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Science and Religion: Ten Models of War, Truce, and Partnership

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Science and Religion: Ten Models of War, Truce,

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Ted Peters

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Partnership, Theology and Science, 16:1, 11-53, DOI: 10.1080/14746700.2017.1402163

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THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE, 2018
VOL. 16, NO. 1, 11–53
https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2017.1402163

Science and Religion: Ten Models of War, Truce, and

Partnership
Ted Peters

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Public discourse today continues to propagate the simplistic idea Science; religion; theology
that science and religion are engaged in a hopelessly unwinnable
war. This is misleading. Science and religion interact at so many
different junctures and in so many different ways that any simple
generalization misguides us. This essay provides an updated
inventory of ten popular conceptual models for relating science
and theology, when theology is understood as rational reflection
on religion. Four influential models assume that a war is taking
place: (1) scientism; (2) scientific imperialism; (3) theological
authoritarianism; and (4) the evolution controversy. Six additional
preferred models assume a truce or even more, a partnership: (5)
the Two Books; (6) the Two Languages; (7) ethical alliance; (8)
dialogue accompanied by creative mutual interaction; (9)
naturalism; and (10) theology of nature. Special attention will be
given to creative mutual interaction within a framework of a
theology of nature.

Is it time to wave the white flag of truce to end the war? Lord Gifford Fellow at the Uni-
versity of Aberdeen, Russell Re Manning, is ready for the warfare between science and reli-
gion to “be left behind, along with all its unproductive name-calling.”1
Is there in fact a war that should be left behind? Is it a world war or merely a local
skirmish? Is the verbal and legal war being fought between evolution and creationism
characteristic of a larger tension between science and theology? Is warfare the best
extended metaphor for understanding how scientific knowledge and religious faith
get along?
Warfare is unavoidable, touts University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne:
Religion and science are engaged in a kind of war, a war for understanding, a war about
whether we should have good reasons for what we accept as true. … I see this as only one
battle in a wider war—a war between rationality and superstition. Religion is but a single
brand of superstition (others include beliefs in astrology, paranormal phenomena, homeop-
athy, and spiritual healing), but it is the most widespread and harmful form of superstition.2

Science is rational. Religion is superstitious. The former must defeat the latter, according
to Coyne.
This battle metaphor goes back to the late nineteenth century, most probably to the
influence of two notorious books. One was John William Draper’s History of the Conflict

CONTACT Ted Peters tpeters@gtu.edu

© 2017 Graduate Theological Union (CTNS Program)
12 T. PETERS

Between Religion and Science (1875). The other was A.D. White’s A History of the Warfare
of Science with Theology (1896).3 But, we will ask here: does the image of a declared state of
war accurately circumscribe the twenty-first century interaction between theological
thinking and natural science? Partially, yes; but not completely.
We could add that a subdued revolution is underway. But this revolution is turning us
toward greater peace, not toward increased conflict. It is a quiet revolution that adds com-
plexity and nuance and subtlety so that it is no longer accurate to view science and religion
merely as pitched enemies. The untroubled revolution is being led by an unforeseen and
astounding intellectual trend, namely, the re-asking of the God question within the orbit of
scientific discussion about the natural world.4 “Scientists themselves have often engaged in
speculation about what implications their scientific endeavours might have for religious
belief,” observes Peter Harrison.5 The honest raising of theological questions within the
scientific camp does not fit neatly into the warfare model.
I want to say loud and clear: the warfare model is not the only one available! In fact, the
warfare model is almost peripheral. Most scholars assume peaceful coexistence; they work
within a separation or Two Languages model. Separatists assume that science and religion
are separate, unable to conflict because they are sovereign in different domains. Science
and theology, allegedly, speak different languages. Such scholars erect a high wall of sep-
aration between church and laboratory. Though ignored by the media, the separation
model has been the dominant one for over a century.
Yet, now as the peaceful revolution is beginning to take the high ground, this assumed
separation is increasingly recognized as limited and restrictive. The separation model pro-
hibits neighbors from visiting in each other’s back yards. Dialogue, interaction, even inte-
gration are being proposed to bridge science and faith.
The separation model is too confining because we are all aware that there is but one
reality. So sooner or later we will become just as dissatisfied with consigning our differ-
ences to separate ghettos of knowledge as we are with fighting an unnecessary war.
The warriors and separatists represent only two of the advancing forces. There is
another force of quiet non-warfare revolutionaries who since the 1960s have been
looking for parallels, points of contact, consonance, crossovers, and conflations. Their
now half-a-century-old discipline, as yet without an agreed upon name, is studying devel-
opments in natural science—especially physics and the life sciences—and is engaging in
serious reflection on various teachings within Christianity and Islam as well as other reli-
gious traditions. Some scientists and some theologians are engaged in a common search
for a shared horizon of understanding.
This search is not merely for shared ideas. The searchers are not looking merely for rap-
prochement between separate fields of inquiry. Rather, scientists and theologians are
aiming to generate new knowledge. They aim at an actual advance in the human under-
standing of reality wrought by science and faith in partnership. Until an agreed-upon
name comes along, we will refer to this new enterprise as Theology and Science,
wherein theology is thought to be rational reflection on religious symbolization.6
In this encyclopedic essay I will outline ten different conceptual models according to
which science and religion are currently thought to be related. The first four assume con-
flict or even war: (1) scientism; (2) scientific imperialism; (3) theological authoritarianism;
and (4) the evolution controversy. Six additional models assume a truce or even more, they
pursue partnership: (5) the Two Books; (6) the Two Languages (separation;
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 13

independence); (7) ethical alliance; (8) dialogue leading to creative mutual interaction; (9)
naturalism; and (10) theology of nature.7 I will note that the dominant view in academic
circles—the truce by separation view—is what some call Independence and what I label the
Two Languages model. Then, I will go on to point out that the advancing frontier is taking
us in the direction of hypothetical consonance accompanied by dialogue; and dialogue
leads to the most ambitious model of all creative mutual interaction. I will conclude
with my own observations regarding the merits of creative mutual interaction and the
value of making a theological interpretation of nature (Figure 1).8

Four Warfare Models for Relating Science and Religion

Not everyone views the relation between science and religion the same. If we extend the
metaphor of warfare, we can see that relations vary from pitched battle to an uneasy
truce.9 Here are four armed camps in the war who believe they are actually fighting a
war: scientism, scientific imperialism, theological authoritarianism, and various comba-
tants in the battle over evolution. My intelligence report on the various armies will
make a point baldly missed by the media: none of the combatants are anti-science. So,
we must ask: just what kind of war is going on?

1. Scientism
Scientism, sometimes called “naturalism,” “scientific materialism,” or “secular humanism,”
not only presupposes the warfare model but actually prosecutes war aiming at total victory
for one side. Scientism, like other “-isms,” is an ideology. This militant ideology is built
upon the assumption that science provides all the knowledge that we can know. There
is only one reality, the natural, and science has a monopoly on the knowledge we have
about nature. Religion, which claims to purvey knowledge about things supernatural
(better yet, supranatural, as something above the natural), provides only pseudo-knowl-
edge—that is, false impressions about non-existent fictions.
Here is the first principle of scientism: science has an exclusive patent on all knowledge.
All other claims to know only represent pseudo-knowledge, myths, fairy tales, or false
news. “Science is the only path to understanding. It would be contaminated rather than
enriched by any alliance with religion,” asserts Peter Atkins, SmithKline Beecham
Fellow and Tutor in Physical Chemistry at the University of Oxford.10

Warfare Models
1. Scientism
2. Scientific Imperialism
3. Theological Imperialism
4. The Evolution Controversy
Non -Warfare Models
5. The Two Books
6. Two Languages
7. Ethical Alliance
8. Dialogue Leading to Creative Mutual Interaction
9. Naturalism
10. Theology of Nature

Figure 1. Ten models of the science and religion relationship.

14 T. PETERS

Some decades ago, British philosopher and atheist Bertrand Russell told a BBC audi-
ence that “what science cannot tell us, mankind cannot know.”11 In the middle of the
twentieth century, astronomer Fred Hoyle argued similarly that the Jewish and Christian
religions have become outdated by modern science. He explained religious behavior as
escapist, as pursued by people who seek illusory security from the mysteries of the uni-
verse.12 This justifies pursuing the triumph of science in its war against religion.
More recently, physicists Stephen Hawking and the late Carl Sagan teamed up to assert
that the cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be. They further assert that there was no
absolute beginning at the onset of the Big Bang. Why no beginning? Had there been an
absolute beginning, these scientists fear, then time would have an edge; and beyond this
edge we could dimly glimpse a transcendent reality such as a creator God. But this is intol-
erable to scientism. So, by describing the cosmos as temporally self-contained, Sagan could
write confidently in the introduction to Hawking’s A Brief History of Time about “the
absence of God” on the grounds that there is “nothing for a Creator to do.”13 In the
warfare between science and theology, scientism demands elimination of its religious
enemy.
Eliminating the enemy is justifiable because religion is evil and science is good. Ann
Druyan, surviving wife of the late Carl Sagan, readies her army to refight past battles. Pre-
modern churches ruled by dogma and ghettoized scientists, she believes. It is time to
reverse this. “The churches agreed to stop torturing and murdering scientists. The scien-
tists pretended that knowledge of the universe has no spiritual implications.”14 Past reli-
gious dysfunction should be replaced by scientific truth.
Harvard geneticist Richard Lewonton trumpets revelry and rouses us to march into
battle against all belief in the divine. The strategy is to get the public
to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in
their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only
begetter of truth. … Materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.15

Marching with him is Oxford science educator and field marshal of worldwide atheism,
Richard Dawkins, who launches a virtual interstellar scale attack akin to that of Darth
Vader: “I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever
and whenever they have been or will be invented.”16
While some research scientists disavow such belligerent scientism, militants turn
scientism into a replacement for religion. Scientism “is a secular religion in the sense of
generating loyal commitments (a type of faith) to a method, a body of knowledge, and
a hope for a better tomorrow,” confesses Michael Shermer, columnist for Scientific Amer-
ican and editor of The Skeptic.17 Scientism is “a calumny that I, for one, gladly embrace.”18
Scientism became a weapon in North America during the post-World War II era for
dislodging the Protestant grip on the wider democratic culture. During what some
describe as the culture wars (Kulturkämpfe) that persist to the present day, the image of
science has provided effective artillery for bombarding Protestant and even Roman Catho-
lic citadels of backwardness and rigidity. David Hollinger, who labels science a “weapon,”
describes the attack tactic:
It mattered enormously to be “objective,” to look upon factual realities “without prejudice,”
to “actually test with experience” one’s opinions, and to report “honestly” the results of one’s
inquiries. These men and women saw a world filled with “prejudice” and with efforts to
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 15

“impose certain opinions by force.” Against those evils one must affirm “free inquiry” and
“open-mindedness.”19

Upwardly mobile groups within the larger society could dress themselves in scientific garb
and outshine, so to speak, the dull religious establishment.
Key to grasping what is at stake here is to distinguish authentic science from scientism.
The latter is an ideology placed on top of the former, like a hat on a head. One should
avoid confusing a person’s head with his or her hat.
Scientism’s hat is placed on science when one asserts that scientific knowing is the only
form of human knowing, that science owns a total monopoly on human knowledge.
Former MIT faculty member Huston Smith complains that “The problem is not
science, but scientism—namely, to assume that what science turns up and can turn up
is the sum of all there is.”20 Science without the hat of scientism is what Smith is asking for.
Smith removes the hat:
Science is great. Scientism, though, is bad. What’s the difference? Science is the positive
finding, through controlled experiment, of truths about the physical universe—and that’s
good. Scientism, by way of contrast, says two things. The first is that science is the best if
not the only probe of truth. The second fallacy of scientism is that it holds that the most fun-
damental substance in the universe is what scientists deal with, namely, matter. There is no
scientific basis for those two corollaries.21

Indian Jesuit Job Kozhamathadam, S.J., perceives that the war is not between faith and
science; rather, it is between faith and scientism:
Scientism is basically an attitude that accords undue confidence to the power and importance
of science. In its extreme form it believes that science can do everything, solve all problems.
… Seen through the eyes of scientism, religious and related matters became meaningless
non-issues.22

The warfare model—an alleged war between science and religion—is more accurately
depicted as a war between scientism and everything that is not science, especially religion.
Is a war being fought? Yes. But science as science does not constitute one of the armies.
Rather, it is scientism that is fighting.

2. Scientific Imperialism
Scientific Imperialism is scientism attacking religion with an added strategy. Rather than
merely attempting to eliminate the enemy, scientific imperialists seek to conquer the
territory formally possessed by religion and claim it as their own. Whereas scientism
is nihilistic and even atheistic, scientific imperialism affirms the existence of something
valuable in religion while claiming that clear knowledge of religious values comes from
scientific research rather than religious revelation. “Science has systematically expro-
priated areas which are the traditional concern of religion,” touts Sagan while planting
his victory flag.23
According to the scientific imperialism model, a scientific army seeks to pillage religion
and take possession of its spoils. Let me briefly identify seven items in the religious treasure
box that scientific imperialists covet and try to pirate away for themselves: (1) religious
questioning; (2) morality; (3) the soul; (4) life beyond death; (5) religious symbols; (6)
faith; and (7) religious experience.24
16 T. PETERS

What does religion have that science wants to confiscate? Religious questioning is the
first object for scientific pillage. “Science has actually advanced to the point where what
were formerly religious questions can be seriously tackled … [by] the new physics,”
writes Arizona State University physicist Paul Davies.25 What Davies does is demonstrate
how the field of physics transcends itself, opening us in the direction of the divine reality.
“I belong to a group of scientists,” he writes,
who do not subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a
purposeless accident. … There must, it seems to me, be a deeper level of explanation.
Whether one wishes to call that deeper level “God” is a matter of taste and definition.26

The question of God is no longer a religious question; it is a scientific one.

