Evolution & Theology

Owing to the plethora of theological and philosophical accommodation that the theory of evolution has been enjoying over the decades, the voice of the ultra Darwinists in favour of atheism is now almost a cry in the wilderness. Atheism on Darwinian grounds, now, rather than yielding to intellectual fulfillment, testifies to the intellectual bankruptcy, philosophical mediocrity, epistemic fixation, and the sabotage of almost every logical axioms and rational standards. Rather, evolutionary theory paves the way for revised theological perspectives with its startling assumptions of the intrinsic connectedness of the world, of the vital processes of the fecund earth, of the complexity, autonomy and self-creativity of matter, etc. By implication, evolutionary biology, disproving the matter-spirit dualism and expounding an elegant, aesthetic and re-enchanted universe, spells out the A B C of an organic theology, reconceiving God, world and the human. Hermeneutically viewed from the bedrock of the evolutionary theory, the profound mysteries of the Christian truth vibrate its radiance and splendor in a single unified mode of being. From a metaphysical evolutionary perspective, the dynamic convergence of the human and the cosmic on the bosom of the divine forms the hermeneutical circle from where we draw the authenticity of our multifaceted experiences of being in the world, of our religiosity, of our sacramentality, of our communitarianism and of our finality. The thrust of this volume is to show that the clichéd notion of science-religion conflict is now no news to any informed person. Rather than tampering evolution with fixated and parochial soliloquies, an open and explorative approach can open up deep depositories of truth and meaning at stake in it. The series of articles in this volume engage themselves with a positive and explorative dialogue between evolution and religious belief.