Scientific Theology: Volume 1: Nature

337 Pages·2002·17.35 MB·English

by  Alister E. McGrath

Allster E. McGrath
A Scientific Theology
ature
A SCIENTIFIC
T H E O L O GY
VOLUME I
NATURE
Alister E. McGrath
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Copyright © T&T Clark Ltd, 2001
Published in Great Britain by T&T Clark Ltd,
59 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2.LQ, Scotland
www. tandtclark.co. uk
This edition published 2001 in the USA
under license from T&T Clark Ltd by
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503
www.eerdmans.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
First published 2001
ISBN 0-8028-3925-8
Manufactured in Great Britain
FOR
THOMAS F. TORRANCE
A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGIAN
Contents
Preface
PART ONE: PROLEGOMENA
i. THE LEGITIMACY OF A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY
Science as the ancilla theologiae
The notion of the ancilla theologiae
The patristic debate over philosophy as the
ancilla theologiae
The social sciences as ancilla theologiael
The natural sciences as the ancilla theologiae
The ontological imperative for theological dialogue with
the natural sciences
The meanings of 'science'
The fragmentation of intellectual discourse
2. THE APPROACH TO BE ADOPTED
The problem of transient theological trends
The provisionality of scientific conclusions
Engaging with Christian theology, not 'religions'
The sciences as a stimulus to theological reflection
The essentialist fallacy
The limitations of controlling paradigms
A realist perspective
vii
Vlll A Scientific Theology: Nature
PART TWO: NATURE
THE CONSTRUCTION OF NATURE 8I
The many faces of nature 82
The history of the concept of nature 88
Classic Greek concepts of nature 9°
Plato 91
Aristotle 92
John Philoponus: a Christian response to Aristotle 95
The autonomy of nature: the seventeenth century 99
Images of nature 102
The female 105
The deconstruction of nature no
The need for an ontology of natufe 116
Multiple readings of the'book of nature' 117
The attempt to deconstruct the natural sciences 121
The phenomenon of naturalism 124
The naturalist exclusion of transcendence 126
A preliminary critique of naturalism 129
From nature to creation 132.
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF CREATION 135
Towards a Christian view of nature: M. B. Foster 138
The biblical concept of creation 141
The Genesis accounts H4
The prophetic tradition 145
The wisdom literature 149
How important is the theme of creation in the
Old Testament? 151
The New Testament 155
Creation ex nihilo: the development of a doctrine 159
Christian formulations of the doctrine of creation 166
The Middle Ages: Thomas Aquinas 167
The Reformation: John Calvin 173
A contemporary statement: Karl Barth 176
Contents ix
An emphasis on creation: a Deist strategy*? 181
The nature of Deism 181
Creation and providence 184
Creation and redemption 185
Creation and Christology 186
The role of the homoousion in the scientific theology
of T. F. Torrance 189
5. IMPLICATIONS OF A CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF CREATION 193
The rendering of God in creation 193
Created rationality and the possibility of theological
reflection 196
Human rationality and the imago Dei 197
Spiritual rationality: responding to Feuerbach 204
Intellectual rationality: the unreasonable effectiveness
of mathematics 209
Moral rationality: responding to the Euthyphro
dilemma 214
The ordering of creation 218
The contingent ordering of creation 219
The laws of nature 225
The beauty of creation 232
The theological aspects of beauty 234
Beauty as a criterion of scientific theories 237
£ THE PURPOSE AND PLACE OF NATURAL THEOLOGY 241
The historical origins of modern natural theology 241
The rise of biblical criticism 244
The rejection of ecclesiastical authority 245
The rise of the mechanical world-view 246
The quest for a religion of nature 247
'Nature' and natural theology 249
Nature as the observable world 249
Nature as human rationality 253
Nature as human culture 255
i ' A Scientific Theology: Nature
The biblical foundations of a natural theology 257
Old Testament 257
New Testament 260
The philosophical debate over natural theology,; 264
The Barthian objection to natural theology:
;
an evaluation 267
Barth's critique of natural theology 268
The early Genevan school: John Calvin and
Theodore Beza 273
The later Genevan school: Jean-AJphonse Turret$jjOf,f "i" 277
Thomas F. Torrance on natural theology .,••,..,..., 279
Torrance's evaluation of Barth 280
Torrance on natural theology 283
The implications of sin for a natural theology 286
The renewed disorder of creation? 288
The human misreading of creation? 291
