Darwinism and Natural Theology (PDF)

Can Christian theology be reconciled with Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection? Can the biological sciences tell us anything of interest from a religious perspective? Does Christianity have anything to offer when it comes to formulating scientific hypotheses? These questions are among those explored in this collection of essays arising from a meeting of the UK Science and Religion Forum held in Cambridge to mark the bicentenary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species. The volume brings together contributions from a highly distinguished group of scholars at the forefront of the field of science-and-religion, including R.J. Berry, Celia Deane-Drummond, John Hedley Brooke, David Knight, David Fergusson, Sarah Coakley, Denis Alexander, Christopher Southgate, Kenneth Wilson and Neil Spurway. The essays are organized around the theme of 'natural theology' and its continuing role (if any) in the light of Darwinian evolutionary biology. They cover the historical background to the debate; philosophical and theological perspectives on the various forms that natural theology has taken in different historical settings; the effect of Darwinism on theological understandings of nature; and possible contemporary approaches to natural theology, or theologies of nature, in the context of Darwinism.