A second treasure previously owned by religion is morality. Science should defeat reli-
gion because religion is immoral. Then, science alone will be in a position to provide a
realistic morality to govern society. At least this is what Harvard sociobiologist Edward
O. Wilson believes. Why should religion suffer defeat? Because it is evolutionarily primi-
tive and persists in fostering immorality and violence:
The great religions are tragically … the sources of ceaseless and unnecessary suffering. There
are impediments to the grasp of reality to solve most social problems in the real world. Their
exquisitely human flaw is tribalism. … Faith is biologically understandable, as a Darwinian
device for survival and increased reproduction.27

In the future, science must replace religion as the guide of the civil social order. Curiously,
Wilson grounds his scientific moral order for civilization in the same evolutionary process
which gave rise to immoral tribal religion in the first place.
Like Wilson, Shermer wants to confiscate ethics for science. More specifically, he wants
to expropriate moral code-setting as a trophy to enrich scientific naturalism combined
with Enlightenment humanism. Before the rise of modern science, Shermer declares, all
the religious establishment could offer society was “theological bafflegab and administra-
tive argle-bargle.”28 Past religious leaders believed in miracles, burned witches, blamed
demons for plagues, and failed to recognize the true causes of things. Scientists of the
modern age, however, have identified the true causes of things and have upheld human
rights, liberated oppressed groups, and are now pressing for ecological sustainability.
Shermer grounds his new scientized social ethic on “something natural instead of super-
natural,” and he adds that “science is the best tool we have for understanding the natural.”
Where in the natural domain should we look for our ethical foundation? Shermer’s
answer: evolution. Like Wilson, Shermer applies “evolutionary theory to the ultimate
foundation of morality.”29 A scientific moral standard derived from evolution will lead
society toward overcoming tribal rivalry, racial prejudice, sexual discrimination, and
human violence. Only a scientifically led social morality can lead to world peace and eco-
logical health. Whereas religions in the past provided the values that glued together the
social order, now science will assume this responsibility and provide a higher level of
moral integrity.
A third religious treasure which scientific imperialists covet is the soul. This march
against religion to capture the human soul is led by a military general we noted above,
namely, Richard Dawkins. In his conquest of religion, Dawkins wants to “kill” the soul
but drag off its body. He declares war against the soul understood as “supernatural, dis-
embodied, survives death of the brain and is capable of happiness or misery even when
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 17

the neurons are dust and the hormones dry. Science is going to kill it stone dead.”30 After
killing religion’s supernatural soul, Dawkins plans to return home to science with a natural
soul, a soul of “intellectual or spiritual power” that dies when the brain dies.31 No longer
should modern persons go to church to find their soul. Rather, they should go to the scien-
tific laboratory.
A fourth stolen religious treasure, believe it or not, is immortality. Whereas for biologist
Dawkins the soul dies with the body, according to contemporary physicist Frank Tipler we
can look forward to life beyond death. Tipler provides a strategy whereby physics will run
off with the Christian doctrine of resurrection. Claiming that quantum theory combined
with the Big Bang and thermodynamics can provide a better explanation than Christianity
for the future resurrection of the dead, Tipler declares that theology should become a
branch of physics.32 In the war between science and religion, science should claim
victory and also claim ownership of religion’s spoils.
A fifth religious treasure pillaged by scientific imperialists is the religious symbol. For
example, the story of God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ has been dubbed, “the greatest
story ever told.” Nihilist and atheist Lawrence Krauss has stolen this title and applied it
to both the story of science’s rise to cultural hegemony and to the story of the universe
that scientists tell. His book, The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far, is broken into a trini-
tarian structure with biblical subtitles: Genesis, Exodus, and Revelation. Even though
science deals with the physical world, he says that science is spiritual.33 In addition,
even though science is nihilistic, this nihilism teaches us humility, thereby making life
meaningful. Get it? Nihilism makes life meaningful. How? “The greatest gift that
science can give us is to allow us to overcome our need to be the center of existence
even as we learn to appreciate the wonder of the accident we are privileged to
witness.”34 Such contradictions are not even masked as paradoxes by Krauss; rather,
they assault the reader like a press release of fake news.
The sixth and seventh religious treasures have been stolen by the Goliath of science,
Albert Einstein. They are faith and religious experience. Albert Einstein is known for
his aphorism, “Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind.”35
For science to be science, thought the father of relativity theory, it would have to expro-
priate faith. Faith? Yes, but not faith in God. Rather, Einstein’s faith is in the regularity and
trustworthiness of the laws of nature even when these laws are not evident:
Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward
truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion.
To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of
existence are relational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine
scientist without that profound faith.36

In addition to faith, Einstein tries to expropriate intuitive religious experience. What he

tries to conscript is the basic intuitive experience with an inchoate yet profound wonder,
what he labels “cosmic feeling.”37
Einstein’s “cosmic feeling” looks a lot like das Schlechthinnige Abhängikeitsgefühl or
“feeling of absolute dependence” identified as the essence of religion by Friedrich Schleier-
macher, a theologian. The essence of religion
is the immediate consciousness of the universal existence of all finite things, in and through
the Infinite, and of all temporal things in and through the Eternal. … Without being
18 T. PETERS

knowledge, it recognizes knowledge and science. In itself it is an affection, a revelation of the

Infinite in the finite, God being seen in it and it in God.38

Cosmic feeling used to belong to the essence of religion, but Einstein would like to expro-
priate it for science.
Just what is Einstein’s military strategy here? Einstein complains that traditional or con-
ventional religion has distorted this pure intuitive feeling about the cosmos. Our conven-
tional religious traditions have distorted the underlying religious feeling but, claims
Einstein, science has not. We should not ask conventional religion to explicate cosmic
feeling. Rather, it is science that best articulates this underlying yet authentic religious
sense. That is, conventional religion should be defeated in the long fought war, and
science should emerge as the victor and take possession of religion’s spoils. What Einstein
proposes, in short, is to conquer religion with a scientific army and then run off with its
cosmic feeling.
The armies of scientism march toward decimating religion, destroying it utterly. The
armies of scientific imperialism find something in religious claims that is valid and valu-
able, so their strategy is to dislodge religion and pillage its spoils. Sometimes we find the
same soldiers in both armies.
The armies of both scientism and scientific imperialism presuppose the warfare model
and set the measure for what counts as victory. According to Wilson, “the conflict between
scientific knowledge and the teachings of organized religions is irreconcilable.”39

3. Theological Authoritarianism
Theological Authoritarianism is the defensive tactic taken by some in the Roman Catholic,
Islamic, and Orthodox Christian traditions who perceive science and scientism as a threat.
In addition, liberation theologians including feminists have perceived the scientific estab-
lishment as a global force for injustice; and they sought to fight back on behalf of the poor
and disenfranchized. Let us look at each of these in turn.
First, nineteenth-century Roman Catholics presumed a two-step route to truth, accord-
ing to which natural reason is topped by divine revelation. Hence, theological dogma
within Roman Catholicism claims theological authority over science. This is justified
because theological reflection is founded on God’s special revelation. In 1864, Pope Pius
IX promulgated The Syllabus of Errors, wherein item 57 stated it to be an error to think
that science and philosophy could withdraw from ecclesiastical authority. The infallible
pontiff had spoken; his authority trumps whatever is reported from the laboratory or in
scientific journals.
A century later, the Second Vatican Council dropped its defenses by declaring the
natural sciences to be free from ecclesiastical authority and called them “autonomous” dis-
ciplines (Gaudium et Spes: 59). Pope John Paul II, who had a serious interest in fostering
dialogue between theology and the natural sciences, sought to negotiate a new peace
between faith and reason.40
Nineteenth-century Roman Catholicism did not try to eliminate science; rather, it
claimed theological authority trumps science via magisterial authority. The same issues
and challenges confront Islamic theology in today’s world, and we find a parallel theolo-
gical defense but without an equivalent doctrinal magisterium.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 19

This brings us to Islam as our second example of theological authoritarianism. The

most articulate Muslim defense against the secularization and materialization and reduc-
tionism of scientism is found in the careful work of Shiite Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Nasr’s
complaint against scientism and, to a more modest extent, against western European
science itself, is that its method excludes a grounding in the transcendent reality of
God. Scientific method—methodological naturalism—excludes appeal to the sacred
depth of nature which witnesses to its creator, God. By looking solely for efficient
causes, today’s scientists unnecessarily avoid asking about the first cause, God.41
Nasr draws a line in the sand. “Islam refuses to accept the legitimacy of any science that
would study the cosmos in forgetfulness of God.”42 If science itself is to produce genuine
knowledge, that knowledge must include the reality of God as revealed in the Qur’an: “No
science can be acceptable to Islam that does not in some way remind man of the Wisdom
of the One from whom everything issues and to whom everything returns.”43 Nasr is not
arguing that Islamic theology must win a war that defeats and exiles science. Rather, he is
arguing that if science is to be genuine science and tell the whole truth, then science must
take God the creator into account. Until that happens, Islamic theology will find itself in
tension with modern western scientific research and especially, of course, scientism.
If Nasr would get his way, where would it lead? To an Islamic science? But, could there ever
be something like an Islamic science? No way, say Muslim scholars such as Abdus Salam and
Pervez Hoodbhoy. Salam, a Nobel laureate in physics, presses that Muslims must accept the
brute fact that science is secular, not religious. “There is only one universal science, its pro-
blems and modalities are international and there is no such thing as Islamic science just as
there is no Hindu science, no Jewish science, no Confucian science, no Christian science.”44
To stop the war between science and Islam, the Islamic believer must embrace the sep-
aration or Two Languages model. This means the Muslim must permit science to remain
in an autonomous secular domain independent of religious faith. This is Hoodbhoy’s
point as well:
It is absurd to think that the scientific views of a Muslim scientist are necessarily connected
with his religious belief, or that he necessarily derives inspiration for his scientific work from
faith. This was as true a thousand years ago as it is today.45

Separation of religion from science will end the war and, in addition, pave the road for
Islam to find its peaceful path into the modern world.
In sum, some Muslim thinkers seek an integration of science with Islamic theology
within which revealed truth trumps and then reorients secular scientific knowledge.
Other Muslim thinkers advise against this, preferring a separation model.
Third, Eastern Orthodox Christian theology. Nasr and some Orthodox thinkers could
be sisters here. In both Islam and Orthodox Christianity, fundamental doctrines regarding
God’s relationship to the created world were formulated in a pre-scientific era, and they
are not subject to revision because of new scientific discoveries. Russian Orthodox physi-
cist Alexi Nesteruk makes this clear: “The theology of the Eastern Church retained the pre-
modern experience of seeing sciences and knowledge without adapting to the secularism
of modernity.”46
In contrast, Ukrainian Orthodox cell biologist at Northwestern University, Gayle
Woloschak, is searching for a more integrative path. She assumes she must rely on hypothe-
tical consonance between her faith commitments and what she learns about the natural world
20 T. PETERS

in the laboratory. Despite the apparent conflict, there is common ground between the disci-
plines when they are at their best—both religion and science accept mystery, the idea that
there are things that cannot be explained with what we know today. In both science and
faith there is a recognition that our perceptions come with limitations and that there may
be “more to the story” than we can understand. She can speak this way with confidence
because of her received premodern tradition which includes St. Maximus the Confessor,
who had already affirmed the value of both revealed and discovered truth. According to
St. Maximus, the Logos of God is the Creator of all nature, every law, every bond, all
order.47 If a conflict between science and faith arises, Woloschak puts the burden on the
shoulders of the church—not the scientist—to resolve them. In short, Woloschak relies a
bit less on theological authority than does Nesteruk. Yet, in both cases, theological authority
dare not be discarded just to keep science secular.
Fourth, we turn now to liberation and feminist reactions to science. When the armies of
scientism and scientific imperialism fire their bazookas, they aim for evangelical Christians
and anti-western Muslims. But these two enemies are not the right targets, because they
are not anti-science. Can we find anti-science anywhere among religious constituencies?
Yes. The mood of religious anti-science surfaced briefly in the 1960s and 1970s within lib-
eration theology, including feminist theology.
The liberation theologian of the 1970s identified science with the bourgeois class and
with technological evil. After all, it was science and its accomplice technology—especially
weapons technology—that enabled western Europeans to colonize the world, to repress
native populations, to exploit resources everywhere on the globe, and to structure civiliza-
tion around the injustices of racism and sexism.
Yes, indeed, there has been a frontal attack on science coming from religion. Latin
American liberation theologian Rubem Alves asked rhetorically: “Is it not exactly from
science that the possibility of annihilation came? Or do the A-bomb and intercontinental
rockets not belong to the essence of science?”48 Science and technology prop up the hege-
mony of the wealthy in the global economy. This religious objection is not aimed at scien-
tific truth claims. It is aimed at the immoral alliance of science with exploitation.
The feminist theologian identifies science with patriarchy, at least according to Rosem-
ary Radford Ruether:
In both the dominant religious consciousness(es) and the dominant scientific consciousness
(es), with few exceptions, women have been situated on the underside of history. Both reli-
gion and science have located women in the realm of matter, of body, of earth; matter over
against Spirit, body over against mind; earth over against heaven.49

Ruether’s complaint is that science and religion together have conspired to repress women.
Following the Chernobyl spill of radioactive materials in 1986, however, both liberation
and feminist theologians have seen the need for an alliance between science and religion to
combat environmental degradation.
In summary, according to this third model with its four examples, a warfare between
modern science and traditional religion exists. But, in this case, it is religion who
should win over natural knowledge with the weapons of revealed truth, or at least take
the moral high ground. None of these religious forces are seeking victory in terms of
total extermination. None seek the elimination of science. Rather, they seek an alliance
between science and religion both on belief in God and on commitment to social justice.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 21

4. The Evolution Controversy

There certainly is a war being fought over what will be taught in the public schools. Should
Darwinian evolution alone be taught in biology classes? Or should creationism and Intel-
ligent Design also be taught as alternative sciences? The war over science education in the
United States is being prosecuted by conservative Christian groups and in Turkey by con-
servative Muslim groups. No one can deny that this is warfare. However, one may still
legitimately ask: is this a war between genuine science and genuine religion? Or is this a
war between hats, between scientism and a religious equivalent?
Identifying the armies fighting in this war is not easy. If one misleadingly thinks that only
two armies are battling—science and religion—then what is actually happening on the bat-
tlefield will appear mystifying. There are at least six combatant groups, not two. Here are the
conflicting forces I, along with my research colleague Martinez Hewlett, have been able to
identify: (1) Neo-Darwinian biologists who do not wear hats, i.e. researchers in evolution
and genetics who are not engaged in any ideological struggle; (2) atheistic evolutionary ideo-
logues, i.e. sociobiologists and other naturalists wearing hats who claim that evolutionary
biology justifies eliminative materialism; (3) biblical creationists, i.e. fundamentalist Chris-
tians and reactionary Muslims for whom scriptural accounts of human origins trump scien-
tific explanations; (4) scientific creationists, i.e. creationists who employ scientific
arguments to support the scriptural view of origins over against the Darwinian or evolution-
ary view; (5) Intelligent Design warriors, i.e. theoreticians who posit that design by an
implied supranatural designer is responsible for speciation, not natural selection;50 and
(6) theistic evolutionists, i.e. theologians and scientists who contend that divine providence
works in, with, and under natural selection to accomplish the divine will.51 If there is a single
focal battle line, it is this: does natural selection satisfactorily explain speciation? Only crea-
tionists and Intelligent Design warriors answer negatively. All other armies affirm natural
selection as the mechanism by which new species have appeared over deep time (Figure 2).
Are any of these armies anti-science? No. All those engaged in the fighting believe they
are defending science. Does this apply even to creationists? Yes. The objections raised by
both types of creationists and their Intelligent Design allies are aimed solely at one and
only one scientific theory, namely, Darwinian theory. Creationists embrace all the other
sciences, whether mathematics, physics, chemistry, medical science, and such.52
What we have said applies also to Harun Yaha, the pesky critic of secular education in
Turkey. Though a devout creationist Muslim, Yaha’s public objection to Darwinian theory
is, in so many words, scientific: “The reason for the objection to evolution is that while
other theories are backed up and corroborated by scientific evidence, evolution is a
fraud not supported by even a single piece of scientific evidence.”53 Here is what is deci-
sive: Yaha’s objection is based on an appeal to science, not to theological authority.

