When Science and Christianity Meet
University of Chicago Press, 2003
Cloth: 978-0-226-48214-9 | Paper: 978-0-226-48216-3 | Electronic: 978-0-226-48215-6
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482156.001.0001
Cloth: 978-0-226-48214-9 | Paper: 978-0-226-48216-3 | Electronic: 978-0-226-48215-6
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226482156.001.0001
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ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS
ABOUT THIS BOOK
This book, in language accessible to the general reader, investigates twelve of the most notorious, most interesting, and most instructive episodes involving the interaction between science and Christianity, aiming to tell each story in its historical specificity and local particularity.
Among the events treated in When Science and Christianity Meet are the Galileo affair, the seventeenth-century clockwork universe, Noah's ark and flood in the development of natural history, struggles over Darwinian evolution, debates about the origin of the human species, and the Scopes trial. Readers will be introduced to St. Augustine, Roger Bacon, Pope Urban VIII, Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon de Laplace, Carl Linnaeus, Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Sigmund Freud, and many other participants in the historical drama of science and Christianity.
“Taken together, these papers provide a comprehensive survey of current thinking on key issues in the relationships between science and religion, pitched—as the editors intended—at just the right level to appeal to students.”—Peter J. Bowler, Isis
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
David C. Lindberg is the Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Ronald L. Numbers is the Hilldale Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Together Lindberg and Numbers edited God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science and are currently editing the CambridgeHistory of Science.
REVIEWS
"An outstanding volume. . . . The book can certainly be recommended as an appropriate text for undergraduates."
— Science & Theology News"The contributors . . . offer the educated public some fascinating twists of plot characteristic of the newer 'complexity' literature."
— Ryan C. MacPherson, Journal of the History of Biology"Lindberg and Numbers, and their team, show how effective concentrating upon science and religion can be for getting scholarly history of science across. They write clearly, for ordinary readers, setting events in context, and supply formidable notes and bibliographies."
— David Knight, Annals of Science"The well-written essays in this book cover material from the Middle Ages through the post-Darwinian debates. . . . Most of the essays are clear, and the excellent, annotated bibliography mentions many important readings."
— Margaret J. Osler, Journal of Interdisciplinary History"With its concise, clearly written essays . . . including extensive endnotes that refer the reader to primary texts and important scholarly studies, this volume is a superb introduction to some of the most fascinating episodes in the long history of the relationship between science and Christianity."
— James A. Wiseman, Catholic Historical Review“Clarity is a chief feature of all the contributions, each of which . . . has been chosen to illustrate ‘the most notorious, most interesting or most instructive instances’ of the encounter between science and Christianity. Clear and engaging: it is a winning combination. It should find favour with students and see the book listed as an essential text in many course reading lists.”
“With its illustrations, extended endnotes and annotated guide to further readings, the book reviews old questions in a thoroughly enlightening scholarly and interesting way.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Medieval Church Encounters the Classical Tradition: Saint Augustine, Roger Bacon, and the Handmaiden Metaphor
2 Galileo, the Church, and the Cosmos
3 Christianity and the Mechanistic Universe
4 Matter, Force, and the Christian Worldview in the Enlightenment
5 Noah’s Flood, the Ark, and the Shaping of Early Modern Natural History
6 Genesis and Geology Revisited: The Order of Nature and the Nature of Order in Nineteenth-Century Britain
7 “Men before Adam!”: American Debates over the Unity and Antiquity of Humanity
8 Re-placing Darwinism and Christianity
9 Science, Miracles, and the Prayer-Gauge Debate
10 Psychoanalysis and American Christianity, 1900-1945
11 The Scopes Trial in History and Legend
12 Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs
Notes
A Guide to Further Reading
Contributors
Index