Biology and the future: a doctrinal agenda.

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE is a proposed agenda, not a developed theological treatise. It is concerned exclusively with work to be done, not with work already accomplished. It is an attempt to establish a context, to present a beginning to a doctrinal conversation that will occupy the Church for a long time. It should therefore be read as an attempt to look at a whole set of contemporary issues which have received little serious doctrinal attention so far. It contains no special insights into specific issues; it concentrates primarily on raising initial questions which, I hope, will lead to more appropriately stated questions. As a physics professor of mine used to state, "You will not get the correct answer until you have asked the correct question." This is an approach to the questions proper to, it seems, the most significant theological opportunity and challenge of the 21st century.