ABSTRACT
William Irons’s essay, “Morality, Religion, and Human Evolution,” not only raises issues that in themselves are highly interesting, but it also provokes reflection that goes to the heart of religion and its relationship to the kind of scientific thought that the essay represents. In considering the details of Irons’s presentation from a theological perspective, I find myself com-pelled to ask: What stands at the heart of the Christian vision of human life and what invitation to thought inheres in that vision? When I probe that invitation, as it has been elaborated by the tradition of disciplined, theological thinking, I come upon a train of concepts that seem quite appropriate to the struggle to comprehend the issues that Irons’s essay raises for human living. I am compelled to work through some of that theological elaboration in order to get to the heart of his presentation. The reader should not mistake this as a digression that seeks to evade the burden of the anthropologist’s concern. On the contrary, I aim to show that the thrust of theological elaboration allows us to enter fully into the anthropological domain. The theologian’s concepts may also rearrange what the scientist offers us, and that rearrangement itself is offered as a proposal for discussion. The shape of the rearrangement and its inherent proposal will reveal at the same time both the content and the method of theologian’s interaction with the scientist.
