Evolution Theology

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Evolution Theology (or Evolutionary Theology) refers to those who identify with a social movement (or meta-religious movement) that tells the history of the Universe in ways that are simultaneously scientific and sacred. It is an articulation of the understandings of modern science – especially the evolutionary sciences ranging from stellar evolution to biological evolution and cultural evolution – as a sacred creation myth, much like the traditional creation myths passed down through oral cultures and sacred texts.

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[edit] Teachings

Advocates of Evolution Theology see science not only as a source of physical truths that empower technology and the material affluence and complexity of modern life. They see its 14 billion year epic of evolution – with its eons of increasing complexity, aliveness, consciousness and intelligence – as "the Great Story", full of meaning and moral texture.[citation needed]

A foundational book in the Evolution Theology movement is The Universe Story (1992) by Brian Swimme, a mathematical cosmologist, and Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest of the Passionist order and a cultural historian.[citation needed] But the movement sees itself as having roots in the work of anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley, biologist Edward O. Wilson, early conservation movement leader Aldo Leopold, evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley and the French Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (himself inspired by Henri Bergson).[citation needed] Recent contributions to an understanding of Evolution Theology include the writings of Robert Wright, John Stewart, Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams, John Haught, Eric Chaisson, David Sloan Wilson, Joanna Macy, Jonathan Haidt, Ursula Goodenough, Russell Genet, Michael Dowd, and Connie Barlow.

[edit] The Great Story/Epic of Evolution Timeline

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  1. 13,700 mya: Great Radiance - beginning of the universe (13.7 billion years ago)
  2. 12,000 mya: Galactic Phase - formation of stars
  3. 4,600 mya: Hadean - formation of Earth, pre-life
  4. 3,800 mya: Archaean - first life: bacteria
  5. 2,000 mya: Proterozoic - amoebas
  6. 540 mya: Paleozoic - complex life
  7. 245 mya: Mesozoic - dinosaurs
  8. 65 mya: Cenozoic - mammals & birds
  9. 0.013 mya: Holocene - human-caused extinctions (13,000 years ago)
  10. Today: Ecozoic - Vision for the future

[edit] Ecozoic Era

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The Ecozoic Era refers to a vision, first promoted by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, of an emerging era when humanity lives in a mutually enriching relationship with the larger community of life systems. The Ecozoic Era has also been called the "Cybozoic Era" and the “ecological age.”[citation needed]

There are generally five principles set forth for the Ecozoic:[citation needed]

  1. Recognizing that the Universe is fundamentally a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.
  2. Beyond suicide, homicide, and genocide, there are even more violent crimes -- biocide and geocide: biocide, the wanton killing of the life systems of the planet; geocide, the killing of the planet itself in its major forms of expression.
  3. The Universe is primary, human are derivative. All professions, programs, policies and institutions must henceforth be judged primarily by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.
  4. Humans will recognize the rights of other members of the Earth Community to habitat and their share of the Earth's benefits.
  5. Celebration of the grandeur and loveliness and joy of existence on planet Earth is essential for any healthy human society in the future.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links