Macroevolution, Contingency, and Divine Activity: Divine Involvement Through Uncontrolling, Amorepotent Love in an Evolutionary World

What are the things that God values in the creative process? How does one define God's activity in such a world? How is God's involvement different from a contingent--what this author labels contingentist--instance? Why do we need a God-idea at all? Herein, Bradford McCall addresses how divine, amorepotent love works with and within a contingentist (i.e., radically contingent) evolutionary theory and worldview. Within the course of this project, he reaches a via media between the (somewhat) radical formalist position of Simon Conway Morris and the veritably radical contingent position of Stephen Jay Gould. But . . . how is the contingentist amorepotent and uncontrolling love of God understood as purposeful? McCall argues in detail that there in fact is some sort of purposiveness that is nevertheless working in a chastened Gouldian position, and he distinguishes between contingency and veritable divine involvement. He contends that God does not insist upon a particular outcome but merely allows propensities to work themselves out. God amorepotently loves the population of the natural world into greater forms of complexity, relationality, and beauty in varied and multifarious forms, along with the extension of diversity.

Bradford McCall is a theist, a Christian, and a practicing Catholic. My faith is deeply informed by both evolution and philosophy. Although science and philosophy are influences, they do not replace my deep Christian faith and experience. So then, "process" is a component of my understanding of God "in an evolutionary world." But it is not a metaphysical dogma, for it is not my goal to be a Whiteheadian (or a Peircean for that matter). These thinkers assist me; they do not provide a fundamental orientation for me. I am closer to process than to (say) Thomism, but this does not make me a Whiteheadian, as per se. I think that is where I differ from David Ray Griffin, Thomas Jay Oord, Roland Faber, and perhaps even Philip Clayton. I have been fortunate in that I have one B.S. in Biology, four Master degrees in Religion and Philosophy, and one PhD in Process Philosophy. My possibly penultimate training was received from Claremont School of Theology in May of 2022 (PhD). I have five books to my credit, four as author, and one as editor, all published with Wipf & Stock or one of their imprints. I have another 5 books under contract with the same company as well. Very fortunate indeed.