Abstract
In his now widely-referenced philosophical work Chance and Necessity, Jacques Monod offered a reasoned, albeit polemical, case for the meaninglessness of human existence; if through the self-organization of matter, the eventual development of life has occurred fundamentally by chance, by way of truly random genetic mutations, then traditional philosophical and theological views of destiny or purpose are undermined. In sum, Monod made the case that chance and purpose are mutually exclusive within the general context of the biochemical evolutionary process, but more specifically, in human development. Arthur Peacocke attempted the first comprehensive refutation of Monod's primary philosophical thesis in 1978. Then, in 1984, statistician David Bartholomew built on Peacocke's ideas in a thorough treatment of the interface of chance with Christian theology. More than two decades before Peacocke's seminal work, however, a now forgotten theologian at the University of Oxford, Leonard Hodgson, strongly argued for a positive role for chance in achieving God's purpose for creation. Who was Leonard Hodgson? How much of contemporary thinking about the role of chance in creation did he anticipate? And what contributions might his body of work make to the present-day theological discussion about the chance worldview?