A Theology 2.0 for Humanity 2.0: Thinking Outside the Neo-Darwinian Box

Abstract

Chapter 4 concerns theology’s relevance to the future of humanity. Abrahamic theology is the original human science, in that the Bible is the first document that clearly defines humans as creatures ‘in the image and likeness’ of the world-creative deity. It follows that the distinctly human aspects of our being are those most closely oriented to God. This explains the perennial preoccupation with ‘consciousness’, the secular descendant of the soul, as the mark of the human. But this Abrahamic heritage also accounts for our fixation on science as a long-term collective quest for the ultimate truth about everything, which looks suspiciously like a secular version of Christianity’s salvation narrative, especially when science is viewed as a political technology to install a ‘heaven on earth’. Unfortunately, in its guise as theology’s secular academic successor, philosophy has too often stressed theology’s dogmatic and apologetic side — albeit now in defence of the scientific rather than the religious orthodoxy. The first section draws attention to the several aspects of this phenomenon. The remaining four sections shift the focus to a more empowering science-oriented theology — that is, Theology 2.0 — suited to Humanity 2.0. Sections two and three deal with aspects of the philosophy and sociology of intelligent design theory, which re-instates the problem of divine creation at the heart of the scientific enterprise. Finally, sections four and five consider two historical (and heretical) paradigms for a Humanity 2.0 founded on a Theology 2.0: Joseph Priestley and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.