Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action

by Robert John Russell (Editor), William R. Stoeger (Editor), Francisco J. Ayala (Editor)

This collection of twenty-two research papers explores the creative interaction between evolutionary and molecular biology, philosophy, and theology. It is the result of the third of five international research conferences co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory, Rome and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley. The overarching goal of these conferences is to support the engagement of constructive theology with the natural sciences and to investigate the philosophical and theological elements in ongoing theoretical research in the natural sciences.

Contributors are Robert John Russell, George V. Coyne, S.J., Francisco J. Ayala, Camilo J. Cela-Conde, Julian Chela-Flores, Wesley J. Wildman, Paul Davies, William R. Stoeger, S.J., Charles Birch, George F. R. Ellis, Anne M. Clifford, Willem B. Drees, Philip Hefner, Arthur Peacocke, Denis Edwards, John F. Haught, Ian G. Barbour, Nancey Murphy, Ted Peters, and Thomas F. Tracy.

This series of conferences builds on the initial 1987 Vatican Observatory conference and its resulting publication, Physics, Philosophy and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding (1988), and on the previous jointly sponsored conferences and their publications, Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature (1993) and Chaos and Complexity (1995). Future conferences will focus on scientific topics including the neurosciences, quantum physics, and quantum field theory.

594 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

Reviews

[Sally]

Among others, I want to read the article by Denis Edwards, "Original Sin and Saving Grace in Evolutionary Context". Excerpts from a summary of this article at http://www.ctns.org/books.html follow.

"According to Edwards, Theissen argues that the common features of science and theology can be articulated through evolutionary categories. Religion manifests the “central reality,” God. Christianity offers the principle of radical solidarity which runs counter to natural selection. The pull in us towards anti-social behavior has a biological foundation, while the work of the Holy Spirit is in the direction of pro-social behavior, helping us see strangers as kin. Theissen supports these points by referring to the three great “mutations” of Christian faith: biblical monotheism, New Testament Christology, and the experience of the Holy Spirit. Edwards then criticizes Theissen’s work in terms of both biology and theology: for example, are natural selection and culture, and natural selection and the way of Christ, each so sharply opposed?" (I kind of liked what Theissen was saying).

...

"With regard to grace, Edwards writes that, while altruism is a radical dimension of divine and human love, it does not express the ultimate vision of that love. Indeed, indiscriminate calls to altruism and self-sacrifice can function to maintain oppression, as feminist theologians have stressed. Moreover, in a trinitarian doctrine of God, love is revealed most radically in mutual, equal, and ecstatic friendship. So, though Hefner sees altruistic love as holding the status of a cosmological and ontological principle, Edwards sees persons-in-mutual-relations as having this status. Drawing on the writings of John Zizioulas, Walter Kasper, and Catherine Mowry LaCugna, Edwards suggests that if the essence of God is relational and if everything that is springs from persons-in-relation, then this points towards an ontology which he calls “being-in- relation.” Moreover, such an ontology is partially congruent with evolutionary biology, including its stress on cooperative, coadaptive, symbiotic, and ecological relations. Contrary to Theissen and McFague who tend to oppose natural selection and the Gospel, Edwards wants the “Christic paradigm” to view God as continuously creating through the processes of evolution.

Still the struggle and pain of evolution leads Edwards to face the challenge of theodicy. Following Thomas Tracy, he first suggests that natural selection needs to be considered in non- anthropomorphic and non-moral terms as an objective process in nature, like nucleosynthesis in stars. Theodicy is no more intense a problem for natural selection than it is to all such processes, including death when understood as essential to evolution and life. The trinitarian God who creates through natural selection needs to be understood not only as relational but also as freely accepting the limitations found in loving relationships with creatures. The Incarnation and the Cross point to a conception of God related to natural selection through unthinkable vulnerability and self-limitation. The God of natural selection is thus the liberating, healing, and inclusive God of Jesus. This God is engaged with and suffers with creation; at the same time, creatures participate in God’s being and trinitarian relationships."

My eyes glazed over a bit at the end there, but I really like the idea that all that is stems from persons in relation, and that mutual friendship, even more so than altruism, is a fundamental, creative force in the world.