• An Illusion Of Harmony Science And Religion In Islam Pdf 2017
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The relationship between religion and science is the subject ofcontinued debate in philosophy and theology. To what extent arereligion and science compatible? Are religious beliefs sometimesconducive to science, or do they inevitably pose obstacles toscientific inquiry? The interdisciplinary field of “science andreligion”, also called “theology and science”, aimsto answer these and other questions. It studies historical andcontemporary interactions between these fields, and providesphilosophical analyses of how they interrelate.

This entry provides an overview of the topics and discussions inscience and religion. Section 1 outlines the scope of both fields, andhow they are related. Section 2 looks at the relationship betweenscience and religion in three religious traditions, Christianity,Islam, and Hinduism. Section 3 discusses contemporary topics ofscientific inquiry in which science and religion intersect, focusingon creation, divine action, and human origins. Section 4 concludes bylooking at a few future directions of the study of science andreligion.

An Illusion of Harmony by Taner Edis is a well-written even-handed book about the level of harmony that exists between science and religion. The author covers the diverse range of Muslim thinking about science and Islam. 13.38MB Ebook an illusion of harmony science and religion in islam PDF Ful By Leighann Elton FREE [DOWNLOAD] Did you looking for an illusion of harmony science and religion in islam PDF Full.

• 1. What are science and religion, and how do they interrelate?
• 2. Science and religion in Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism
• 3. Contemporary connections between science and religion
• 4. Future directions in science and religion
• Bibliography

1. What are science and religion, and how do they interrelate?

1.1 A brief history of the field of science and religion

Since the 1960s, scholars in theology, philosophy, history, and thesciences have studied the relationship between science and religion.Science and religion is a recognized field of study with dedicatedjournals (e.g., Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science),academic chairs (e.g., the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science andReligion at Oxford University), scholarly societies (e.g., the Scienceand Religion Forum), and recurring conferences (e.g., the EuropeanSociety for the Study of Science and Theology holds meetings every twoyears). Most of its authors are either theologians (e.g., John Haught,Sarah Coakley), philosophers with an interest in science (e.g., NanceyMurphy), or (former) scientists with long-standing interests inreligion, some of whom are also ordained clergy (e.g., the physicistJohn Polkinghorne, the biochemist Arthur Peacocke, and the molecularbiophysicist Alister McGrath).

The systematic study of science and religion started in the 1960s,with authors such as Ian Barbour (1966) and Thomas F. Torrance (1969)who challenged the prevailing view that science and religion wereeither at war or indifferent to each other. Barbour’s Issuesin Science and Religion (1966) set out several enduring themes ofthe field, including a comparison of methodology and theory in bothfields. Zygon, the first specialist journal on science andreligion, was also founded in 1966. While the early study of scienceand religion focused on methodological issues, authors from the late1980s to the 2000s developed contextual approaches, including detailedhistorical examinations of the relationship between science andreligion (e.g., Brooke 1991). Peter Harrison (1998) challenged thewarfare model by arguing that Protestant theological conceptions ofnature and humanity helped to give rise to science in theseventeenth century. Peter Bowler (2001, 2009) drew attention to abroad movement of liberal Christians and evolutionists in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries who aimed to reconcileevolutionary theory with religious belief.

In the 1990s, the Vatican Observatory (Castel Gandolfo, Italy) and theCenter for Theology and the Natural Sciences (Berkeley, California)co-sponsored a series of conferences on divine action. It hadcontributors from philosophy and theology (e.g., Nancey Murphy) andthe sciences (e.g., Francisco Ayala). The aim of these conferences wasto understand divine action in the light of contemporary sciences.Each of the five conferences, and each edited volume that arose fromit, was devoted to an area of natural science and its interaction withreligion, including quantum cosmology (1992, Russell et al. 1993),chaos and complexity (1994, Russell et al. 1995), evolutionary andmolecular biology (1996, Russell et al. 1998), neuroscience and theperson (1998, Russell et al. 2000), and quantum mechanics (2000,Russell et al. 2001). (See also Russell et al. 2008 for a book-lengthsummary of the findings of this project.)