Warrior Army Weapon

Laboratory Biologists and Geneticists Non-combatants
Atheistic Darwinists Scientism
Biblical Creationists and Muslims Bible or Qur'an
Scientific Creationists and Muslims Scientific Argumentation
Intelligent Design Warriors and Muslims Scientific Argumentation
Theistic Evolutionists Theology and Science

Figure 2. Who is fighting with whom about what in the evolution controversy?
22 T. PETERS

Scientific creationism is worth special elaboration. Scientific creationism, sometimes

called creation science, is not a version of theological authoritarianism even though it
is frequently so mistaken. The grandparents of today’s scientific creationists were
1920s fundamentalists, to be sure, and fundamentalism appealed to biblical authority
in a fashion parallel to the Roman Catholic appeal to magisterial authority.54 Yet,
there is a marked difference between fundamentalist authoritarianism and contempor-
ary creation science. Today’s creation scientists are willing to argue their case in the
arena of science, not on biblical authority alone. They assume that biblical truth and
scientific truth belong to the same domain. When there is a conflict between a scientific
assertion and a religious assertion, then we allegedly have a conflict between two scien-
tific theories. The creationists argue that the book of Genesis is itself a theory which tells
us how the world was physically created: God fixed the distinct kinds (species) of organ-
isms at the point of original creation. Species did not evolve. Geological and biological
facts attest to biblical truth, they argue. Here is the decisive point: creationists rely on
science to confirm their biblical beliefs. They are not anti-science. This is such an
important point: from their own point of view, creationists do not see themselves as
anti-science.
With regard to theological commitments, scientific creationists typically affirm (1) the
creation of the world out of nothing; (2) the insufficiency of mutation and natural selection
to explain the process of evolution; (3) the stability of existing species and the impossibility
of one species evolving out of another; (4) separate ancestry for apes and humans; (5) cat-
astrophism to explain certain geological formations, e.g. the flood explains why sea fossils
appear on mountains; and (6) the relatively recent formation of the earth about 6 to 10
thousand years ago.55
Establishment scientists typically try to gain quick victory over creationists by dismiss-
ing them. Stephen Jay Gould, the colorful Harvard paleontologist, said the very term scien-
tific creationism is meaningless and self-contradictory.56 Although the battle between
scientific creationists and established scientists appears to be all-out war, this is not the
case. The creationists, many of whom are themselves practicing scientists, see themselves
as soldiers within the science army.57 “Creation is true, evolution is false, and real science
confirms this,” is the thinking of the late Henry Morris, who held a PhD from the Univer-
sity of Michigan and was the granddaddy of scientific creationism.58 Creationists, right
along with everyone else, respect, if not love, science. A war is being fought, to be sure;
but no army seeks the defeat of science.
Nevertheless, both platoons of creationism along with Intelligent Design frequently get
lumped together with anti-science, opposition to gay rights, and climate change denial.
Social scientists tell the media that all of these together constitute a single infantry
called “the Christian Right.” Further, the Christian Right is described as paranoid, fighting
a conspiracy perpetrated by a coalition of moral relativists and ideologically motivated
scientists.
Sociologist Antony Alumkal begins his diatribe against the Christian Right with the
“basic premise that science is under attack by the Christian Right.”59 When fleshing out
his argument, Alumkal actually depicts something other than a religious war against
science. Despite his thesis, what he depicts is a selective religious criticism of certain
sciences for not being scientific enough. “The scientific data,” say Christian Right
attackers,
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 23

indicate that humans were intelligently designed by a creator, gays can be cured of their
illness, embryonic stem cell research is unnecessary for medical progress, and humans can
consume all the fossil fuel they want with no harmful effects on the environment.60

He adds: “this movement does a significant amount of harm.”61 Alumkal wants the Chris-
tian Right to lose this war.
Yet, we might flag the phrase, “the scientific data … ” support the Christian Right’s
cause. Whether the Christian Right appeals to the best science or not is beside the
point. What is important to note is that the Christian Right takes no anti-science stand.
Does Alumkal’s version of the warfare model accurately depict what is going on? Inad-
vertently yes, but not fully. By no means are American evangelical Christians unilaterally
allied with the likes of creationism and Intelligent Design. Francis Collins, Director of the
US National Institutes of Health and hero among evangelicals for founding Biologos,
defends good science: “No serious biologist today doubts the theory of evolution to
explain the marvelous complexity and diversity of life.”62
When we look at those within the Christian Right who do in fact rely on bad science, we
see that bad science is still thought to be science. This is the important point: there is no
evidence here that the Christian Right is categorically anti-science. Nor is there any evi-
dence that evangelical Christians want to defeat science altogether. A war is going on,
obviously; but it is not a war between science and anti-scientific religion.

Four Non-Warfare or Peace-Promoting Models

“Religion and science are not at war at all,” contends Guy Consolmagno, a trained astron-
omer, Jesuit brother, and director of the Vatican Observatory in Rome. Brother Consol-
magno lives daily in both domains, science and faith.63
Oxford University historian John Hedley Brooke reads this harmony back into history,
contending that “an image of perennial conflict between science and religion is inap-
propriate as a guiding principle.”64 This sparks Joshua Moritz, managing editor of the
journal Theology and Science, to conclude that the warfare model is a myth. “The narrative
that science and religion are at war is a myth in two key senses of the word: it is founda-
tional to a certain anti-religious worldview, and it is historically false.”65
In what follows we will describe the shape of six non-warfare models widely employed:
Section 5: Two Books; Section 6: Two Languages; Section 7: ethical alliance; Section 8: dia-
logue combined with creative mutual interaction; Section 9: naturalism; and Section 10:
theology of nature.

5. The Two Books Model

The Two Books Model was presupposed in western Europe during the rise of modern
science. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton presupposed that nature as interpreted
by science constitutes a book, a text that tells us about the mind of God as creator. The
Bible, the second book, reveals God’s redemptive intention. Already in post-New Testa-
ment yet pre-scientific times, the church fathers found knowledge of God in both
nature and Scripture. With the advent of modern science, nature had found a new
interpreter to reveal the mind of God displayed in creation.
24 T. PETERS

We remember Galileo for saying: “Sacred writings are bound in two volumes—that of
creation and that of the Holy Scriptures.” We remember Galileo’s defender, Cardinal Bel-
larmine, for saying that “the Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
The Two Books model holds that God is revealed in nature, even if a scientist rather
than a theologian is the one who makes this revelation clear. Contemporary Orthodox
theologian Verna Harrison tells us that the natural theologian can read divine thoughts
through microscopes and telescopes:
Scientific reason is also a facet of the divine image. People can use the methods of science to
discern the patterns of the natural world, thus to think God’s thoughts after him, to discover
with awe the vast inventiveness of the Creator.66

Contemporary Roman Catholic theologian Peter M.J. Hess explains how the metaphor
of the Two Books “has for nearly two millennia variously framed, constituted, negated, or
otherwise reflected the relationship between the two human enterprises that would in time
become science and religion.”67 Or, as Ilia Delio, O.S.F., puts it:
the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature were two ways of expressing the divine Word,
the book written within (Scripture) and the book written without (nature) so that Nature and
Scripture were, so to speak, the two book ends of the Book of Christ.68

In short, proponents of the Two Books model did not, and perhaps could not, conceive of
a war between science and religion.

6. The Two Languages Model

The Two Languages model is the separatist model. It just might appear to us in the twenty-
first century to be an effective way to establish a truce with an enduring peace.69 This is
because it respects the sovereign territory of both science and theology and because it is advo-
cated by highly respected persons in both the sciences and in theology. Skeptic Kendrick
Frazier articulates the Two Languages model succinctly: “Science is concerned with under-
standing the natural world, religion with humanity’s moral, ethical, and spiritual needs. … If
science and religion kept to these separate domains, there would be no conflict.”70
This is what I label the Two Languages model and what Ian Barbour previously called
the independence relationship.71 Swedish theologian Regin Prenter announces what
separatists would like to hear: “There is no real problem with respect to the relationship
between natural science and faith in creation. The two do not deal with the same ques-
tions, unless one or the other fails to keep within its own proper field.”72
Neoorthodox theologian Langdon Gilkey has long argued on behalf of the Two
Languages or independence model. Science, he says, deals only with objective or public
knowing of proximate origins, whereas religion and its theological articulation deals
with existential or personal knowing of ultimate origins. Science asks “how?,” while reli-
gion asks “why?”73 What Gilkey wants, of course, is for one person to be a citizen in
two lands—that is, to be able to embrace both Christian faith and scientific method
without conflict.74 To speak both languages is to be bilingual, and bilingual intellectuals
can work with one another in peace.
Along with theologians, many scientists embrace the Two Languages or independence
model. “The methods of science have little or nothing to contribute to ethics, inspiration,
morals, beauty, love, hate, or aesthetics,” writes Haden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 25

Tyson. “These are vital elements of civilized life, and are central to the concerns of every
religion. What it all means is that for many scientists there is not conflict of interest.”75 If
science and the extra-scientific domains of human knowing speak different languages, our
civilization should become multilingual.
Former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
and winner of the President’s Medal for science, evolutionary biologist Francisco J. Ayala,
advocates the Two Languages view:
The scope of science is the world of nature, the reality that is observed, directly or indirectly,
by our senses. … Outside that world, science has no authority, no statements to make, no
business whatsoever taking one position or another. Science has nothing decisive to say
about values, whether economic, aesthetic, or moral; nothing to say about the meaning of
life or its purposes; nothing to say about religious beliefs. … Science is methodologically mate-
rialistic or, better, methodologically naturalisitic.76

If celebrated theologian Paul Tillich were still alive, he would agree with Ayala. “Science
can conflict only with science, and faith only with faith; science which remains science
cannot conflict with faith which remains faith.”77 Each language relies upon its own con-
textual meaning, and the Two Languages—science and religion—should prompt us to
become bilingual.
The modern Two Languages model of the relation between science and theology ought
not to be confused with the premodern concept of the Two Books described above.
According to the Two Books model, both science and theology could speak of things
divine. Both natural revelation and special revelation pointed us in one direction:
toward God.78 The Two Languages model, in contrast, points us in two different direc-
tions: one toward God and the other toward the world.
The weakness in the Two Languages model, in my judgment, is that it gains peace
through separation, by establishing a demilitarized zone that prevents communication.
In the event that a scientist might desire to speak about divine matters or that a theologian
might desire to speak about the actual world created by God, the two would have to speak
past one another on the assumption that shared understanding is impossible. Why begin
with such a separatist assumption? Invoking the principle of hypothetical consonance—
which we will treat shortly—makes just the opposite assumption, namely, there is but
one reality, and sooner or later scientists and theologians should be able to find some
areas of shared understanding.
Like me, Jürgen Moltmann is impatient with the separatist model:
Today the dilemma between theology and science is no longer that they represent conflicting
statements. It is rather the lack of conflict between statements which stand side by side
without any relation to one another, and which no longer have anything to say to each
other at all. Faith and knowledge of the world are no longer locked in a conflict about the
truth. They are resting side by side in a vacant co-existence.79

In sum, in a civilization that speaks Two Languages—the language of science and the
language of faith—peace and cooperation are found by becoming bilingual. Critics
worry that this peaceful co-existence is vacuous. Our situation warrants an initiative to
take us forward toward dialogue, alliance, or interaction. To alliance on ethical matters
we now turn. Dialogue and interaction will constitute our eighth model. But first, the
seventh, ethical alliance.
26 T. PETERS

7. Ethical Alliance
Ethical Alliance refers to the recognized need on the part of theologians to speak to the
questions of human meaning created by our industrial and technological society and,
even more urgently, to the ethical challenges posed by the environmental crisis and the
need to plan for the long-range future of the planet. “Nature, as we know it in ordinary
experience is profoundly at risk and, with nature, humankind itself, especially the poor
of the Earth,” worries theologian H. Paul Santmire. “I believe that many, religious and
non-religious, or otherwise spiritually engaged, are deeply concerned about these
issues.”80 Santmire is right. Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, no friend to religion, concurs:
“If there is any moral precept shared by people of all beliefs, it is that we owe ourselves
and future generations a beautiful, rich, and healthful environment.”81 Wilson is right
too. The scientific community by and large shares with Santmire concern over threats
to our planet’s ecological health.
Today’s ecological challenge arises from the intersecting forces of population over-
growth, increased industrial and agricultural production, depletion of nonrenewable
natural resources, pollution of air, soil, and water, the widening split between the haves
and the have-nots around the world, and the loss of a sense of moral responsibility for
the welfare of future generations. Population overgrowth combined with modern technol-
ogy is largely responsible for the anthropogenic effect on global climate and the threat to
our planet’s fecundity. Religious leaders along with secular activists are struggling to gain
moral control over technological and economic forces that, if left to themselves, will drive
us toward destruction.
Pope Francis ranks among those pleading for religiously sensitive people along with
scientists and naturalists to form a united front for protecting our planet’s health. We
need to work together to “care for our common home.”82
I spend considerable time in the ethical alliance camp and I believe that, at root, the
ecological crisis poses a spiritual issue, namely, the crying need of world civilization for
a shared ethical vision.83 An ethical vision—a vision of a just, sustainable and participatory
society that lives in harmony with its environment and at peace with itself—is essential for
future planning and motivating the peoples of the world to fruitful action. Ecological
thinking is future thinking. Its logic takes the following form: understanding-decision-
control. Prescinding from the scientific model, we implicitly assume that to solve the
eco-crisis we need to understand the forces of destruction; then we need to make the
decisions and take the actions that will put us in control of our future and establish a
human economy that is in harmony with earth’s natural ecology.
In order to bring theological resources to bear on the ecological challenge, most theo-
logians have tried to mine the doctrine of creation for its wealth of ethical resources. It is
my judgment that we need more than the locus of creation; we also need to appeal to
eschatological redemption—that is, new creation. God’s redeeming work is equally impor-
tant when we begin with a creation that has somehow gone awry.
I believe the promise of eschatological renewal can provide a sense of direction, a vision
of the coming just and sustainable society, and a motivating power that speaks relevantly
to the understanding-decision-control formula.
We need to assess present creation in light of new creation. We theologians can
make a genuine contribution to the public discussion if, on the basis of eschatological
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 27

resources, we can project a vision of the coming new world order—that is, announced
the promised kingdom of God and work from that vision backward to our present cir-
cumstance. This vision should picture our world in terms of (a) a single, worldwide pla-
netary society; (b) united in devotion to the will of God; (c) sustainable within the
biological carrying capacity of the planet and harmonized with the principles of the eco-
sphere; (d) organized politically so as to preserve the just rights and voluntary contri-
butions of all individuals; (e) organized economically so as to guarantee the basic
survival needs of each person; (f) organized socially so that dignity and freedom are
respected and protected in every quarter; and (g) dedicated to advancing the quality
of life on behalf of future generations.84

Excursus A: Hypothetical Consonance

Before we venture into dialogue or creative mutual interaction, we must identify a necess-
ary assumption, namely, some level of consonance between science and faith must be
obtained. The separation or Two Languages model cannot on its own support dialogue
or interaction. There must exist, at least hypothetically, the confidence that both languages
are talking about the same reality.
Beijing Religious Studies scholar Zhuo Xinping alerts us to the need to go beyond the
Two Languages model:
Although the boundaries of religion and science are clear and their methodologies distinct,
their mutual relationship and interdependence are apparent. Religion and science often
involve the same subjects, and have the same topics in their worldviews and cognitive prin-
ciples. Both are complementary and inseparable when dealing with the human person as a
total being.85

Hypothetical consonance is the name I give to the invitation calling us to go beyond the
Two Languages policy. The term consonance, coming from the work of the late Ernan
McMullin, indicates that we are looking for those areas where there is a correspondence
between what can be said scientifically about the natural world and what the theologian
understands to be God’s creation.86 We must hypothesize that those common areas are
there to be found. “We can live with apparent conflicts between science and the Bible,
at least for now,” say the Vatican astronomers, “because of our faith that, in the end,
there will be no conflict between them.”87
Hybrid physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne delights in the era of quantum
physics because consonance between physical cosmology and Christian theology has
become more clear:
The world in fact discerned by modern science has an openness in its becoming which is con-
sonant, not only with its being a world of which we are actually inhabitants, but also a world
which is the creation of the true and living God, continually at work within its process.88

