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A compelling contribution to 'science and religion' debates, showing how early modern thinkers reconciled naturalism with a providential world view.
A philosophical inquiry into the strengths and weaknesses of theism and naturalism in accounting for the emergence of consciousness, the visual imagination and aesthetic values. The authors begin by offering an account of modern scientific practice which gives a central place to the visual imagination and aesthetic values. They then move to test the explanatory power of naturalism and theism in accounting for consciousness and the very visual imagination and aesthetic values that lie behind and define modern science. Taliaferro and Evans argue that evolutionary biology alone is insufficient to account for consciousness, the visual imagination and aesthetic values. Insofar as naturalism is compelled to go beyond evolutionary biology, it does not fare as well as theism in terms of explanatory power.
The Christian Imagination brings together in a single source the best that has been written about the relationship between literature and the Christian faith. This anthology covers all of the major topics that fall within this subject and includes essays and excerpts from fifty authors, including C.S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Sayers, and Frederick Buechner.
In his famous argument against miracles, David Hume gets to the heart of the modern problem of supernatural belief. 'We are apt', says Hume, 'to imagine ourselves transported into some new world; where the whole form of nature is disjointed, and every element performs its operation in a different manner, from what it does at present.' This encapsulates, observes Peter Harrison, the disjuncture between contemporary Western culture and medieval societies. In the Middle Ages, people saw the hand of God at work everywhere. Indeed, many suppose that 'belief in the supernatural' is likewise fundamental nowadays to religious commitment. But dichotomising between 'naturalism' and 'supernaturalism' is actually a relatively recent phenomenon, just as the notion of 'belief' emerged historically late. In this masterful contribution to intellectual history, the author overturns crucial misconceptions – 'myths' – about secular modernity, challenging common misunderstandings of the past even as he reinvigorates religious thinking in the present.
God and the Book of Nature develops theological views of the natural sciences in light of the recent theological turn in science-and-religion scholarship and the ‘science-engaged theology’ movement. Centered around the Book of Nature metaphor, it brings together contributions by theologians, natural scientists, and philosophers based in Europe and North America. They provide an exploration of complementary (and even contesting) readings of the Book of Nature, particularly in light of the vexing questions that arise around essentialism and unity in the field of science and religion. Taking an experimental and open-ended approach, the volume does not attempt to unify the readings into a single ‘plot’ that defines the Book of Nature, still less a single ‘theology of nature’, but instead it represents a variety of hermeneutical stances. Overall the book embraces a constructive theological attitude toward the modern sciences, and makes significant contributions to the research literature in science and religion.
Apologetics, the defense of the Faith, shows why our Christian faith is true—but it’s much more than that. Apologetics isn’t just the province of scholars and saints, but of ordinary men and women: parents, teachers, lay ministry leaders, pastors, and everyone who wants to develop a stronger faith, to understand why we believe what we believe, to know Our Lord better, and love him more fully. In Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith, Holly Ordway shows how an imaginative approach—in cooperation with rational arguments—is extremely valuable in helping people come to faith in Christ. Making a case for the role of imagination in apologetics, this book proposes ways to create meaning for Christian language in a culture that no longer understands words like ‘sin’ or ‘salvation,' suggests how to discern and address the manipulation of language, and shows how metaphor and narrative work in powerful ways to communicate the truth. It applies these concepts to specific, key apologetics issues, including suffering, doubt, and longing for meaning and beauty. Apologetics and the Christian Imagination shows how Christians can harness the power of the imagination to share the Faith in meaningful, effective ways.
The semiotics of the Christian imagination describes the repository of signs and the logic of signification through which a community of faith envisions spiritual truths. This book analyses various examples in text, images, music, art and scientific treatise of the imaginative semiotisation of the fall of Man and the Church's semiotic perception of the Divine plan for Redemption. The book includes a chapter detailing the theory of signs, based on a close reading of primary sources, and has nine further chapters on the meaning-making inherent in ideas of the Fall and Redemption of mankind. These are filtered through and given material representation by the semiotic paradigms of various cultural fields, including philology, verbal arts and science. Central to this practice - and to the book's message - are two themes of theological semiotics fundamental to man's understanding of himself in the larger scheme of things. Two of these include the theology of the Fall and a sacramental theory of signs. The theory is grounded in the doctrine of analogy, and this is the only reliable cognitive link between the immanence of the thinking subject and the transcendence that is the object of thought.
Reimagining Nature is a new introduction to the fast developing area of natural theology, written by one of the world’s leading theologians. The text engages in serious theological dialogue whilst looking at how past developments might illuminate and inform theory and practice in the present. This text sets out to explore what a properly Christian approach to natural theology might look like and how this relates to alternative interpretations of our experience of the natural world Alister McGrath is ideally placed to write the book as one of the world’s best known theologians and a chief proponent of natural theology This new work offers an account of the development of natural theology throughout history and informs of its likely contribution in the present This feeds in current debates about the relationship between science and religion, and religion and the humanities Engages in serious theological dialogue, primarily with Augustine, Aquinas, Barth and Brunner, and includes the work of natural scientists, philosophers of science, and poets
Churches vary a great deal - but can we see past all their differences to what underlies them? 'Generous orthodoxy' is a phrase that describes a Christianity both broad and deep, rooted in the historic creeds and embracing different expressions of Christian faith. The Bond of Peace is a ground-breaking, creative and practical exploration of what generous orthodoxy really means, and how expressing it might bring about a sense of unity in the church that is badly needed in our fractured and polarised world. Drawing together leading theologians from the UK and the USA - including David Ford, Katherine Sonderegger, Willie Jennings, Tom Greggs, JKA Smith and Jane Williams - The Bond of Peace offers reflections on how generous orthodoxy can be expressed through everything from worship and preaching to biblical theology, the arts and more. Based around a series of lectures held at St Mellitus College, and sponsored by the McDonald Agape Foundation, this timely book is essential reading for anyone interested in how the Christian Church can bridge the gap between denominations to negotiate the challenges of our 21st century world in a united manner. It will leave you, not only with a deeper understanding of generous orthodoxy, but the practical confidence to celebrate and embrace the differences in Christian denominations so we can all live together more joyfully - through the transforming and renewing work of the Holy Spirit.