Evolution, games, and God: the principle of cooperation edited by Martin Novak and Sarah Coakley Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass, 2013

摘要

This book, edited by Novak and Coakley, deals with a very interesting, promising, and very fascinating (at least to me) topic: the relationship between evolution, theology, and cooperation. The book, however, does not fulfil its promises.rnThe encounters and clashes between theology and the theory of evolution (in particular, the Darwinian) have a very long and complex history, and the present-day relationship between theology and the theory of evolution is not very peaceful. On the one hand, the theology, in particular the Christian one (the only theology considered in the book), has an intrinsic evolutionary nature. The Christian vision of the world, being based on the original and unique (with respect to other traditional religions, usually based on a cyclic vision) Jewish concept of creation, is dynamic and oriented towards the eschaton, that is, a final goal and destiny of the history of the world, which implies both movement and evolution. Furthermore, in spite of other narratives and theologies of the creations of the world (for instance, the pantheism), the concept of the creation means at the same time a distinction and a relation between God and the world: the created world has its autonomy and, for this reason, has also its own laws.