Consonance in the strong sense means accord, harmony. Accord or harmony might be
a treasure we hope to find, but we have not found it yet. Where we find ourselves now
is working with consonance in a weak sense—that is, identifying common domains of
question asking. The advances in physics, especially thermodynamics and quantum
theory in relation to Big Bang cosmology, have in their own way raised questions
about transcendent reality. As Paul Davies has shown, the God question can be honestly
28 T. PETERS

asked from within scientific reasoning. Theologians and scientists may now be sharing a
common subject matter, and the idea of hypothetical consonance encourages further
cooperation.
Mark William Worthing at Luther Seminary in Adelaide challenges theologians to be
theologically responsible by investigating what science is saying about the world, the world
we believe God to be the creator and redeemer of: “Theology … has the responsibility to
demonstrate to what extent and in what ways Christian faith is compatible with cosmol-
ogies that may in fact prove to be an accurate description of the universe.”89 Now emeritus
Princeton theologian Wentzel van Huyssteen puts it this way:
As Christians we should therefore take very seriously the theories of physics and cosmology;
not to exploit or to try to change them, but to try to find interpretations that would suggest
some form of complementary consonance with the Christian viewpoint.90

Hypothetical consonance asks theologians to advance beyond repristination of dogma to

taking up theological inquiry. Rather than beginning from a rigid position of inviolable
truth, the term hypothetical asks theologians to subject their own assertions to further
investigation and possible confirmation or disconfirmation. An openness to learning
something new on the part of theologians and scientists alike is essential for hypothetical
consonance to move us forward. Canberra systematic theologian Stephen Pickard
“suggests a more modest and humble theological task, willing to admit uncertainty and
an appropriate provisionality in the results of theological enquiry, perhaps more so
than has occurred in the past.”91
It is my judgment that, at least for the near future, the protean presupposition of
hypothetical consonance should guide the dialogue between natural science and Christian
theology. Some scientists are already recognizing the limits to reductionist methods and
peering into the deeper questions about the nature of nature and the significance of all
that is real. Theologians are mandated to speak responsibly about the natural world
they claim to be the creation of a divine creator; and natural science has demonstrated
its ability to increase our knowledge and understanding of this wondrous world. If God
is the creator, then we should expect growth in our understanding of God as we grow
in understanding of the creation. Conversely, we should expect that, if the world is a cre-
ation, then it cannot be fully understood without reference to its creator.
The one world within which both scientists and theologians live is itself making a
demand that we get beyond the Two Languages stand-off and engage one another. The
urgency of the ecological crisis, among other matters of importance, requires cooperative
attention. This eco-demand is presupposed by Pope Francis in his magnificent letter on
ethical alliance to deal with our planet’s future, Laudato Si. The Holy Father writes in
§62: “Science and religion, with their distinctive approaches to understanding reality,
can enter into an intense dialogue fruitful for both.”92 The pope here has presupposed
hypothetical consonance along with the moral demand.
Lisa Stenmark at San Jose State University, in contrast to the pope, presupposes not
consonance but rather dissonance. Yet, she also acknowledges such a moral demand
coming to both scientists and theologians from the world. So, she presses for a disputa-
tional friendship, a more aggressive form of dialogue. Disputational friendship “expands
on the relationship between religion and science beyond doctrines and discoveries, and
acknowledges that both have a responsibility for the world.”93
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 29

Both hypothetical consonance and moral urgency ready us for the eighth in our list of
models, dialogue leading to creative mutual interaction. But, before we jump to the eighth
model, we need one more preliminary excursis on critical realism.

Excursis B: Critical Realism and Theological Reference

Critical Realism (CR) is the epistemological assumption at work when research scientists
are unable to see material objects yet still believe, on faith so to speak, that they are actually
there. Electrons, for example, cannot be seen. Yet, electrons are indispensable and ubiqui-
tous. The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 was predicted based upon critical realist
assumptions.94 Might critical realism within science match a parallel critical realism in
theology?
Just what is critical realism? CR makes an epistemological claim regarding how we
know the physical world that we cannot see. As a form of realism, it includes a methodo-
logical set of assumptions presupposing that an objective world actually exists and that we
can know it through inquiry. As a form of realism, it presupposes that it is possible to
know the external world as it is, independent of the human mind. As critical, however,
CR recognizes that human subjective analysis and construction contribute to what we
deem to be knowledge. Our knowledge is more than mere perception. Knowledge requires
critical reflection on perception. It requires imagination. Scientific critical realism assumes
that mature theories are approximately, though not absolutely, true. Might this apply to
theology as well as science?
Wentzel van Huyssteen, introduced above, believes that theological statements about
God refer to God. So, he advocates “critical-theological realism” combined with a
method for justifying theories in systematic theology that parallels what we find in
natural science. Justification occurs through progressive illumination offered by a theolo-
gical theory, not, as traditionally done, by appeal to ecclesiastical or some other undispu-
table authority. Van Huyssteen recognizes the relativistic and contextual and metaphorical
dimensions of human speech that floods all discourse, theological and scientific alike. Pro-
gress toward truth requires constructive thought, the building up of metaphors and
models so as to emit growing insight.95 And, most significantly, theological assertions
refer. They refer to God. They are realistic. “Theology,” he writes, “given both the ultimate
religious commitment of the theologian and the metaphoric nature of our religious
language, is scientifically committed to a realist point of view. … Our theological theories
do indeed refer to a Reality beyond and greater than ours.”96
On the one hand, critical realism should be contrasted with nonliteralist methods such
as positivism and instrumentalism, because CR recognizes that theories represent the real
world. On the other hand, critical realism should be contrasted also with naive realism,
which invokes the correspondence theory of truth to presume a literal correspondence
between one’s mental picture and the object to which this picture refers. Critical
realism, in contrast, is nonliteral while still referential. The indirectness comes from the
conscious use of metaphors, models, and theories. Ian Barbour notes that:
Models and theories are abstract symbol systems, which inadequately and selectively rep-
resent particular aspects of the world for specific purposes. This view preserves the scientist’s
realistic intent while recognizing that models and theories are imaginative human constructs.
Models, on this reading, are to be taken seriously but not literally.97
30 T. PETERS

Urging the adoption of critical realism by theologians, the late Arthur Peacocke maintains
that:
critical realism in theology would maintain that theological concepts and models should be
regarded as partial and inadequate, but necessary and, indeed, the only ways of referring to
the reality that is named as “God” and to God’s relation with humanity.98

Not all theological voices chime in with harmony here. Nancey C. Murphy recommends that
theologians avoid CR on the grounds that it remains modern just when we need to move
toward postmodern reasoning. Critical realism remains caught in three restrictive elements
of the modern mind: (1) epistemological foundationalism which attempts to provide an indu-
bitable ground for believing; (2) representational thinking with its correspondence theory of
truth; and (3) excessive individualism and inadequate attention to the community. The post-
modern elements she lifts up to be incorporated into the future theological agenda are (1) a
non-foundationalist epistemological holism and (2) meaning as use in language philosophy.99
What counts for Murphy is the progressive nature of a research program; and this is a suffi-
cient criterion for evaluating theological research regardless of its referentiality.
Curiously, both scientists and theologians believe in what they cannot perceive. Physi-
cists do not see, hear, feel, smell, or taste electrons. Yet, they believe electrons are there in
reality. Theologians to not see, hear, feel, smell, or taste God. Yet, they believe God is not
only real but present. In both cases, rational reflection must be critical and imaginative,
even while maintaining confidence that beliefs refer to reality.

Back to the Next Models

Having introduced both hypothetical consonance and critical realism, we are now ready to
explicate the path from dialogue to creative mutual interaction.

8. Dialogue Leading to Creative Mutual Interaction

Combining dialogue with creative mutual interaction (CMI) belongs to our eighth model.
Dialogue between science and theology begins with the Two Languages or independence
model. What dialogue adds is the hypothetical consonance assumption necessary to make
conversation possible. This is the assumption that scientific and religious voices are speak-
ing about the same reality. Through conversation, scientists and theologians may very well
undergo a fusion of horizons and reach a respectable level of shared understanding if not
new knowledge.100
One of the first things a theologian may wish to enter as a plea at the outset of dialogue
is this: please don’t misunderstand religion or its theological methods! As we have seen in
the scientism and scientific imperialism models above, the picture many scientists have of
religion is unnecessarily distorted, biased, disparaging, and maligning. “Theology can and
must challenge the natural sciences to correct their false perceptions of theological themes
and contents,” asserts Michael Welker at Heidelberg.101
But a meal of dialogue may not be enough to satiate some appetites. Some of us hunger
for more. What tempts our appetite is interaction, even creative mutual interaction. This is
the agenda taken up by the Francisco J. Ayala Center for Theology and the Natural
Sciences (CTNS) in Berkeley, California.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 31

CMI, creative mutual interaction, is a specific method for the interaction between theol-
ogy and science in which both fields have something important to contribute to each
other.102 The movement from science to theology includes the theological appropriation
of specific discoveries and theories of the sciences, either directly as things to be considered
by theology or as a philosophical interpretation of science appropriated by the theologian.
On the one hand, CMI directs the theologian to construct a theology of nature. On the
other hand, CMI includes an additional, new movement from theology to science. The
theologian may at some point suggest a direction for further scientific research.
Like the Golden Gate Bridge which bears traffic from San Francisco to Marin County
and back, CMI is erecting a bridge permitting traffic in two directions between science and
theology. Robert John Russell, founder and director of CTNS, puts it this way:
In many ways the bridge is now complete and we can concentrate fully on the rich oppor-
tunities and challenges brought on by the flow of knowledge and vision in both directions
across the bridge: the creative mutual interaction between theology and science.103

Nancey Murphy lauds Russell’s contribution. His CMI method, she says, “both incorpor-
ates and transcends the best previous work in the field.” (Figure 3)104
With traffic running both directions on the bridge between science and religion, Russell
attempts to construct a theory of divine action in nature’s world which is both theological
and scientific. Russell’s CMI method leads to an answer to the persistent question: are
there any domains in nature where the effects of God arise? If the only world we have
is Newton’s world of classical physics where every event is determined by efficient or
mechanical causation, God cannot act except when performing a miracle. So, how does
God act in nature in a non-miraculous form?
The scientific interpretation of nature today is much more porous than the worldview
of the previous three centuries. During the Newtonian era of classical physics, we thought
we lived in a closed causal nexus where everything is determined mechanically by efficient
causation. With the rise of quantum physics a century ago, however, that closed causal
nexus opened up. Nobel laureate Charles Townes explains:
Before the twentieth century, science was already remarkably successful and seemed to say
that everything happening in our world was completely deterministic. That is, given the par-
ticular present situation the laws of science determine completely what will happen at any
future time. But in the twentieth century this changed with the study of very small particles
and the discovery of quantum mechanics. Science now has fundamental laws predicting the
probability of particular things happening, but it is not able to say precisely which of the likely
things will actually happen. An electron can never be located at a precise place, nor be known
to head in a precise direction.105

According to Townes the scientist, nature understood in terms of quantum mechanics

makes room for divine action. “The real mystery to us is how God can intervene. Our
scientific experiments do not rule out such intervention.”106
Those engaged in the dialogue between science and religion treat this as good news. The
science crossing today’s CMI bridge brings with it the Copenhagen or indeterministic
interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is quite amenable to a theory of divine
action within the physical realm. Rather than a closed causal nexus, the physical world is
better understood as a dynamic history of physical events within which God is perpetually
at work. “When we shift to an indeterministic world, a new possibility opens up,” writes
32 T. PETERS

Figure 3. Creative mutual interaction.

Russell; “One can now speak of objective acts of God that do not require God’s miraculous
intervention but offer, instead, an account of objective divine action that is completely con-
sistent with science.”107 Russell can define God’s action in both theological and scientific
terms:
My thesis is that … because of developments in the natural sciences, including quantum
physics, genetics, evolution, and the mind/brain problem, and because of the changes in phil-
osophy, including the move from epistemic reductionism to epistemic holism and the recog-
nized legitimacy of including whole-part and top-down analysis, we can now view special
providence as consisting in the objective acts of God in nature and history to which we
respond through faith and we can interpret these acts in a non-interventionist manner consist-
ent with the natural sciences. In short we can begin to do what we thought was impossible for
over one hundred years—believe credibly that God really did do what the Bible testifies to.108

Specifically, God acts in subatomic physical events at the point of the collapse of the wave
function. Indeterminacy at this level of subatomic activity belongs to the laws of nature, so
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 33

God does not abrogate any laws while imparting influence at this level. And because atoms
are everywhere (atoms may be small but they are everywhere, or ABSE), God’s objective
action is everywhere. Russell affectionately calls his position non-interventionist objective
divine action, or NIODA for short: “I call this type of divine action non-interventionist
view of objective special providence or non-interventionist objective divine action
(NIODA).”109
Accordingly, God’s action is objective—not just a subjective interpretation of otherwise
natural events—because when God acts with nature it makes a difference for the future of
the physical domain. Also, accordingly, God’s action is non-interventionist—it is not mir-
aculous—because it coincides with natural processes. God’s objective action breaks no
natural laws.
Because the physical world is causally incomplete, argues Russell, God may act non-
miraculously to produce an event in nature which nature on its own would not have pro-
duced. In this way, the principle of sufficient reason (that for every effect there is a suffi-
cient cause) is satisfied even in cases involving the direct action of God. Of course, in an
overwhelming number of cases, the principle is satisfied by natural causes alone.
Here is an important methodological implication: CMI leading to NIODA in no way
runs into conflict with science, since it bases its philosophical interpretation of the pro-
cesses of nature on the very theories found in science. CMI asks whether there are one
or several areas in the natural sciences where science itself leads to a view of nature as
including events for which the natural causes which contribute to them are insufficient
to bring them about. Russell relies on the term indeterminism, or better yet, ontological
indeterminism, to refer to a philosophical interpretation of the various areas in the
natural sciences in which these sciences allow for NIODA in nature.
NIODA sends traffic across the CMI bridge from theology to science, but it also returns
bearing cargo for theology. The results of God’s action at the quantum level can be seen as
bringing about, in a non-interventionist mode, both many of the general features of the
world we describe theologically in terms of general providence (or continuous creation)
and at least some of those specific events in the world to which a theology of special pro-
vidence refers.
Russell’s notion of NIODA has its critics.110 Let us look at just one, Michael Dodds, who
raises multiple objections to NIODA. Here are two: (1) Russell’s selection of the indeter-
ministic interpretation of quantum events is arbitrary; and (2) Russell turns divine action
into a secondary cause, making God’s action just one more mundane cause among many.
First, selecting the indeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics seems arbi-
trary. After all, Niels Bohr and the Copenhagen school alone tout indeterminism while
Albert Einstein along with David Bohm and others do not. NIODA could succeed, com-
plains Dodds, only because it borrows selectively, only because it cherry-picks from among
the scientific alternatives.111
Dodds compounds the cherry-picking criticism by adding an additional observation,
namely, NIODA adds determinism to the otherwise indeterministic interpretation.
According to the Copenhagen indeterminists, “no causes are needed for quantum
events. Scientists who oppose the Copenhagen interpretation believe that natural causes
are needed.”112 What NIODA does, in effect, is substitute divine action for these
“needed” natural causes. The result is a “hybrid interpretation that includes elements of
both the Copenhagen interpretation and that of its opponents.”113 Russell wants it both
34 T. PETERS

ways, charges Dodds. A Copenhagen indeterminist might respond to Russell: “keep your
divine cause out of my science where I think no cause is needed”; whereas, a determinist
such as Einstein or Bohm might respond: “a natural cause will do the trick so we don’t
need a divine cause.”
Russell’s response to Dodds notes that when indeterminists say: “no causes are needed
for quantum events,” they mean no natural causes. Excluded specifically are causes that
would be included in a scientific theory. As scientists they cannot rule out divine
causes, because that would require a theological argument, not a scientific one.114
Dodd’s second objection accuses NIODA of turning divine action into a secondary
cause, of failing to acknowledge God’s transcendence as the world’s primary cause.
“Such an indeterministic niche for divine action is needed only if God and creatures are
conceived as univocal causes. … Any true affirmation of divine transcendence would
render such a search unnecessary or at least suspect.”115
Russell’s response is twofold. Initially, he reaffirms divine transcendence by reaffirming
creatio ex nihilo. Subsequently, Russell attempts to work within Dodd’s Thomistic meta-
physical framework by noting how Dodds, like Saint Thomas before him, recognizes
divine action beyond nature. Russell uses Dodds against himself. “God may produce
effects that are beyond the power of nature,” writes Dodds; “In all of these actions,
God’s influence is not contrary to nature.”116 Even though Russell does not himself
embrace Thomism, he believes that NIODA could be integrated into a Thomisitic
theory of divine action in which God’s action makes a counterfactual difference in the
way the processes of nature unfold in time.
This is no impasse. Russell and Dodds each construct a theology of nature within which
divine action plays an indispensable role in both the scientific and theological understand-
ings of the created order.
In this section we have reviewed the eighth model, dialogue leading to creative mutual
interaction. The public dialogue between science and religion is like an Apple store
announcement of a sale on iMacs; people line up to rush in with hopes that what is
new will be welcomed if not cherished. Here is how Carl Feit registers his hope:
As a staunchly committed Orthodox Jew and a professional immunologist, I am pleased that
this new dialogue is taking place. I am convinced that holding a religious perspective can help
us understand the spiritual dimension of science. Equally, I believe that grappling with scien-
tific questions can help us achieve deeper insight into our religious traditions.117

