Spencer: God or Evolution

“Everything…begins as an undifferentiated whole.” (280) This is one of Herbert Spencer’s main ideas about life. He believes that everything; the human nervous system, society, thoughts, everything in this world started out as basically a massless blob of nothingness. Spencer is a strong supporter of evolution, and essentially during this time period you could not believe in both evolution and God. But I would dare to argue that Spencer unconsciously supports God, or at least a higher power. Because how can he say that all the complexities and differences of humans just arose from an evolutionary process. There has to be some sort of higher power that orchestrated the evolution at least, someone who started everything and got the ball rolling. Because of this idea I believe that Spencer’s psychology fits in with the idea of creation. As humans we are made up of “…complex nervous system…complex nervous systems allow us to make an accurate neurophysiological…recording of events in our environment…” (281) This time of complexity does not just arise from nature, there has to be some someone “pulling the strings.” Not only does Spencer believe that evolution exists, but he also believes that “evolution meant progress…evolution has a purpose.” (281) If this evolution is not directed by some higher power, than how can it have a directive purpose? It can’t. By trying to support his own ideas of evolution, and survival of the fittest, Spencer is actually supporting the idea that there is a God who exists, and who created each individual human being. He talks endlessly about the complexities of humans, the complexity of our brains, our nervous system, our bodies, and this complexity just cannot exist without a creator. Although Spencer does not openly and outright give any support to the ideas of creation by a God, I believe there is a heavy undertone to much of his research and ideologies that supports this idea.