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Evolution of Wisdom: Major and Minor Keys EVOLUTION OF WISDOM: MAJOR AND MINOR KEYS AGUSTÍN FUENTES AND CELIA DEANE-DRUMMOND Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing University of Notre Dame Evolution of Wisdom: Major and Minor Keys by Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Copyright © 2018 Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing, University of Notre Dame CONTENTS Contents v Acknowledgements vii List of Contributors viii Introduction: Transdisciplinarity, Evolution, and Engaging Wisdom 1 Agustín Fuentes and Celia Deane-Drummond PART I. INTERDISCIPLINARY WISDOM 1. Independent Reason, Faith, and a Distinctively Human Wisdom 7 Angela Carpenter 2. Re-Engaging Theology and Evolutionary Biology: The Nature of True Wisdom 15 Nicola Hoggard Creegan 3. Human Origins and the Emergence of a Distinctively Human Imagination 25 J. Wentzel van Huyssteen PART II. EVOLUTIONARY NARRATIVES 4. Technological Intelligence or Social Wisdom? Promiscuous Sociality, Things, 41 and Networks in Human Evolution Fiona Coward 5. The Palaeolithic Archaeological Record and the Materiality of Imagination: A 57 Response to J. Wentzel van Huyssteen Jennifer French 6. How did Hominins become Human? 64 Marc Kissel PART III. WISDOM AND THE MIND 7. De-Centering Humans within Cognitive Systems 83 Marcus Baynes-Rock 8. Practical Wisdom: Good Reasoning or Good Action? 89 Craig IfGand 9. Concepts of Reason and Wisdom 96 Maureen Junker-Kenny 10. Wisdom and Freedom as Reason - Sensitive Action Control 104 Aku Visala PART IV. WISDOM IN THE MINOR KEY 11. Evolution in the Minor Key 115 Tim Ingold 12. A Response to Tim Ingold: Evolution in the Minor Key 124 Karen Kilby 13. In Search of Wisdom’s Roots 127 Dylan Belton PART V. WISDOM’S PARADOX 14. Speaking of Wisdom: How Language Shapes the Conception of Ourselves 137 James Stump 15. Wisdom or Folly? Understanding the Cross in an Evolutionary World 145 Chelsea King 16. The Language of Reality: How Human Beings Created the World 152 Stewart Clem 17. Timeless Wisdom 157 Adam M. Willows 18. Traumatic Violence and Christian Wisdom: Possibilities for Wounding and 162 Healing Julia Feder 19. Wisdom Theology as an Axial Phenomenon: Methodological ReGections on the 170 Jesus Tradition Niels Gregersen 20. The Evolution of Moral Wisdom: What Some Ethicists might learn from Some 183 Evolutionary Anthropologists John Berkman ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This collection of articles originated from papers presented at the Human Distinctiveness: Wisdom’s Deep Evolution conference at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway in July 2017. The conference was the culmination of the transdisciplinary Evolution of Wisdom research project supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation and led by Celia Deane-Drummond and Agustín Fuentes at the University of Notre Dame. Transdisciplinary work of this kind requires humility, curiosity, and a certain measure of risk, and we were fortunate to be able to work with a dedicated and adventurous team of scholars, including Marcus Baynes-Rock, Dylan Belton, Angela Carpenter, Stewart Clem, Julia Feder, Craig Iffland, Chelsea King, Marc Kissel, and Adam M. Willows. Funding for the conference was made possible by grants from the John Templeton Foundation and from the Notre Dame Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters. We have many people to thank for the organization of this event, including Becky Artinian-Kaiser, Katie Rutledge, and Elizabeth Kuhn, and for the staff at the Notre Dame London Gateway for creating such a hospitable environment for the conference. Key speakers at the conference included Fiona Coward (Bournemouth University), Jennifer French (University College London), Niels Gregersen (University of Copenhagen), Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen), Maureen Junker-Kenny (Trinity College Dublin), Jeremy Kendal (Durham University), Karen Kilby (Durham University), J. Wentzel van Huyssteen (Princeton Theological Seminary and University of Stellenbosch), and Aku Visala (University of Helsinki), as well as members of the project team. This is the first ebook project of the Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing, and we gratefully acknowledge Laura Donnelly who cheerfully guided the process, worked on the technical aspects of formatting and website integration, and performed many of the unseen tasks necessary for bringing a volume like this to production. Our many thanks also to Catherine Osbourne for her careful attention to detail in editing the final draft. EVOLUTION OF WISDOM: MAJOR AND MINOR KEYS vii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS MARCUS BAYNES-ROCK is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Notre Dame. His