Through intimate conversations with some of the world's most distinguished scientists (including two Nobel Laureates), Faith in Science invites
us to explore the connections between scientific and religious
approaches to truth. Subjects range from the existence and nature of God
to the role of spirituality in modern science. The result is a clear
account of how two major cultural forces can work together to offer
unique insights into questions of existence.
How does modern science bear upon such ultimate questions as the origin
of the universe and the existence of God? Cosmos, Bios, Theos is a
portfolio of opinions and arguments from 60 scientists, including 24
Nobel Prize winners, on the relationshiip between the scientific
enterprise and the religious view of reality.
In Cosmos, Bios, Theos Scientists Reflect on Science, God, and the Origins of the Universe, Life, and Homo sapiens.
The book is edited by Henry Margenau and Roy Abraham Varghese.
Historian Edward Grant illuminates how today's scientific culture originated with the religious thinkers of the Middle Ages. In the early centuries of Christianity, Christians studied science and natural philosophy only to the extent that these subjects proved useful for a better understanding of the Christian faith, not to acquire knowledge for its own sake.
However, with the influx of Greco-Arabic science and natural philosophy into Western Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Christian attitude toward science changed dramatically. Despite some tensions in the thirteenth century, the Church and its theologians became favorably disposed toward science and natural philosophy and used them extensively in their theological deliberations.
Dr. John C. Polkinghorne examines whether a personal, interacting God
is a credible concept in today's scientific age. Encouraging the belief
that there is a compatibility between the insights of science and the
insights of religion, this book focuses on the viewpoint that the world is one in which both
human beings and God have the freedom to act.
A modern
understanding of the physical world is applied to questions of prayer
and providence, such as: Do miracles happen? Can prayer change anything?
Why does evil exist? Why does God allow suffering? Why does God need us
to ask him?
God's involvement in time is considered, from both a
temporal and an eternal perspective. The roles of incarnation and
sacrament are discussed in terms of whether or not they have a credible
place in today's worldview. And the Final Anthropic Principle (FAP) is
presented, with its attempt at a physical eschatology, showing it to be
an inadequate basis for hope. Real hope can reside only with God,
Polkinghorne concludes.
John C. Polkinghorne, internationally renowned priest-scientist,
addresses fundamental questions about how scientific and theological
worldviews relate to each other in this, the second volume (originally
published in 1988) of his trilogy, which also included Science and Providence and One World.
Dr. Polkinghorne illustrates how a scientifically minded person
approaches the task of theological inquiry, postulating that there
exists a close analogy between theory and experiment in science and
belief and understanding in theology. He offers a fresh perspective on
such questions as: Are we witnessing today a revival a natural
theology—the search for God through the exercise of reason and the study
of nature? How do the insights of modern physics into the interlacing
of order and disorder relate to the Christian doctrine of Creation? What
is the relationship between mind and matter?
Polkinghorne states that the "remarkable insights that science
affords us into the intelligible workings of the world cry out for an
explanation more profound than that which it itself can provide.
Religion, if it is to take seriously its claim that the world is the
creation of God, must be humble enough to learn from science what that
world is actually like. The dialogue between them can only be mutually
enriching."
The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and
uncivilised behaviour. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there
could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution.
In God's Philosophers, James Hannam debunks many of the myths about
the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth
was flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere; the Inquisition
burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution;
no Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero.
God's Philosophers is a celebration of the forgotten scientific
achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks
to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam.
Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the
mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century
Europe.
Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history, God's
Philosophers brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses
like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as
putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like
Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Contrary to prevailing opinion, the roots of modern science were planted
in the ancient and medieval worlds long before the Scientific
Revolution of the seventeenth century. Indeed, that revolution would
have been inconceivable without the cumulative antecedent efforts of
three great civilisations: Greek, Islamic, and Latin. With the
scientific riches it derived by translation from Greco-Islamic sources
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Christian Latin
civilisation of Western Europe began the last leg of the intellectual
journey that culminated in a scientific revolution that transformed the
world. The factors that produced this unique achievement are found in
the way Christianity developed in the West, and in the invention of the
university in 1200. As this 1997 study shows, it is no mere coincidence
that the origins of modern science and the modern university occurred
simultaneously in Western Europe during the late Middle Ages.
