Evolution as an Unwrapping of the Gift of Freedom

Scientia et Fides 8 (2):43-64 (2020)
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Abstract

Extending the approach to a ‘theology of science’ developed in Faith and Wisdom in Science, I expand its theme of the tension between chaos and emergent order, within the arc of the Biblical story of creation, towards a theology of evolutionary science. In addition to the material in Job, the book of Wisdom provides a remarkable account of transmutation of species, within a recapitulation of the Exodus theme, that I juxtapose with a modern genotype-phenotype theory of evolutionary dynamics, exploiting analogies with statistical mechanics. The dual and connected structures of microscopic and macroscopic provide a locus for the Joban tensions of chaos and emergent order, and provide an interpretative narrative for the emergent directionality of evolution, and a theology that situates within a creation of freedom to explore the potential of the created order.

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2020-10-31

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References found in this work

Emergence and topological order in classical and quantum systems.Tom McLeish, Mark Pexton & Tom Lancaster - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 66:155-169.
Faith and Wisdom in Science.Tom McLeish - 2014 - Oxford University Press.

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