Synopsis "Divine Involvement in an Evolutionary World"
How can God be genuinely involved in an evolutionary world without competing with the natural processes described by science? In Divine Involvement in an Evolutionary World, Bradford L. McCall takes up this enduring question at the intersection of theology, philosophy, and evolutionary science. Moving beyond models that locate divine action in gaps within scientific explanation, McCall retrieves Aristotle’s multidimensional account of causality and brings it into conversation with contemporary theology and science. In particular, he argues that the dominance of efficient causation has unnecessarily constrained modern discussions of divine involvement and that renewed attention to teleology can open new possibilities for understanding the God-world relationship.Drawing especially upon Charles Sanders Peirce’s developmental understanding of teleology, McCall proposes an evolutionary vision in which the telos of creation is not a rigidly predetermined endpoint but an open movement toward increasing complexity and unrealized possibilities. Within this framework, divine involvement is distinctly pneumatological and eschatological: the Spirit does not interrupt or replace evolutionary processes but creatively empowers creation from within, drawing forth its possibilities in accordance with God’s eschatological intentions. The result is a pneumato-teleological model in which the development of nature remains genuinely natural while also being grounded in and enlivened by the creative influence of the Spirit.Engaging major voices in the contemporary theology-and-science dialogue while refusing both reductionistic naturalism and a “God of the gaps,” Divine Involvement in an Evolutionary World offers a constructive account of divine presence in an evolving cosmos. McCall invites theologians, scientists, philosophers, and students of religion and science to reconsider causality, providence, evolution, and purpose—and to envision creation as an open and dynamic world in which divine involvement and natural processes need not be competitors. Read more
