A comparison of the cognitive foundations of religion and science and an argument that religion is cognitively natural and that science is cognitively unnatural.

This book explores the historical relations between science and religion and discusses contemporary issues with perspectives from cosmology, evolutionary biology and bioethics.

Pannenberg poses theological questions to natural scientists that illuminate his personal position on issues dealing with theology and the natural sciences, especially physics, reviewing the relationship between natural law and contingency, the importance of the spirit in the phenomenon of life, field theory, language, and the theological account for the nature of God and God's creative activity.

What, if anything, does biological evolution tell us about the nature of religion, ethical values, or even the meaning and purpose of life? The Moral Meaning of Nature sheds new light on these enduring questions by examining the significance of an earlier—and unjustly neglected—discussion of Darwin in late nineteenth-century Germany. We start with Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings staged one of the first confrontations with the Christian tradition using the resources of Darwinian thought. The lebensphilosophie, or “life-philosophy,” that arose from his engagement with evolutionary ideas drew responses from other influential thinkers, including Franz Overbeck, Georg Simmel, and Heinrich Rickert. These critics all offered cogent challenges to Nietzsche’s appropriation of the newly transforming biological sciences, his negotiation between science and religion, and his interpretation of the implications of Darwinian thought. They also each proposed alternative ways of making sense of Nietzsche’s unique question concerning the meaning of biological evolution “for life.” At the heart of the discussion were debates about the relation of facts and values, the place of divine purpose in the understanding of nonhuman and human agency, the concept of life, and the question of whether the sciences could offer resources to satisfy the human urge to discover sources of value in biological processes. The Moral Meaning of Nature focuses on the historical background of these questions, exposing the complex ways in which they recur in contemporary philosophical debate.

This book offers a rationale for a new ‘ramified natural theology’ that is in dialogue with both science and historical-critical study of the Bible. Traditionally, knowledge of God has been seen to come from two sources, nature and revelation. However, a rigid separation between these sources cannot be maintained, since what purports to be revelation cannot be accepted without qualification: rational argument is needed to infer both the existence of God from nature and the particular truth claims of the Christian faith from the Bible. Hence the distinction between ‘bare natural theology’ and ‘ramified natural theology.’ The book begins with bare natural theology as background to its main focus on ramified natural theology. Bayesian confirmation theory is utilised to evaluate competing hypotheses in both cases, in a similar manner to that by which competing hypotheses in science can be evaluated on the basis of empirical data. In this way a case is built up for the rationality of a Christian theist worldview. Addressing issues of science, theology and revelation in a new framework, this book will be of keen interest to scholars working in Religion and Science, Natural Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Biblical Studies, Systematic Theology, and Science and Culture.

This book addresses a variety of important questions on nature, science, and spirituality: Is the natural world all that there is? Or is it possible to move ‘beyond nature’? What might it mean to transcend nature? What reflections of anything ‘beyond nature’ might be found in nature itself? Gathering papers originally delivered at the 2018 annual conference of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT), the book includes contributions of an international group of scientists, philosophers, theologians and historians, all discussing nature and what may lie beyond it. More than 20 chapters explore questions of science, nature, spirituality and more, including Nature – and Beyond? Immanence and Transcendence in Science and Religion Awe and wonder in scientific practice: Implications for the relationship between science and religion The Cosmos Considered as a Moral Institution The transcendent within: how our own biology leads to spirituality Preserving the heavens and the earth: Planetary sustainability from a Biblical and educational perspective Issues in Science and Theology: Nature – and Beyond will benefit a broad audience of students, scholars and faculty in such disciplines as philosophy, history of science, theology, and ethics.