
Mystery Cult
In “Darwinism,” the impassioned polemic that opens The Death of Adam (1998), the first of her four philosophical-theological essay collections, Marilynne Robinson hurls a flaming spear at all of modern thought:
Now that the mystery of motive is solved—there are only self-seeking and aggression, and the illusions that conceal them from us—there is no place left for the soul, or even the self. Moral behavior has little real meaning, and inwardness, in the traditional sense, is not necessary or possible. . . . There is little use for the mind, the orderer and