Michael S. Northcott and R.J. Berry, Theology After Darwin (London: Paternoster, 2009). $14.99
Michael Northcott teaches ethics at the University of Edinburgh, while R.J. Berry is an evolutionary biologist and a retired faculty member at University College London. Together, they edit eleven essays (plus an epilogue) that seeks to address what impacts the Darwinian revolution(s) has had upon theology, as well as how theistic evolutionists – the term that all of the contributors apply to themselves, noting their acceptance of both the God hypothesis and evolution – respond to and appropriate data and commentary from the evolutionary biological domain. This review will be cursory, necessarily, but will hope to give a bird’s eye view to the book’s entailments, written by a man who not only calls himself by the same terminology as do the contributors to this volume, but also as one who has both studied and worked within biology and theology (Research Technician at Emergent Genetics, United Methodist Church clergy, respectively). As such, I have a vested interest – literally – in the science and theology dialogue. Having said the above, allow me to move onward to the books’ contents.
I notice immediately that the volume is rather skewed toward one particular topic (or set of topics) within this ongoing dialogue: i.e., the problem of evil/theodicy and the attempt(s) to reconcile the pervasive nature of evil within nature with a purportedly loving God; at least half of the chapters either explicitly cover or refer to intertextually the debate regarding theodicy. I think this issue to highly important as well; however, ‘doing’ theology after Darwin necessarily entails allot more than dealing with evil! Additionally, although I am not sure what to make of this exactly, of the 11 contributors, only three are/were actively engaged in scientific fields, with the balance being composed of theologians and ethicists; I would like to have seen a more evenly distributed allotment, but perhaps with a title explicitly mentioning ‘theology’ this is an unwarranted desire of my own. Nevertheless, the book contains many good contributions, of which I will mention only a few.
For example, Amy Hall presents an excellent chapter regarding Charles Kingsley’s Christian Darwinism; within it, she highlights that Kingsley was Darwin’s proverbial emissary to the church, as one who was able to process – and profess – evolution theologically. Furthermore, Ellen F Davis writes about how Bible reading and interpretation has been affected by Darwin’s arrival and triumph; she stresses the need of fresh and complex readings of biblical texts that take into account our ever deepening scientific knowledge. David Fergusson addresses the ways in which Darwin’s theory seemingly caused intellectual upheaval with respect to religion, affirming in his conclusion the sentiments of Keith Ward that we should not rush wholesale into the abandonment of theological convictions simply because we cannot fully explain the ways in which the divine interacts with the world that He has made (and is making) day-by-day.
All in all, this will make for a good supplementary text for philosophy of religion courses; if that was the intent, it is a job well done.
Bradford McCall
Regent University