Life and Evolution: Why Theology Matters

Abstract

The religions include a vision about life that has gravitated for millennia and that seems to survive, even in a time of supremacy of the scientific and technological rationality. In fact, they operate as great shapers of meaning for a large part of humanity. Particularly, the coexistence between a scientific view of the phenomenon of the life with religious understanding frames of it is a fact in many places. In effect, the religious vision continues to confer an ultimate horizon of meaning for many biologists, for a significant number of teachers in biology, as well as for a multitude of believers. There are many people who nurture their vision of life both in science and in some religious conception. For this reason, it is important the analysis of the biblical theology of life. It allows evaluating the scope of a cultural force that persists in its reading of the phenomenon of life, even coinciding with scientific visions of it. One of the aspects to understand is the inclusion of the evolutionary perspective assumed by the present Christian theology of life. The theology of evolution is one of the most significant approaches of this way of thinking about the phenomenon of the life. Moreover, in the current state of risk of the biosphere, the need to promote integrated visions becomes imperious. This is the reason to try to understand the new perspectives of the eco-theology.