In the contemporary public sphere, the most prominent interactionbetween science and religion concerns evolutionary theory andcreationism/Intelligent Design. The legal battles (e.g., theKitzmiller versus Dover trial in 2005) and lobbying surrounding theteaching of evolution and creationism in American schools suggest thatreligion and science conflict. However, even if one were to focus onthe reception of evolutionary theory, the relationship betweenreligion and science is complex. For instance, in the United Kingdom,scientists, clergy, and popular writers, sought to reconcile scienceand religion during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, whereas the United States saw the rise of a fundamentalistopposition to evolutionary thinking, exemplified by the Scopes trialin 1925 (Bowler 2001, 2009).

In recent decades, Church leaders have issued conciliatory publicstatements on evolutionary theory. Pope John Paul II (1996) affirmedevolutionary theory in his message to the Pontifical Academy ofSciences, but rejected it for the human soul, which he saw as theresult of a separate, special creation. The Church of England publiclyendorsed evolutionary theory (e.g., M. Brown 2008), including anapology to Charles Darwin for its initial rejection of his theory.

For the past fifty years, science and religion has been de factoWestern science and Christianity—to what extent can Christianbeliefs be brought in line with the results of Western science? Thefield of science and religion has only recently turned to anexamination of non-Christian traditions, such as Judaism, Hinduism,Buddhism, and Islam, providing a richer picture of interaction.

1.2 What is science, and what is religion?

In order to understand the scope of science and religion and whatinteractions there are between them, we must at least get a roughsense of what science and religion are. After all,“science” and “religion” are not eternallyunchanging terms with unambiguous meanings. Indeed, they are termsthat were coined recently, with meanings that vary across times andcultures. Before the nineteenth century, the term“religion” was rarely used. For medieval authors, such asAquinas, the term religio meant piety or worship, and wasdenied of “religious” systems outside of what heconsidered orthodoxy (Harrison 2015). The term “religion”obtained its considerably broader current meaning through the works ofearly anthropologists, such as E.B. Tylor (1871), who systematicallyused the term for religions across the world.

The term “science” as it is currently used also becamecommon only in the nineteenth century. Prior to this, what wecall “science” was referred to as “naturalphilosophy” or “experimental philosophy”. WilliamWhewell (1834) standardized the term “scientist” to referto practitioners of diverse natural philosophies. Philosophers ofscience have attempted to demarcate science from otherknowledge-seeking endeavors, in particular religion. For instance,Karl Popper (1959) claimed that scientific hypotheses (unlikereligious ones) are in principle falsifiable. Many (e.g., Taylor 1996)affirm a difference between science and religion, even if the meaningsof both terms are historically contingent. They disagree, however, onhow to precisely (and across times and cultures) demarcate the twodomains.

One way to distinguish between science and religion is the claim thatscience concerns the natural world, whereas religion concerns both thenatural and the supernatural. Scientific explanations do not appeal tosupernatural entities such as gods or angels (fallen or not), or tonon-natural forces (like miracles, karma, or Qi). Forexample, neuroscientists typically explain our thoughts in terms ofbrain states, not by reference to an immaterial soul or spirit.

Naturalists draw a distinction between methodological naturalism, anepistemological principle that limits scientific inquiry to naturalentities and laws, and ontological or philosophical naturalism, ametaphysical principle that rejects the supernatural (Forrest 2000).Since methodological naturalism is concerned with the practice ofscience (in particular, with the kinds of entities and processes thatare invoked), it does not make any statements about whether or notsupernatural entities exist. They might exist, but lie outside of thescope of scientific investigation. Some authors (e.g., Rosenberg 2014)hold that taking the results of science seriously entails negativeanswers to such persistent questions as free will or moral knowledge.However, these stronger conclusions are controversial.

The view that science can be demarcated from religion in itsmethodological naturalism is more commonly accepted. For instance, inthe Kitzmiller versus Dover trial, the philosopher of science RobertPennock was called to testify by the plaintiffs on whether IntelligentDesign was a form of creationism, and therefore religion. If it were,the Dover school board policy would violate the Establishment Clauseof the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Building onearlier work (e.g., Pennock 1998), Pennock argued that IntelligentDesign, in its appeal to supernatural mechanisms, was notmethodologically naturalistic, and that methodological naturalism isan essential component of science—though it is not a dogmaticrequirement, it flows from reasonable evidential requirements, such asthe ability to test theories empirically.

