Table of Contents
Foreword David Bentley Hart xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: A Christian Theology of Science 1
The Difference between And and Of
Naming the Uneasy History of Science and Christian Theology
Adaptation
Withdrawal
Appropriation
Failed Strategies of War and Peace between Science and Religion
The Challenge of Making a New Start
1 Starting Definitions of Christian Theology and of Science 11
1.1 What Is Christian Theology?
1.2 What Is Science?
1.3 Prescriptive Theology and Descriptive Science
1.4 Christian Theology and Science?
2 Viewing Christian Theology through the Truth Lens of Science 18
2.1 Empiricism and Christian Theology
2.2 Rationalism and Christian Theology
2.3 Physical Reductionism and Christian Theology
2.4 Are Modern Science and Christian Theology Incompatible?
3 Christian Theology as a First Truth Discourse 26
3.1 Secularization and Interpretation
3.2 The Primary Interpretive Commitments of Christian Theology
3.2.1 God
3.2.2 God as the Source of All Created Essence and Existence
3.3 Theocentric Foundations versus Egocentric Foundations
4 Viewing Science through the Truth Lens of Christian Theology 40
4.1 Christian Theology and Empiricism
4.2 Christian Theology and Rationalism
4.3 Christian Theology and Physical Reductionism
4.3.1 Nominalism and Physical Reductionism
4.3.2 Voluntarism and Physical Reductionism
4.3.3 Pure Matter and Physical Reductionism
4.4 Physical Reducrionism Is a Useful and Dangerous Abstraction
5 The Remarkable Reversal-Revisiting History 74
5.1 Modern Scientific Historiography and Christian Theology
5.2 The Social Sciences and Christian Theology
5.1 "Science and Religion" and Christian Theology after the 1870s
5.3.1 Functional Demarcation
5.3.2 Autonomous Overlap
5.3.3 Integration
5.4 The Unremarkable Remarkable Reversal
6 Thinking "After" Science but Not "After" Christian Theology 91
6.1 "After" Science
6.1 Not "After" Christian Theology
7 Rediscovering Christian Theological Epistemology 99
7.1 The Fall, the Foundations of Science, and Two Theological Anthropology Trajectories
7.2 Is Nature Knowable?
7.3 Can Fallen Humanity Know Nature?
7.4 Complexity Issues regarding Natural Light and Divine Light
7.5 Distinguishing and Integrating Natural Light and Divine Light
7.6 An Integrative Zone for "Science and Religion" Today?
7.7 Ockham's Pincer
7.8 Christian Theological Epistemology and Post-Victorian Science
8 Myth and History-the Fall and Science 131
8.1 Myth and History in Christian Theology
8.2 Eternity and Time
8.3 Myth Defines Norms
8.4 The Myth of Secular Progress Falters
8.5 Ricæur on the Four Basic Mythic Archetypes
8.5.1 The Mythos of Original Violence
8.5.2 The Fall Mythos
8.5.3 The Tragic Mythos
8.5.4 The Mythos of Exile
8.6 Ricæur on Myth, Time, and Power
8.7 What Stands and Falls with the Edenic Fall?
8.8 On Finding What You Are Looking for-the "Myth" of Epistemic Neutrality
8.9 Eden and the Shibboleth Dynamic
8.10 Myth and History-Adam and the Fall
8.11 Myth and Christian Theological Epistemology
9 Recovering an Integrative Zone 157
9.1 The "Myth" of the Autonomy of Science from Theology
9.2 Obstacles to Recovering the Integration of Knowledge and Understanding
9.3 Christian Theology's Need for an Integrative Zone for Knowledge and Understanding
9.4 Rejecting the Sublimation of Understanding into Knowledge
9.5 Obstacles to Integrating Christian Theological Understanding with Scientific Knowledge
9.6 What a Working Integrative Zone for Christian Theology and Modern Science Might Look Like
9.7 A Confident and Uncomfortable Stance
Epilogue: The Future? 177
Glossary 183
Bibliography 195
Index 205