This 2012 collection gathers together lectures on the relationship between scientific thought and aspects of philosophy, religion or ethics.

Arthur S. Eddington, FRS, (1882–1944) was one of the most prominent British scientists of his time. He made major contributions to astrophysics and to the broader understanding of the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is famed for his astronomical observations of 1919, confirming Einstein’s prediction of the curving of the paths of starlight, and he was the first major interpreter of Einstein’s physics to the English-speaking world. His 1928 book, The Nature of the Physical World, here re-issued in a critical, annotated edition, was largely responsible for his fame as a public interpreter of science and has had a significant influence on both the public and the philosophical understanding of 20th-century physics. In degree, Eddington’s work has entered into our contemporary understanding of modern physics, and, in consequence, critical attention to his most popular book repays attention. Born at Kendal near Lake Windermere in the northwest of England into a Quaker background, Eddington attended Owens College, Manchester, and afterward Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won high mathematical honors, including Senior Wrangler. He became Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge in 1913 and in 1914 Director of the Cambridge Observatory. Eddington was a conscientious objector during the First World War. By the end of his career, he was widely esteemed and had received honorary degrees from many universities. He was elected president of the Royal Astronomical Society (1921–1923), and was subsequently elected President of the Physical Society (1930–1932), the Mathematical Association (1932), and the International Astronomical Union (1938–1944). Eddington was knighted in 1930 and received the Order of Merit in 1938. During the 1930s, his popular and more philosophical books made him a well known figure to the general public. Philosophers have found his writings of considerable interest, and have debated his themes for nearly a hundred years.

From five authors with over two decades of experience teaching origins together in the classroom, this is the first textbook to offer a full-fledged discussion of the scientific narrative of origins from the Big Bang through humankind, from biblical and theological perspectives. This work gives the reader a detailed picture of mainstream scientific theories of origins along with how they fit into the story of God's creative and redemptive action.

The Bible makes remarkable claims about people and events in world history. Creation, Adam and Eve, Israel's escape from Egypt, the rise and fall of Israel's kingdom, the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection, the growth of the church--all points of interest by scholars for the historical veracity of the Scriptures. Yet, the Bible does not appear to present the acts of God in history for the purpose of vindicating historical accuracy of the text. The Bible is a story that reveals the living God through inspired writings that communicate the meaning of historical events. In light of the Bible as the revelation of God, and the high stakes of historical veracity for the claims of the Bible, how should Christians approach the interpretation of the Scriptures in a faithful way? Carl F. H. Henry offers guidance as a foremost theologian regarding God, revelation, and the Scriptures. In Did it Really Happen? Jonathan Wood engages the thought of Carl Henry in dialogue with the major alternatives to revelation, history, and the biblical text. The value of Carl Henry's approach is shown to provide a path forward for affirming the historicity of the Bible while interpreting the text well.

Science and religion have long been thought incompatible. But nowhere has this apparent contradiction been more fully resolved than in the figure of A. S. Eddington (1882-1944), a pioneer in astrophysics, relativity, and the popularization of science, and a devout Quaker. Practical Mystic uses the figure of Eddington to shows how religious and scientific values can interact and overlap without compromising the integrity of either. Eddington was a world-class scientist who not only maintained his religious belief throughout his scientific career but also defended the interrelation of science and religion while drawing inspiration from both for his practices. For instance, at a time when a strict adherence to deductive principles of physics had proved fruitless for understanding the nature of stars, insights from Quaker mysticism led Eddington to argue that an outlook less concerned with certainty and more concerned with further exploration was necessary to overcome the obstacles of incomplete and uncertain knowledge. By examining this intersection between liberal religion and astrophysics, Practical Mystic questions many common assumptions about the relationship between science and spirituality. Matthew Stanley's analysis of Eddington's personal convictions also reveals much about the practice, production, and dissemination of scientific knowledge at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Although much has been written about the vigorous debates over science and religion in the Victorian era, little attention has been paid to their continuing importance in early twentieth-century Britain. Reconciling Science and Religion provides a comprehensive survey of the interplay between British science and religion from the late nineteenth century to World War II. Peter J. Bowler argues that unlike the United States, where a strong fundamentalist opposition to evolutionism developed in the 1920s (most famously expressed in the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925), in Britain there was a concerted effort to reconcile science and religion. Intellectually conservative scientists championed the reconciliation and were supported by liberal theologians in the Free Churches and the Church of England, especially the Anglican "Modernists." Popular writers such as Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw sought to create a non-Christian religion similar in some respects to the Modernist position. Younger scientists and secularists—including Rationalists such as H. G. Wells and the Marxists—tended to oppose these efforts, as did conservative Christians, who saw the liberal position as a betrayal of the true spirit of their religion. With the increased social tensions of the 1930s, as the churches moved toward a neo-orthodoxy unfriendly to natural theology and biologists adopted the "Modern Synthesis" of genetics and evolutionary theory, the proposed reconciliation fell apart. Because the tensions between science and religion—and efforts at reconciling the two—are still very much with us today, Bowler's book will be important for everyone interested in these issues.