Christ, Creation, and the Fall : Discerning Human Purpose from an Evolving Nature

Inspired by Philip Hefner’s The Human Factor (1993), Simon R. Watson engages Darwin’s The Descent of Man (1871), William Paley’s Natural Theology (1802), and the twenty-first century Wisdom Christologies of Denis Edwards and Elizabeth Johnson to argue for a liberative theology of nature grounded in a compassionate Christ and an existential fall.

If the Christian God is creator of all things and revealed in Christ to be compassionate love, then how can divine agency in creation be understood considering the Darwinian assertion that biological warfare undergirds natural selection? The implications are significant for understanding Christian discipleship and ethics if indeed the human is made in God’s image with the capacity for creative or destructive “dominion” over earthly life (Gen. 1:26). To approach this challenge, Simon R. Watson turns to Philip Hefner’s The Human Factor (1993), which identifies the human as created co-creator to investigate themes of freedom and determinism in light of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Hefner’s argument exploring human purpose from a beneficence discernible in creation invites a re-examination of Victorian preoccupations with natural teleology. Inspired by Hefner’s work, Watson places Darwin’s The Descent of Man (1871) in conversation with historical and contemporary sources, from William Paley’s Natural Theology (1802) to twenty-first century articulations of Wisdom Christology by Denis Edwards and Elizabeth Johnson, to argue that theology can offer a framework of meaning to interpret an evolving nature as revelatory of a Christian God when considered through the lens of a suffering Christ and an existentially fallen creation.