Natural Religion and Christian Theology: I. Science and Religion

1954 ◽  
Vol 199 (feb) ◽  
pp. 88-89
1957 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 218-219
Author(s):  
William H. Poteat

Author(s):  
Alister E. McGrath

Our understanding of human rationality has changed significantly since the year 2000, with growing emphasis placed on multiple rationalities, each adapted to the specific tasks of communities of practice. We may think of the world as an ontological unity—but we use a plurality of methods to investigate and represent this world. This development has called into question both the appeal to a universal rationality, characteristic of the Enlightenment, and also the simple ‘modern–postmodern’ binary. This work is the first major study to explore the emergence of multiple situated rationalities. It focusses on the relation of the natural sciences and Christian theology, but its approach can easily be extended to other disciplines. It provides a robust intellectual framework for discussion of transdisciplinarity, which has become a major theme in many parts of the academic world. The work offers a major reappraisal of what it means to be ‘rational’ which will have significant impact on older discussions of this theme. It explores the consequences of the seemingly inexorable move away from the notion of a single universal rationality towards a plurality of cultural and domain-specific methodologies and rationalities. What does this mean for the natural sciences? For the philosophy of science? For Christian theology? And for the exciting and important interdisciplinary field of science and religion? How can a single individual hold together scientific and religious ideas, when these arise from quite different rational approaches? This ground-breaking volume sets out to engage these questions. In doing so, it is certain to provoke intense discussion and debate.


1954 ◽  
Vol 51 (21) ◽  
pp. 642
Author(s):  
Philip H. Phenix ◽  
Charles E. Raven

Author(s):  
Alister E. McGrath

This chapter considers what it means to ‘explain’ something in the natural sciences and Christian theology. A number of theories of explanation are considered, including ‘ontic’ and ‘epistemic’ approaches to explanation. Their respective merits and applications are examined. Particular attention is paid to ‘unitative explanation’, the idea that a good theory is able to enfold other theories, or enable things which were previously seen as unrelated to be considered as part of a greater coherent whole. The implications of these reflections for theological explanation are then considered, with the focus on one of Thomas Aquinas’s famous arguments for the existence of God—the ‘Second Way’.


2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen

In a series of three articles, presented at the Goshen Annual Conference on Science and Religion in 2015, with the theme ‘Interdisciplinary Theology and the Archeology of Personhood’, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen considers the problem of human evolution – also referred to as ‘the archaeology of personhood’ – and its broader impact on theological anthropology. These Goshen Lectures explore the potentiality that the history of human evolution provides bridge theories to theological anthropology and thus to a positive and constructive way of appropriating Darwinian thought for a public, interdisciplinary Christian theology. Lecture One tracks a select number of contemporary proposals for the evolution of aspects of human personhood. These aspects were of significance for Darwin: the evolution of cognition; the evolution of imagination, music and language; the evolution of morality; and the evolution of the religious disposition. The article acknowledges the close ties to hominid ancestors and focuses on the emergence of human distinctiveness, consciousness and personhood, and the propensity for religious awareness and experience.


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