Imagination religion and morality : an interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

Every human society as well as almost all of human life is infused with ethics. How do we best understand human morality and ethics? I believe responsible ethics rests on a credible understanding of what it means to be human. This thesis proposes that a more comprehensive understanding of the distinctive human imagination, religious awareness, and morality – all of which are significant aspects of being human – will facilitate a more responsible understanding and practice of ethics. Such an understanding entails a bottom-up view, which takes seriously the exploration of the fundamental evolutionary realities of human nature, i.e. a natural history of morality. The quest for understanding the propensity for imagination, religious awareness and morality can be aided by exploring the core role of the evolutionary transition between becoming and being human. Accordingly, this thesis combines a niche construction perspective with fossil and archaeological evidence, highlighting the role of complexity in human evolution, which adds to our understanding of a completely human way of being in the world. A short overview of human evolution in this thesis reveals the substantial impact of changes in behaviour, bodies, and life histories in our human ancestors and ourselves today. The interactive process of niche construction emphasizes a dialectical relationship between organisms and their environments, a process by which organisms modify their own and each other’s evolutionary niches. A distinctively human imagination is part of the explanation for human evolutionary success and accordingly our sense of morality and religious disposition. The methodology this thesis applies is that of an interdisciplinary study combining perspectives of some of the most prominent voices in the modern discourses on imagination, religious awareness, and morality such as Agustín Fuentes, Celia Deane-Drummond, Frans De Waal, Michael Tomasello, Steven Mithen, and Wentzel Van Huyssteen. What results from this approach is, first, a more comprehensive understanding of the human imagination, the capacity for religious awareness and morality. Ultimately, by creatively integrating the various perspectives evident in this study – by way of a philosophical bridge theory between evolutionary anthropology and theology – this thesis attempts to determine whether evolutionary thought can be constructively appropriated to interdisciplinary Christian theology and ethics.