Theology of Creation and Evolutionary Biology

• Applicant: Dr. Alexander Maßmann
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 238187061

This contribution to the dialogue between a Christian theology of creation and evolutionary biology charts a new methodological path in its head-on interdisciplinary approach. A docetism in the theology of creation (Pannenberg) poses a major challenge to a realistic theology. It is to be overcome by a considered integration of research in the natural sciences. For this purpose, the project draws constructively on a wider range of results from evolutionary biology. One more recent biological approach arguing for a teleology in evolution (Conway Morris) has not been taken into account by theologians or only in an uncritical way. Construing evolution as blind chance (Gould), however, should also be regarded with skepticism. Moreover, the relationship between organic and cultural evolution with its implications for evolutionary gradualism needs to be discussed, considering both humans by themselves (Tomasello) as well as the continuity between humans and other primates (de Waal: evolution of morality). According to the concept of physically and culturally embedded cognition (Varela, Deacon, Thompson, Tomasello), spirit and matter are not in opposition. Thus the antitheological gene-centered approach to evolution (Dawkins) can be presented with an empirically convincing alternative.These lines of reasoning can be summed up in a concept of creation that highlights the creative activity of the Holy Spirit, thus allowing for co-creative participation by the creature. This way both a rationality of, and contingencies and ambiguities in, evolution can receive their rightful place within the concept of creation.The fact that numerous recent theological publications have been directed against creationism and Intelligent Design is a symptom of crisis. To the detriment of an open society, debates about religion and natural sciences are increasingly sliding into a knee-jerk antagonism between militant atheism and a fundamentalist rejection of evolution. Given this situation it is inadequate to consider the doctrine of creation and the natural sciences as strictly incommensurate entities, one asking for genesis, the other for meaning. The grain of truth in this approach is that merely deducing answers to questions of meaning from empirical findings would be illegitimate reductionism. Accordingly, the point of theology is not merely to take stock of the world in a detached way. However, the influence of cultural factors such as religion and theology on discoveries in the natural sciences is more important than the thesis of incommensurability suggests. Moreover, a docetism in the doctrine of creation that does not explain the confession of God the creator in a way plausible to the natural sciences endangers the status of a realistic theology. Thus, the question posed by Schleiermacher calls for renewed attention: Shall the knot of history be thus loosed: Christianity with barbarism and learning with unbelief?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants