With contributions from experts in philosophy, archaeology, primatology, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science of religion, and more, this book explores ...

In this honorific volume, his protigi F. LeRon Shults has gathered a chorus of excellent voices in van Huyssteen's main areas of philosophy, science, and ...

SUMMARYIn this paper I want to ask whether human evolution as such might provide us with important links to theological anthropology and thus to a positive and constructive way of appropriating Darwinian thought for Christian theology. From a more philosophical point of view I am asking whether Darwin's perspective on human evolution can help us move forward to more constructive, holistic, notions of self and personhood? I will argue in this paper that in the history of hominid evolution we find (...) surprising answers to the enduring question of what it means to be a self, a human person. In fact, what we now know about key aspects of hominid evolution affirms and confirms what Darwin argued for as crucial aspects of humanness. To this end I want to consider the problem of human evolution and its potential impact on theological anthropology by tracking a number of challenging contemporary proposals for the evolution of crucially important aspects of human personhood that were all of great significance for Darwin: the evolution of sexuality, the evolution of music and language, the evolution of morality, and the religious disposition. I will then argue that the evolution of these crucial aspects of human personhood converge of the issue of the moral sense, or morality, which then might give us an interesting, if not intriguing, transversal connection of religious belief and theological reflection. My argument will then unfold by specifically focusing on two important questions: first, what do we learn from evolutionary history about the evolution of morality and moral awareness in humans? and second, what do we learn from evolutionary history about the way we construct our moral codes and our ethical systems? The evolution of morality is, of course, closely related to the evolution of religion, with which I have not dealt with in this paper. (shrink)

. In my recent work I argued that the religion and sciencedialogue is most successful when done locally and contextually. However, I also argued against theology's epistemic isolation in a pluralist, postmodern world, and for a postfoundationalist notion of human rationality that reveals the interdisciplinary, public nature of all theological reflection. I now want to explore the possibility that, when we look at what the prehistory of thehuman mind reveals about the biological roots of all human rationality, some forms of (...) contemporary evolutionary epistemology may actually hold the key to understanding the kind of cognitive fluidity that enables true interdisciplinary reflection. Philosophically the religion and science dialogue benefits from this move when a postfoundationalist notion of rationality redescribes the dynamic interaction of our various disciplinary dialogues with one another as aform of transversal reasoning. Transversality in this sense justifies and urges an acknowledgment of multiple patterns of interpretation as one moves across the borders and boundaries of different disciplines. (shrink)

On a cultural level, and for Christian theology as part of a long tradition in the evolution of religion, evolutionary epistemology “sets the stage,” as it were, for understanding the deep evolutionary impact of our ancestral history on the evolution of culture, and eventually on the evolution of disciplinary and interdisciplinary reflection. In the process of the evolution of human knowledge, our interpreted experiences and expectations of the world (and of the ultimate questions we humans typically pose to the world) (...) have a central role to play. What evolutionary epistemology also shows us is that we humans can indeed take on cognitive goals and ideals that cannot be explained or justified in terms of survival‐promotion or reproductive advantage only. Therefore, once the capacities for rational knowledge, moral sensibility, aesthetic appreciation of beauty, and the propensity for religious belief have emerged in our biological history, they cannot be explained only in biological/evolutionary terms. Finally, in this way a door is opened for seeing problem solving as a central activity of our research traditions. As philosophers of science have argued, one of the most important shared rational resources between even widely divergent disciplines is problem solving as the most central and defining activity of all research traditions. As will become clear, the very diverse reasoning strategies of theology and the sciences clearly overlap in their shared quests for intelligible problem solving, including problem solving on an empirical, experiential, and conceptual level. (shrink)

In a series of three articles, presented at the Goshen Annual Conference on Science and Religion in 2015, with the theme ‘Interdisciplinary Theology and the Archeology of Personhood’, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen considers the problem of human evolution – also referred to as ‘the archaeology of personhood’ – and its broader impact on theological anthropology. These Goshen Lectures explore the potentiality that the history of human evolution provides bridge theories to theological anthropology and thus to a positive and constructive (...) way of appropriating Darwinian thought for a public, interdisciplinary Christian theology. Lecture One tracks a select number of contemporary proposals for the evolution of aspects of human personhood. These aspects were of significance for Darwin: the evolution of cognition; the evolution of imagination, music and language; the evolution of morality; and the evolution of the religious disposition. The article acknowledges the close ties to hominid ancestors and focuses on the emergence of human distinctiveness, consciousness and personhood, and the propensity for religious awareness and experience. (shrink)