Two Integration Models: Naturalism and Theology of Nature

9. Naturalism
Naturalism provides one form of what Ian Barbour called integration. According to
Barbour, some schools of thought hold that “integration is possible between the content
of theology and the content of science.”118 As examples, Barbour lists three: natural theol-
ogy, theology of nature, and systematic synthesis. My illustrative examples differ slightly.
Here I treat the spate of new naturalisms, including new age spirituality as extant forms of
integration. I will hold theology of nature for separate treatment, as model number ten.
One can find systematic synthesis in either naturalism or theology of nature, depending
on the amount of respective detail.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 35

If we ask, “where are we now in relating science and religion?,” we must answer that we
stand before a smorgasbord of new naturalisms. “Naturalism is the view that nothing
transcends Nature—the real is natural and the natural is real. … References to extra-
natural realities have no currency to explain the phenomena arising from natural
systems,” claims Loyal Rue.119 By invoking the term naturalism, we are putting a fence
around our worldview: nothing outside nature exists. Naturalism’s fare, according to vir-
tually every recipe, is eliminative, that is, it eliminates all claims of a supranatural or trans-
cendent dimension to reality.
What makes the new naturalisms taste alike is their common doctrine that there is only
one reality, nature, and science is its prophet. What distinguishes the taste of one natur-
alism from another is its answer to these questions: is something sacred? Is there a god?
Can a naturalist be religious? On the menu we find scientific naturalism, religious natur-
alism served with or without God or even with or without the sacred, and theistic natur-
alism with a creator God intact.
Scientific naturalism, like scientism and scientific imperialism discussed above, is the
belief that the world is governed by natural laws and forces that can be understood scien-
tifically; that all phenomena are part of nature and can be explained by natural causes,
including human cognitive, moral, and social phenomena. This form of naturalism is
materialistic and atheistic. As an -ism [natural plus -ism], scientific naturalism takes a
step beyond scientific imperialism to become a full-blown worldview nominated to
govern the social order. “The constitutions of nations ought to be grounded in the consti-
tution of humanity,” contends Michael Shermer, “which science and reason are best
equipped to understand. That is the heart and core of scientific naturalism and Enlight-
enment humanism.”120
Suppose we stir into scientific naturalism a spiritual ingredient. The result is spiritual
naturalism. What some own as spiritual naturalism allies with non-theistic religious nat-
uralisms just discussed. Its membership includes atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and
pagans. Spiritual naturalists limit our knowledge of the natural world to what we can
experience or what we can learn on the basis of evidence. Beyond the natural world, spiri-
tual naturalists are not atheistic but rather agnostic. Nevertheless, they examine things
closely, looking into nature for its essence. “To have spirituality is to be concerned with
the larger, deeper, and essential matters of life and to apply ourselves consciously
toward them in a committed practice or ‘walk’. This includes, as Socrates put it, the ‘exam-
ined life’, and this is what we mean by spirituality.”121
Now, let us make our recipe more complex. Instead of a vague spirituality, suppose we
stir into scientific naturalism something specifically religious, such as religious feeling.
What do we get? We get non-theistic religious naturalism. “The spiritual axis [of religious
naturalism] entails exploring inward religious responses to the Epic [of evolution], includ-
ing awe and wonder, gratitude, assent, commitment, humility, reverence, joy, and the
astonishment of being alive at all.”122
What defines this form of naturalism as non-theistic is its repudiation of belief in a
supranatural or transcendent divine being: “The concept of a God who actively alters
the course of natural events does not belong in a naturalist view.”123
If the prophet of nature is science, then science establishes the religious naturalist’s
canon. What, then, counts as extra-canonical? As heterodox? As heretical? Answer:
special revelation. Whether in the form of scripture or tradition, any claim to privileged
36 T. PETERS

knowledge of the supranatural becomes immediately excluded. Of the four sources of reli-
gious knowledge listed by the Wesleyan Quadrilateral—scripture, tradition, reason, and
experience—the first two must go. Only what is revealed by science counts as genuine
knowledge of nature, even if this knowledge is enhanced somewhat by human experience
that is religious in character. Jerome Stone sets the demarcation line:
Religious naturalism is a type of naturalism. We start, therefore, with naturalism, a set of
beliefs and attitudes that focuses on this world. … Naturalism is religious when it includes
a set of beliefs and attitudes that postulate religious aspects of this world that can be appreci-
ated within a naturalistic framework. Certain happenings or processes in our experience elicit
responses that can appropriately be called religious.124

Here, in religious naturalism, both science and religion are integrated into a single robust
worldview.
Religious naturalism can be baked either with God or without God. One recipe stirs into
non-theistic religious naturalism something sacred. The God ingredient is still missing,
but the sacred is present. What is sacred? Nature herself.
Stuart Kauffman at the Sante Fe Institute assigns divine attributes to nature herself:
“We do not need a supernatural God. The creativity in the universe is God enough.
From this natural sense of God, we can hope to reinvent the sacred as the creativity
in nature.”125 Kauffman is here immanentizing what were previously transcendental
traits of the divine. By collapsing the transcendental traits of God into the material
world itself, the world becomes sacred without a supranatural divinity to render it
sacred.
Even though we might call this a sacred-without-God form of religious naturalism,
Kauffman is willing to give sacred nature the name God. “God is the creativity of the Uni-
verse. This seems so powerful. It is God enough for me and perhaps for many of us.”126
Perhaps it would be more accurate to call this recipe the nature-as-God form of religious
naturalism.
If at this point we stir in ingredients such as transcendence and divinity, we get theistic
naturalism. The key ingredient in theistic naturalism is the conflation of divine action with
natural processes, at least according to Arthur Peacocke. “A theistic naturalism may be
expounded according to which natural processes, characterized by the laws and regu-
larities discovered by the natural sciences, are themselves actions of God, who continu-
ously gives them existence.”127
Willem Drees, editor of Zygon, stirs a bit more into his recipe for theistic naturalism:
Any theist has good reasons to be a naturalist. … If this world is God’s creation, any knowl-
edge we have of this world is knowledge of God’s creation. God is not to be found so much in
the lacuna in our current knowledge, in the gaps, but rather in what we have uncovered. …
Nature, religiously spoken of as creation, is not opposed to God, but rather God’s gift.128

Nature is God’s gift and revelation. “I do consider myself a science inspired naturalist,”
writes Drees, by which he means he relies upon methodological naturalism for his knowl-
edge.129 Even so, Drees can still say: “a science-inspired naturalist can advocate a natur-
alistic theism,” which allies with a theology of nature. “Any theology of nature that
openly acknowledges that the theological proposal does not follow from science, but
merely is supposed can be tested for its consistency with data.”130 Despite the name theistic
naturalism, Drees’ position tastes a great deal like our tenth model, theology of nature.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 37

If what Drees cooks up tastes a bit bland, a stronger commitment to theism might
enhance its taste. This is the recipe cooked up by Christopher Knight, ISSR (International
Society for Science and Religion) Executive Secretary:
The model I advocate exemplifies the approach that Drees labels theistic naturalism and that
I label strong theistic naturalism. This model affirms the ontological reality of the God who at
the very least sustains in being the universe that he has “designed” with a providential end in
view.131

Of the various theisms Knight might elect, he chooses panentheism. What

a strong panentheistic naturalism offers, if not yet a model that can command widespread
acceptance, [is] a research program of considerable importance that can be pursued in a
number of ways. Some of these ways will be specifically theological in content, such as
that which arises from the pansacramental or incarnational naturalism that I myself
advocate.132

Nature is sacred according to the theistic religious naturalist, because God is present
throughout nature.
Speaking of panentheists, should we put Process Theism on the same menu with
other naturalisms? After all, John Cobb did write a book titled A Christian Natural
Theology.133 Yet, process theism affirms belief in God and relies on metaphysics in
addition to science as God’s prophet. Perhaps we should say this: process theism is a
special brand of theistic religious naturalism. It takes the form of a non-reductive
monism inclusive of both physical and mental dimensions. Process followers of
Alfred North Whitehead put back both mind and God which had been removed by
Newtonian mechanics. The key is that its doctrine of God rejects supranaturalism in
favor of a single metaphysical scheme which includes both God and the world.
“Process philosophy makes this proposal by providing a nonreductionistic version of
naturalism,” declares David Ray Griffin.134 “Process philosophy is thereby meant to
be equally a moral, aesthetic, religious, and scientific philosophy.”135 Griffin believes
in God, but he does not believe in anything supranatural.
Process theism, like the metaphysical scheme of Thomas Aquinas, proffers a grand
metaphysical worldview that incorporates both the physical and the mental, both the
world and God. The Whiteheadian tradition in process theology represents, in Barbour’s
term, a systematic synthesis within the integration model.136
Now, finally, let us turn to New Age Spirituality, a form of religious naturalism that
attempts a total integration of the content of science and the practices of spirituality.
New agers love emergence,137 so the key to New Age thinking is postmodern holism—
that is, the attempt to overcome modern dualisms such as the split between science and
spirit, ideas and feelings, male and female, rich and poor, humanity and nature. The
past dualism of matter and spirit is in the process of being overcome by a comprehensive
cosmic process, wherein evolution spiritualizes matter and involution materializes spirit.
In short, nature is becoming divinized.
The New Age recipe stirs in four sets of spicy ideas: (1) an evolutionary framework that
includes not only biology but psychology and culture; (2) discoveries in twentieth-century
physics, especially quantum theory; (3) acknowledgement of the important role played by
imagination in human knowing; and (4) a recognition of the ethical exigency of preserving
our planet from ecological destruction.
38 T. PETERS

Physicists Fritjof Capra and David Bohm, who combine Hindu mysticism with physical
theory, are among the favorite New Age scientists. Bohm, for example, argues that the
explicate order of things that we accept as the natural world and that is studied in labora-
tories is not the fundamental reality; there is under and behind it an implicate order, a
realm of undivided wholeness. This wholeness, like a hologram, is fully present in each
of the explicate parts. Reality, according to Bohm, is ultimately “undivided wholeness in
flowing movement.”138 When we focus on either objective knowing or subjective feeling
we temporarily forget the unity that binds them. New Age spirituality seeks to cultivate
awareness of this underlying and continually changing unity.
A now dated Christian Century article on science and religion promulgates such holism
with a pantheistic overtone. “When I am dreaming quantum dreams,” writes Barbara
Brown Taylor,
the picture I see is more like a web of relationships—an infinite web, flung across the vastness
of space like a luminous net. … God is the web … I want to proclaim that God is the unity—
the very energy, the very intelligence, the very elegance and passion that make it all go.139

By adding evolutionary theory to physics and especially to Big Bang cosmology, New Age
theorists find themselves constructing a grand story—a myth—regarding the history and
future of the cosmos of which we human beings are an integral and conscious part. On the
basis of this grand myth, New Age ethics tries to proffer a vision of the future that will
guide and motivate action appropriate to solving the ecological problem. Science here pro-
vides the background not only for ethical alliance but also for a fundamental religious rev-
elation. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry put it this way:
Our new sense of the universe is itself a type of revelatory experience. Presently we are
moving beyond any religious expression so far known to the human into a meta-religious
age, that seems to be a new comprehensive context for all religions. … The natural world
itself is the primary economic reality, the primary educator, the primary governance, the
primary technologist, the primary healer, the primary presence of the sacred, the primary
moral value.140

Now, I happen to find the ethical vision of the New Age inspiring. But I cannot in good
conscience endorse its meta-religious naturalism. I find it contrived and uncompelling.
Even so, the zeal for ecological ethics and commitment to planetary health constitute a
vibrant form of ethical alliance.
According to our ninth model, as mentioned above, naturalism represents a form of
what Barbour called integration. What gets integrated in this model, however, is not
science as a discipline with theology as a discipline. If anything, theology gets subsumed
into science. Yet, naturalism is not actually science either. It is an ideology, a constructed
myth, an ontology, a worldview. The term, integration, applies because each naturalism
attempts to integrate all reality into its own comprehensive vision.
Shermer’s scientific naturalism attempts only a modest integration of evolutionary
science with moral guidance for society, so it still straddles the scientific imperialism
model and the integration model. The other forms of naturalism we examined—religious
naturalism with or without a sacred, with or without God, with or without spiritual or
ethical practice—go much further. They are clear attempts at integrating scientific knowl-
edge with an all-encompassing worldview. Once religion is stripped of special revelation
and denuded of belief in a supranatural divine figure, then religious sensibilities and
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 39

Figure 4. Naturalisms.

moral commitments can be fully integrated into a single picture of reality, nature as all in
all (Figure 4).

