Scientific Theology Vol. 1 : Nature

by McGrath, Alister E.

• ISBN13: 9780802839251
• ISBN10: 0802839258
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-01
• Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co

Summary

A Scientific Theology is a groundbreaking work of systematic theology in three volumes: Nature, Reality, and Theory. Written by one of the world's best-known theologians, these volumes together represent the most extended and systematic exploration of the relation between Christian theology and the natural sciences yet produced. Thoroughly ecumenical, this will be a significant work for Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and evangelical readers. The work is marked throughout by a sustained and critical engagement with the history and philosophy of the natural sciences and by a passionate commitment to the legitimacy of theology as an academic discipline.

Author Biography

Alister E. McGrath is professor of historical theology at Oxford University, director of the John Templeton Oxford Seminars on Science and Christianity, and principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He holds the Oxford degrees of Doctor of Divinity for his work on historical and systematic theology and Doctor of Philosophy for his work on molecular biophysics.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Prolegomena
The Legitimacy of a Scientific Theology	p. 3
Science as the ancilla theologiae	p. 7
The notion of the ancilla theologiae	p. 7
The patristic debate over philosophy as the ancilla theologiae	p. 11
The social sciences as ancilla theologiae?	p. 15
The natural sciences as the ancilla theologiae	p. 18
The ontological imperative for theological dialogue with the natural sciences	p. 20
The meanings of 'science'	p. 25
The fragmentation of intellectual discourse	p. 26
The Approach to Be Adopted	p. 35
The problem of transient theological trends	p. 36
The provisionality of scientific conclusions	p. 45
Engaging with Christian theology, not 'religions'	p. 50
The sciences as a stimulus to theological reflection	p. 60
The essentialist fallacy	p. 64
The limitations of controlling paradigms	p. 70
A realist perspective	p. 71
Nature
The Construction of Nature	p. 81
The many faces of nature	p. 82
The history of the concept of nature	p. 88
Classic Greek concepts of nature	p. 90
Plato	p. 91
Aristotle	p. 92
John Philoponus: a Christian response to Aristotle	p. 95
The autonomy of nature: the seventeenth century	p. 99
Images of nature	p. 102
The female	p. 105
The mechanism	p. 107
The deconstruction of nature	p. 110
The need for an ontology of nature	p. 116
Multiple readings of the 'book of nature'	p. 117
The attempt to deconstruct the natural sciences	p. 121
The phenomenon of naturalism	p. 124
The naturalist exclusion of transcendence	p. 126
A preliminary critique of naturalism	p. 129
From nature to creation	p. 132
The Christian Doctrine of Creation	p. 135
Towards a Christian view of nature: M. B. Foster	p. 138
The biblical concept of creation	p. 141
The Genesis accounts	p. 144
The prophetic tradition	p. 145
The wisdom literature	p. 149
How important is the theme of creation in the Old Testament?	p. 151
The New Testament	p. 155
Creation ex nihilo: the development of a doctrine	p. 159
Christian formulations of the doctrine of creation	p. 166
The Middle Ages: Thomas Aquinas	p. 167
The Reformation: John Calvin	p. 173
A contemporary statement: Karl Barth	p. 176
An emphasis on creation: a Deist strategy?	p. 181
The nature of Deism	p. 181
Creation and providence	p. 184
Creation and redemption	p. 185
Creation and Christology	p. 186
The role of the homoousion in the scientific theology of T. F. Torrance	p. 189
Implications of a Christian Doctrine of Creation	p. 193
The rendering of God in creation	p. 193
Created rationality and the possibility of theological reflection	p. 196
Human rationality and the imago Dei	p. 197
Spiritual rationality: responding to Feuerbach	p. 204
Intellectual rationality: the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics	p. 209
Moral rationality: responding to the Euthyphro dilemma	p. 214
The ordering of creation	p. 218
The contingent ordering of creation	p. 219
The laws of nature	p. 225
The beauty of creation	p. 232
The theological aspects of beauty	p. 234
Beauty as a criterion of scientific theories	p. 237
The Purpose and Place of Natural Theology	p. 241
The historical origins of modern natural theology	p. 241
The rise of biblical criticism	p. 244
The rejection of ecclesiastical authority	p. 245
The rise of the mechanical world-view	p. 246
The quest for a religion of nature	p. 247
'Nature' and natural theology	p. 249
Nature as the observable world	p. 249
Nature as human rationality	p. 253
Nature as human culture	p. 255
The biblical foundations of a natural theology	p. 257
Old Testament	p. 257
New Testament	p. 260
The philosophical debate over natural theology	p. 264
The Barthian objection to natural theology: an evaluation	p. 267
Barth's critique of natural theology	p. 268
The early Genevan school: John Calvin and Theodore Beza	p. 273
The later Genevan school: Jean-Alphonse Turrettini	p. 277
Thomas F. Torrance on natural theology	p. 279
Torrance's evaluation of Barth	p. 280
Torrance on natural theology	p. 283
The implications of sin for a natural theology	p. 286
The renewed disorder of creation?	p. 288
The human misreading of creation?	p. 291
The place of natural theology within a scientific theology	p. 294
Resonance, not proof: natural theology and revealed theology	p. 295
On seeing nature as creation	p. 296
Natural theology as discourse in the public arena	p. 300
Moving On: Anticipating an Engagement with Reality	p. 307
Bibliography	p. 309
Index	p. 321
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.