Bücher der Reihe Routledge Science and Religion Series

This book sets out a new agenda for science-theology interactions and offers examples of what that agenda might look like when implemented.

This book sets out a new agenda for science-theology interactions and offers examples of what that agenda might look like when implemented. It explores, in innovative ways, what follows for science-theology discussions from recent developments in the history of science. The contributions take seriously the historically conditioned nature of the categories 'science' and 'religion' and consider the ways in which these categories are reinforced in the public sphere. Reflecting on the balance of power between theology and the sciences, the authors demonstrate a commitment to moving beyond traditional models of one-sided dialogue and seek to give theology a more active role in determining the interdisciplinary agenda.

The controversy over Intelligent Design (ID) has now continued for over two decades, with no signs of ending. With a balanced analysis of a controversial debate, this volume argues that beliefs about the purposiveness or non-purposiveness of nature should not be based merely on science.

In 1981, Robert John Russell founded the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. This book assesses Robert Russell's impact on the discipline of science and religion. It focuses on three areas of Russell's work - methodology, cosmology, and divine action in quantum physics.

Drawing upon the disciplines of cognitive science, computer science, neuroscience, general systems theory, pragmatic philosophy, and Christian theology, this book reinterprets the traditional doctrine of the soul as form of the body to frame contemporary scientific study of the human soul.

Machines and gadgets not only weave the fabric of daily life, but more importantly embody philosophical and religious values which shape the contemporary moral vision-a vision that is often at odds with Christian convictions. This book critically examines those values.

This book explores ways in which Western literature has engaged with themes found within the field of science and religion, both historically and in the present day. It focuses on works of the imagination as important locations at which human arguments, hopes and fears may be played out. The chapters examine a variety of instances where scientific and religious ideas are engaged by novelists, poets and dramatists, casting new light upon those ideas and suggesting constructive ways in which science and religion may interact. The contributors cover a rich variety of authors, including Mary Shelley, Aldous Huxley, R. S. Thomas, Philip Pullman and Margaret Atwood. Together they form a fascinating set of reflections on some of the significant issues encountered within the discourse of science and religion, indicating ways in which the insights of creative artists can make a valuable and important contribution to that discourse.

This volume offers an original perspective on divine providence by examining philosophical, psychological, and theological perspectives on human providence as exhibited in virtuous human behaviours. Divine providence is one of the most pressing issues in analytic theology and philosophy of religion today, especially in view of scientific evidence for a natural world full of indeterminacies and contingencies. Therefore, we need new ways to understand and explain the relations of divine providence and creaturely action.The volume is structured dynamically, going from chapters on human providence to those on divine providence, and back. Drawing on insights from virtue ethics, psychology and cognitive science, the philosophy of providence in the face of contingent events, and the theology of grace, each chapter contributes to an original overall perspective: that human providential action is a resource suited specifically to personal action and hence related to the purported providential action of a personal God.By putting forward a fresh take on divine providence, this book enters new territory on an age-old issue. It will therefore be of great interest to scholars of theology and philosophy.

Assumptions about the nature of God, the world, and human being, shape our thinking and, consequently, our acting. Some say that the Christian tradition has been a hindrance than help because its theology of nature has legitimated the exploitation of nature. This book argues that Christian tradition has a more viable theology of nature to offer.

This volume engages with the relative absence and underrepresentation of female voices in the field of science and religion, which tends to be dominated by male academics who are in the later stages of their careers.

Is the human self unified or do we each have several selves? This book explores the answers that Christian theology and the secular Human Sciences tend to give to this question. Introducing a framework to distinguish the understandings of self-plurality, this work argues that Theology's blanket condemnation of the notion is inappropriate.

Aims to clarify theological and philosophical dialogue on the posthuman by arguing that theologians must pay attention to which form of the posthuman they are engaging, and to demonstrate that a "posthuman theology" is not only possible, but desirable, when the vision of the posthuman is one which coincides with a theological vision of the human.

Humans are unique in their ability to reflect on themselves. Ideas of human nature in the West have always been shaped by the interplay of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. This book offers contributions to the quest for an account of ourselves that does justice to the developments in theology, science, technology, and philosophy.

Intends to bridge the reductionist divide between science and religion through examination and critique of different aspects of the cognitive science of religion and offers a conciliatory approach that investigates the multiple causal factors involved in the emergence of religion.

The cognitive science of religion is a new discipline that looks at the roots of religious belief in the cognitive architecture of the human mind. The Roots of Religion deals with the philosophical and theological implications of the cognitive science of religion which grounds religious belief in human cognitive structures: religious belief is ΓÇÖnaturalΓÇÖ, in a way that even scientific thought is not. Does this new discipline support religious belief, undermine it, or is it, despite many claims, perhaps eventually neutral? This subject is of immense importance, particularly given the rise of the ΓÇÖnew atheismΓÇÖ. Philosophers and theologians from North America, UK and Australia, explore the alleged conflict between truth claims and examine the roots of religion in human nature. Is it less ΓÇÖnaturalΓÇÖ to be an atheist than to believe in God, or gods? On the other hand, if we can explain theism psychologically, have we explained it away. Can it still claim any truth? This book debates these and related issues.

Presents a celebration, survey and critique of the theological work of arguably the most important and most widely-read contributor to the modern dialogue between science and theology: John Polkinghorne. Including a major survey by Polkinghorne himself of his life's work in theology, this book focuses on key aspects of Polkinghorne's work.

In the 1990s, great strides were taken in clarifying how the brain is involved in behaviors that had seldom been studied by neuroscientists or psychologists. This book explores the progress begun during that momentous decade in understanding why we behave, think and feel the way we do, especially in those areas that interface with religion.

In Being as Communion philosopher and mathematician William Dembski provides a non-technical overview of his work on information. Dembski attempts to make good on the promise of John Wheeler, Paul Davies, and others that information is poised to replace matter as the primary stuff of reality.

Laying the groundwork for a new synthesis of scientific and theological dialogue, this book proposes that neurotheology, a term fraught with potential problems, is a highly useful and important voice in the greater study of religious and theological ideas and their intersection with science.

For many, technology symbolises the faith of the postmodern world, but it is an ambivalent faith encapsulating both the hope and fear for the future. This book examines the religious foundations underlying this troubled faith in technology, as well as critically and constructively engaging technological developments from a theological perspective.

Bringing the specific themes of Christology into dialogue with contemporary science, this work engages developments in late modern philosophy of science in order to articulate the Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ in a way that responds to challenges and opportunities that have arisen in light of various scientific discoveries.

This volume offers an original perspective on divine providence by examining philosophical, psychological, and theological perspectives on human providence as exhibited in virtuous human behaviours.

This volume examines the way in which cultural ideas about "the heavens" shape religious ideas and are shaped by them in return.

Provides a critical philosophical analysis of the claim that contemporary cognitive approaches to religion undermine theistic beliefs. The book argues that such naturalism is not necessary for the cognitive study of religion and develops an alternative philosophical and methodological framework.