Adaptive faith: Religion in evolutionary perspective

The explosion of research in evolutionary biology and other sciences is challenging older understandings of human nature as well as theological accounts of the human condition. As part of a yearlong project on evolution and human nature, the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, has supported the research of resident scholars in theology, biology, anthropology and political science and has encouraged interdisciplinary discussions. Here’s an excerpt of a conversation among the research fellows.

Dominic Johnson, professor of international relations at Oxford University: A lot of new information is coming out about religion from an evolutionary perspective that puts religion in a new light. It suggests that there are adaptive fitness benefits to religious beliefs and behaviors. This understanding offers a very different perspective from that of New Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Those thinkers use evolution to explain why religion exists, but they argue that religion is maladaptive. The alternative view also takes an evolutionary perspective but sees religion as providing adaptive benefits.

Jan-Olav Henriksen, theologian at the Norwegian School of Theology: Theologians will eventually be able to take in this new information and develop it—but some religious believers are not very open to science. And some scientists are not very open to religion, because they are also trapped in the old paradigms. So this new field presents an important challenge to both science and theology.