Ask the Beasts, by Elizabeth Johnson

Does science really matter to faith? The religious truths that Christians cherish came to expression long before Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, and Hawking, so what could science have to teach us about God, Christ, and the meaning of life that we don’t already know from meditation on the Bible and our creeds? What difference can science make to our devotional life and theological reflection?

A lot, says Elizabeth Johnson, one of the most highly regarded contemporary Christian theologians. Professor of theology at Fordham University, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph, and a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Johnson has authored many books skillfully connecting her deep Christian faith with a vibrant intellectual life. For a long time now she has been uncommonly sensitive to questions at the interface of science and religion, and her latest book solidifies her standing in the front ranks of laborers in this increasingly important field of interest.

Ask the Beasts is an original, learned, and compellingly readable enlargement of Christian theology after Darwin. The book’s title is taken from Job 12: “But now ask the beasts to teach you.” Johnson recruits this text as a wedge for opening wide the horizon of Christian theological inquiry to the world now being laid out so lavishly by the natural sciences, especially evolutionary biology.