Unfinished Creative Business:

Peacocke Prize Essay—towards an Eastern Orthodox Contemplation of Evolution: Maximus the Confessor's Vision of the Phylogenetic Logoi

“…In recent years, there have been several references made to an apparent similarity between Maximus the Confessor's concept of the logoi and the modern‐day theory of Darwinian evolution. Examples include: the logoi being “ontological codes” (Blowers 2016, 178) or “spiritual DNA” (Theokritoff 2017, 227); “the logoi provide a promising way of thinking about an evolving universe” (Theokritoff 2008, 68–69); organisms and species being ‘…points on evolutionary fitness landscapes…imagined in the mind of God…possessing…“ logoi ”…’ (Southgate 2008, 61); and “…evolution…[moving] forward through various logoi ” (Chenoweth 2020, 180). In each of these cases, the authors suggest that the logoi are somehow involved in both the ontological definition of creatures and their evolutionary development, though they give no detailed explanation of how the logoi relate to our modern‐day understanding of creaturely form and evolutionary change.…”

“…11For an engagement with astrophysics, see Nesteruk (2004, 2015). For references to evolution, see Rossi (2015), Blowers (2016), Chenoweth (2020), and Costache (2003). …”