Christianity in Evolution : An Exploration.
Title:
Christianity in Evolution : An Exploration.
Author:
Mahoney, Jack.
ISBN:
9781589017993
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (203 pages)
Contents:
Cover -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE: Accepting Evolution -- Catholic Responses to Evolution -- Evolution and Christian Ethics -- Other Theological Responses to Evolution -- Theological Implications of Evolution -- CHAPTER TWO: Evolution, Altruism, and the Image of God -- Understanding the Image of God -- The Evolutionary Challenge of Altruism -- Imaging the Divine Altruism -- A Theology of Altruism -- CHAPTER THREE: The Evolutionary Achievement of Jesus -- Saving Humanity from Death -- Dispensing with Original Sin -- Finding a New Explanation -- Baffling Death -- CHAPTER FOUR: Incarnation without the Fall -- What If Adam Had Not Sinned? -- Christ as Lord of Creation -- "For Our Salvation" -- What Kind of God? -- A Poor Alternative -- CHAPTER FIVE: Seeking a New Paradigm -- Process Theology and Kenotic Theology -- Accepting the Unavoidable -- Moral Evils and Human Freedom -- CHAPTER SIX: The Church and the Eucharist in Evolution -- Who Shall Be Saved? -- The Evolving Church -- "Through Christ Our Lord" -- The Eucharist in Evolution -- The Evolutionary Community -- CHAPTER SEVEN: Theology in Evolution -- Evolutionary Impact on Other Traditional Beliefs -- Evolutionary Ethics -- "Development of Doctrine"? -- Demythologizing Death -- Saving Sacrifice? -- Straining Faith -- Summing Up -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- A Note about Sources -- Works Cited -- INDEXES -- General Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Scriptural Index -- A -- C -- D -- E -- G -- H -- I -- J -- L -- M -- N -- P -- R -- W -- Z.
Abstract:
Evolution has provided a new understanding of reality, with revolutionary consequences for Christianity. In an evolutionary perspective the incarnation involved God entering the evolving human species to help it imitate the trinitarian altruism in whose image it was created and counter its tendency to self-absorption. Primarily, however, the evolutionary achievement of Jesus was to confront and overcome death in an act of cosmic significance, ushering humanity into the culminating stage of its evolutionary destiny, the full sharing of God's inner life. Previously such doctrines as original sin, the fall, sacrifice, and atonement stemmed from viewing death as the penalty for sin and are shown not only to have serious difficulties in themselves, but also to emerge from a Jewish culture preoccupied with sin and sacrifice that could not otherwise account for death. The death of Jesus on the cross is now seen as saving humanity, not from sin, but from individual extinction and meaninglessness. Death is now seen as a normal process that affect all living things and the religious doctrines connected with explaining it in humans are no longer required or justified. Similar evolutionary implications are explored affecting other subjects of Christian belief, including the Church, the Eucharist, priesthood, and moral behavior.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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