RT Article
T1 Was evolution the only possible way for God to make autonomous creatures? Examination of an argument in evolutionary theodicy
JF International journal for philosophy of religion
VO 77
IS 1
SP 37
OP 51
A1 Wahlberg, Mats 1972-
A2 Eikrem, Asle 1978-
LA English
YR 2015
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1559173629
AB Evolutionary theodicies are attempts to explain how the enormous amounts of suffering, premature death and extinction inherent in the evolutionary process can be reconciled with belief in a loving and almighty God. A common strategy in this area is to argue that certain very valuable creaturely attributes could only be exemplified by creatures that are produced by a partly random and uncontrolled process of evolution. Evolution, in other words, was the only possible way for God to create these kinds of creatures. This article presents and examines two versions of the 'only way'-argument. The anthropocentric version tries to justify God's use of evolution by reference to the value of human freedom, and argues that freedom presupposes that God lets go of full control over the process of creation (Arthur Peacocke, Nancey Murphy). The non-anthropocentric version presents a similar argument with respect to more inclusive creaturely properties, such as that of being 'truly other' than God, or of being a 'creaturely self' with a certain degree of autonomy in relation to God (John Polkinghorne, John Haught, Christopher Southgate). With the help of a number of thought-experiments of the 'Twin-Earth'-type, the author argues that both the anthropocentric and the non-anthropocentric only way-arguments fail.
K1 Arthur Peacocke
K1 Christopher Southgate
K1 Creation
K1 Evolutionary theodicy
K1 EVOLUTIONARY theories : Religious aspects
K1 Free process defense
K1 GOOD & evil
K1 John Haught
K1 John Polkinghorne
K1 Liberty
K1 Nancey Murphy
K1 Natural Evil
K1 Problem of animal suffering
K1 Religious Aspects
K1 Research
K1 Theodicy
DO 10.1007/s11153-014-9486-x