on the achievements of the previous generations (Buskes 2008:380). Consequently, the selection process is clearly streamlined, progressive and linear. As a result, Herbert Spencer thought up the term 'survival of the fittest' in reference to the dying off of the weak in order that the species might be strengthened.Spencer's approach rests on the existence of a metaphysical law in the absence of a tested hypothesis. In the opinion of Buskes (2008:382), Spencer merely wanted to sanction the laissez-faire capitalism of his time and to justify concurrence and oppression. Only a small step further lay imperialism, colonialism and slavery, which, in turn, led to racism,5 as Gaymon Bennett stated in his introduction to the anthology, The evolution of evil: In some of the most conspicuous moments of political evil in the 20th century such as eugenics and Nazi 'racial hygiene' the theory of evolution and the logic of survival-of-the-fittest was taken up to justify the ethics of racism, imperialism, and domination. (Bennett 2008:9)Although Altner (2003:56, 76) thought that the assumptions made in terms of Social Darwinism were not conceived of in terms of Darwin's own vision, his standpoint is not convincing. The subtitle of On the origin of species, for example, is The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.Barth opined that Brunner's natural theology might, indeed, be used to support Hitler's eugenic aims. Barr (1994:11) believes that the evolution of Barth's thought caused him to perceive the German situation in terms generated by his own theology, and therefore to regard Brunner's theology as the extreme manifestation of a natural theology. German totalitarianism, therefore, placed the issue in the foreground for Barth. What the 'German Christians' wanted and did was obviously along a line which had for long enough been acknowledged and trodden by the Church of the whole world: the line of the Enlightenment and Pietism, of Schleiermacher, Richard Rothe and Ritschl. And there were so many parallels to it in England and America, in Holland and Switzerland, in Denmark and the Scandinavian countries, that no one outside really had the right to cast a stone at Germany because the new combination of Christian and natural theology effected there involved the combination with a race nationalism which happened to be rather uncongenial to the rest of the world, and because this combination was now carried through with a thoroughness which was so astonishing to other nations. (Barth 2004a:174)Though South Africa is only implicitly referred to in the above quotation, the country is referred to more directly elsewhere in the Church dogmatic: It was quite intolerable when some twenty years ago the rise of Hitler was seriously claimed as a kind of divine revelation, or when to satisfy the racial laws of National Socialism it was proposed to found special congregations of Jewish Christians. How much longer will it be possible in the United States and South Africa to ratify the social distinctions between whites and blacks by a corresponding division in the Church, instead of calling it in question in the social sphere by the contrary practice of the Church?