Epilogue: Darwin’s Door and Hegel’s Hinge

Abstract

If Darwin’s Door is to stay open, we will need the help of Hegel’s Hinge. The latter would be provided by a particular instantiation of the famous Hegelian move from thesis to antithesis and thence to synthesis. In the present case, traditional religious confidence may be regarded as our Hegelian thesis. Enlightenment thought, fueled by evolution, provides our Hegelian antithesis. These two have been battling it out for some time now and the assumption is that one or the other must give in. But if evolutionary religion is really possible, then a whole new option opens up. For then we may take the best from both these contenders, including the idea of a transcendent reality, and produce something new at a “higher level of truth” – that is to say, we can develop a new synthesis of ideas both religious and rational well fitted to guide the next stages of human evolution.