God After Darwin: A Theology Of Evolution [Hardcover]

John Haught (Author), John F. Haught (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 21, 1999

In God After Darwin, John Haught argues that the ongoing debate between Darwinian evolutionists and Christian apologists is fundamentally misdirected: both sides persist in focusing upon an explanation of underlying design and order in the universe. Haught suggests that what is lacking in both of these competing ideologies is the notion of novelty, a necessary component of evolution and the essence of the unfolding of divine Mystery. He argues that Darwin’s disturbing picture of life, instead of being hostile to religion - as scientific skeptics and many believers have thought it to be - actually provides a most fertile setting for mature reflection on the idea of God. Solidly grounded in scholarship, Haught’s explanation of the relationship between theology and evolution is both accessible and engaging.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A lucid, learned, and liberating book with a new insight on almost every page. A pleasure to read, God After Darwin subtly rearranges the religious furniture in your head. Haught's thought-provoking proposals, especially his view of God as the dynamic, loving power of the future with a vision rather than a plan for this evolving universe, deserves wide readership and discussion." -- Elizabeth A. Johnson, Fordham University

"Haught argues that evolutionary biology can enrich theological conviction, and vice versa. He does so with vigor and insight, reforming and deepening classical ideas of God, often regaining overlooked Biblical wisdom. Against fears of irreconcilable conflict, Haught's challenge is that theology after Darwin not only survives, but is even more of an adapted fit in the world. His analysis is seminal, fertile enough to breed a next generation of theologians." -- Holmes Rolston III, Colorado State University; author of Genes, Genesis and God

"Haught's remarkable study faces without flinching the challenge that the evolutionary character of reality presents to a robust and intelligent [or credible] belief in God. In a most readable and perceptive manner the author dissects the character of that challenge, points out the limitations on its understanding imposed by its prejudices, and explores an excitingly open view of God's creative involvement in the processes of reality and its ecological significance. This is a book full of illuminating insights that will stimulate and inform all those who are seriously interested in the science and religion debate today." -- David A. Pailin, University of Manchester

"John Haught has a track record of presenting magisterial contributions to our understanding of how to regard the engagement of religion and science. In this book, he performs a twofold task: he shows how traditional thinking about God might take the measure of contemporary evolutionary science, and he also provides a resource for theologically serious thinkers in the ongoing work of reconstructing faith in a scientific age. His proposals carry the work to a new level." -- Philip Hefner, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago; director, Zygon Center for Religion and Science; editor, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science

"The relationship of science and religion has once again assumed centrality among cultural and intellectual concerns. John Haught has encouraged this development and continues to give leadership to the reflection involved. This book provides an original, insightful, and exhilarating look at how a quite radical version of neo-Darwinian theory, usually understood as excluding and belief in God, can in fact aid Christians in developing a more Biblical faith by replacing the God of static design and controlling power with the God of vulnerable, self-giving love." -- John B. Cobb, Jr., School of Theology at Claremont

About the Author

John F. Haught is professor at Georgetown University and Director of the Georgetown Center for the Study of Science and Religion. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (October 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813367239
• ISBN-13: 978-0813367231
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #486,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just buy it!, January 2, 2000

By 

"the_bunnyman" - See all my reviews

This review is from: God After Darwin: A Theology Of Evolution (Hardcover)

Haught's work here is simply unprecedented. Unlike many other books of a similar genre, Haught doesn't merely attempt to "squeeze" God into a Darwinist world view of reality, neither does he end up portraying God as a helpless first cause Deity. Rather, Haught turns materialism on its head, exposes its limitations and prejudices and clearly portrays God as the dynamic Ground of all Being and as the loving power with a VISION rather than a plan for this evolving Universe.

Haught shows clearly that cosmic and biological evolution deeply enriches theological conviction, and he reveals a robust and intelligent belief in God. The author extensively faces numerous arguments from 'steadfast' materialists like Dawkins and Dennet, (he makes numerous references to Dennet's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" and Dawkins' 'The Blind Watchmaker'). Haught effortlessly chews them up, spits them out and reveals an exiting open view of God's creative involvement in the processes of reality and its ecological significance.

His chapter on cosmic 'hierarchical information' was particularly insightful - with specific reference to the genetic code of DNA, cosmic self-awareness and the laws of nature. Not only do these phenomena show that the materialist world view is paradoxical and severely limited, but it also reveals the rationale and logic behind religious convictions that the true foundation of all being is the Divine Mind - (the Universal Consciousness, the Ground of all Being - GOD).

Haught has a delectably open outlook on reality and he refrains from making any kind of 'clinical' conclusions like Michael Behe's "irreducible systems". Haught says such clinical attempts at 'proving design' are "apologetically ineffective and theologically inconsequential." He says that the Behe-style design argument is an "attempt on the part of finite humans to grasp the infinite and incomprehensible God in rational or scientific terms. These arguments diminish the mystery of God, seeking to bring it under the control of the limited human mind. For religious reasons, therefore, we should be grateful to Darwinians for helping us get rid of the pretentiousness of natural theology."

He stresses the importance of including the essential elements of the larger cosmic story rather than looking "too closely and minutely at living organisms and their delicate adaptivity as the primary evidence of a designing deity." He stresses that prejudice can also be attributed to the other extremists - namely, Dennet and Dawkins.

