Jenseits von Eigennutz

Current perspectives of evolutionary theory examine religion with regard to the question of how it developed evolutionarily or what its evolutionary advantage lies or whether religion represents an evolutionary advantage at all (e.g. Pascal Boyer, Justin L. Barrett, Stewart E. Guthrie, David S. . Wilson). In contrast, this work brings up evolutionary perspectives in a different way. It positions the biblical social ethos in opposition to evolutionarily successful behavior. Charity towards strangers and renunciation of status are biblically determined as required behavior compared to an evolutionarily successful behavior of worrying about increasing one's own chances of survival and reproduction at the expense of others. At the same time, from the perspective of an evolutionary anthropology, humans are natural and cultural beings, driven by archaic instincts and at the same time capable of teaching and learning. He can design narratives and rituals that inform his behavior beyond archaic instincts. In this sense, Christian faith exercises a perception of the world based on the believed goodness of God, according to which possibilities of life do not need to be played off against one another, but can be developed together. He thus contradicts evolutionarily shaped behavioral and perceptual structures of humans (cf. sociobiology, evolutionary psychology).