Process and Providence: The Evolution Question at Princeton, 1845-1929

Charles Hodge, James McCosh, B. B. Warfield -- these leading professors at Princeton College and Seminary in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries are famous for their orthodox Protestant positions against the doctrine of evolution. Yet, says Bradley Gundlach, the old Princetonians did not reject evolution outright. In this book, aptly titled Process and Providence, Gundlach explores their surprisingly positive embrace of developmental views not only of the cosmos but also of Scripture and the history of doctrine, all in the context of their defense of the Christian faith. Beginning with the first American review of the pre-Darwinian evolutionary book, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, and culminating in the Scopes Trial and the forced reorganization of Princeton Seminary in 1929, Gundlach's Process and Providence reliably portrays the preeminent conservative Protestants in America as they defined, contested, and answered -- often with remarkably nuanced distinctions -- the many facets of the evolution question.