Science and Christianity. Are they partners or opponents? Christians
have long debated the relationship of science to faith. With the rise of
Darwinism, however, the issue took on new significance. Darwinism
appeared to undermine the authority of the Bible and the credibility of
Christianity by freeing science of the need for a Creator. Rethinking
the relationship between science and Christianity quickly became a
priority.
- How does a faithful Christian respond to the pronouncements of contemporary science?
- Is science a help or a hindrance to belief?
- Are science and the Bible in conflict?
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Christians continue to
wonder whether faith and science are partners or opponents. In this book
six Christian scholars sort through the issues as they present four
different views on the relationship of science and Christianity. These
include Wayne Frair and Gary D. Patterson for "creationism," Jean Pond
for "independence," Stephen C. Meyer for "qualified agreement" and
Howard J. Van Till for "partnership." Each contributor responds to the
other scholars, noting points of agreement and disagreement. Editor
Richard F. Carlson offers an introduction to this contemporary debate as
well as a postscript to help us evaluate the strengths and weaknesses
of each view.
Sweeping in scope, penetrating in analysis, and generously illustrated
with examples from the history of science, this new and original
approach to familiar questions about scientific evidence and method
tackles vital questions about science and its place in society. Avoiding
the twin pitfalls of scientism and cynicism, noted philosopher Susan Haack argues that, fallible and flawed as they are, the natural sciences
have been among the most successful of human enterprises -- valuable
not only for the vast, interlocking body of knowledge they have
discovered, and not only for the technological advances that have
improved our lives, but as a manifestation of the human talent for
inquiry at its imperfect but sometimes remarkable best. This
wide-ranging, trenchant, and illuminating book explores the complexities
of scientific evidence, and the multifarious ways in which the sciences
have refined and amplified the methods of everyday empirical inquiry;
articulates the ways in which the social sciences are like the natural
sciences, and the ways in which they are different; disentangles the
confusions of radical rhetoricians and cynical sociologists of science;
exposes the evasions of apologists for religious resistance to
scientific advances; weighs the benefits and the dangers of technology;
tracks the efforts of the legal system to make the best use of
scientific testimony; and tackles predictions of the eventual
culmination, or annihilation, of the scientific enterprise. Writing with
verve and wry humour, in a witty, direct, and accessible style, Haack
takes readers beyond the "Science Wars" to a balanced understanding of
the value, and the limitations, of the scientific enterprise.
Feeling the Spirit of Enquiry The science delusion is the belief that
science already understands the nature of reality. The fundamental
questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. In
this book, Dr Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative
scientists, shows that science is being constricted by assumptions that
have hardened into dogmas. The 'scientific worldview' has become a
belief system. All reality is material or physical. The world is a
machine, made up of dead matter. Nature is purposeless. Consciousness is
nothing but the physical activity of the brain. Free will is an
illusion. God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within
our skulls.
Sheldrake examines these dogmas scientifically, and shows
persuasively that science would be better off without them: freer, more
interesting, and more fun. In The God Delusion Richard Dawkins used
science to bash God, but here Rupert Sheldrake shows that Dawkins'
understanding of what science can do is old-fashioned and itself a
delusion.
In just a half century, humanity has made an astounding leap in its
understanding of life. Now, one of the giants of biological science,
Christian de Duve, discusses what we've learned in this half century,
ranging from the tiniest cells to the future of our species and of life
itself.
With wide-ranging erudition, de Duve takes us on a
dazzling tour of the biological world, beginning with the invisible
workings of the cell, the area in which he won his Nobel Prize. He
describes how the first cells may have arisen and suggests that they may
have been like the organisms that exist
today near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Contrary to many other
scientists, he argues that life was bound to arise and that it probably
only took millennia —maybe tens of thousands of years— to move from
rough building blocks to the first organisms possessing the basic
properties of life. With equal authority, De Duve examines topics such
as the evolution of humans, the origins of consciousness, the
development of language, the birth of science, and the origin of
emotion, morality, altruism, and love. He concludes with his conjectures
on the future of humanity —for instance, we may evolve, perhaps via
genetic engineering, into a new species— he shares his personal
thoughts about God and immortality.
In Life Evolving, one
of our most eminent scientists sums up
what he has learned about the nature of life and our place in the
universe. An extraordinarily wise and humane volume, it will fascinate
readers curious about the world around them and about the impact of
science on philosophy and religion.
