Sacrifice Regained: Evolution, Cooperation and God

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The Gifford Lectures Over 100 years of lectures on natural theology You are hereHomeLectures Sacrifice Regained: Evolution, Cooperation and God Sarah Coakley 2012University of Aberdeen In the 2012 Gifford Lectures, Sarah Coakley seeks to listen to contemporary mathematical and empiricalreconsiderationsof cooperation and sacrifice in evolutionary biology; yet the lectures also aim at criticallyinvestigating evolutionary theorys own narratives of meaning so as to raise once more the question of God. Natural theology is therefore reconceived, arguesCoakley, in light of global economic and ecological challenges precipitated by false notions of sacrifice.

The initial lecture (Stories of Evolution, Stories of Sacrifice) sees Coakley discussing the evolutionary phenomenon of cooperation. She argues that several important cultural antipathies in the 20thand 21stcenturies have left Christian theology in a notable retreat from the prevalent secular stories of evolutionary selfishness.Coakleyproposes that current theoretic implosions and metaphysical re-examinations might offer a fundamental shift in evolutionary understanding, one which is capable ofharkeningChristian theology back to its deepest responsibilities in our generation.

In the second lecture (Cooperation, alias Altruism), Coakley provides an account of five particular conditions under which cooperation can attain an evolutionary stable state. The upshot of this five-fold division is that cooperation neutralizes the purported selfishness of evolutionary election. Further, the capacity to give a mathematical account of these mechanisms of cooperation from evolutionary biologists allows the principle of sacrifice to be placed alongside selection in the continuum of evolution.

The third lecture (Ethics, Cooperation and Human Motivation) finds Coakley considering the topic of evolutionary ethics under the aspect of the behavioral features of cooperation or creaturely altruism.Coakley, in asking what ethical theory would best explainevolutionary data, shows how both neo-Aristotelian and Kantian accounts could have advantages with regards to the question of God.Coakleyalso notes the problem of explaining excess in evolutionary cooperation and altruism that is, for those events of a deeply sacrificial, saintly undertaking for others.

In the fourth lecture (Ethics, Cooperation and the Gender Wars), Coakley places modern evolutionary debates about gender and cooperation in context by analyzing several prominent evolutionary biologists, whose ideas are instructive for the neo-Aristotelian theory of biological flourishing.Coakleythen suggests an ascetic lesson for the creaturely realm. Drawing inspiration from the Christian past, particularly 4th-century monasticism,Coakleyinvestigates this period with an evolutionary eye in order to pursue a renewed engagement with the life of flourishing.

Lecture five (Teleology Reviewed) begins with a re-drawing of the earlier lectures on evolutionary cooperation in order to present a new rendition of natural theology.Coakleythen offers adnouementon the ethico-teleological argument for Gods existence, set squarely in Thomist and Kantian meta-ethics. The argument turns on the notion that there exists a people whose excessive altruism make it difficult to say in any obvious sense that they are gaining any fitness advantage. Such expressions of supernormality,Coakleyconcludes, become the means of a teleological indicator of the category of grace even in the evolutionary world as a whole.

Building on this theme, the final lecture (Reconceiving Natural Theology) hasCoakleyurging a new natural theology founded on six hallmarks, which include having the spiritual senses and ascetic capacity to see God in the world. This particular hallmark allowsCoakleyto propose that theology ought to engage positively with the current implosions within evolutionary biology. Finally, natural theology allows for fresh Christological expressions of sacrifice which, in turn, calls for positive and affective commitment and hope of religious people in mobilizing cooperation in light of present creaturely crises.

Coakleyneatly traverses the varied conceptual landscapes of natural theology and contemporary evolutionary biology. And while the listener may not accept the old or new commitments of natural theology, one cannot come away from these lectures without the renewed sense that Christian theology must continually engage such questions in the form of practiced dispossession, in the Spirit, to the emergence of truth which may surprise, inform, or disturb.

VIDEOS Stories of Evolution, Stories of Sacrifice 17th April - Stories of Evolution, Stories of Sacrifice

In this opening lecture of the Aberdeen Gifford Lecture Series 2012, Professor SarahCoakleyanalysesthe current malaise of "natural theology" and its philosophical and theological causes, and invites reflection on a bold reformulation of its task which might contest the cynicism of a culture convinced of primary selfishness.

Cooperation, alias Altruism: Game Theory and Evolution Reconsidered 19th April - Cooperation, alias Altruism: Game Theory and Evolution Reconsidered

Ethics, Cooperation and Human Motivation: Assessing the Project of Evolutionary Ethics 24th April - Ethics, Cooperation and Human Motivation: Assessing the Project of Evolutionary Ethics

Ethics, Cooperation and the Gender Wars: Prospects for a New Asceticism 26th April - Ethics, Cooperation and the Gender Wars: Prospects for a New Asceticism

Teleology Reviewed: A New 'Ethico-Teleological' Argument for God's Existence 1st May - Teleology Reviewed: A New 'Ethico-Teleological' Argument for God's Existence

Reconceiving 'Natural Theology': Meaning, Sacrifice and God 3rd May - Reconceiving 'Natural Theology': Meaning, Sacrifice and God

CONTRIBUTOR(S) Andrew Hay, Hillside Christian Church Search formSearch

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