Natural philosophers, such as Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, RobertHooke, and Robert Boyle, sometimes appealed to supernatural agents intheir natural philosophy (which we now call “science”).Still, overall there was a tendency to favor naturalistic explanationsin natural philosophy. This preference for naturalistic causes mayhave been encouraged by past successes of naturalistic explanations,leading authors such as Paul Draper (2005) to argue that the successof methodological naturalism could be evidence for ontologicalnaturalism. Explicit methodological naturalism arose in thenineteenth century with the X-club, a lobby group for theprofessionalization of science founded in 1864 by Thomas Huxley andfriends, which aimed to promote a science that would be free fromreligious dogmas. The X-club may have been in part motivated by thedesire to remove competition by amateur-clergymen scientists in thefield of science, and thus to open up the field to full-timeprofessionals (Garwood 2008).

Because “science” and “religion” defydefinition, discussing the relationship between science (in general)and religion (in general) may be meaningless. For example, Kelly Clark(2014) argues that we can only sensibly inquire into the relationshipbetween a widely accepted claim of science (such as quantum mechanicsor findings in neuroscience) and a specific claim of a particularreligion (such as Islamic understandings of divine providence orBuddhist views of the no-self).

1.3 Models of the interaction between science and religion

Several typologies characterize the interaction between science andreligion. For example, Mikael Stenmark (2004) distinguishes betweenthree views: the independence view (no overlap between science andreligion), the contact view (some overlap between the fields), and aunion of the domains of science and religion; within those views herecognizes further subdivisions, e.g., the contact can be in the formof conflict or harmony. The most influential model of therelationships between science and religion remains Barbour’s(2000): conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. Subsequentauthors, as well as Barbour himself, have refined and amended thistaxonomy. However, others (e.g., Cantor and Kenny 2001) have arguedthat it is not useful to understand past interactions between bothfields. For one thing, it focuses on the cognitive content ofreligions at the expense of other aspects, such as rituals and socialstructures. Moreover, there is no clear definition of what conflictmeans (evidential or logical). The model is not as philosophicallysophisticated as some of its successors, such as Stenmark’s(2004). Nevertheless, because of its enduring influence, it is stillworthwhile to discuss this taxonomy in detail.

The conflict model, which holds that science and religion are inperpetual and principal conflict, relies heavily on two historicalnarratives: the trial of Galileo (see Dawes 2016 for a contemporaryre-examination) and the reception of Darwinism (see Bowler 2001). Theconflict model was developed and defended in the nineteenthcentury by the following two publications: John Draper’s (1874)History of the Conflict between Religion and Science andWhite’s (1896) two-volume opus A History of the Warfare ofScience with Theology in Christendom. Both authors argued thatscience and religion inevitably conflict as they essentially discussthe same domain. The vast majority of authors in the science andreligion field is critical of the conflict model and believes it isbased on a shallow and partisan reading of the historical record.Ironically, two views that otherwise have little in common, scientificmaterialism and extreme biblical literalism, both assume a conflictmodel: both assume that if science is right, religion is wrong, orvice versa.

While the conflict model is at present a minority position, some haveused philosophical argumentation (e.g., Philipse 2012) or havecarefully re-examined historical evidence such as the Galileo trial(e.g., Dawes 2016) to argue for this model. Alvin Plantinga (2011) hasargued that the conflict is not between science and religion, butbetween science and naturalism.

The independence model holds that science and religion exploreseparate domains that ask distinct questions. Stephen Jay Goulddeveloped an influential independence model with his NOMA principle(“Non-Overlapping Magisteria”):

The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lackof overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise.(2001: 739)

He identified science’s areas of expertise as empiricalquestions about the constitution of the universe, and religion’sdomains of expertise as ethical values and spiritual meaning. NOMA isboth descriptive and normative: religious leaders should refrain frommaking factual claims about, for instance, evolutionary theory, justas scientists should not claim insight on moral matters. Gould heldthat there might be interactions at the borders of each magisterium,such as our responsibility toward other creatures. One obvious problemwith the independence model is that if religion were barred frommaking any statement of fact it would be difficult to justify theclaims of value and ethics, e.g., one could not argue that one shouldlove one’s neighbor because it pleases the creator (Worrall2004). Moreover, religions do seem to make empirical claims, forexample, that Jesus appeared after his death or that the early Hebrewspassed through the parted waters of the Red Sea.

