RT Article
T1 All Creatures that on Earth Do Make a Dwelling: Ecological Niche Construction and the Ubiquity of Creaturely Making
JF Philosophy, theology and the sciences
VO 7
IS 2
SP 181
OP 204
A1 Davison, Andrew 1974-
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1740356993
AB Every organism shapes its ecological home or environment. Although theological interest in this phenomenon of 'niche construction' has focused so far on human beings and their settings, contemporary biology presents us with the phenomenon of every creature as a maker. This paper asks what Christian theology is to make of that observation, drawing particularly from traditions of scholastic theology associated with Thomas Aquinas. Various existing categories can be expanded to integrate this ubiquitous activity of fashioning and adaptation in niche construction. We look first at organisms as causes, then as agents, and finally as participating in the sort of 'subcreation' that has previously been discussed in relation to human beings.
K1 Creation
K1 Extended evolutionary synthesis
K1 Making
K1 niche construction
K1 Thomas Aquinas
K1 Causation
DO 10.1628/ptsc-2020-0016