This book argues that the traditional understanding of natural selection contains an underlying teleology and, when read in dialogue with classical theism, allows for a constructive theological interpretation of evolutionary processes. By drawing out this implicit teleology, it develops an interpretation of natural selection that addresses long-standing challenges in the philosophy of biology, particularly those surrounding the notion of biological fitness, and offers a model of God’s causal relation to evolutionary processes—one that regards God’s activity as at once noninterventionist and yet ubiquitous across all selection events. The author advances an Aristotelian-Thomistic interpretation of fitness (ATTIF) and lays a new foundation for a theology of evolution, engaging with a range of classical and contemporary thinkers. The book will be of primary interest to those in the field of science and religion, as well to scholars of theology and philosophy of religion/science.

Seth P. Hart is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at John Brown University, USA. He received a PhD in Theology from Durham University, UK, and an MSt in Science and Religion from the University of Oxford.