The place of natural theology within a scientific
theology 294
Resonance, not proof: natural theology and
revealed theology 295
On seeing nature as creation 296
Natural theology as discourse in the public arena 300
MOVING ON: ANTICIPATING AN ENGAGEMENT WITH
REALITY 307
Bibliography 309
Index 321
Preface
T
his trilogy had its origins in the long, hot and dry European
summer of 1976. I was working at the University of Utrecht in
the Netherlands, combining mastering the complex isolation
of a protein thought to be implicated in phosphatidylcholine transport
between biological membranes (which had been pioneered at Utrecht)
with following through my continuing interest in the history and
philosophy of the natural sciences, making use of Utrecht's excellent
libraries.
I cannot recall quite how the idea came into my mind; it was as if a
mental bolt of lightning flashed across my consciousness, eclipsing my
thoughts on how best to apply Fourier Transforms to study the time-
resolved anisotropy of a fluorescent probe that I had developed for
studying lipid viscosity in biological membranes and their models.
The idea that shot through my mind was simple: explore the relation
between Christian theology and the natural sciences, using philo
sophy and history as dialogue partners. It would be grounded in and
faithful to the Christian tradition, yet open to the insights of the
sciences. This would be more than a mere exploration of a working
relationship; it would be a proposal for a synergy, a working together, a
mutal cross-fertilization of ideas and approaches — in short, a scientific
theology.
Like all simple ideas, this turned out to be rather more difficult to
put into practice than to conceive. The idea which came to me in a
flash took twenty years to follow through. As the project which now
follows is somewhat lengthy, it may be helpful to explain how it came
to develop, and the form which it has taken.
A Scientific Theology: Nature
By the age of eighteen, as someone about to leave high school and
go up to university, I felt that I had sorted out the meaning of life, and
so was free to move on to deal with other issues. One of the incorrigible
certainties on which my life was based at this stage was that religion
was outdated and irrelevant, if not actually harmful. My early views on
this matter were shaped to no small extent by the writings of Karl
Marx. I must confess, however, that I was probably influenced in my
reading of Marx by his interpreters of the 1960s, who reworked Marx's
vision of the working class as the vanguard of a socialist society. The
working classes having signally failed to achieve what Marx had expected
of them, Theodore Adorno and others suggested that students should
be seen as inheriting their mantle. This appealed to teenagers such as
myself in the late 1960s; it offered us a real role in the reshaping of
history, as well as an excellent excuse for not being bothered by such
wearisome matters as academic work. Who could fail to be seduced by
being offered such an historic role? Whose ego could fail to be pampered
by such a grandiose vision? It was also useful at a more mundane level.
It allowed school students such as myself to suggest that we were far
too busy creating a new world order to have time for such irrelevancies
as homework.
The student riots in Paris and the United States suggested that real
and permanent social change was not far away. In Northern Ireland, in
which I had spent my entire youth, the events which gave birth to what
were euphemistically termed 'the troubles' in 1968 were viewed by many
more idealistic dreamers - myself included - as representing the dawn
of a new era. It would be an era without religion. Marx had offered an
explanation of the origins of religion which predicted its elimination
through socio-economic change. Northern Ireland was notorious for
its religious tensions; the elimination of religion would therefore lead
to a new era of peace, co-operation and progress. It was impossible to
overlook the compelling appeal of this world-view, and avoid being
shaped by its vision. It was clear to me that Christianity was a relic of a
past era, for which the future had no place. I was encouraged in this
belief by a work which I had read in its second edition while a high
school student — A. J. Ayer's powerful Language, Truth and Logic, which
offered a vigorous rejection of metaphysics and elimination of any need
to speak of God. Ayer's argument for atheism as the only intellectually
credible and politically focused world-view for a thinking person seemed
irrefutable.
Although I was interested in philosophy and politics while at school,
my studies focused on the natural sciences. I had chosen to specialize in