Written by distinguished historians of science and religion, the thirty
essays in this volume survey the relationship of Western religious
traditions to science from the beginning of the Christian era to the
late twentieth century. This wide-ranging collection also introduces a
variety of approaches to understanding their intersection, suggesting a
model not of inalterable conflict, but of complex interaction.
Tracing
the rise of science from its birth in the medieval West through the
scientific revolution, the contributors describe major shifts that were
marked by discoveries such as those of Copernicus, Galileo, and Isaac
Newton and the Catholic and Protestant reactions to them. They assess
changes in scientific understanding brought about by eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century transformations in geology, cosmology, and biology,
together with the responses of both mainstream religious groups and such
newer movements as evangelicalism and fundamentalism. The book also
treats the theological implications of contemporary science and
evaluates recent approaches such as environmentalism, gender studies,
social construction, and postmodernism, which are at the center of
current debates in the historiography, understanding, and application of
science.
Editor: Gary Ferngren.
Contributors: Colin A. Russell, David B. Wilson,
Edward Grant, David C. Lindberg, Alnoor Dhanani, Owen Gingerich, Richard
J. Blackwell, Edward B. Davis, Michael P. Winship, John Henry, Margaret
J. Osler, Richard S. Westfall, John Hedley Brooke, Nicolaas A. Rupke,
Peter M. Hess, James Moore, Peter J. Bowler, Ronald L. Numbers, Steven
J. Harris, Mark A. Noll, Edward J. Larson, Richard Olson, Craig Sean
McConnell, Robin Collins, William A. Dembski, David N. Livingstone, Sara
Miles, and Stephen P. Weldon.
"On the threshold of the third millennium, a Christian cannot ignore
the special role of science in the transformation of contemporary
civilization.... In a lucid, compelling way, Science and Belief in the
Nuclear Age describes our responsibility for this intellectual heritage
that is so essential for Christian tradition. Hodgson, without claiming
science should become religion or religion science, convincingly
describes an academic community of intellectual interchange that
replaces former conflicts and partial perspectives by a new integral
vision of science open to theological truth."
Peter Hodgson has lectured on and tutored physics and mathematics in the
University of Oxford for forty years, and has been engaged on research
in experimental and Theoretical nuclear physics for over fifty years. He
was a member of the Council of Atomic Scientists’ Association from
1952-1959 and edited its journal from 1953-1955. He has written about
sixteen books and three hundred research papers and is a Fellow of
Corpus Christi College and the Institute of Physics. He is the President
of the Science Secretariat of Pax Romana, and recently served as a
consultant to the Pontifical Consilium for Cultures.
- Focuses on the deep relationship between philosophical concepts and modern scientific theory
- Traces the complex historical paths along which basic concepts of the natural world have evolved
- Written by an esteemed philosopher and author, Michael Heller, who is also the winner of the 2008 Templeton Prize
The traditional topics of the "philosophy of nature" — space, time, causality, the structure of the universe — are overwhelmingly present in our modern scientific theories. This book traces the complex paths that discussion of these topics has followed, from Plato and Aristotle, through Descartes, Leibniz, Kant and other great thinkers, right up to the relativistic cosmologies and the grand unified theories of contemporary science. In the light of this historical development, it becomes clear that modern science gives us not only a technological power over the world, but also a deeper understanding of physical reality. In this sense, science could be regarded as an heir to the traditional "philosophy of nature". Moreover, the reader will learn why science itself deserves to be the subject of philosophical reflection.
Science and religion have long been thought incompatible. But nowhere
has this apparent contradiction been more fully resolved than in the
figure of A. S. Eddington (1882–1944), a pioneer in astrophysics,
relativity, and the popularization of science, and a devout Quaker. Practical Mystic uses
the figure of Eddington to shows how religious and scientific values
can interact and overlap without compromising the integrity of either.
Eddington was a world-class scientist who not only maintained his religious
belief throughout his scientific career but also defended the
interrelation of science and religion while drawing inspiration from
both for his practices. For instance, at a time when a strict adherence
to deductive principles of physics had proved fruitless for
understanding the nature of stars, insights from Quaker mysticism led
Eddington to argue that an outlook less concerned with certainty and
more concerned with further exploration was necessary to overcome the
obstacles of incomplete and uncertain knowledge.
