also acted as Registrar of the University between 1835 and 1865, notably battling with the then Bishop of Ely who rejected some Durham graduates as candidates for ordination.
Chevallier cannot be understood without being seen as a committed pastor as well as academic. Between 1835 and 1873 he served as parish priest of Esh, undertaking the rebuilding of the church largely at his own expense. Later in 1858 he became Rural Dean, and in 1865 Residentiary Canon of Durham Cathedral. The churchyard at Esh reveals the death of his only son at the age of 15.
In terms of his academic work, he wrote many papers on astronomy and physics including meteorology.Footnote 7 He was the first to institute in England regular and continuous observation of sunspots and made important observations of Jupiter's moons. So significant was his work that a lunar crater is named after him. In theology he published a translation of the Apostolic Fathers which went into a second edition.Footnote 8
Yet his thinking on the relationship of science and religion is shown most clearly in his Hulsean Lectures given in Cambridge in 1826 and 1827, and then published in 1835, On the Proofs of Divine Power and Wisdom, derived from the study of astronomy and the evidence, doctrines and precepts of Revealed Religion.
On the proofs of divine power
The form of these lectures is instructive. They are given as twenty sermons on ‘the evidence for revealed religion’. The first twelve lectures explicitly follow the pattern of Psalm 19, with four on astronomy, four on the Bible and four on the spiritual life. It is not entirely clear how the other eight relate to this theme, and one might suspect that Chevallier was employing a few older sermons to fill up the series!
Nevertheless, the structure of the first twelve sermons shows someone schooled in the Cambridge of Paley, yet holding together natural theology and the revealed theology of the Bible. If Paley had represented a move away from revealed theology to a greater dependence on natural theology and in particular the design argument, this was not shown in Chevallier.
From this holding together of natural and revealed theology, a number of themes emerge in the lectures.
Science is a gift from God
The current popular media image models the relationship of science and religion as one of conflict, represented either in the work of Richard Dawkins or in six-day creationism and intelligent design. This conflict is often read back into the nineteenth century, but Chevallier shows that this was far from the truth. He embodied a tradition for Christians which saw science as a gift. This is implicit in his Hulsean Lectures, shown through his delight in using many particular examples of the work and experience of scientists from Newton to Jeremiah Horrox's observation of the transit of Venus.
In fact in a lecture delivered in 1836 to the University of Durham titled The Study of Mathematics as Conducive to the Development of the Intellectual Powers,Footnote 9 Chevallier responded to an article in the Edinburgh Review which claimed ‘every step in mathematical demonstration calls forth an absolute minimum of thought’, ‘in mathematics, dullness is elevated into talent, and talent degraded into incapacity’ and ‘a great genius cannot be a mathematician’. His response argues for the beauty and usefulness of mathematics and the natural sciences, not least in pointing to the wisdom and power of a creator. This was a gift from God and therefore cannot be dismissed as unimportant. Mathematics and the natural sciences were given ‘to contemplate the Creator in his works’.
Of course, Chevallier was here simply part of the legacy of the influence of Christian faith on the growth of science.Footnote 10 His passion for science flowed out of his Christian convictions about the world. There were many in the nineteenth century who shared this point of view, not least Michael Faraday (1791–1867) whose ‘deepest intuitions about the physical world sprang from this religious faith in the Divine origin of nature’.Footnote 11 This was more a theology of nature rather than natural theology.
Science engenders awe
In lecture 1 Chevallier explores divine power using the text from Psalm 19:1, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God’. It is here that his interest in astronomy comes to the fore. He uses the size of the universe to communicate not only the greatness of God but also a sense of perspective for human beings. He surveys the solar system and also uses discoveries from telescopes to discuss binary stars and groups of stars. While he acknowledges that these considerations almost bewilder our minds, they point to how amazing is the God who created all this.
This is a use of science which does not attempt to give logical knockdown proofs of the existence of God, but to give a sense of perspective, excitement and amazement at the universe. It engages the emotions as well as reason. In popular descriptions of the design argument, it is often portrayed as an attempt to prove the existence of God. Here Chevallier has a much more modest aim in using awe to raise questions of how great God is.
Scientific laws are a reflection of God's working
In lecture 2, Chevallier discusses the force of gravitation and uses it to speak about the nature of scientific laws. He objects to Newton's view that God is needed occasionally to intervene in sustaining the orbits of the planets in the solar system. In lecture 4 he discusses Buffon's hypothesis that it was a comet which dragged out material from the sun to form planets. He argues from the orbits of the planets that this is not the case, but then notes that, even if correct, it does not remove the Creator, as God is the source of the law of gravitation by which these things happen. If, on the other hand, Laplace is correct and the planets formed in the collapse of solar nebula, Chevallier raises the question of where the initial rotation comes from. Seeing the possibility that the initial rotation could be explained by science, once again he argues that this does not rule out a Creator, and at this point quotes Paley referring to the scientific explanation as the ‘instruments by which it may have pleased the Almighty to execute his will’ but does not explain ‘the wisdom’. If the scientific laws explain the workings of the solar system, where do the laws themselves come from?
Thus Chevallier opposed any sense of what today is called a god of the gaps,Footnote 12 where God becomes the explanation of science's unanswered questions. Pointing to the laws of physics is not god of the gaps, as science cannot explain where the laws come from, it simply assumes them.
