Preface

“Natural Theology, in the widest sense” was proposed for inves­tigation by the will of Lord Gifford in 1886.¹ More than a hun­dred years later no one will claim that we have come to any firm conclusions in this task.

The concept of nature has long been the domain of the natural sciences, which have made gigantic progress since the time of Lord Gifford. Yet nature itself is disintegrating in the process. As science is revealing the details of molecular biology and unrav­eling the genetic code, the processes going on in living organisms become accessible to knowledge and manipulation far beyond that delicate harmony established in the evolution of life which had been called Nature by admiring philosophers and poets. At present, no Nature remains to hold hopes for providing the framework for stability, order, and morality; it has been dispelled as a concept and is physically vanishing from our sight under the heap of man-made construction and refuse.

Religion, though, fails to disappear. While all around us gen­erations are growing up factually without religion, the religious forces remain unexpectedly tenacious and impetuous, nay dan­gerous and sometimes disastrous. We are puzzled by the drawing power of new cults and sects, we are horrified by the passions of religious strife in many contemporary conflicts, we are appre­hensive of the growing tide of fundamentalism in different en­campments. More than seventy years of well-organized atheistic education and propaganda did not succeed in abolishing religion in the Soviet empire, and its re-emergence is resuscitating age- old battles. It is no less agonizing to observe the failure of religion to deal with such urgent problems of the day as environment protection and population control.

It is the process of modernization and the growing achieve­ments of science that make us realize more than before how much we are ourselves part of nature. Even if nature has ceased to exist as an immutable essence or matrix and rather appears as an irreversible process of self-organization in transient pat­terns emerging from chaos, we cannot escape from being in­volved in this, formed as we are by the age-old evolution of life. In this sense, biological “nature” is working in each of our acts and thoughts, just as the changes of nature and the threats to nature are affecting our own existence. The study of nature and human self-knowledge should no longer be separated, even if Socrates long ago insisted it was right to do so. And if religion constitutes an integral part of the human world embedded in nature, understanding religion should be part of the same theo­retical effort, in a framework of natural (biological) anthro­pology.

The inquiry concerning “natural theology in the widest sense,” including its historical dimension, thus turns into this question: what has been the raison d'etre for religion in the evolution of human life and culture hitherto? Is there a natural foundation of religion, based on the great and general process of life which has brought forth humanity and still holds sway over it, beyond chance and manipulation, personal idiosyncrasies and social xi conditioning?

As both nature and theology are assuming a nostalgic ring, there is a new incentive to look farther back in history, to conduct an investigation starting with the earliest forms of religion at­tested? The most ancient documents bearing on our tradition come from Near Eastern and Mediterranean civilizations: Mes­opotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Israel, and Greece. The approach based on the earliest written evidence has the advantage of a distanced view, largely exempt from the tensions and anxieties encircling living religions.

An attempt to tie historical and philological research to biolog­ical anthropology requires that one explore fields set far apart, each crowded with innumerable publications, amidst more and more refined and specialized if often conflicting methods, results, and controversies. It is far beyond an individual’s abilities to mas­ter all the relevant discussions. Yet precisely because historians have become aware of how much of their work, beyond the mere retrieval and accumulation of data, is bound by the special pat-

terns, principles, and fashions of their own civilization, they must look beyond the narrow historical perspectives of the past and take into regard the widening scientific horizons of our own xii world. General anthropology will in the end have to merge with biology.

Historical studies presuppose some optimism as to the exis­tence of facts and the possibility of correct accounts. This may sound naive vis-à-vis modern or post-modern tendencies to dis­solve every object of study into interpretations, to be analyzed in turn to detect their tacit preconceptions and tendentious dis­tortions.⁴ Those who cling to a hard core of reality may still claim company with science, which in its most abstract constructs re­mains tied to empirical data. Biology is exploring the “reality” of living organisms with growing success, from self-replicating molecules to human consciousness. Even in the humanities, in­terpretations are not just constructs but hypotheses about reality which does not cease to make itself felt. If, for example, the lan­guage and symbolism of sacrifice in a specific cultural context prompt a variety of interpretations, real bones remain at the site to prove that real killing took place there. Religion is life-and- death realistic—which keeps it close to nature.

Creation of the Sacred