Chance, Necessity, Love

Book excerpt: What exactly is cancer? And where is God and what is love amidst the complex evolutionary development of all cancers? In Chance, Necessity, Love: An Evolutionary Theology of Cancer, Hummel and Woloschak address these questions that arise for many people with cancer and in all who grapple with making meaning of science about cancers. In order to do so, the authors first clarify new scientific findings about cancer and then offer faithful and wise theological perspectives on these discoveries. In doing so, they make plain what cannot and can be changed about cancer. And, in doing so, they show how cancer is an evolutionary disease that develops according to the same dynamics of chance (that is, random occurrences) and necessity (law-like regularities) at work in all other evolutionary phenomena. Therefore, they ask: where is God and what is love within the evolutionary chance and necessity operative throughout all aspects of cancer? They offer the readers thoughtful responses to this question and many others—life, death, hope, acceptance, and love—given the evolutionary nature of cancer.