Religious views
Emma's religious beliefs were founded on Unitarianism, which emphasises inner feeling over the authority of religious texts or doctrine. Her views were not simple and unwavering, and were the result of intensive study and questioning.
Darwin was open about his scepticism before they became engaged, and she discussed with him the tension between her fears that differences of belief would separate them, and her desire to be close and openly share ideas. Following their marriage, they shared discussions about Christianity for several years. She valued his openness, and his genuine uncertainty regarding the existence and nature of God, which gradually developed into agnosticism. This may have been a bond between them, without necessarily resolving the tensions between their views.
By early 1837 Charles Darwin was already speculating on transmutation of species. Having decided to marry, he visited Emma on 29 July 1838 and told her of his ideas on transmutation. On 11 November 1838, he returned and proposed to Emma. Again he discussed his ideas, and about ten days later she wrote to him: When I am with you I think all melancholy thoughts keep out of my head but since you are gone some sad ones have forced themselves in, of fear that our opinions on the most important subject should differ widely. My reason tells me that honest & conscientious doubts cannot be a sin, but I feel it would be a painful void between us. I thank you from my heart for your openness with me & I should dread the feeling that you were concealing your opinions from the fear of giving me pain. It is perhaps foolish of me to say this much but my own dear Charley we now do belong to each other & I cannot help being open with you. Will you do me a favour? yes I am sure you will, it is to read our Saviour's farewell discourse to his disciples which begins at the end of the 13th Chap of John. It is so full of love to them & devotion & every beautiful feeling. It is the part of the New Testament I love best. This is a whim of mine it would give me great pleasure, though I can hardly tell why I don't wish you to give me your opinion about it.
Darwin had already wondered about the materialism implied by his ideas. The letter shows Emma's tension between her fears that differences of belief would separate them, and her desire to be close and openly share ideas. Emma cherished a belief in the afterlife, and was concerned that they should "belong to each other" for eternity. The passage in the Gospel of John referred to in Emma's letter says "Love one another" (13:34), then describes Jesus saying "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (14:6). Desmond and Moore note that the section continues: "Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned" (15:6). As disbelief later gradually crept over Darwin, he could "hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."
Following their marriage in January 1839, they shared discussions about Christianity for many years. They socialised with the Unitarian clergymen James Martineau and John James Tayler, and read their works as well as those of other Unitarian and liberal Anglican authors such as Francis William Newman whose Phases of faith described a spiritual journey from Calvinism to theism, all part of widespread and heated debate on the authority of Anglicanism. In Downe Emma attended the Anglican village church, but as a Unitarian had the family turn round in silence when the Trinitarian Nicene Creed was recited.
Soon after their marriage, Emma wrote to Charles "while you are acting conscientiously & sincerely wishing, & trying to learn the truth, you cannot be wrong", and although concerned at the threat to faith of the "habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing till it is proved", her hope that he did not "consider his opinion as formed" proved correct. Methodical conscientious doubt as a state of inquiry rather than disbelief made him open to nature and revelation, and they remained open with each other.
