Presupposing that science and religion can share dialogue, can this be informative and come to bear fruit in the future? As a Catholic Christian who studies social evolution and Christian ethics, I shall answer “yes”, notwithstanding the challenge mounted by conflicts inherent in this debate. My interest lies in the dialogue between Christian moral philosophy and the theory of Darwinian evolution, as first published in On the Origin of Species (1859). The information flow arising out of a shared understanding of knowledge from these disciplines may be mutually beneficial. By contextualizing Jesus within evolutionary history, I shall argue that evolutionary theory can inform the Christian conception of human nature in relation to the world and equally, that Christian thinking can contribute to the ethics of scientific and secular engagements with the world. Despite the continued confrontation between science and religion, I hope to negotiate some of the impasses so as to trace a path towards conflict resolution and reconciliation.

Early on, Creationism impeded the improvement of relations between science and religion. Creationists (they are not yet extinct!) support a literalist reading of Creation as described in Genesis. In short, they hold that God, from intelligent design, created all species separately. Hence, for Creationists there is no genetic relatedness between species and no need to invoke evolution as an explanation for life on Earth. Yet, thanks to Darwin, the theory of natural selection radically undermined the notion of intelligent design—and with it the pre-evolutionary alternative of life as an outcome of random physical processes.