In a series of three articles, presented at the Goshen Annual Conference on Science and Religion in 2015, with the theme ‘Interdisciplinary Theology and the Archeology of Personhood’, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen considers the problem of human evolution – also referred to as ‘the archaeology of personhood’ – and its broader impact on theological anthropology. This trajectory of lectures tracks a select number of challenging contemporary proposals for the evolution of crucially important aspects of human personhood. These are aspects (...) that were all of great significance for Darwin: the evolution of cognition, the evolution of imagination, music and language, the evolution of morality, and the evolution of the religious disposition. (shrink)

In a series of three articles, presented at the Goshen Annual Conference on Science and Religion in 2015, with the theme ‘Interdisciplinary Theology and the Archeology of Personhood’, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen considers the problem of human evolution – also referred to as ‘the archaeology of personhood’ – and its broader impact on theological anthropology. This trajectory of lectures tracks a select number of challenging contemporary proposals for the evolution of crucially important aspects of human personhood. Lecture Two argues (...) that, on a postfoundationalist view, some of our religious beliefs are indeed more plausible and credible than others. This also goes for our tendency to moralise and for the strong moral convictions, we often hold. It demonstrates that, in spite of a powerful focus on the evolutionary origins of moral awareness, ethics emerge on a culturally autonomous level, which means that the epistemic standing of the particular moral judgements human beings make is independent of whatever the natural sciences can says about their genesis. (shrink)

The Leitmotiv of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s work has always been his conviction that the Christian faith, and especially theology as a reflection on this faith, has a universal credibility in our age. This essay approaches this issue and sets forth a thesis in terms of the rationality of theology and of science. The shaping of rationality in both theology and science eventually forms the framework for dealing with the philosophical problems of truth, objectivity and commitment in Pannenberg’s impressive and ever expanding (...) body of thought. (shrink)

In this article Jerome A Stone's neo-naturalistic philosophy of religion is critically assessed. Stone develops a minimalist model of the divine by means of retrieving experiences of transcendence in a plural secular society. The article aims at arguing that such a 'transactional realistic' concept of God is not only a-contextual, but also too generic. Although this is regarded as a postfoundationalist move by radical empiricism, it turns out to he not consonant with postmodernism’s celebration of true pluralism.

This article addresses the issue of human imagination from the perspective of 'niche construction' in the wider discussion about 'what makes us human' and what it means to be a 'self', specifically for the Christian faith and for theology. In the article, a brief review of human origins and human evolution demonstrates the path and substantive impact of changes in behaviour, life histories and bodies in our human ancestors and us as humans ourselves. In the interactive process of niche construction, (...) potentially changeable natural environments were, and are, acting continuously on variation in the gene pools of populations, and in this way gene pools were modified over generations. It is argued that a distinctively human imagination is part of the explanation for human evolutionary success and can be seen as one of the structurally significant aspects of the transition from earlier members of the genus Homo to ourselves as we are today. There is thus a naturalness to human imagination, even to religious imagination, that facilitates engagement with the world that is truly distinct. This provides fruitful addition to the toolkit of inquiry for both evolutionary scientists and interdisciplinary theologians interested in reconstructing the long, winding historical path to humanity. (shrink)

This paper explores the thesis that both modernism and postmodernism, as contemporary cultural phenomena, have been unable to come to terms with the issue of human rationality in any positive way. As a result of this, nearly all of the stereotyped ways of relating theology and science through models of conflict, independence, consonance, harmony, integration, or dialogue are likely to be revealed as too simplistic generalizations about the relationship between these two dominant forces in our culture. What is proposed is (...) a postfoundationalist model where theology and science can rediscover the resources of rationality shared by these two reasoning strategies. Postfoundationalism in theology and science wants to point creatively beyond the confines of the local community, group, or culture toward a plausible form of interdisciplinary conversation. In taking seriously the role of local context and interpreted experience, postfoundationalism in theology and science should enable us to reach beyond the walls of our own communities in cross‐contextual, cross‐cultural and cross‐disciplinary conversation. (shrink)

In this first English volume on the topic, contributors apply philosophical, phililogical, and religious methodologies to address a number of topics important to the historical composition of the text of the Analects.