10. Theology of Nature

A theology of nature makes the bold claim that it grasps the meaning of nature more com-
prehensively and more deeply than does science. “A theistic interpretation makes coherent
sense of the width and depth of our experience of nature as no other interpretation does,”
argues Gilkey.141 The theologian of nature may very well incorporate what we learn about
nature through science, to be sure; yet, theology delivers more than what science alone can
deliver.
Theology of nature, like naturalism, relies upon science to provide knowledge. Yet,
unlike naturalism, theologians of nature rely upon an additional source of knowledge,
namely, special revelation. “A theology of nature is appropriate as long as it is suitably qua-
lified by proper attention to revealed theology,” asserts Notre Dame’s Celia Deane-
Drummond.142
Barbour lays down the requisites for a theology of nature: “A theology of nature does
not start from science, as some versions of natural theology do. Instead, it starts from a
religious tradition based on religious experience and historical revelation.”143 In addition
to reliance on special revelation, “theological doctrines must be consistent with the scien-
tific evidence even if they are not required by it.”144
A theology of nature, then, relies upon two things: a revelatory source of knowledge
about the divine creator combined with commitment to doctrinal consonance with
what is learned about the creation through science. Peacocke makes plain the task of
today’s theologian of nature: “We have to emphasize anew the immanence of God as
creator ‘in, with, and under’ the natural processes of the world unveiled by the sciences.”145
With these requisites in mind, we can see how Muzaffar Iqbal, editor of Islam and
Science, is searching for a path toward a theology of nature that is both loyal to Islam’s
history and honest about its appropriation of scientific knowledge: “Modern science
cannot be Islamized by sprinkling Qur’ānic verses over its theories,” he says when
warning against simplistic integration.146 Nor can one return simply to the premodern
formulation of commitments to Allah. Is there a way forward? Yes. Iqbal points to a tra-
versable path, namely, retrieval of the metaphysical framework within which fundamental
Islamic commitments were initially formulated and seek there an appropriation of modern
science.
Iqbal begins with the two-language separation and then looks for consonance if not
unity in a shared metaphysics:
40 T. PETERS

The language of the Qur’ān does not allow a semantic transference to the language of modern
science. Thus, it is futile, rather absurd, to find telephones, microbes and the Big Bang in the
text of the Qur’ān. What is relevant, however, is the metaphysical framework that needs to be
applied to modern science, and, indeed, to all knowledge, whatever its source.147

Iqbal points an arrow toward the metaphysical path, but seems to hesitate to follow where
it would lead. Michael Dodds, in complementary contrast, follows the path with gusto.
Dodds follows the path that takes him into scholastic metaphysics, the worldview of
Thomas Aquinas. This results in a most robust theology of nature.
In his book, Unlocking Divine Action, Dodds argues that modern science has been
“locked” into an inadequate metaphysical system. This inadequate metaphysical system
stems from the rejection of formal and final causes and a reduction of all natural causality
to efficient causes during the rise of classical or Newtonian physics. What is needed now,
in light of contemporary science, particularly quantum physics, is a return to the more
elaborate metaphysical system of Aristotle as interpreted by Thomas Aquinas. Thomistic
metaphysics will “unlock” divine action through its richer understanding of causality.
Dodds shows where a solution to the problem of understanding divine action can be
found. The mystery of divine action is bound up with the mystery of God; the problem
of divine action is a human invention. The problem arises from the reduction of causality
to efficient or mechanical causation during the Newtonian period and, in addition, it
derives from the loss of a proper understanding of divine transcendence.
The wholesale reduction of causality to mechanism is the first problem. Viewing the
physical world as a closed causal nexus is not a product of science as science, however,
but of scientism—the unfounded assumption that only measurable, quantifiable causes
are real. If all causality is simply efficient causality understood as the force that moves
the atoms, then if God would exercise causality (acts) at all, God must exercise the
same kind of causality as every other created being, since it is the only kind of causality
available. This makes God’s causality univocal with (of the same type as) the causality
of creatures. But univocal causality is always a zero sum game: the more one cause does
the less there is for another to do.
A univocal doctrine of causality reminds us of two people carrying a table; the more
weight one lifts, the less there is for the other. Accordingly, God’s action will always inter-
fere with the action (causality) of creatures. There is simply no room in a closed causal
universe for God to act without interference. The closed causal nexus that relies on
only one form of cause, efficient cause, makes no room for the God of creation and
providence.
Dodds’ resolution is first to trace historically how the problem arose within western
culture and then to note that contemporary science has discovered pockets of indetermi-
nacy in the world. The latest science itself has opened a much richer understanding of
causality, implicitly inviting a retrieval of the four causes of Aristotle and Thomas
Aquinas—formal cause, material cause, efficient cause, and final cause. The worldview
we inherited from Newton and modern materialism relies on one cause and only one
cause, efficient causality. But, asks theologian Dodds, might we re-introduce the concepts
of primary and secondary causality?
In the context of efficient causality, St. Thomas Aquinas’ teaching on primary and sec-
ondary causality can be retrieved so that God (precisely in virtue of his transcendence as
creator and source of being and actuality) can (and must) act immanently within the
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 41

action of every creature. God acts as a primary cause, determining the existence over
against the non-existence of the creation. The way creatures interact is dubbed, secondary
causality. Science self-limits its study to secondary causality, while theology studies both
primary and secondary causality. The so-called laws of nature describe the nexus of sec-
ondary causation, leaving untouched the primary cause underlying this nexus.
This brings us to Dodd’s second concern, transcendence. Divine transcendence, prop-
erly understood, makes it impossible to characterize divine action as interference in the
nexus of secondary causes. Even when God performs miracles, this should not be charac-
terized as against (contra) nature but rather beyond (praeter) nature. This is because the
most basic orientation of the natural world is its orientation toward God as the ultimate or
final cause of all things: “This divine influence that pervades all creation and is present in
every creaturely act is nothing less than the goodness of God, the final cause of all
things.”148
Even in revelation, God exceeds our human comprehension. … We know God through crea-
tures, confessing God as the cause of creatures (the way of causality), denying of God the
limitations of creatures (the way of negation), and affirming that God superexceeds whatever
perfection we find in creatures (the way of eminence).149

God’s creative and providential goodness completes nature from beyond nature. The nat-
uralists want nothing beyond nature, but Dodds invokes the God of primary and final cau-
sation to take nature beyond itself. His reliance on special revelation for his knowledge of
God combined with his appropriation of quantum physics places him squarely in the
theology of nature camp. Dodds, like Thomas Aquinas before him, integrates not only
science and theology but all things in heaven and earth. After all, St. Thomas Aquinas
defined theology as a “sacred science” in which “all things are treated under the aspect
of God: either because they are God Himself or because they refer to God as their begin-
ning and end.”150
Our final example of a theologian of nature is Niels Henrik Gregersen at the University
of Copenhagen. For Gregersen, theology derives from a premodern historical revelation
but today it must find consonance with the scientific understanding of the material
world. Gregersen’s method aims at constructing a Christian theology of both creation
and incarnation.
Note the implicit hypothetical consonance at work when Gregersen asserts: “a theolo-
gical ontology will thus assume that God is intimately present at the core of physical
matter described by the sciences (and beyond that), without thereby conflating God the
Creator with the world of creation.”151 The trinitarian God who creates the material
world knowable through science also enters the world in the incarnation. What Gregersen
adds that goes well beyond most traditional explications of the Logos become flesh is what
he calls
… deep incarnation. The incarnational move of the divine Logos is not just into a particular
human person in isolation, ‘the blood and flesh’ of Jesus. The incarnation also extends into
Jesus as an exemplar of humanity, and as an instantiation of the ‘frail flesh’ of biological
creatures.152

Gregersen’s interpretation of deep incarnation is consonant with information theory in

contemporary science discussions.
42 T. PETERS

In short, theologians of nature rely upon two epistemological sources, historical revel-
ation combined with a scientifically influenced worldview. The latter is clearly subordinate
to the former. Nevertheless, the scientific perspective is constitutive of theological under-
standing and explanation.

Theological Bafflegab
The Two Languages model helps us understand why Michael Shermer might employ the
term “theological bafflegab.” Scientific discourse is strictly third-person and objective; it
pursues precision, parsimony, and univocity. Primary religious discourse, in contrast,
combines third-person objectivity with first-person subjectivity; it is self-involving, sym-
bolic, multivalent, and equivocal.153 Science and religion may not exactly speak two sep-
arate languages, but they certainly do use our common language differently.
In times of crisis, for example, primary religious discourse includes prayer and talk about
prayer. It includes both talking to God and talking about God. After acknowledging the grave
loss experienced in the crisis, the religious person in prayer thanks God for one or another gift
of grace. Such religious speech defies translation into objective or third-person science. To
the ears of a non-religious scientist, religious talk may sound like bafflegab.
Now, we need to distinguish primary religious discourse from secondary theological
discourse. Theology is a rational discipline which reflects on multivalent symbolic dis-
course and, like science, seeks objectivity, precision, and univocity. If dialogue or creative
mutual interaction is to take place, it will take place most efficiently at the level of theo-
logical reflection. Hence, the term Theology and Science fits the new field better than
others such as Science and Religion.

Conclusion
“I do think that intelligent, sophisticated theologians are almost totally irrelevant to the
phenomenon of religion in the world today,” says Richard Dawkins. “Regrettable as
that may be.” Why so? “Because they’re outnumbered by vast hordes of religious
idiots.”154 Has the time arrived for we, the vast hordes of religious idiots in the
company of our theologians, to rise up? If so, what shall we do when we rise up? Fight
back? Wave a flag of surrender? Negotiate for rapprochement?
Virtually every self-identified religious person would prefer a truce if not a partnership
between science and religion. To allege that religion is anti-science is at best based on mis-
information, at worst the product of an anti-religious battle cry. For those marching in the
armies of scientism and scientific imperialism, declaring war against anti-scientific reli-
gion provides comfort for the conscience. Nevertheless, the “vast hordes of religious
idiots” would prefer to drop their defenses and become allies of genuine science.
Theologians, who reflect rationally on their religious faith, are naturally drawn to the
rigors of scientific discourse. Theologians recognize a kindred spirit in scientists in
pursuit of discovery, new knowledge, and expansion of our shared worldview. Like cheer-
leaders on the grid iron, theologians applaud scientific touchdowns:
Science at its best, and theology at its best, both pursue truth. … If it be true, as theologians
claim, that the God of Israel is the creator of this magnificent universe, then every truth about
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 43

this universe discovered by science only enhances appreciation for God’s creative
handiwork.155

By and large, theologians find themselves engaged in worldview construction. Presuming

both hypothetical consonance and critical realism, theologians draw the most comprehen-
sive picture of reality imaginable. They try to locate everything in the physical and histori-
cal world in relationship to the one gracious God who is both creator and redeemer.
Confirmed scientific knowledge contributes much to what goes into this picture. We
have referred above to this model as theology of nature.
The never-ending construction of this worldview benefits from the dialogue between
theology and science, as we have seen. Relying on the bridge metaphor, science sends a
great deal of traffic toward the religious side of the bridge. Might traffic go the other direc-
tion? Yes. This dialogue may have moments when the theologian offers an insight that could
lead the laboratory scientist toward a progressive research program, toward an advance in
scientific knowing. When traffic flows both directions, we have creative mutual interaction.
In this essay I have outlined 10 different conceptual models according to which science
and religion are currently thought to be related. The first four assume conflict or war: (1)
scientism; (2) scientific imperialism; (3) theological authoritarianism; and (4) the evol-
ution controversy. Six additional models assume a truce or even more; they pursue part-
nership: (5) the Two Books; (6) the Two Languages (separation or independence); (7)
ethical alliance; (8) dialogue leading to creative mutual interaction; (9) naturalism; and
(10) theology of nature. I have pointed out that a war of some sort is going on, but it is
not a war between genuine science and genuine religion. Rather, it is a war prosecuted
by the armies of scientism and scientific imperialism, by an ideology that co-opts
science to support a strictly physicalist or materialist worldview. The religious enemies
in this war are not uniformly anti-science, despite how they are depicted.
The dominant view in academic circles, I pointed out, is what some call Independence and
what I label the Two Languages model. Here in the twenty-first century, this separation
model is giving way to dialogue and interaction. In my judgment, if the field of Theology
and Science is to keep the momentum of the frontier moving, CMI or creative mutual inter-
action combined with a theology of nature will provide the requisite dynamism.

Notes
1. Russell Re Manning, “Introduction,” in Science and Religion in the Twenty-First Century: The
Boyle Lectures at St. Mary-Le-Bow, eds. Russell Re Manning and Michael Byrne (London:
SCM Press, 2012), xxxix–lx, at li.
2. Jerry A. Coyne, Faith Vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible (New York:
Viking, 2015), xii.
3. John William Draper, History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (New York:
D. Appleton and Company, 1875); A.D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theol-
ogy, 2 volumes (New York: Dover, 1896; 1960). “ … two great facts. In the first place, there has
always been a conflict between religion and science; and in the second place, both religion and
science have always been in a state of continual development.” Alfred North Whitehead,
Science and the Modern World (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 225.
4. See: Ted Peters, God in Cosmic History: Where Science and History Meet Religion (Winona
MN: Anselm Academic, 2017).
5. Peter Harrison, “Introduction,” in The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, ed.
Peter Harrison (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1–18, at 3.
44 T. PETERS

6. Thomas Torrance distinguishes between religion as what people do in their subjectivity from
theology, which is a rational discipline treating God objectively. “Scientific theology is active
engagement in that cognitive relation to God in obedience to the demands of His reality and
self-giving.” Thomas F. Torrance, Theological Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1969), v.
7. The lineup of contending forces I offer here is revised from that sketched previously in my
Preface to Cosmos as Creation (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989), 13–17. It is also a
more nuanced lineup compared to the one offered by Ian Barbour in his Gifford Lectures,
Religion in an Age of Science (San Francisco: Harper, 1990), 3–30, wherein he identifies
four ways: conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. My categories of scientism
and theological authoritarianism fit Barbour’s conflict category; and the two-language
theory is a model of independence in both schemes. Yet Barbour’s notions of dialogue and
integration lack the nuance that I believe is operative under the notion of consonance. Con-
sonance involves dialogue, to be sure, but it acknowledges that integration may be only a
hope and not an achievement. Also, Barbour thinks of scientific creationism in terms of “bib-
lical literalism” and thereby places it in the conflict category, overlooking the fact that the
creationists think of themselves as sharing a common domain with science; they see them-
selves in conflict with scientism but not with science itself. John Haught offers up an alterna-
tive four unit typology: conflict, contrast, contact, and confirmation in his book, Science and
Religion (New York: Paulist, 1995). Mark Richardson offers us a three part typology: (1) inte-
gration typified by the work of Lionel Thornton, William Temple, Austin Farrar, Arthur Pea-
cocke, and John Polkinghorne; (2) romantic typified by poets Whitman or Wordsworth and
by contemporary New Age figures such as Briane Swimme, Thomas Berry, and Matthew Fox;
and (3) scientific constraint, wherein one speaks univocally about the natural and transcen-
dent worlds, typified by Paul Davies, Freman Dyson, Stephen Hawking, and Frank Tipler.
See: Mark Richardson, “Research Fellows Report,” CTNS Bulletin 14:3 (Summer 1994),
24–25. Philip Hefner cuts the pie six ways: (1) modern option of translating religious
wisdom into scientific concepts; (2) post-modern/new age option of constructing new
science based myths; (3) critical post-Enlightenment option of expressing truth at the
obscure margin of science; (4) post-modern constructivist option of fashioning a new meta-
physics for scientific knowledge; (5) constructivist traditional option of interpreting science
in dynamic traditional concepts; and (6) Christian evangelical option of reaffirming the
rationality of traditional belief. Unpublished to date. Where I speak of non-warfare
models, Mikael Stenmark puts reconciliation models. Mikael Stenmark, “Ways of relating
science and religion,” Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, 278–295.
8. This article updates previous articles and book chapters on the status of the relationship
between theology and science. See: Ted Peters, “Theology and Science: Where Are We?”
for “Theology Update”, Dialog 34:4 (Fall 1995), 281–296; “Theology and Science: Where
Are We?” Zygon 31:2 (June 1996), 323–343; “Theology and Science: Where Are We?” Evan-
gelical Review of Theology 24:2 (April 2000), 100–115 and Uniting Church Studies 6:1 (March
2000), 39–67; Ted Peters, Science, Theology, Ethics (Aldershot UK: Ashgate 2003), Chapter 1;
Ted Peters, ed., Science and Theology: The New Consonance (Boulder CO: Westview Press,
1998), Chapter 1; Korean translation by Heup Young Kim: 테드 피터스편, 김흡영외 역,
과학과 종교: 새로운 공명 (서울: 동연출판사, 2002).
9. When the term science war is used currently, it may not refer to religion at all. Instead, it
refers to two things. First is the postmodern accusation that scientific facts are constructions
of “communities of scientists.” Second, establishment science feels attacked by climate
change deniers. “We are indeed at war. This war is run by a mix of big corporations and
some scientists who deny climate change,” says Bruno Latour. Jop de Vrieze, “’Science
wars’ veteran has a new mission,” Science 358:6360 (13 October 2017), 159.
10. Peters Atkins, “Atheism and Science,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, eds.
Philip Clayton and Zachary Simpson (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2006), 124–136,
at 124.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 45

