Pannenberg poses theological questions to natural scientists that illuminate his personal position on issues dealing with theology and the natural sciences, especially physics, reviewing the relationship between natural law and contingency, the importance of the spirit in the phenomenon of life, field theory, language, and the theological account for the nature of God and God's creative activity.
Does "nature" still exist? Common wisdom now acknowledges the malleability of nature, the complex reality that circumscribes and constitutes the human. Weather patterns, topographical contours, animal populations, and even our own genetic composition--all of which previously marked the boundary of human agency--now appear subject to our intervention. Some thinkers have suggested that nature has disappeared entirely and that we have entered a postnatural era; others note that nature is an ineradicable context for life. Christian theology, in particular, finds itself in an awkward position. Its Western traditions have long relied upon a static "nature" to express the dynamism of "grace," making nature a foundational category within theology itself. This means that any theological inquiry into the changing face of nature must be reflexive and radically interdisciplinary. This book brings leading natural and social scientists into conversation with prominent Christian theologians and ethicists to wrestle collectively with difficult questions. Is nature undergoing fundamental change? What role does nature play in theological ethics? How might ethical deliberation proceed "without nature" in the future? What does the religious drive to transform human nature have to do with the technological quest to transcend human limits? Would the end of nature make grace less comprehensible?
In the present ecological crisis, it is imperative that human beings reconsider their place within nature and find new, more responsible and sustainable ways of living. Assumptions about the nature of God, the world, and the human being, shape our thinking and, consequently, our acting. Some have charged that the Christian tradition has been more a hindrance than a help because its theology of nature has unwittingly legitimated the exploitation of nature. This book takes the current criticism of Christian tradition to heart and invites a reconsideration of the problematic elements: its desacralization of nature; its preoccupation with the human being to the neglect of the rest of nature; its dualisms and elevation of the spiritual over material reality, and its habit of ignoring or resisting scientific understandings of the natural world. Anna Case-Winters argues that Christian tradition has a more viable theology of nature to offer. She takes a look at some particulars in Christian tradition as a way to illustrate the undeniable problems and to uncover the untapped possibilities. In the process, she engages conversation partners that have been sharply critical and particularly insightful (feminist theology, process thought, and the religion and science dialogue). The criticisms and insights of these partners help to shape a proposal for a reconstructed theology of nature that can more effectively fund our struggle for the fate of the earth.
This book offers a rationale for a new ‘ramified natural theology’ that is in dialogue with both science and historical-critical study of the Bible. Traditionally, knowledge of God has been seen to come from two sources, nature and revelation. However, a rigid separation between these sources cannot be maintained, since what purports to be revelation cannot be accepted without qualification: rational argument is needed to infer both the existence of God from nature and the particular truth claims of the Christian faith from the Bible. Hence the distinction between ‘bare natural theology’ and ‘ramified natural theology.’ The book begins with bare natural theology as background to its main focus on ramified natural theology. Bayesian confirmation theory is utilised to evaluate competing hypotheses in both cases, in a similar manner to that by which competing hypotheses in science can be evaluated on the basis of empirical data. In this way a case is built up for the rationality of a Christian theist worldview. Addressing issues of science, theology and revelation in a new framework, this book will be of keen interest to scholars working in Religion and Science, Natural Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Biblical Studies, Systematic Theology, and Science and Culture.
James F. Sennett and Douglas Groothuis have assembled a distinguished array of scholars to examine the Humean legacy with care and make the case for a more robust, if chastened, natural theology after Hume.
The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology" explores the diversity and vitality o natural theology, both historically and as an issue of contemporary concern.
Biblical and natural theology may not appear to mix, but the two actually do belong together. Vos’s reputation as the father of contemporary biblical theology is not negated by his earlier teaching of natural theology, appearing here for the first time in English. Gathered from source material found in the Heritage Hall archives at Calvin Seminary and University, these are the earliest notes of Vos’s lectures on natural theology. They demonstrate his understanding of Reformed orthodox approaches as well as extensive knowledge of contemporary developments in the subject. The present volume could be regarded as, and may have formed, a partial introduction to Reformed Dogmatics since it lacks a prolegomenon and because Natural Theology discusses religion and the proofs for the existence of God.
Aristotle's cosmological argument is the foundation of Aquinas's doctrine of God. For Thomas, the cosmological argument not only speaks of God's existence but also of God's nature. By learning that the unmoved mover is behind all moving objects, we learn something true about the essence of God-principally, that God is immobile. But therein lies the problem for Thomas. The Catholic Church had already condemned Aristotle's unmoved mover because, according to Aristotle, the unmoved mover is unable to be the moving cause (i.e., Creator) and governor of the universe-or else he would cease to be immobile. By seeking to baptize Aristotle into the Catholic Church, however, Thomas gave his life to seeking to explain how God can be both immobile and the moving cause of the universe. Thomas even looked to the pantheistic philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius for help. But even with Dionysius's aid, Thomas failed to reconcile the god of Aristotle with the Trinitarian God of the Bible. If Thomas would have rejected the natural theology of Aristotle by placing the doctrine of the Trinity, which is known only by divine revelation, at the foundation of his knowledge of God, he would have rid himself of the irresolvable tension that permeates his philosophical theology. Thomas could have realized that the Trinity alone allows for God to be the only self-moving being-because the Trinity is the only being not moved by anything outside himself but freely capable of creating and controlling contingent things in motion.
"When Darwin returned to Britain from the Beagle voyage in 1836, the most talked-about scientific books were the Bridgewater Treatises. This series of eight books was funded by a bequest of the last Earl of Bridgewater, and they were authored by leading men of science, appointed by the President of the Royal Society, and intended to explore "the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested in the creation." Securing public attention beyond all expectations, the series gave Darwin's generation a range of approaches to one of the great questions of the age: how to incorporate the newly emerging disciplinary sciences into Britain's overwhelmingly Christian culture. Drawing on a wealth of archival and published sources, including many unexplored by historians, Jonathan R. Topham examines how and to what extent the series contributed to a sense of congruence between Christianity and the sciences in the generation before the infamous Victorian "conflict between science and religion." He does so by drawing on the distinctive insights of book history, using close attention to the production, circulation, and use of the books to open up new perspectives not only on aspects of early Victorian science but also on the whole subject of science and religion. Its innovative focus on practices of authorship, publishing, and reading helps us to understand the everyday considerations and activities through which the religious culture of early Victorian science was fashioned. And in doing so, Reading the Book of Nature powerfully reimagines the world in which a young Charles Darwin learned how to think about the implications of his theory"--
