Results by title
79 books match the query 'Religion and science' and 5 start with r
Reading the Book of Nature
How Eight Best Sellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian AgeJonathan R. Topham
University of Chicago Press, 2022
A powerful reimagining of the world in which a young Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution.
When Charles Darwin returned to Britain from the Beagle voyage in 1836, the most talked-about scientific books of the day were the Bridgewater Treatises. This series of eight works was funded by a bequest of the last Earl of Bridgewater and written by leading men of science appointed by the president of the Royal Society to explore "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation." Securing public attention beyond all expectations, the series offered Darwin’s generation a range of approaches to one of the great questions of the age: how to incorporate the newly emerging disciplinary sciences into Britain’s overwhelmingly Christian culture.
Drawing on a wealth of archival and published sources, including many unexplored by historians, Jonathan R. Topham examines how and to what extent the series contributed to a sense of congruence between Christianity and the sciences in the generation before the fabled Victorian conflict between science and religion. Building on the distinctive insights of book history and paying close attention to the production, circulation, and use of the books, Topham offers new perspectives on early Victorian science and the subject of science and religion as a whole.
When Charles Darwin returned to Britain from the Beagle voyage in 1836, the most talked-about scientific books of the day were the Bridgewater Treatises. This series of eight works was funded by a bequest of the last Earl of Bridgewater and written by leading men of science appointed by the president of the Royal Society to explore "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation." Securing public attention beyond all expectations, the series offered Darwin’s generation a range of approaches to one of the great questions of the age: how to incorporate the newly emerging disciplinary sciences into Britain’s overwhelmingly Christian culture.
Drawing on a wealth of archival and published sources, including many unexplored by historians, Jonathan R. Topham examines how and to what extent the series contributed to a sense of congruence between Christianity and the sciences in the generation before the fabled Victorian conflict between science and religion. Building on the distinctive insights of book history and paying close attention to the production, circulation, and use of the books, Topham offers new perspectives on early Victorian science and the subject of science and religion as a whole.
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Reason and Wonder
Why Science and Faith Need Each OtherEric Priest
Templeton Press, 2016
Often science and religion are seen as completely separate entities. Science exists in the realm of fact, whereas religion exists in the realm of faith. Conversations about genes, psychology, or even the meaning of life occur in silos. But as Eric Priest, Keith Ward, David Myers, N. T. Wright, and others show, these conversations are so much richer when both science and faith are incorporated.
This is exactly what Reason and Wonder does. Eric Priest has brought together twelve of the leading thinkers in science and theology to discuss everything from the origins of the universe to evolution and evil. At the heart of each essay is an understanding that the best science—and the best theology— are both undergirded by an appeal to reason as well as a deep sense of wonder.
Each of these great scientific and theological thinkers offers a chapter on their area of expertise, and the book closes with a stimulating set of questions for group discussion or personal reflection.
This is exactly what Reason and Wonder does. Eric Priest has brought together twelve of the leading thinkers in science and theology to discuss everything from the origins of the universe to evolution and evil. At the heart of each essay is an understanding that the best science—and the best theology— are both undergirded by an appeal to reason as well as a deep sense of wonder.
Each of these great scientific and theological thinkers offers a chapter on their area of expertise, and the book closes with a stimulating set of questions for group discussion or personal reflection.
- Contributors and their topics include:
- Eric Priest: Towards an integration of science and religion
- Keith Ward: God, science and the New Atheism
- Eleonore Stump: Natural law, reductionism and the Creator
- David Wilkinson: The origin and end of the universe: A challenge for Christianity
- Jennifer Wiseman: Universe of wonder, universe of life
- Kenneth R. Miller: Evolution, faith and science
- Michael J. Murray and Jeff Schloss: Evolution and evil
- Pauline Rudd: Is there more to life than genes?
- David G. Myers: Psychological science meets Christian faith
- John Wyatt: Being a person: Towards an integration of neuroscientific and Christian perspectives
- John Swinton: From projection to connection: Conversations between science, spirituality and health
- Mark Harris: Do the miracles of Jesus contradict science?
- N. T. Wright: Can a scientist trust the New Testament?
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Reconciling Science and Religion
The Debate in Early-Twentieth-Century BritainPeter J. Bowler
University of Chicago Press, 2001
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.
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.
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Redeeming Culture
American Religion in an Age of ScienceJames Gilbert
University of Chicago Press, 1997
In this intriguing history, James Gilbert examines the confrontation between modern science and religion as these disparate, sometimes hostile modes of thought clashed in the arena of American culture. Beginning in 1925 with the infamous Scopes trial, Gilbert traces nearly forty years of competing attitudes toward science and religion.
"Anyone seriously interested in the history of current controversies involving religion and science will find Gilbert's book invaluable."—Peter J. Causton, Boston Book Review
"Redeeming Culture provides some fascinating background for understanding the interactions of science and religion in the United States. . . . Intriguing pictures of some of the highlights in this cultural exchange."—George Marsden, Nature
"A solid and entertaining account of the obstacles to mutual understanding that science and religion are now warily overcoming."—Catholic News Service
"[An] always fascinating look at the conversation between religion and science in America."—Publishers Weekly
"Anyone seriously interested in the history of current controversies involving religion and science will find Gilbert's book invaluable."—Peter J. Causton, Boston Book Review
"Redeeming Culture provides some fascinating background for understanding the interactions of science and religion in the United States. . . . Intriguing pictures of some of the highlights in this cultural exchange."—George Marsden, Nature
"A solid and entertaining account of the obstacles to mutual understanding that science and religion are now warily overcoming."—Catholic News Service
"[An] always fascinating look at the conversation between religion and science in America."—Publishers Weekly
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Respectably Catholic and Scientific
Evolution and Birth Control Between the World WarsAlexander Pavuk
Catholic University of America Press, 2021
Respectfully Catholic and Scientific traces the unexpected manner in which several influential liberal-progressive Catholics tried to shape how evolution and birth control were framed and debated in the public square in the era between the World Wars-- and the unintended consequences of their efforts.
A small but influential cadre of Catholic priests professionally trained in social sciences, Frs. John Montgomery Cooper, John A. Ryan, and John A. O’Brien, gained a hearing from mainline public intellectuals largely by engaging in dialogue on these topics using the lingua franca of the age, science, to the near exclusion of religious argumentation.
The Catholics’ approach was more than just tactical. It also derived from the subtle influence of Catholic theological Modernism, with its strong enthusiasm for science, and from an inclination toward scientism inherited from the Progressive Era’s social science milieu.
All three shared a fervent desire to translate the Catholic ethos, as they understood it, into the vocabulary of the modern age while circumventing anti-Catholic attitudes in the process. However, their method resulted in a series of unintended consequences whereby their arguments were not infrequently co-opted and used against both them and the institutional church they served.
Alexander Pavuk considers the complex role of both liberal religious figures and scientific elites in evolution and birth control discourse, and how each contributed in unexpected ways to the reconstruction of those topics in public culture. The reconstruction saw the topics themselves shift from matters considered largely within moral frameworks into bodies of kno
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