interests lie in the intersection of humans and animals and how these reflect human conceptions of their worlds. His early research was concerned with urban hyenas in Ethiopia and ways in which Ethiopian people integrate hyenas into social and spiritual worlds. He has also researched ways in which Oromo men in Ethiopia conflate identities of humans and horses and how these influence conceptions of self. His current research is concerned with domestication processes in Australia where native animals are being farmed and kept as pets. Email: [email protected] DYLAN BELTON is a Ph.D. candidate in systematic theology at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on the relation between theology, philosophy, and the modern natural sciences, especially evolutionary biology. In his dissertation research, he aims to trace the relation between the disciplines of philosophy of nature and theology and biology from both a historical and systematic perspective, particularly through an exploration of the work of Friedrich Schelling and Hans Jonas. He was also the recipient of the Reverend Joseph H. Cavanaugh award for excellence in theological studies. Email: [email protected] JOHN BERKMAN is a Professor of Moral Theology at Regis College at the University of Toronto. He obtained a B.A. in philosophy at the University of Toronto, and completed his Ph.D. in the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke University. Before joining the Regis College Faculty in 2009, he taught at the Dominican School of Theology and Philosophy and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California and in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. Email: [email protected] ANGELA CARPENTER is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Her dissertation developed a constructive theological account of moral formation, indebted to the theology of John Calvin and in conversation with recent work on children’s moral formation in developmental psychology. She is currently revising this project for a book, tentatively titled Responsive Becoming: Moral Formation in Theological, Evolutionary, and Developmental Perspective. In addition to the conversation between theology and psychology, the book will incorporate insights from evolutionary anthropology into her theological account of moral formation. Email: [email protected] STEWART CLEM is a John Templeton Foundation Graduate Student Scholar and a doctoral candidate in theology at the University of Notre Dame. He holds degrees in theology and philosophy from Duke University and Oklahoma State University, and his research interests include the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas, the ethics of lying and truth-telling, and issues surrounding free speech viii AGUSTÍN FUENTES AND CELIA DEANE-DRUMMOND and public policy. Stewart’s dissertation, “Truth as a Virtue: A Thomistic Framework for the Ethics of Lying and Truth-telling,” offers an interpretation and defense of Aquinas on the virtue of truth and its opposing vices. His articles have appeared in journals including Religious Studies, New Blackfriars, and the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is a priest in The Episcopal Church and lives with his family in South Bend, Indiana. Email: [email protected] FIONA COWARD is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeological Sciences at Bournemouth University. She earned her B.A. (Hons) in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, M.A. in Osteoarchaeology, and Ph.D. in Palaeolithic Archaeology from the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on how and why humans were able to scale up their social lives from the very small social groups we lived in for much of our prehistory to the global social networks which characterise people’s lives today. Email: [email protected] NICOLA HOGGARD CREEGAN teaches systematic theology at the Laidlaw College and the Laidlaw/Carey Graduate School in Auckland, New Zealand. She completed her undergraduate degree in mathematics at Victoria University of Wellington, Austrailia, masters degree from Gordon Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts, and a PhD from Drew University in New Jersey. Email: [email protected] CELIA DEANE–DRUMMOND is a Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and Director of the Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing. She was editor of the journal Ecotheology for six years and has served as chair of the European Forum for the Study of Religion and Environment from 2011 to present. Her recent books include Ecotheology (2008), Christ and Evolution (2009), Creaturely Theology, ed. with David Clough (2009), Religion and Ecology in the Public Sphere, ed. with Heinrich Bedford-Strohm (2011), Animals as Religious
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