1st Edition
Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology Dialogues in Wisdom, Humility and Grace
This book sets out some of the latest scientific findings around the evolutionary development of religion and faith and then explores their theological implications. This unique combination of perspectives raises fascinating questions about the characteristics that are considered integral for a flourishing social and religious life and allows us to start to ask where in the evolutionary record they first show up in a distinctly human manner.
The book builds a case for connecting theology and evolutionary anthropology using both historical and contemporary sources of knowledge to try and understand the origins of wisdom, humility, and grace in ‘deep time’. In the section on wisdom, the book examines the origins of complex decision-making in humans through the archaeological record, recent discoveries in evolutionary anthropology, and the philosophical richness of semiotics. The book then moves to an exploration of the origin of characteristics integral to the social life of small-scale communities, which then points in an indirect way to the disposition of humility. Finally, it investigates the theological dimensions of grace and considers how artefacts left behind in the material record by our human ancestors, and the perspective they reflect, might inform contemporary concepts of grace.
This is a cutting-edge volume that refuses to commit the errors of either too easy a synthesis or too facile a separation between science and religion. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of religious studies and theology – especially those who interact with scientific fields – as well as academics working in anthropology of religion.
List of Contributors
Introduction: Dialogues in Theology and Evolutionary Anthropology
Celia Deane-Drummond, Agustín Fuentes
Part I: Mapping the Terrain
1 Setting the Stage: Developing the Human Niche across the Pleistocene
Agustín Fuentes
2 The Emergence of Complexity and Novelty in the Human Fossil Record
Rebecca Rogers Ackermann, Lauren Schroeder
Part II: Wisdom
Introductory Commentary: Wisdom
Celia Deane-Drummond, Wentzel van Huyssteen
3 On Homo naledi and its Significance in Evolutionary Anthropology
John Hawks, Lee Berger
4 Becoming Wise: What Can Anthropologists Say about the Evolution of Human Wisdom?
Marc Kissel
5 On the Origin of Symbols: Archaeology, Semiotics, and Self-Transcendence
Andrew Robinson
Part III: Humility
Introductory Commentary: Humility
Wendy Black
6 Archaeological Evidence for Human Social Learning and Sociality in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa
Jayne Wilkins
7 An Animal in Need of Wisdom: Theological Anthropology and the Origins of Humility and Wisdom
Jan-Olav Henriksen
8 The Loss of Innocence in the Deep Past: Wisdom, Humility, and Grace within a Developing Understanding of the Emergence of Human Moral Emotions
Penny Spikins
9 Searching for the Soul of Homo: The Virtue of Humility in Deep Evolutionary Time
Celia Deane-Drummond
Part IV: Grace
Introductory Commentary: Grace
Celia Deane-Drummond, Agustín Fuentes
10 What Difference Does Grace Make? An Exploration of the Concept of Grace in the Theological Anthropology of Karl Rahner
Karen Kilby, J. Matthew Ashley
11 Grace in Evolution
Oliver Davies
12 Continuities and Discontinuities in Human Evolution
Jonathan Marks
Biography
Celia Deane-Drummond is Director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute and Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, University of Oxford, UK.
Agustín Fuentes is the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor and Departmental Chair of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, USA.