By examining this intersection between liberal religion and astrophysics, Practical Mystic
questions many common assumptions about the relationship between
science and spirituality. Matthew Stanley’s analysis of Eddington’s
personal convictions also reveals much about the practice, production,
and dissemination of scientific knowledge at the beginning of the
twentieth century.
The claim is often heard that science and religion are in
irreconcilable conflict. However, when the essence of
science and the essence of religion are examined more
closely, this viewpoint may appear as simply a mirage.
The first and vital step in this investigation is to
understand that only physics (including astronomy,
chemistry and molecular biology) qualifies as exact
science. In this book the author, Stanley L. Jaki,explains how this is so,
and then explores what physicists themselves have
claimed physics to be. Next he considers what these
physicists have said as philosophers regarding physics,
and after that shows what their investigations of the
history of physics have revealed.
The result is that the function of numbers is seen as
the determinant factor in the nature of physics. If such
is the case, and as long as religion is viewed as a set of
propositions which are not subject to measurement,
which numbers make possible, then a conflict between
religion and exact science can only be a mirage.
A chapter on the ideologies grafted onto physics
provides further information on this crucial point. The
next to last chapter deals with the inclement climate of
opinion that prevents a fair consideration of these
points. The last chapter gives a concrete analysis of
some cases that often come up in debates regarding
science and religion.
The Beginning According to Genesis and Science
What did the writer of Genesis mean by 'the first day'? Is it a literal
week or a series of time periods? If I believe that the earth is 4.5
billion years old, am I denying the authority of Scripture?
In response
to the continuing controversy over the interpretation of the creation
narrative in Genesis, John Lennox proposes a succinct method of reading
and interpreting the first chapters of Genesis without discounting
either science or Scripture. With examples from history, a brief but
thorough exploration of the major interpretations, and a look into the
particular significance of the creation of human beings, Lennox suggests
that Christians can heed modern scientific knowledge while staying
faithful to the biblical narrative. He moves beyond a simple response to
the controversy, insisting that Genesis teaches us far more about the
God of Jesus Christ and about God's intention for creation than it does
about the age of the earth. With this book, Lennox offers a careful yet
accessible introduction to a scientifically-savvy, theologically-astute,
and Scripturally faithful interpretation of Genesis.
Most often, the dialogue between religion and science is initiated by
the discoveries of modern science —big bang cosmology, evolution, or
quantum theory, for example. In this book, scientist-theologian John Polkinghorne changes the discussion. He approaches the dialogue from a
little-explored perspective in which theology shapes the argument and
sets the agenda of questions to be considered.
The author begins with a
review of approaches to science and religion in which the classification
focuses on theological content rather than on methodological technique.
He then proceeds with chapters discussing the role of Scripture, a
theology of nature, the doctrine of God, sacramental theology, and
eschatology.
Throughout, Polkinghorne takes the perspective of
Trinitarian thinking while arguing in a style that reflects the
influence of his career as a theoretical physicist. In the final
chapter, the author defends the appropriateness of addressing issues of
science and religion from the specific standpoint of his Christian
belief. His book provides an important model for theologians and
scientists alike, showing how their two fields can inform one another in
significant ways.
A. R. Peacocke's Creation and the World of Science, an expanded
version of his 1978 Bampton Lectures, was widely recognized as a key
work on the relation of the sciences to religion, in general, and
Christian theology in particular. It has long been seen as a formative
contribution to the wide-ranging investigations which now,
internationally, constitute this intensely active field. This new
reprinting contains the original and influential text and also contains a
new supplement containing key references to the literature of recent
years as well as indicating the author's current position on central
themes. It constitutes an essential
reference and starting point for the contemporary discussion of key
issues in the dialogue between the sciences and theology.
The voice of a renowned professor of philosophy in Poland, who is also a Roman Catholic priest, is introduced to the United States in this collection of his provocative essays on the interplay of science and religion. Michael Heller progressively outlines systematic steps that might lead to a peaceful coexistence of these traditionally separate fields of study. Some essays have their roots in the author's work in physics and cosmology, while others present his theories on the language of God, creation, and transcendence, inspired by his work in the applications of so-called noncommutative geometry, an emerging field of study.
