The Order of Things: Explorations in Scientific Theology

by Alister E. McGrath (University of Oxford)

• ISBN13: 9780470680599
• ISBN10: 0470680598
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Provocative and immensely well informed, The Order of Things represents a substantial and original contribution to the fields of systematic theology, historical theology, and the science and religion dialogue. Leading theologian, Alister E. McGrath explores how the working methods and assumptions of the natural sciences can be used to inform and stimulate systematic theology. Written by one of today's best-known Christian writers Explores how the working methods and assumptions of the natural sciences can be used to inform and stimulate systematic theology Continues McGrath's acclaimed exploration of scientific theology, begun with his groundbreaking three-volume work, A Scientific Theology Includes a landmark extended analysis of whether doctrinal development can be explained using Darwinian evolutionary models, and exploration of how the transition from a "scientific theology" to a future "scientific dogmatics" might be made Supported by a published review of McGrath's scientific theology project, which is currently the best brief introduction to his thought.

Table of Contents

Preface

Taking the Enlightenment Seriously

Renewing the Quest for Reliable Knowledge

On Developing a Scientific Theology

Introducing the Essays

Alister McGrath's Scientific Theology. A review Article by Dr Benjamin Myers, University of Queensland

Is a "Scientific Theology" Intellectual Nonsense? Engaging with Richard Dawkins

The Universal Scope of the Natural Sciences

Darwinism and the Impossibility of Theology

Faith and Evidence in Science and Theology

Theology as a Virus of the Mind?

Does Theology Impoverish Our View of the Universe?

A University Sermon: On Natural Theology

Towards the Restatement and Renewal of a Natural Theology: A Dialogue with the Classic English Tradition

Natural Theology: an Autobiographical Reflection

Natural Theology as Discernment

The Golden Age of English Natural Theology

The Boyle Lectures and the Problem of Heterodoxy

William Paley and the Divine Watchmaker

The Challenge of Darwinism for Natural Theology

Incarnation, Trinity, and Natural Theology

Responding to Karl Barth: Natural Theology as a Specifically Christian Undertaking

Tradition, Interpretation and the Discovery of God : Natural Theology and Meno's Paradox

Cognitive and perceptual approaches to Natural Theology

Stratification: Levels of Reality and the Limits of Reductionism

Stratification in Nicolai Hartmann

Stratification in Roy Bhaskar

Stratification, Emergence, and the Failure of Reductionism

Mathesis Universalis: Heinrich Scholz and the Flawed Quest for Methodological Uniformity

The Evolution of Doctrine? A Critical Examination of the Theological Validity of Biological Models of Doctrinal Development

Nature as a Source of Theological Models

The Notion of Doctrinal Development

"Universal Darwinism" and the Development of Culture

Are Human Ideas and Values Outside the Darwinian Paradigm?

Darwinianism, Lamarckianism, or What? The Indeterminate Mechanism of Cultural Evolution

Cultural Evolution: an Historical Case Study

Directing Evolution: Antonio Gramsci and the Manipulation of Cultural Development

The Memetic Approach to Intellectual Evolution

Doctrinal Development: are there Islands of Theological Stability?

Contingency, History and Adaptation in the Evolutionary Process

Contingency, History and Adaptation in the Development of Doctrine

Chalcedon, Metaphysics, and Spandrels: Evolutionary Perspectives on the Chalcedonian Definition of Faith

Assimilation in the Development of Doctrine: The Theological Significance of Jean Piaget

Piaget on "Reflective Abstraction"

Assimilation to Jewish Religious Norms: Ebionitism

Assimilation to Roman Cultural Norms: Pelagianism

Assimilation to Anglo-Saxon Cultural Norms: Christ as Hero

The Achievement of Equilibration: Factors Encouraging Theological Accommodation

A Working Paper: The Ordering of the World in a Scientific Theology

A working Paper: Iterative Procedures and Closure in Systematic Theology

The Church as the Starting Point for a Scientific Dogmatics

Starting from the Visible Reality of the Church

Can Theology be Empirical? John Locke versus John Dewey

The church as an Empirical Social Reality

Stanley Hauerwas on Seeing the Church

Transignification and Transvaluation: the Church and New Ways of Sseeing Things

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

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