It needs to be noted that Chevallier is not always consistent. He can be tempted by god of the gaps, flirting with the question of where the initial rotation of the solar system comes from and later on in discussing the initial placing and movement of the rings of Saturn, but in the end he points to the laws as the way God creates and sustains. By pointing to God's creativity being within the scientific laws, Chevallier also guards against deism in seeing God simply as the one who starts the system off and then leaves it to itself.
Science can give pointers to design
While acknowledging in lectures 2 and 3 that the biological world is more popular in discussions of design, Chevallier continues to use his interest in astronomy. Here he points to both law and circumstance. As we have seen, the laws of physics are a reflection for him of the providence of God. Now he explores a number of circumstances which make life both possible and beautiful, including the distance of the earth from the sun, the stability of the planetary system, the seasons, the density of water, the density of the air, the proportion of land and sea, the tides and the fact that sun is the only luminous body in the solar system.
It is very reminiscent of discussions of anthropic balances in recent years,Footnote 13 but Chevallier never uses these circumstances to offer a proof for God's existence. They are simply used as pointers to the creative skill of God in a universe which brings forth and sustains life.
Science has its limits
While Chevallier flirts with a god of the gaps, it never turns into the type of approach current in the contemporary version of ID, or a more classical design argument based on logical reasoning. This is because of a high view of scripture. God is known because he reveals himself in his Word. As Chevallier works through Psalm 19, in lecture 5 he concludes:
But at this very point, where the feeble torch of reason ceases to direct our footsteps in the investigation of truth, the word of God shines forth, a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path.Footnote 14
There will be those who will find too much of a discontinuity here, and it is true that Chevallier moves quickly from the book of God's works to the book of God's word. But for Chevallier, biblical revelation gives the context to understand the pointers of awe, the laws and design. Science has its limits in bringing us to knowledge of who God is.
Indeed in lecture 1 he had set the scene, criticising those who have pride in reason and commenting (noting from above that Chevallier's use of ‘proofs’ may be better understood as ‘pointers’):
In the heavens, as in every other part of creation, there exist proofs of power and design. And if we stop short in our researches, without extending our thoughts from the wonders of nature to the God of nature, we omit to do that which reason recommends and revelation enjoins.Footnote 15
It is Chevallier's commitment to holding together biblical revelation with his science which will later in the century allow him to respond to evolution without hostility or threat. He was one of 717 ‘gentlemen’, many of whom were the leading scientists of the day, who signed ‘The Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences’ (1865):
We, the undersigned Students of the Natural Sciences, desire to express our sincere regret, that researches into scientific truth are perverted by some in our own times into occasion for casting doubt upon the Truth and Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. We conceive that it is impossible for the Word of God, as written in the book of nature, and God's Word written in Holy Scripture, to contradict one another, however much they may appear to differ . . . We cannot but deplore that Natural Science should be looked upon with suspicion by many who do not make a study of it, merely on account of the unadvised manner in which some are placing it in opposition to Holy Writ. We believe that it is the duty of every Scientific Student to investigate nature simply for the purpose of elucidating truth, and that if he finds that some of his results appear to be in contradiction to the Written Word, or rather to his own interpretations of it, which may be erroneous, he should not presumptuously affirm that his own conclusions must be right, and the statements of Scripture wrong; rather, leave the two side by side till it shall please God to allow us to see the manner in which they may be reconciled.Footnote 16
This declaration responded in part to the earlier Oxford Declaration, organised by a group of High Anglicans, which gathered signatures to demand that the Church of England held to the inspiration and divine authority of the Bible.Footnote 17 Chevallier, and others who were scientists and Christians, wanted to resist the tendency to denounce science for the sake of defending scripture. Rather they wanted to affirm science as a gift from God, and lay science and the scriptures side by side, believing that the Author of both would not allow them ultimately to contradict.
The Declaration illustrates very well the point that the responses to Darwin were complex. Further Chevallier resonates with the argument of Livingstone that many of ‘Darwin's forgotten defenders’ were those who had a strong commitment to the authority of scripture.Footnote 18
Conclusion
Temple Chevallier is not well known by historians of religious thought in the nineteenth century. Yet here we have someone who further extends the complexity of relationships between science and religion. Passionate about astronomy and his work as a pastor, he saw no conflict. In fact, the joy and beauty of science was a reflection of it being a gift from God.
Influenced no doubt by Paley, he also shows a complexity in his use of science for theological purposes. The language of proof to modern-day ears may be misleading. He saw astronomy as giving pointers or evidences not to the existence of God but to the divine power. His belief in God came supremely through his commitment to the fact that God reveals himself in the Bible.
There are strong arguments, contrary to the popular view, that negative responses to Darwin were not because it was an attack on scripture but an attack on the design argument.Footnote 19 This argument had become isolated from a commitment to biblical revelation. Thus Darwin's alternative explanation for design attacked the core of the basis of belief in God. Chevallier did not share this approach and so did not feel threatened by Darwin.
This is a caution to those who see today the possibility of a resurrected design argument. Whether in cosmologists such as Paul Davies or the new advocates of intelligent design, there is little place for the role of biblical revelation. This makes such arguments vulnerable to a god of the gaps and deism. It is much better to develop natural theology under the context of revealed theology, developing a theology of nature where awe can become a pointer to the God–human relationship in a cosmic context.
