List of scholars on the relationship between religion and science

This is a list of notable individuals who have focused on studying the intersection of religion and science.

  • Richard Dawkins: has written about the relationship between science and religion for a popular audience with books such as A Devil's Chaplain and The God Delusion. Dawkins has also engaged in public debates on the topic.
  • Pierre Duhem: well known for his works on the philosophy and history of science, especially in the Middle Ages.[9]
  • Arthur Eddington: author of The Nature of the Physical World (1928) and Why I Believe in God: Science and Religion, as a Scientist Sees It (1930).[10][1]
  • John Freely: author of Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World and Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe.
  • Stephen Jay Gould: introduced the concept of non-overlapping magisteria, arguing that religion and science attempt to describe different domains of knowledge.
  • Edward Grant: author of The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (1996), God and Reason in the Middle Ages (2001), and Science and Religion, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus (2004)
  • Nidhal Guessoum: author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science (2010)
  • L.P. Jacks[1]
  • Stanley Jaki: leading contributor to the philosophy of science and the history of science, and in particular their relationship to Christianity.
  • Malcolm Jeeves: formerly President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, founder of the St Andrews Psychology Department, and author of, most recently, with Warren S. Brown "Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion: Illusions, Delusions, and Realities about Human Nature" (2009) and "From Cells to Souls-and Beyond" (2003)
  • Denis Lamoureux: holds PhDs in both theology and biology and is also a retired dentist, has written several books on the relationship between science and religion, including the Bible & Ancient Science (McGahan Publishing House, 2020), has debated proponents of ID, atheistic evolution, and young earth creationism, including Stephen Meyer, Lawrence Krauss, and Kent Hovind), and is professor of science and religion at the University of Alberta.
  • John Lennox: has written several books on the relationship between science and religion and has also debated Richard Dawkins on the topic.
  • David C. Lindberg: co-editors of two anthologies on the relationship between religion and science.
  • David N. Livingstone: author of Dealing with Darwin: Place, Politics, and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution (2014).
  • J. Arthur Thomson[1]
  • Paul Tillich[28][improper synthesis?]
  • Thomas F. Torrance: author of Space, Time and Incarnation, Space Time and Resurrection, and Theological Science literary executor for the philosopher and scientist Michael Polanyi,[29] and winner of 1978 Templeton Prize.
  • Jonathan R. Topham: author of Reading the Book of Nature: How Eight Best Sellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian Age (2022).[30]
  • Renny Thomas: author of Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (London: Routledge, 2022)
  • James Ungureanu: author of Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition – Retracing the Origins of Conflict (2019).[31]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Science & Religion: A Symposium with a Foreword by Mihajlo Pupin, Books for Libraries Press, (first published 1931), reprinted 1969, Standard Book Number 8369-1106-7
  2. ^ Issues in Science and Religion pp. 189, 202, 335
  3. ^ Arthur Peacocke, Science and the Christian Experiment, Oxford University Press, 1971, in the preface (p.vii) writes "These [issues] have been most magisterially surveyed by I. G. Barour in his Issues in Science and Religion (London, 1966) and I willingly refer the reader to that work for a systematic and documented account."
  4. ^ a b Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh (2006-01-26), Handbook of Religion and Social Institutions, p. 321, ISBN 978-0-387-25703-7
  5. ^ "Home". codenamegod.org.
  6. ^ Issues in Science and Religion pp. 34, 36, 51, 77
  7. ^ a b Ian Barbour in Science and Religion: New Perspectives on the Dialogue (1968) (p.xi) writes

    "The problem of Part Two is the relation between religion and the methods of science. Is the scientific method the only path to knowledge? Are theology and science similar enterprises (as Coulson and Schilling argue) or are they radically different (as Evans suggests)? Such questions about the relation of religion to science as a way of knowing are more basic than problems arising from particular scientific theories. Many persons today find that their religious beliefs are challenged not by any specific scientific discoveries but by the conviction that assertions in science can be proven while those in religion cannot. Science has been one of the influences on the "death of God" movement, as Ferre's essay indicates. Both Ferre and Evans provide careful philosophical analyses of the problem of verifying or evaluating theological statements. The central issue of Part Two, then, is the status of religious beliefs in an age of science.

  8. ^ Hough, Adrian (2006). "Not a Gap in Sight: Fifty Years of Charles Coulson's Science and Christian Belief". Theology Archived 2008-06-22 at the Wayback Machine Volume 109: pp.21-27.

    "With suitable changes of language and illustration, Coulson's Science and Christian Belief could be rewritten for the present day without having to remove any of his fundamental arguments. Indeed, his observation that the rise of science has led to a loss of tradition throughout the world is a view which is now held very widely as well as being a noted cause for concern."

