Next weekend at Benedictine College we are holding our 8th annual Symposium on Advancing the New Evangelization, and this year the topic is “Technology and the Human Person.” I’m currently writing a book on Benedict XVI, the Bible, and human origins in light of evolutionary science, and so I decided to craft a paper based on this work tied to he conference theme. My paper, whose title is the subject of this post, addresses the question of how we can uphold the uniqueness of man in light of the technological advances of evolutionary science and genomics. Here’s my talk abstract:
The famous atheist Richard Dawkins is no means alone in his contending that evolutionary biology makes it nonsensical to speak of man as “higher” than other living things. Indeed, within a materialistic evolutionary worldview, creatures are measured not by powers of the soul but rather by their sheer ability to survive and reproduce. From this perspective, there is no reason to suppose that anything about humans makes us, in contrast with other creatures, to be the image of God. In response to such an outlook, this paper will argue that the reality of human evolution, when approached according to sound theological principles, is not only consonant with man’s unique dignity but moreover casts considerable light on precisely what it means to be God’s image and how we ought to treat our fellow men and creatures within an evolving universe.