11. Not every scientific researcher touts this monopolistic claim to knowledge. Arno Penzias,
winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the first physical evidence to
support Big Bang theory, recognizes multiple sources of knowledge. He recognizes that scien-
tific knowledge has limits. “Science is always an incomplete description.” Arno Penzias, “The
Elegant Universe,” in Faith in Science: Scientists Search for Truth, eds. W. Mark Richardson
and Gordy Slack (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 18–34, at 20. Among other forms
of knowledge, first-person subjectivity and inter-personal understanding are not subject to
scientific knowing. “Irreducibly extra-scientific knowledge marks a limit of science,” con-
tends Dutch philosopher René van Woudenberg, “Limits of Science and the Christian
Faith,” Science and Christian Belief 24:2 (October 2012), 129–148, at 132. Spelling out
limits is by no means a criticism of science. Failing to recognize these limits is a problem
created by scientism.
12. Fred Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe (New York: Mentor, 1950), 125. “Atheism, and its
justification through science, is the apotheosis of the Enlightenment,” writes Atkins.
“Atheism and Science,” 136.
13. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), 136; see: Carl
Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980). Scientism is militant. Co-discoverer
of the double helix structure of DNA Francis Crick reduces what religious people used
to believe to be the disembodied soul to “nothing but a pack of neurons.” All of our
joys and sorrows, our memories and ambitions, our sense of personal identity and free
will, “are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their
associated molecules.” The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), 3. For aggressive anti-religious secular human-
ism see Paul Kurtz, The Transcendental Temptation (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1985) and the
journal published formerly by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of
the Paranormal, The Skeptical Inquirer.
14. Ann Druyan, “Ann Druyan Talks about Science, Religion, Wonder, and Awe, and Carl
Sagan,” in Science Under Siege, ed. Kendrick Frazier (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books,
2009), 38–47, at 43.
15. Richard Lewontin, Review of The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan in New York Review
of Books (January 9, 1997).
16. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,
2006), 36. Theologians do not shake in their boots at this barrage of artillery fire.
“Dawkins shows himself up as one who expresses almost complete ignorance of theology.
The atheism expressed here is the mirror image of the outmoded theism that is claimed to
be a threat.” Celia Deane-Drummond, Christ and Evolution: Wonder and Wisdom (Minnea-
polis: Fortress Press, 2009), 88–89.
17. Michael Shermer, How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science (New York: W.H.
Freeman and Co., 2000), 61.
18. Michael Shermer, “Scientific Naturalism: A Manifesto for Enlightenment Humanism,”
Theology and Science 15:3 (August 2017), 220–230, at 224. “Scientism continues to be pro-
moted heavily by the new atheists.” Denis Alexander, “Science, Religion, and Atheism,”
Science and Christian Belief 24:2 (October 2012), 98.
19. David A. Hollinger, Science, Jews, and Secular Culture: Studies in Mid-twentieth Century
American Intellectual History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 161.
20. Huston Smith, The Way Things Are: Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life,
ed. Phil Cousineau (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 118.
21. Huston Smith, “The News of Eternity,” in Healing our Planet; Healing Our Selves, eds.
Dawson Church and Geralyn Gendreau (Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2005), 43–58: 446.
22. Job Kozhamathadam, “Science and Religion: Past Estrangement and Present Possible
Engagement,” in Contemporary Science and Religion in Dialogue: Challenges and Opportu-
nities, ed. Job Kozhamthadam (Pune, India: ASSR Publications, Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth,
2002), 2–45, at 18.
46 T. PETERS

23. Carl Sagan, “UFO’s: The Extraterrestrial and Other Hypotheses,” UFO’s: A Scientific Debate,
eds. Carl Sagan and Thornton Page (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1972), 272.
24. Another form of scientific imperialism seems a bit more benign than outright pillage. It is the
so-called scientific study of religion. One may study religion scientifically in two ways: (1)
analyze religion as a cultural phenomenon with the methods of the social sciences; and (2)
subject theological truth claims to scrutiny. Hugh J. McCann, “Getting Scientific About Reli-
gion,” in The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue, ed. Robert
B. Stewart (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 113–126.
25. Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (New York: Simon and Schuster, Touchstone,
1983), ix.
26. Paul Davies, The Mind of God (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 16. In reviewing
Davies’ book, The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), Philip Hefner alerts us to the manner in which
Davies challenges science to go beyond its current limits. “The Fifth Miracle has an important
subtext, which presses the claim: the current understanding of nature’s laws is insufficient to
understand the origin of life. Religious people have perennially perceived such insufficiencies
as occasions to invoke the action of God.” “Mysterious Beginnings,” Christian Century
116:17:522–623 (June 2–9, 1999), 622. Davies does not invoke a religious God-of-the-gaps
to fill the insufficiency, of course, but rather presses science to expand to fill this gap with
a fuller understanding of nature.
27. Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence (New York: W.W. Norton, Liveright
Publishing, 2014), 150–151. To place religion in evolutionary history as serving reproductive
fitness is to engage in the so-called scientific study of religion. Accordingly, scientists can
explain religion better than theologians can.
28. Shermer, “Scientific Naturalism,” 221. On the one hand, Shermer may find good scientific
company. “Nature harbors values because it harbors ends and is thus anything but value-
free.” Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technologi-
cal Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 78. On the other hand, Shermer ought
not expect every scientist to join his march to ground social ethics in evolution. “Modern
science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws, no absolute
guiding principles for society.” William Provine, “Evolution and the Foundation of
Ethics,” MLB Science 3 (1988), 25. Warriors fighting in the scientism army tend to be nihi-
lists, while scientific imperialists in some instances find meaning bequeathed to us by nature.
Some soldiers fight in both armies.
29. Shermer, “Scientific Naturalism,” 221. Not every Darwinian wants to pillage religion.
“Modern Darwinians are not into unrestricted rape and pillage,” says Michael Ruse; but
they certainly claim “that morality has no base beyond human emotions.” Michael Ruse,
“Introduction,” in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought, ed.
Michael Ruse (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 1–31, at 28.
30. Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul (New York: Random House, 2017), 212.
31. Ibid. Keith Ward seems unafraid of scientific soul pillage. “A proper understanding of
science, such as is now increasingly held by physicists, in particular, does not undermine
belief in the soul at all. On the contrary, it increases our sense of reverence, as we contemplate
the unique transcendence of a being which, while part of nature, can understand and com-
prehend its own reality.” Keith Ward, Defending the Soul (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1992), 11.
32. Frank Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (New York: Doubleday, 1994), ix, 10, 17, 247. Tipler
borrows some eschatological theology from Wolfhart Pannenberg and places it within the
scientific eschatology of physicist Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions (New York:
Harper, 1988). Dinesh D’Souza fights back. “To reclaim hijacked territory, Christians must
take a fresh look at reason and science. When they do, they will see that it stunningly confirms
the beliefs that they held in the first place. What was presumed on the basis of faith is now cor-
roborated on the basis of evidence, and this is especially true of the issue of life after death.”
Dinesh D’Souza, Life Beyond Death: The Evidence (Washington DC: Regnery, 2009), 13.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 47

33. Lawrence M. Krauss, The Greatest Story Ever Told--So Far: Why Are We Here? (New York:
Atria Books, 2017), 2.
34. Ibid., 304.
35. Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), 26.
36. Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (New York: Modern Library, 1994), 46.
37. Ibid., 36–40; http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm (accessed September 5,
2017) italics added. Einstein was searching “for language to communicate the sacred dimen-
sion of doing science,” say Nancy Abrams and Joel Primack, “Einstein’s View of God,” in God
for the 21st Century, ed. Russell Stannard (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2000),
153–156, at 153.
38. Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, tr., John Oman
(New York: Harper, 1958), 36.
39. Edward O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth (New York: W.W. Norton, Liveright Pub-
lishing, 2012), 295. See: Ted Peters, “E.O. Wilson’s Conquest of Earth,” Theology and Science
11:2 (May 2013), 86–105.
40. John Paul II On Science and Religion: Reflections on the New View from Rome, eds. Robert
John Russell, William R. Stoeger, and George V. Coyne (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, and Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1990). In October
1992 the pope completed a 13 year study of the Galileo affair, proclaiming that the church
erred on condemning the astronomer for disobeying orders regarding the teaching of Coper-
nicus’ heliocentric theory of the universe. John Paul II described Galileo as “a sincere
believer” who was “more perceptive [in the interpretation of Scripture] than the theologians
who opposed him.” Because in the myths of scientism Galileo is touted as a martyr for truth
over against the narrow-mindedness of theology, Harvard astronomer Owen Gingerich took
the occasion to clear up the facts. One noteworthy fact is that Galileo was never condemned
for heresy, only disobedience. “How Galileo Changed the Rules of Science,” Sky and Telescope
85:3 (March 1993), 32–26.
41. Gingerich reads history the same way. “The great flourishing of modern science has been
built on efficient causes, how things work, deliberately suppressing the final causes, the
why of how things work as they do.” Owen Gingerich, God’s Planet (Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press, 2014), 132–133.
42. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “The Question of Cosmogenesis--The Cosmos as a Subject of Scientific
Study,” Islam and Science 4:1 (2006), 45–59: 59.
43. Ibid., 59. See Nasr’s excellent book, Religion and the Order of Nature (Oxford UK: Oxford
University Press, 1996).
44. Abdus Salam, “Foreword” to Islam and Science, by Pervez Hoodbhoy (London: Zed Books,
1991), ix–xii, at ix.
45. Hoodbhoy, ibid., 88.
46. Alexi V. Nesteruk, The Sense of the Universe: Philosophical Explication of Theological Com-
mitment in Modern Cosmology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 52.
47. Gayle E. Woloschak, Tatjana Paunesku and Katarina Trajkovic, “Science, Truth, and the
Current Political Climate,” Public Orthodoxy; https://publicorthodoxy.org/2017/06/08/
science-truth-and-the-current-political-climate/ (accessed October /5, 2017).
48. Rubem Alves, “On the Eating Habits of Science,” in Faith and Science in an Unjust World:
Report of the World Council of Churches’ Conference on Faith, Science, and the Future, 2
Volumes (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1980), 1:42.
49. Rosemary Radford Ruether, “A Feminist Perspective on Religion and Science,” Ibid., 55.
50. The Intelligent Design army believes it is firing its canons at scientism, not science per se.
Scientism is “defined as the belief that science is the only way to gain reliable knowledge
about the world.” Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen, The Intelligent Design Debate and the Tempta-
tion of Scientism (London: Routledge, 2016), 2.
51. “A theology of evolution is a systematic set of reflections that tries to show how evolution,
including those features that scientific skeptics consider to be incompatible with religious
faith, illuminate the revolutionary image of God given to Christian faith.” John F. Haught,
48 T. PETERS

Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution (New York: Paulist Press, 2001), 49.
Stephen J. Pope depicts “God working in and through the evolutionary process to
create, sustain, and guide all of creation, including human creatures.” Stephen J. Pope,
Human Evolution and Christian Ethics (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press,
2007), 110.
52. To learn who’s fighting with whom about what, see: Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett, Evol-
ution: From Creation to New Creation (Nashville TN: Abingdon 2003); Can You Believe in
God and Evolution? (Nashville TN: Abingdon, 2006; Anniversary Edition 2009), Korean:
하나님과 진화를 동시에 믿을 수 있는가? / 동연; and Theological and Scientific Commen-
tary on Darwin’s Origin of Specie (Nashville TN: Abingdon, 2008.); and the Theological Brief,
http://tedstimelytake.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/evolution_controversy.pdf.
53. Harun Yaha, “A Response to the claim that nobody objects to scientific theories, only evolution;”
http://www.harunyahya.com/en/Darwinism-Watch/148578/A-response-to-the-claim-that-
nobody-objects-to-scientific-theories-only-to-evolution (accessed October 4, 2017).
54. Even the most literalist of fundamentalists will not declare war against science. “Fundamen-
talists, by and large, are not uniformly or uncritically antiscientific.” Everett Mendelsohn,
“Religious Fundamentalism and the Sciences,” in Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming
the Sciences, the Family, and Education, eds. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1993), 23.
55. See: Duane T. Gish, Evolution: The Fossils Say No! (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers,
1973) and Roger E. Timm, “Scientific Creationism and Biblical Theology,” in Peters,
Cosmos as Creation, 247–264.
56. Stephen Jay Gould, Hens Teeth and Horses’ Toes: Reflections on Natural History (New York:
Norton, 1983), 254.
57. One could describe the war as a battle between atheistic science and theistic science. Langdon
Gilkey suggests that scientism (what he calls scientific positivism) goes beyond the limits of
science to propound an atheistic cosmology, and this initiates the reaction that results in
scientific creationism. See: Langdon Gilkey, Nature, Reality, and the Sacred (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1993), 55.
58. Henry Morris, History of Modern Creationism, 2nd ed. (Santee CA: Institute for Creation
Research, 1993), 308–309.
59. Antony Alumkal, Paranoid Science: The Christian Right’s War on Reality (New York:
New York University Press, 2017), ix.
60. Ibid., 15.
61. Ibid., 193.
62. Francis S. Collins, The Langauge of God (New York: Free Press, 2006), 99. See the Biologos
website: http://biologos.org/.
63. Guy Consolmagno, SJ, and Paul Mueller, SJ, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?
(New York: Image, 2014), 4.
64. John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1991), 33.
65. Joshua M. Moritz, Science and Religion: Beyond Warfare and Toward Understanding
(Winona MN: Anselm Academic, 2016), 8, Moritz’s italics.
66. Nonna Verna Harrison, “The Human Person as an Image and Likeness of God,” The Cam-
bridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology, eds. Mary B. Cunningham and Elizabeth
Theokritoff (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 78–92, at 87.
67. Peter M.J. Hess, “God’s Two Books: Special Revelation and Natural Science in the Christian
West,” Bridging Science and Religion, eds. Ted Peters, Gaymon Bennett, and Kang Phee Seng
(London: SCM, 2003), 123–140, at 140.
68. Ilia Delio, O.S.F., “Is Natural Law Unnatural? Exploring God and Nature Through Teilhard’s
Organic Theology,” Theology and Science 15:3 (August 2017), 276–288, at 277.
69. What I dub the Two Languages model Ian Barbour called the “independence” model.
Barbour, Religion and Science, 84–90.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 49

