A Christian Natural Theology of Chance and Contingency: Toward an Evolutionary Telos for Late-Modern Theology by Bradford McCall

Description

In A Christian Natural Theology of Chance and Contingency, Bradford McCall asks a pressing question for theology after Darwin: can Christian faith still speak meaningfully about divine purpose in a world shaped by randomness, evolutionary contingency, extinction, and unpredictable historical change?

Rather than treating chance as a threat to belief in God, McCall argues that chance may be one of the ways creation remains open, fertile, and capable of genuine novelty. Drawing on Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of tychism, Alister McGrath’s renewed vision of natural theology, process theology, philosophy of biology, and contemporary debates over causation and determinism, the book reframes the relationship between God, nature, and evolutionary history. McCall rejects both rigid determinism and a simplistic “God-of-the-gaps” approach. In their place, he develops a more dynamic account of divine involvement, one in which God’s purposes are not imposed on creation from the outside but emerge through the living, contingent, and unfinished processes of the natural world.

This is a work for readers who want a serious but readable engagement with science and faith. It speaks to theologians, philosophers, scientists, students, pastors, and intellectually curious readers who wonder whether evolution leaves room for providence, purpose, and hope. McCall’s answer is neither defensive nor reductionistic: chance is real, contingency matters, and theology must take both seriously. Yet precisely there, in a universe still becoming, Christian natural theology may discover a deeper and more compelling vision of creation.