The dialogue model proposes a mutualistic relationship betweenreligion and science. Unlike independence, dialogue assumes that thereis common ground between both fields, perhaps in theirpresuppositions, methods, and concepts. For example, the Christiandoctrine of creation may have encouraged science by assuming thatcreation (being the product of a designer) is both intelligible andorderly, so one can expect there are laws that can be discovered.Creation, as a product of God’s free actions, is alsocontingent, so the laws of nature cannot be learned through apriori thinking, which prompts the need for empiricalinvestigation. According to Barbour (2000), both scientific andtheological inquiry are theory-dependent (or at least model-dependent,e.g., the doctrine of the Trinity colors how Christian theologiansinterpret the first chapters of Genesis), rely on metaphors andmodels, and value coherence, comprehensiveness, and fruitfulness. Indialogue, the fields remain separate but they talk to each other,using common methods, concepts, and presuppositions. Wentzel vanHuyssteen (1998) has argued for a dialogue position, proposing thatscience and religion can be in a graceful duet, based on theirepistemological overlaps.

The integration model is more extensive in its unification of scienceand theology. Barbour (2000) identifies three forms of integration.The first is natural theology, which formulates arguments for theexistence and attributes of God. It uses results of the naturalsciences as premises in its arguments. For instance, the suppositionthat the universe has a temporal origin features in contemporarycosmological arguments for the existence of God, and the fact that thecosmological constants and laws of nature are life-permitting (whereasmany other combinations of constants and laws would not permit life)is used in contemporary fine-tuning arguments. The second, theology ofnature, starts not from science but from a religious framework, andexamines how this can enrich or even revise findings of the sciences.For example, McGrath (2016) developed a Christian theology of nature,examining how nature and scientific findings can be regarded through aChristian lens. Thirdly, Barbour believed that Whitehead’sprocess philosophy was a promising way to integrate science andreligion.

While integration seems attractive (especially to theologians), it isdifficult to do justice to both the science and religion aspects of agiven domain, especially given their complexities. For example, PierreTeilhard de Chardin (1971), who was both knowledgeable inpaleoanthropology and theology, ended up with an unconventional viewof evolution as teleological (which brought him into trouble with thescientific establishment), and with an unorthodox theology (with anunconventional interpretation of original sin that brought him intotrouble with the Roman Catholic Church). Theological heterodoxy, byitself, is no reason to doubt a model, but it points to difficultiesfor the integration model in becoming successful in the broadercommunity of theologians and philosophers. Moreover, integration seemsskewed towards theism as Barbour described arguments based onscientific results that support (but do not demonstrate) theism, butfailed to discuss arguments based on scientific results that support(but do not demonstrate) the denial of theism.

1.4 The scientific study of religion

Science and religion are closely interconnected in the scientificstudy of religion, which can be traced back to seventeenth-centurynatural histories of religion. Natural historians attempted to providenaturalistic explanations for human behavior and culture, for domainssuch as religion, emotions, and morality. For example, Bernard deFontenelle’s De l’Origine des Fables (1724)offered a causal account of belief in the supernatural. People oftenassert supernatural explanations when they lack an understanding ofthe natural causes underlying extraordinary events: “To theextent that one is more ignorant, or one has less experience, one seesmore miracles” (1724/1824: 295, my translation). This ideaforeshadows Auguste Comte’s (1841) belief that myths wouldgradually give way to scientific accounts. Hume’s NaturalHistory of Religion (1757/2007) is the best-known philosophicalexample of a natural historical explanation of religious belief. Ittraces the origins of polytheism—which Hume thought was theearliest form of religious belief—to ignorance about naturalcauses combined with fear and apprehension about the environment. Bydeifying aspects of the environment, early humans tried to persuade orbribe the gods, thereby gaining a sense of control.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, authors from newlyemerging scientific disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, andpsychology, examined the purported naturalistic roots of religiousbelief. They did so with a broad brush, trying to explain what unifiesdiverse religious beliefs across cultures, rather than accounting forcultural variations. In anthropology, the idea that all culturesevolve and progress along the same lines (cultural evolutionism) waswidespread. Cultures with differing religious views were explained asbeing in an early stage of development. For example, Tylor (1871)regarded animism, the belief that spirits animate the world, as theearliest form of religious belief. Comte (1841) proposed that allsocieties, in their attempts to make sense of the world, go throughthe same stages of development: the theological (religious) stage isthe earliest phase, where religious explanations predominate, followedby the metaphysical stage (a non-intervening God), and culminating inthe positive or scientific stage, marked by scientific explanationsand empirical observations.

