Books in the Routledge Science and Religion Series series

The cognitive science of religion is a new discipline that looks at the roots of religious belief in the cognitive architecture of the human mind. The Roots of Religion deals with the philosophical and theological implications of the cognitive science of religion which grounds religious belief in human cognitive structures: religious belief is ΓÇÖnaturalΓÇÖ, in a way that even scientific thought is not. Does this new discipline support religious belief, undermine it, or is it, despite many claims, perhaps eventually neutral? This subject is of immense importance, particularly given the rise of the ΓÇÖnew atheismΓÇÖ. Philosophers and theologians from North America, UK and Australia, explore the alleged conflict between truth claims and examine the roots of religion in human nature. Is it less ΓÇÖnaturalΓÇÖ to be an atheist than to believe in God, or gods? On the other hand, if we can explain theism psychologically, have we explained it away. Can it still claim any truth? This book debates these and related issues.

The controversy over Intelligent Design (ID) has now continued for over two decades, with no signs of ending. With a balanced analysis of a controversial debate, this volume argues that beliefs about the purposiveness or non-purposiveness of nature should not be based merely on science.

In 1981, Robert John Russell founded the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. This book assesses Robert Russell's impact on the discipline of science and religion. It focuses on three areas of Russell's work - methodology, cosmology, and divine action in quantum physics.

Drawing upon the disciplines of cognitive science, computer science, neuroscience, general systems theory, pragmatic philosophy, and Christian theology, this book reinterprets the traditional doctrine of the soul as form of the body to frame contemporary scientific study of the human soul.

This volume offers an original perspective on divine providence by examining philosophical, psychological, and theological perspectives on human providence as exhibited in virtuous human behaviours. Divine providence is one of the most pressing issues in analytic theology and philosophy of religion today, especially in view of scientific evidence for a natural world full of indeterminacies and contingencies. Therefore, we need new ways to understand and explain the relations of divine providence and creaturely action.The volume is structured dynamically, going from chapters on human providence to those on divine providence, and back. Drawing on insights from virtue ethics, psychology and cognitive science, the philosophy of providence in the face of contingent events, and the theology of grace, each chapter contributes to an original overall perspective: that human providential action is a resource suited specifically to personal action and hence related to the purported providential action of a personal God.By putting forward a fresh take on divine providence, this book enters new territory on an age-old issue. It will therefore be of great interest to scholars of theology and philosophy.

Assumptions about the nature of God, the world, and human being, shape our thinking and, consequently, our acting. Some say that the Christian tradition has been a hindrance than help because its theology of nature has legitimated the exploitation of nature. This book argues that Christian tradition has a more viable theology of nature to offer.

This volume engages with the relative absence and underrepresentation of female voices in the field of science and religion, which tends to be dominated by male academics who are in the later stages of their careers.

Is the human self unified or do we each have several selves? This book explores the answers that Christian theology and the secular Human Sciences tend to give to this question. Introducing a framework to distinguish the understandings of self-plurality, this work argues that Theology's blanket condemnation of the notion is inappropriate.

This book sets out a new agenda for science-theology interactions and offers examples of what that agenda might look like when implemented.

Humans are unique in their ability to reflect on themselves. Ideas of human nature in the West have always been shaped by the interplay of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. This book offers contributions to the quest for an account of ourselves that does justice to the developments in theology, science, technology, and philosophy.

Intends to bridge the reductionist divide between science and religion through examination and critique of different aspects of the cognitive science of religion and offers a conciliatory approach that investigates the multiple causal factors involved in the emergence of religion.

In this volume, the role of genetic manipulation and neurotechnology in shaping human identity is examined from multiple religious perspectives. This is in order to understand how religion might affect the impact of the initiatives such as the UNESCO Declaration in Bioethics and Human Rights.

Aims to clarify theological and philosophical dialogue on the posthuman by arguing that theologians must pay attention to which form of the posthuman they are engaging, and to demonstrate that a "posthuman theology" is not only possible, but desirable, when the vision of the posthuman is one which coincides with a theological vision of the human.

Presents a celebration, survey and critique of the theological work of arguably the most important and most widely-read contributor to the modern dialogue between science and theology: John Polkinghorne. Including a major survey by Polkinghorne himself of his life's work in theology, this book focuses on key aspects of Polkinghorne's work.

Examining the expanding frontier of genetic research, Ted Peters draws out implications for theological understandings of human nature and human freedom. Issues discussed include: methodology in science and theology; and eschatology in cosmology and theology

In the 1990s, great strides were taken in clarifying how the brain is involved in behaviors that had seldom been studied by neuroscientists or psychologists. This book explores the progress begun during that momentous decade in understanding why we behave, think and feel the way we do, especially in those areas that interface with religion.

A critical introduction to the science-theology debate. This book describes connections between physics, philosophy and theology and then explains Newtonian physics and Victorian physics, the theories of relativity, astronomy and quantum mechanics, and distinguishes the actual results of modern physics from speculations.

The cognitive science of religion is a new discipline that looks at the roots of religious belief in the cognitive architecture of the human mind. This book deals with the philosophical and theological implications of the cognitive science of religion which grounds religious belief in human cognitive structures: religious belief is 'natural'.

In Being as Communion philosopher and mathematician William Dembski provides a non-technical overview of his work on information. Dembski attempts to make good on the promise of John Wheeler, Paul Davies, and others that information is poised to replace matter as the primary stuff of reality.

Laying the groundwork for a new synthesis of scientific and theological dialogue, this book proposes that neurotheology, a term fraught with potential problems, is a highly useful and important voice in the greater study of religious and theological ideas and their intersection with science.

In this text,scientists' views about science and its relationship to knowledge, ethics and religion are subjected to critical scrutiny. It asks if science can teach how to live morally and if it should be our new religion. The author concludes that Scientism is disguised materialism or naturalism.

For many, technology symbolises the faith of the postmodern world, but it is an ambivalent faith encapsulating both the hope and fear for the future. This book examines the religious foundations underlying this troubled faith in technology, as well as critically and constructively engaging technological developments from a theological perspective.

Bringing the specific themes of Christology into dialogue with contemporary science, this work engages developments in late modern philosophy of science in order to articulate the Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ in a way that responds to challenges and opportunities that have arisen in light of various scientific discoveries.

This volume offers an original perspective on divine providence by examining philosophical, psychological, and theological perspectives on human providence as exhibited in virtuous human behaviours.

This volume examines the way in which cultural ideas about "the heavens" shape religious ideas and are shaped by them in return.