70. Kendrick Frazier, “Science and Religion: Conflicting or Complementary?” Skeptical Inquirer
23:4: 18–23 (July/August 1999), 22.
71. Barbour, Science and Religion, 98.
72. Regin Prenter, Creation and Redemption, tr., Theodore J. Jensen (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1967), 226.
73. Langdon Gilkey, Creationism on Trial (San Francisco: Harper, 1985), 49–52; 108–113.
74. In his more recent works, Gilkey has pressed for a closer relationship--a mutual interdepen-
dence--between science and religion. Gilkey attacks scientism (what he calls naturalism or
scientific positivism) when it depicts nature as valueless, determined, and void of the
sacred, on the grounds that these are supra-scientific or philosophical judgments that go
beyond science itself. Science, therefore, must be supplemented by philosophy and religion
if we are to understand reality fully. Nature, Reality, and the Sacred, 3; 11; 75; 111; 129.
75. Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Holy Wars: An Astrophysicist Ponders the God Question,” Science
and Religion: Are The Compatible? ed. Paul Kurtz (Albany NY: Prometheus Books, 2003),
73–82, at 77.
76. Francisco J. Ayala, Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion (Washington DC: Joseph Henry
Press, 2007), 172.
77. Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper, 1957), 82.
78. The “two books” approach is embraced today by the organization, Reasons to Believe, a pub-
lishing house that “examines how the facts of nature and the truths of the Bible give each of us
a reason to believe.” Reasons to Believe, P.O. Box 5978, Pasadena CA 91117, fax 818/852-
0178.
79. Jürgen Moltmann, Science and Wisdom, tr. by Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 2.
80. H. Paul Santmire, Behold the Lilies: Jesus and the Contemplation of Nature--A Primer (Eugene
OR: Cascade, 2017), 3. Identifying the internal strengths for supporting ecological morality is
part of today’s theological task. Hinduism is a case in point. “Advaita Vedānta, the school of
Indian philosophy founded by Śankara in the eighth century that posits a monistic or
nondual relationship of the individual soul (ātman) and the absolute (brahman). The ques-
tion that arises at the intersection of these works is: Can nondualism (advaitatā) be eco-
friendly?” Michelle Voss Roberts, “Worldly Advaita? Limits and Possibilities for an
Ecofriendly Nondualism,” Religious Studies Review 34:3 (September 2008), 137–143, at
138; doi:10.1111/j.1748-0922.2008.00287.x.
81. Edward O. Wilson, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (New York: W.W. Norton,
2006), 5.
82. Francis, Laudato Si, (May 24, 2015) http://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/
encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf (accessed
December 19, 2015). “Such words speak deeply to the Hindu sensibility honed by five thou-
sand years of communion with the natural world, considered not as a lower realm over which
humans have been given dominion, but the physical manifestation of the Divine--metaphori-
cally, the body of God.” Rita D. Sherma, “A Hindu Response,” For Our Common Home:
Process-Relational Responses to Laudato Si, eds. John B. Cobb, Jr. and Ignacio Casterua
(Anoka MN: Process Century Press, 2015), 358–367, at 358. See: Ted Peters, “Anticipating
the Renewal of the Earth: Theology and Science in Laudato Si,” ed. John Clapper, Interface
Theology 1:2/2015 (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2017), 31–44.
83. In addition to the ecological crisis, ethical alliances between scientists and theologians have
sprung up since 1990 to provide bioethical guidance at the rapidly moving frontier of genetic
research with its medical applications. See: Ted Peters, Karen Lebacqz, and Gaymon Bennett,
Sacred Cells? Why Christians Should Support Stem Cell Research (New York: Roman and Lit-
tlefield, 2008).
84. See: Ted Peters, GOD--the World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a Postmodern Era, 3rd ed.
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), chapter 14, and Futures--Human and Divine (Atlanta: John
Knox Press, 1978).
50 T. PETERS

85. Zhuo Xinping, “Chinese Academic Community: On the Relationship Between Science and
Religion,” in Religion and Science in the Context of Chinese Culture, ed. Chan Tak-kwong,
Tsai-Yi-Jia, and Frank Budenholzer (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2005), 155.
86. Ernan McMullin, “How Should Cosmology Relate to Theology,” in The Sciences and Theol-
ogy in the Twentieth Century, ed. by Arthur Peacocke (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1981), 39. See: Ted Peters, Science and Theology: The New Consonance, editor
& contributor, Westview Press, 1998; Korean translation by Heup Young Kim: 테드
피터스편, 김흡영외 역, 과학과 종교: 새로운 공명 (서울: 동연출판사, 2002).
87. Consolmagno and Mueller, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? 54.
88. John Polkinghorne, Science and Providence (Boston: New Science Library, 1989), 99.
89. Mark William Worthing, God, Creation, and Contemporary Physics (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1996), 193.
90. Wentzel van Huyssteen, Duet or Duel? Theology and Science in a Postmodern World (Harris-
burg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1998), 78.
91. Stephen Pickard, “‘Unable to See the Wood for the Trees’: John Locke and the Fate of Sys-
tematic Theology,” The Task of Theology Today, ed. by Victor Pfitzner and Hilary Regan
(Adelaide: Open Book Publishers, 1998), 145.
92. Francis, Laudato Si.
93. Lisa L. Stenmark, Religion, Science, and Democracy: A Disputational Friendship (Lanham:
Lexington Books, 2013), 195.
94. See: Ted Peters with Carl Peterson, “The Higgs Boson: An Adventure in Critical Realism,”
Theology and Science 11:3 (2013), 185–207.
95. The criterion for evaluating the progressive strength of a theory is fertility, and this consti-
tutes the chief argument in behalf of critical realism for Ernan McMullin, “A Case for Scien-
tific Realism,” in Jarret Leplin, Scientific Realism (Berkeley: University of California, 1984),
26. See: Arthur D. Peacocke, Intimations of Reality: Critical Realism in Science and Religion
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1984). John Polkinghorne applies the term, verisi-
miltude, to assert that within science, “our understanding of the physical world will never be
total but it can become progressively more accurate.” John Polkinghorne, One World: The
Interaction of Science and Theology (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 17. I
hesitate to endorse verisimiltude. How can we measure the “progressively more accurate”
when fertile science moves from one critical model to another critical model, never to
literal truth?
96. Wentzel van Huyssteen, Theology and the Justification of Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1989), 162–163. “I advocate a critical realism,” writes Ian Barbour, “holding that both com-
munities [scientific and religious communities] make cognitive claims about realities beyond
the human world.” Religion in an Age of Science, 16.
97. Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, 43; see: Ian Barbour, Myths, Models, and Paradigms
(San Francisco: Harper, 1974), 38; and Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1982), 133–134.
98. Arthur D. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, enlarged ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990,
and Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 14.
99. Nancey C. Murphy, “Relating Theology and Science in a Postmodern Age,” CTNS Bulletin
7:4 (Autumn 1987), 1–10; see her Templeton Book Prize winning work: Theology in an
Age of Scientific Reasoning (Ithaca: Cornell, 1990).
100. “The dialogical interaction between science and religion in the Indian context hopefully will
lead to a renewed vision of God, world, and humans.” Kuruvilla Pandikatu, “Science-Religion
Dialogue in India: Creative Challenges and Enabling Possibilities,” Omega: Indian Journal of
Science and Religion 10:1 (June 2011), 37–54, at 47.
101. Michael Welker, The Theology and Science Dialogue: What Can Theology Contribute?
(Gðttingen: Neukirchener Theologie, 2012), 14.
102. Robert John Russell, Cosmology from Alpha to Omega: The Creative Mutual Interaction of
Theoloyg and Science (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 22, Russell’s italics. “CMI depicts
three distinct approaches to addressing research problems. There is the independent
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 51

scientific research program, the independent theological research program, and the inter-
action there between conceived of as a third research program.” Adam Pryor, The God
Who Lives: Investigating the Emergence of Life and the Doctrine of God (Eugene OR: Pick-
wick, 2014), xiii.
103. Russell, Cosmology, 2.
104. Nancey Murphy, “Creative Mutual Interaction: Robert John Russell’s Contribution to Theol-
ogy and Science Methodology,” God’s Action in Nature’s World, Essays in Honor of Robert
John Russell, eds. Ted Peters and Nathan Hallanger (Aldershot UK: Ashgate, 2006), 39–50,
at 49.
105. Charles H. Townes, “Basic Puzzles in Science and Religion,” God’s Action in Nature’s World
129–136, at 130.
106. Ibid., 131.
107. Russell, Cosmology, 128.
108. Ibid., 111–112.
109. Ibid., 117, Russell’s italics.
110. See: Nicholas Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science (Cambridge UK: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2002), Chapter 6; and Wesley J. Wildman, “Robert John Russell’s Theology of
God’s Action,” God’s Action in Nature’s world, 147–169.
111. Dodds’ criticism applies to both Russell and Nancey Murphy. Michael J. Dodds, Unlocking
Divine Action: Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas (Washington DC: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2012), 147.
112. Ibid., 145.
113. Ibid.
114. Russell’s response to Dodds will appear in the forthcoming book, Scientific and Theological
Understandings of Randomness in Nature.
115. Dodds, Unlocking Divine Action., 157.
116. Ibid., 253.
117. Carl Feit, “A Revealed but Hidden God,” God for the 21st Century, 29–31, at 31.
118. Barbour, Religion and Science, 98.
119. Loyal Rue, Religion is Not about God (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006),
365.
120. Shermer, “Scientific Naturalism.”
121. Spiritual Naturalist Society, http://spiritualnaturalistsociety.org/about-us/what-is-spiritual-
naturalism/ (accessed April 8, 2017).
122. Ursula Goodenough, Michael Cavanaugh, and Todd Macalister, “Who is a Religious Natur-
alist?” Theology and Science 15:3 (August 2017), 231–234, at 232.
123. Ibid., 233.
124. Jerome A. Stone, “Religious Naturalism and the Religion-Science Dialogue: A Minimalist
View,” Zygon 37:2 (June 2002), 381–394, at 382. “Religious naturalism … is not so much a
religion as it is a philosophical proposal for the recreation and redefinition of what counts
as religion in light of the ascendency and productivity of science.” Donald M. Braxton,
“Modern Cosmology and Religious Naturalism,” in The Routledge Companion to Religion
and Science, ed. James W. Haag, Gregory R. Peterson, and Michael L. Spezio (London and
New York: Routledge, 2012), 124.
125. Stuart A. Kauffman, Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion
(New York: Basic Books, 2008), 142.
126. Stuart A. Kauffman, “Must God be Dead? Reinventing the Sacred,” Theology and Science 15:3
(August 2017), 235–248, at 246.
127. Arthur Peacocke, “God as the ultimate informational principle,” Information and the Nature
of Reality, eds. Paul Davies and Niels Henrik Gregersen (Cambridge UK: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2014), 357–381, at 325.
128. Willem B. Drees, “Religious Naturalism and Science,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion
and Science, 108–123, at 115.
52 T. PETERS

129. Willem B. Drees, “Science, Values and Loves: Theologies as Expressive Constructions,”
Theology and Science 15:3 (August 2017), 249–259, at 255.
130. Ibid., 256.
131. Christopher C. Knight, “Theistic Naturalism and Special Divine Providence,” Zygon 44:3
(September 2009), 533–542, at 536–537, italics added.
132. Ibid., 536–541.
133. John B. Cobb, Jr., A Christian Natural Theology Based on the Thought of Alfred North White-
head, 2nd ed. (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007).
134. David Ray Griffin, Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion
(Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 18.
135. Ibid., 17.
136. Barbour, Religion and Science, 103–105.
137. Here is the key principle in the dynamics of emergence: “the whole is greater than the sum of
the parts.” Ursula Goodenough and Terrence W. Deacon, “The Sacred Emergence of
Nature,” Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, 853–871: 854.
138. David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980),
11. See: Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (New York: Bantam, 1977). See: Ted Peters, The
Cosmic Self: A Penetrating Look at Today’s New Age Movements (New York: Harper,
1991), chapter four.
139. Barbara Brown Taylor, “Physics and Faith: The Luminous Web,” Christian Century
116:17:612–619 (June 2–9, 1999), 619.
140. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story (San Francisco: Harper, 1992), 255. A
variant would be the team work of physicist Joel R. Primack and musician Nancy Ellen
Abrams who are trying to construct a myth out of big bang inflationary cosmology and med-
ieval Jewish Kabbalah, not because the myth would be true but because our culture needs a
value orienting cosmology. “In the Beginning … Quantum Cosmology and Kabbalah,”
Tikkun 10:1 (January-February 1995), 66–73.
141. Langdon Gilkey, “Nature as the Image of God: Signs of the Sacred,” Theology Today 51:1
(April 1994), 127–141, at 148.
142. Deane-Drummond, Christ and Evolution: Wonder and Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2009), xvi.
143. Barbour, Religion and Science, 100.
144. Ibid., 101.
145. Arthur R. Peacocke, “Articulating God’s Presence in and to the World Unveiled by the
Sciences,” In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being, eds. Philip Clayton and
Arthur Peacocke (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004), 137–154, at 143.
146. Muzaffar Iqbal, Islam and Science (Altershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002), 311.
147. Ibid., 314.
148. Dodds, Unlocking Divine Action, 181.
149. Michael J. Dodds, O.P., “Thomas Aquinas vis-a-vis Natural Theology, Theology of Nature,
and Religious Naturalism,” Theology and Science 15:3 (August 2017), 266–275, at 267.
150. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I,Q.68,a,3.
151. Niels Henrik Gregersen, “God, matter, and information: towards a Stoicizing Logos Christol-
ogy,” Information and the Nature of Reality, eds., Paul Davies and Niels Henrik Gregersen
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 405–443, at 413.
152. Ibid., 437. Fordham Univeersity’s Elizabeth Johnson belongs to the Deep Incarnation school.
“God’s own self-expressive Word personally joins the biological world as a member of the
human race … enters into solidarity with the whole biophysical cosmos of which human
beings are a part. This deep incarnation of God within the biotic community of life forges
a new kind of union … ” Elizabeth A. Johnson, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of
Love (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 198.
153. Non-dualist Hindus believe this split between 3rd person and 1st person can be overcome
with Advaita philosophy. “Western science as seen in its evolution from Socratic Greece
has tried to understand the world by objectifying it, resulting in dualistic dilemmas.
 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 53

Indian science, as seen in its evolution from the Vedic times (1500–500 BC) has tried to
understand the world by subjectifying our consciousness of reality. Within the Hindu tra-
dition, the Advaita-Vedanta school of philosophy offers possibilities for resolving not only
the Cartesian dilemma but also a solution to the nature of difference in a non-dualistic total-
ity.” Barath Sriraman and Walter Benesch, “Consciousness and Science: A Non-Dual Per-
spective on the Theology-Science Dialogue,” Interchange 43:2 (May2013), 113–128, at 113.
doi:10.1007/s10780-013-9188-9
154. Richard Dawkins, cited by Ruth Gledhill, “God … In Other Words,” London Times, http://
timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1767506.ece (accessed May 11, 2007).
155. Robert John Russell and Kirk Wegter-McNelly, “Science and Theology: Mutual Interaction,”
in Bridging Science and Religion, eds. Ted Peters, Gaymon Bennett and Kang Phee Seng
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 34.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Ted Peters is co-editor of Theology and Science and author of the new book God in Cosmic History
(Anselm Academic 2017). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.

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