Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love

Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., is distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University. She has received numerous awards, including the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for She Who Is (1993), the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion for Friends of God and Prophets (1999), and the Book Award of the College Theology Society for Truly Our Sister (2004). She was also the recipient of the John Courtney Murray Award of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Jerome Award of the Catholic Library Association, and the Monika K. Hellwig Award of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

For millennia plant and animal species have received little sustained attention as subjects of Christian theology and ethics in their own right.Focused on the human dilemma of sin and redemptive grace, theology has considered the doctrine of creation to be mainly an overture to the main drama of human being`s relationship to God. What value does the natural world have within the framework of religious belief?The crisis of biodiversity in our day, when species are going extinct at more than 1,000 times the natural rate, renders this question acutely important. Standard perspectives need to be realigned; theology needs to look out of the window, so to speak as well as in the mirror.Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love leads to the conclusion that love of the natural world is an intrinsic element of faith in God and that far from being an add-on, ecological care is at the centre of moral life.

An examination of the relationship between faith in God and the concept of ecological care within a crisis of biodiversity.

Top US Woman Theologian; Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham

AcknowledgementsPreface1 Beasts and Entangled Bank: A Dialogue2 "When We Look..."3 "Endless Forms Most Beautiful"4 Evolution of the Theroy5 The Dwelling Place of God6 Free, Empowered Creation7 All Creation Groaning8 Bearer of Great Promise9 Enter the Humans10 The Community of CreationNotesSelected BibliographyIndex