This fascinating book by the author of The Moral Animal, Robert Wright, is a work of great intellectual depth and breadth, as well as occasional bursts of droll humor. The subject is an exploration of the human concept of divinity, which Wright traces from what is known about the pre-historic religions of the hunter-gatherer societies, through the gods of chiefdoms and the nation states, through the transition from polytheism to the three major monotheistic Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His major point is that cultural evolution shapes the human conception of God in accordance with the geopolitics on the ground. He examines different parts of scripture in terms of the historical context in which those particular parts were written. He makes the case that God exhibits greater moral development (greater alignment with moral truth) at times in history when it served a cultural/political purpose for people to expand the cooperative nature of their social relationships. He calls this "non-zero-sumness." When societies move beyond a win/lose, zero-sum dynamic, their concept of God grows accordingly. He seems optimistic that the world and the human understanding of God is evolving in a positive direction. I appreciate this perspective, but, when confronted with the news, find it difficult to be so optimistic. I do agree with him about the necessity for humankind to move in the direction of recognizing a "moral axis of the universe" that transcends the particularities of religious tradition. The author uses historical scholarship, biblical scholarship and game theory (1) to explain how monotheism evolved from pluralistic paganism. The result has done more to change my personal thinking than any other book I've read in recent years. I found many new ideas about the relationship between God and Man and the nature progress and history itself. Highly recommended. I will return to this book, I'm sure.
What do You think about The Evolution Of God (2009)?
Quite possibly the best book written on the cultural evolution of Abrahamism.
—joscark
