This article engages with John Haught's views on original sin. It offers a brief orientation to discourse on sin in the context of theological debates on human evolution. This is followed by a thick description of Haught's so-called note on original sin. A series of five observations and questions regarding Haught's position is offered. It is observed that Haught's way of telling the story of sin and salvation follows a classic Roman Catholic plot, namely one based on grace elevating nature. (...) This is contrasted with the more typically reformed plot of restoration. (shrink)

Does an affirmation of theistic evolution make the task of theodicy impossible? In this article, I will review a number of ancient and contemporary responses to the problem of evil as it concerns animal suffering and suggest a possible way forward which employs the ancient Jewish insight that evil—as resistance to God's will that results in suffering and alienation from God's purposes—precedes the arrival of human beings and already has a firm foothold in the nonhuman animal world long before humans (...) are ever tempted to go astray. This theological intuition is conferred renewed relevance in light of the empirical reality of evolutionary gradualism and continuity and in view of the recent findings of cognitive ethology. Consequently, I suggest that taking biological evolution seriously entails understanding “moral evil” as a prehuman phenomenon that emerges gradually through the actions and intentions of “free creatures” which—as evolutionary history unfolded—increasingly possessed greater levels of freedom and degrees of moral culpability. (shrink)

This paper presents a moral–emotional critique of environmental restoration, through discussion of narratives of redemption. The importance of ‘redemption’ vis-à-vis other environmental discourses rests with its capacity to unpack how, why and in what circumstances the idea of ‘putting something back’ for nature exerts a hold on the popular imagination. This paper thus examines the ethical and emotional experiences bound up in restoration discourses, to identify the motives deployed to confront shame and an associated guilt, and achieve restitution. In turn, (...) the paper also offers new insights into the value of restored nature. (shrink)

Abstract. Found in the Primeval History in Genesis, the biblical concepts of the “image of God” and the “knowledge of good and evil” remain integral to Christian anthropology, especially with regard to the theologoumena of “fall” and “original sin.” All of these symbols are remained important and appropriate descriptors of the human condition, provided that contemporary academic theological anthropology engages in constructive dialogue with the natural and social sciences. Using Paul Ricoeur's notion of “second naïveté experience,” I illustrate the hermeneutical (...) significance of contemporary bio-cultural or socio-biological evolutionary theory for reformulating these concepts of Christian anthropology today. (shrink)

In excerpts from my Dancing with the Sacred (2002), I use ideas from modern science, our world's religions, and my own experience to highlight three themes of the book. First, working within the framework of a scientific worldview, I develop a concept of the sacred (or God) as the creative activity of nature, human history, and individual life. Second, I offer a relational understanding of human nature that I call our social‐ecological selves and suggest some general considerations about what it (...) means to live meaningfully and morally in an evolutionary world. Third, I explore how we might be at home in a universe that is constantly changing and in which suffering and death are interwoven with life and new creation. (shrink)

This essay examines several recent contributions to the growing literature on animal ethics from Christian perspectives. I categorize the four books under review in one of three ways depending on the scholars' methodological points of departure: a reconstruction of the place of other animals in Christian history through a selective retrieval of texts and practices; an identification of a key Christian ethical principle; and a reconsideration of foundational doctrines of systematic theology. On the premise that social ethicists are interested in (...) not only understanding the world, but also changing it, I observe that these authors have offered different answers to the following three questions: whether the theoretical basis for reform is ultimately grounded upon notions of human sameness or difference with other animals; whether scholar-activists should emphasize logic over passion or values over interests in their calls for transformation; and whether moral motivation for their targeted audiences is best served by reliance upon secular argumentation and interdisciplinary research or upon the distinctive claims of revelation and other tradition-specific norms. I conclude by offering my own thoughts about which approaches might prove more effective than others. (shrink)