In this response to essays by Barbara J. King, Gregory R. Peterson, Wesley J. Wildman, and Nancy R. Howell, I present arguments to counter some of the exciting and challenging questions from my colleagues. I take the opportunity to restate my argument for an interdisciplinary public theology, and by further developing the notion of transversality I argue for the specificity of the emerging theological dialogue with paleoanthropology and primatology. By arguing for a hermeneutics of the body, I respond to criticism (...) of my notion of human uniqueness and argue for strong evolutionary continuities, as well as significant discontinuities, between primates, humans, and other hominids. In addition, I answer critical questions about theological methodology and argue how the notion of human uniqueness, theologically restated as the image of God, is enriched by transversally appropriating scientific notions of species specificity and embodied personhood. (shrink)

This collection of essays is dedicated to 'Joe' Karel Lambert. The contributors are all personally affected to Joe in some way or other, but they are definitely not the only ones. Whatever excuses there are - there are some -, the editors apologize to whomever they have neglected. But even so the collection displays how influential Karel Lambert has been, personally and through his teaching and his writings. The display is in alphabetical order - with one exception: Bas van Fraassen, (...) being about the earliest student of Karel Lambert, opens the collection with some reminiscences. Naturally, one of the focal points of this volume is Lambert's logical thinking and (or: freed of) ontological thinking. Free logic is intimately connected with description theory. Bas van Fraassen gives a survey of the development of the area, and Charles Daniels points to difficulties with definite descriptions in modal contexts and stories. Peter Woodruff addresses the relation between free logic and supervaluation semantics, presenting a novel condition which recovers desirable metatheoretic properties for free logic under that semantics. Terence Parsons shows how free logic can be utilized in interpreting sentences as purporting to denote events (true ones succeed and false ones fail) and how this helps to understand natural language. (shrink)

During the past three decades the Utrecht scholar Jaap Mansfeld has built up a formidable reputation in the field of the history of ancient philosophy. This state-of-the-art collection of articles is presented to him by colleagues and friends on his sixtieth birthday.

This paper attempts to systematically characterize critical reactions in argumentative discourse, such as objections, critical questions, rebuttals, refutations, counterarguments, and fallacy charges, in order to contribute to the dialogical approach to argumentation. We shall make use of four parameters to characterize distinct types of critical reaction. First, a critical reaction has a focus, for example on the standpoint, or on another part of an argument. Second, critical reactions appeal to some kind of norm, argumentative or other. Third, they each have (...) a particular illocutionary force, which may include that of giving strategic advice to the other. Fourth, a critical reaction occurs at a particular level of dialogue (the ground level or some meta-level). The concepts here developed shall be applied to discussions of critical reactions by Aristotle and by some contemporary authors. (shrink)

Vladimir Solov'ev (1853-1900- is regarded as the most original and systematic of the Russian philosophers in the 19th century. He has once again become the subject of international scholarly attention both in Slavic countries and the West. This volume contains selected papers presented at the international conference on Vladimir Solov'ev held at Nijmegen University, the Netherlands, in September 1998. The scope of this conference was wide-ranging, dealing with theological, metaphysical, philosophical and historical themes. Though Solov'ev's broad intellectual activity defies any (...) strict attempt at categorisation, the editors have classified its major themes under the dual characteristic of reconciliation and polemics. Solov'ev was passionately committed to the reconciliation of all beings under the idea of all-unity, which he attemted to achieve by engaging in uncompromising polemics with his contemporaries, The thirty contributors to this volume are specialists from Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Western Europe and the United States. The volume makes a significant contribution to the intellectual reassesment of Vladimir Solov'ev since the rediscovery of his philosophical heritage in his own homeland in the 1980s. (shrink)