  9. ^ "Pierre Duhem, himself a distinguished physicist, initiated in heroic fashion, almost singlehandedly, the modern study of the history of medieval science by the simple but effective expedient of reading and analyzing as many medieval scientific manuscripts as possible." — Palter, Robert M. (1961). Preface to Toward Modern Science, Vol. I. New York: The Noonday Press, p. ix.
  10. ^ Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (1966), p.133, cites Arthur Eddington's The Nature of the Physical World (1928)--for a text that argues The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principles provides a scientific basis for "the defense of the idea of human freedom"--and his Science and the Unseen World (1929)--for support of philosophical idealism "the thesis that reality is basically mental"
  11. ^ Reviews in Science and Religion Archived 2008-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ Issues in Science and Religion pp. 130, 314, 334, 444, 445, 446, 447, 457
  13. ^ The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science pp. 184, 187, 189, 190, 191, 193, 196, 201, 348, 379, 690-1, 698, 898
  14. ^ Saunders, Nicholas (2002). Divine action and modern science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 101. ISBN 0-521-52416-4. Retrieved 2008-11-13.
  15. ^ Arthur Peacocke, The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century, 1981, University of Notre Dame Press, ISBN 0-268-01704-2, p. xvii, "The volume ends with a retrospective survey by my co-chairman at the Symposium, Professor Mary Hesse, together with a few comments on that survey by some of the authors."
  16. ^ a b c d e f The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science Philip Clayton(ed.), Zachary Simpson(associate-ed.)--Hardcover 2006, paperback July 2008-Oxford University Press, 1023 pages
  17. ^ The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science pp. 304-5, 306
  18. ^ Review found in Saul A. Teukolsky (Cornell University) Physics Today, April 2002, p. 81-82
  19. ^ Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (1966), p.166, writes "Theories as Mental Structures (Idealism)...The philosophical idealism exemplified by Eddington, Jeans, and Milne finds few supporters today, but a modified neo-Kantianism is found in Cassirer, Margenau, and in a somewhat different form among continental physicists such as von Weizsacker." and on page 167, "As compared with the actual practice of the scientific community, the views of Eddington and Milne neglect the experimental side, just as positivism neglects the theoretical side."
  20. ^ editorial committee member of The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science Philip Clayton(ed.), Zachary Simpson(associate-ed.)--Hardcover 2006, paperback July 2008-Oxford University Press, 1023 pages, page v
  21. ^ Pandikattu, Kuruvila (2015). Ever Approachable, Never Attainable: Science-religion Dialogue in India. ISBN 978-81-88360-30-7.
  22. ^ a b Robert Andrews Millikan (1969), "ch. III Science and Religion", Science and Life, ISBN 978-0-8369-1307-1
  23. ^ Arthur Peacocke, Science and the Christian Experiment, Oxford University Press, 1971, on page 122 writes "I.T. Ramsey has analysed the logical form of creation ex nihilo into the analogical model, 'creation', which is a word used of human beings making paintings, symphonies, etc. out of something or by means of something..."
  24. ^ Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (1966), p. 246 writes "Theologian Ian Ramsey finds that the distinctive function of religious language is the evocation of commitment. Its logical structure is similar to that of statements about dominant personal loyalties: a man's devotion to his nation, a captain's loyalty to his ship, a man's love for his wife."
  25. ^ wrote the book Religion and Science (1935)
  26. ^ Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (1966), p. 152 writes "The scientific community, like any group in society, has a set of attitudes which are influenced by but not identical with those of the culture at large. Schilling ["A Human Enterprise" Science, June 6, 1958, Vol. 127, p.1324] gives a vivid portrayal:

    It has its own ideals and characteristic way of life; its own standards, mores, conventions, signs and symbols, language and jargon, professional ethics, sanctions and controls, authority, institutions and organizations, publications; its own creeds and beliefs, orthodoxies and heresies--and effective ways of dealing with the latter. This community is affected, as are other communities, by the usual vagaries, adequacies, and shortcomings of human beings. It has its politics, its pulling and hauling, its pressure groups; its differing schools of thought, its divisions and schisms; its personal loyalties and animosities, jealousies, hatreds, and rallying cries; its fads and fashions.

  27. ^ Mary B. Hesse reviews his book Science and Religion: An Interpretation of Two Communities in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 3, Issue 1, (Autumn, 1963), page 112-113, where she writes

    "There remain however persistent, half-conscious, impressions among the religious that science is somehow a danger to true spirituality, and among the non-religious that science has once and for all refuted the claims of religion. Professor Schilling's book has the important merit of taking seriously the intellectual and social aspects of these half-conscious impressions, and of showing how mis- taken is the belief that science and religion can go their separate ways in utter disregard of each other. ...reading this book no one ought to doubt that the stereotypes described at the outset are not merely caricatures, but serious distortions. But still the synthetic view which is surely the aim of the book somehow fails to come across with the requisite punch. Is this because yet deeper issues remain to be discussed? Can the claim of Christianity to be based on experience in a way parallel to science really be sustained? And if not, then what is its relation to expe- rience? And what about the vexed question of religious language?"

  28. ^ Robert John Russell (2001), "The Relevance of Tillich for the Theology and Science Dialogue", Zygon, 36 (2): 269–308, doi:10.1111/0591-2385.00359, archived from the original on 2013-01-05
  29. ^ http://www.missouriwestern.edu/orgs/polanyi/.../TAD24-1-fnl-pg32-38-pdf.pdf [dead link]
  30. ^ Topham, Jonathan R. (2022). Reading the Book of Nature How Eight Best Sellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-82080-4. OCLC 1338838756.
  31. ^ "Historical Research on Science and Religion – The Conflict Thesis with Dr James Ungureanu".