Haught gives plausible insights into the existence of suffering and dead-ends in evolution as he talks about how God is viewed from the Christian perspective as a "self limiting God". He writes: "That God would allow the world to 'become itself' renders plausible evolution's winding through an endless field of potentialities", and then makes the significant point that "an infinite Love will not manipulate or dissolve the beloved - in this case, the cosmos." He references the Sante Fe Institute's observations of Nature's tendency to organize itself "spontaneously", (also see my review for Stuart Kauffman's 'At Home in the Universe').

With regard to this element of 'suffering', it's worth pointing out that God's omnipotence is understood from the Christian perspective as God's capacity to enter into love with all its costs. Indeed, belief in the divine "self- emptying" is basic to the Christian faith.

Overall, this book is chock-full with illuminating insights and stimulating facts, and I keep coming back to it, reading it again, and letting the ideas ferment in my mind. It's truly wonderful - buy it!

63 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very profound, thoughtful, challenging; slightly flawed, July 25, 2000

By 

S. A. Felton (southern OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God After Darwin: A Theology Of Evolution (Hardcover)

Thanks to other reviews on amazon.com, I came across the author's works, and I am very glad I did. His books are very deep, profound, and thought-provoking. Haught is a propoent of the "engagement" of science and religion, as opposed to the separatist position of writers such as Phillip Johnson ("Darwin On Trial"). He is the only theologian I've come across who faces the challenges posed by Darwinian evolution absolutely squarely, refusing to try to defend what he feels is the antiquated theological notion of God as an intelligent designer of an orderly and purposeful universe. Indeed, evolution by natural selection, as well as the laws of physics, do show us a very chaotic, entropic, often destructive, cruel world.

In addition to the difficult task of defining God in terms of evolution, Haught also attempts to refute the strict materialistic scientism of Dennett and Dawkins. Of course, it is very unlikely that his arguments would sway an atheist in the least, which is to be expected. "God After Darwin" is thus clearly for those who want to find purpose and faith in their lives and in God in a world so profoundly influenced, for good and for bad, by Darwin.

I feel that Haught succeeds admirably in these very difficult tasks. I can only imagine his struggle to admit the truth of evolution and how to define a valid theology in concordance with it, instead of denying it. While reading this book the careful reader will sense the author's struggle, and if you agree with him, his victory!

Haught defines these concepts to find purpose in an evolutionary world: a) kenosis - Divine emptying; God does not control Its creation, allowing creation to come to It; b) information, which coordinates parts into wholes, and the emergence of increasing beauty (he uses Whitehead's writing to define beauty), through novelty, complexity, and the contrasts of opposites; c) a definition of time a la Teilhard de Chardin's Omega point, where the future, a theology of hope, is the "ultimate" purpose of evolution. Haught refers to the future as the key to finding purpose in evolution many times, perhaps too many. He makes a fine definition of community as groups of people, of widely differing cultures and belief systems, working together to manifest God's Plan, the increase of beauty.

Haught refutes scientific materialism by pointing to evolution's clear depiction of increasing complexity in living forms, which he feels points to the necessity that beings as conscious and evolved as we are would "evolve" - I use quotes because I don't think that humans evolved from apes w/o an intervention of some "God." He also cites recent discoveries in astrophysics to underscore the fact that the emergence of sentient life, really human life, was indeed no accident.

Haught also refutes the dualism that is inherent in many religions, which depicts maeterial existence as an accident, where the goal is to see our lives as meaningful only in escaping the physical, returning to the timeless spiritual realms beyond the grave. Again, the argument is that we must live in the here and now, and work towards the "glorious" future I discussed above.

I did have problems with several areas in the book, however. First, I feel that one has to find a balance as a spiritual being having a physical experience. I have always found the expression, "be in the world but not of it" to be a good way to live, because it reminds me that physical life is indeed a "soul school," too temporary for one to be so concerned about a "limitless" future, which the author seems to use as a crutch to explain away the awful suffering in the world, including wars and murders on a scale that even God must have difficulty comprehending (!), inhabited by a schizophrenic species which seems to multiply w/o restraint, and so on. I also found Chapter 10, where the author goes on for pages and pages trying to come up with a logical reason for what kind of "subjective consciousness" existed in the universe before sentient beings (esp. humans) came along, to be superfluous. And that is surprising, because elsewhere he appropriately and humbly does "let go, and let God," in acknowledging the mysteries of the universe. Finally, I do believe that the "true" evolution is a Divine Plan of spiritual evolution, especially as concerns humans; ironically, I found no mention of this in the book. The author seems to have rejected such metaphysics, as have most scientists today.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and well informed, February 17, 2000

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[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: God After Darwin: A Theology Of Evolution (Hardcover)

Haught, God after Darwin

This is an extraordinary and excellent book. Haught is an established theologian, and religious writers in general, if they do not reject Darwinism outright, or pass it over in silence, usually either question its scientific status, or build up a theological defense position against it. Not so John Haught. He enthusiastically embraces Evolution, and even makes it a fundamental element in a fresh and interesting theology of his own. And it is not a Darwinism conveniently adjusted to suit theological purposes. Haught proves very well informed about the biological issues involved, and about current scientific debates about them. I speak from experience, since my background includes writing a book on the great Darwinian debates in the 19th century (Darwin and the General Reader, re-issued by Chicago University Press in 1991). Haught's style is lively and forceful. Reading this book, the reader will not necessarily be convinced. But he will learn a great deal, and also be intellectually stimulated. Even exhilarated!