Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love
An examination of the relationship between faith in God and the concept of ecological care within a crisis of biodiversity.

For millennia plant and animal species have received little sustained attention as subjects of Christian theology and ethics in their own right. In Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love, Elizabeth A. Johnson concludes that love of the natural world is an intrinsic element of faith in God and that far from being an add-on, ecological care is at the center of moral life.

Focused on the human dilemma of sin and redemptive grace, theology has considered the doctrine of creation to be mainly an overture to the main drama of human being's relationship to God. What value does the natural world have within the framework of religious belief? The crisis of biodiversity in our day, when species are going extinct at more than 1,000 times the natural rate, renders this question acutely important.Standard perspectives need to be realigned; theology needs to look out of the window, so to speak as well as in the mirror.

1117262971
Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love
An examination of the relationship between faith in God and the concept of ecological care within a crisis of biodiversity.

For millennia plant and animal species have received little sustained attention as subjects of Christian theology and ethics in their own right. In Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love, Elizabeth A. Johnson concludes that love of the natural world is an intrinsic element of faith in God and that far from being an add-on, ecological care is at the center of moral life.

Focused on the human dilemma of sin and redemptive grace, theology has considered the doctrine of creation to be mainly an overture to the main drama of human being's relationship to God. What value does the natural world have within the framework of religious belief? The crisis of biodiversity in our day, when species are going extinct at more than 1,000 times the natural rate, renders this question acutely important.Standard perspectives need to be realigned; theology needs to look out of the window, so to speak as well as in the mirror.

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Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love

Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love

by Elizabeth A. Johnson
Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love

Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love

by Elizabeth A. Johnson

Hardcover

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Overview

An examination of the relationship between faith in God and the concept of ecological care within a crisis of biodiversity.

For millennia plant and animal species have received little sustained attention as subjects of Christian theology and ethics in their own right. In Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love, Elizabeth A. Johnson concludes that love of the natural world is an intrinsic element of faith in God and that far from being an add-on, ecological care is at the center of moral life.

Focused on the human dilemma of sin and redemptive grace, theology has considered the doctrine of creation to be mainly an overture to the main drama of human being's relationship to God. What value does the natural world have within the framework of religious belief? The crisis of biodiversity in our day, when species are going extinct at more than 1,000 times the natural rate, renders this question acutely important.Standard perspectives need to be realigned; theology needs to look out of the window, so to speak as well as in the mirror.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781472903730
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication date: 03/13/2014
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Johnson is Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, New York. She is the author of many bestselling books, including most recently Quest for the Living God.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments x

Preface xiii

1 Beasts and Entangled Bank: A Dialogue 1

Creation In and Out of Focus 1

Models of Engagement 7

The Weight of a Theory 12

A Wager: Good Dialogue Partners 14

2 "When We Look…" 19

The Author and His Amazing Book 19

Core Insight 27

Science: Special Acts of Creation 29

A Religious Odyssey 35

The Beholder 40

3 "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" 45

Starting with Farm and Garden 45

Two Key Elements: Variation and Struggle 49

The Theory: Natural Selection 55

The Tree of Life 59

A Crowd of Difficulties 65

Throughout Time 73

Across Space 82

Mutual Affinities 93

"There is Grandeur in this View of Life" 95

4 Evolution of the Theory 100

The Center Holds 100

Misuse of the Theory 102

Scientific Advances 105

A Cosmic Lens 111

An Ecological Lens 117

5 The Dwelling Place of God 122

"We Are Fecund and Exuberantly Alive" 122

Obstacles 125

Life and Love: a Trinitarian Framework 128

Poetic Biblical Images 134

The Wisdom of Philosophy: Participation 143

Gods Dwelling Place 150

6 Free, Empowered Creation 154

Paradigm of the Lover 154

The Wisdom of Philosophy: Ultimate and Proximate Causes 160

Interplay of Law and Chance 169

Unscripted Adventure 173

Emergence: On Behalf of Matter and the Body 174

Beasts and Entangled Bank 177

7 All Creation Groaning 181

"We Suffer and Die" 181

Framing the Issue 186

Deep Incarnation 192

The Christie Paradigm 199

The Cross and the Tree of Life 201

Deep Resurrection 207

8 Bearer of Great Promise 211

Bookends 211

"We Are Created" 214

"We Are Finite and Will End" 219

Cosmic Redemption 222

Muir's Bear 228

9 Enter the Humans 236

An Evolving Singularity 236

Eaarth (sic) 241

Extinction: Never Again 248

The Promise of Nature 253

Conversion to the Earth 255

10 The Community of Creation 260

"We Are All Creatures" 260

The Dominion Paradigm 262

The Community of Creation Paradigm 267

"Where Were You …?" 269

Creation's Praise and Lament 273

The Ecological Vocation 281

Onwards, for the Love of God 284

Notes 287

Select Bibliography 306

Index 317

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