The sociologist Émile Durkheim (1915) considered religiousbeliefs as social glue that helped to keep society together. Thepsychologist Sigmund Freud (1927) saw religious belief as an illusion,a childlike yearning for a fatherly figure. The full story Freudoffers is quite bizarre: in past times, a father who monopolized allthe women in the tribe was killed and eaten by his sons. The sons feltguilty and started to idolize their murdered father. This, togetherwith taboos on cannibalism and incest, generated the first religion.Freud also considered “oceanic feeling” (a feeling oflimitlessness and of being connected with the world) as one of theorigins of religious belief. He thought this feeling was a remnant ofan infant’s experience of the self, prior to being weaned offthe breast. Authors such as Durkheim and Freud, together with socialtheorists such as Karl Marx and Max Weber, proposed versions of thesecularization thesis, the view that religion would decline in theface of modern technology, science, and culture. Philosopher andpsychologist William James (1902) was interested in the psychologicalroots and the phenomenology of religious experiences, which hebelieved were the ultimate source of institutional religions.

From the 1920s onward, the scientific study of religion became lessconcerned with grand unifying narratives, and focused more onparticular religious traditions and beliefs. Anthropologists, such asEdward Evans-Pritchard (1937/1965) and Bronislaw Malinowski(1925/1992) no longer relied exclusively on second-hand reports(usually of poor quality and from distorted sources), but engaged inserious fieldwork. Their ethnographies indicated that culturalevolutionism was mistaken and that religious beliefs were more diversethan was previously assumed. They argued that religious beliefs werenot the result of ignorance of naturalistic mechanisms; for instance,Evans-Pritchard noted that the Azande were well aware that housescould collapse because termites ate away at their foundations, butthey still appealed to witchcraft to explain why a particular househad collapsed. More recently, Cristine Legare et al. (2012) found thatpeople in various cultures straightforwardly combine supernatural andnatural explanations, for instance, South Africans are aware AIDS iscaused by a virus, but some also believe that the viral infection isultimately caused by a witch.

Psychologists and sociologists of religion also began to doubt thatreligious beliefs were rooted in irrationality, psychopathology, andother atypical psychological states, as James (1902) and other earlypsychologists had assumed. In the United States, in the late 1930sthrough the 1960s, psychologists developed a renewed interest forreligion, fueled by the observation that religion refused todecline—thus casting doubt on the secularizationthesis—and seemed to undergo a substantial revival (see Stark1999 for an overview). Psychologists of religion have madeincreasingly fine-grained distinctions among types of religiosity,including extrinsic religiosity (being religious as means to an end,for instance, getting the benefits of being in a social group) andintrinsic religiosity (people who adhere to religions for the sake oftheir teachings) (Allport and Ross 1967). Psychologists andsociologists now commonly study religiosity as an independentvariable, with an impact on, for instance, health, criminality,sexuality, and social networks.

A recent development in the scientific study of religion is thecognitive science of religion. This is a multidisciplinary field, withauthors from, among others, developmental psychology, anthropology,philosophy, and cognitive psychology. It differs from the otherscientific approaches to religion by its presupposition that religionis not a purely cultural phenomenon, but the result of ordinary, earlydeveloped, and universal human cognitive processes (e.g., Barrett2004, Boyer 2002). Some authors regard religion as the byproduct ofcognitive processes that do not have an evolved function specific forreligion. For example, according to Paul Bloom (2007), religion emergesas a byproduct of our intuitive distinction between minds and bodies:we can think of minds as continuing, even after the body dies (e.g.,by attributing desires to a dead family member), which makes belief inan afterlife and in disembodied spirits natural and spontaneous.Another family of hypotheses regards religion as a biological orcultural adaptive response that helps humans solve cooperativeproblems (e.g., Bering 2011). Through their belief in big, powerfulgods that can punish, humans behave more cooperatively, which allowedhuman group sizes to expand beyond small hunter-gatherer communities.Groups with belief in big gods thus outcompeted groups without suchbeliefs for resources during the Neolithic, which explains the currentsuccess of belief in such gods (Norenzayan 2013).

1.5 Religious beliefs in academia

Until the nineteenth and even early twentieth century, it was commonfor scientists to have religious beliefs which guided their work. Inthe seventeenth century, the design argument reached its peakpopularity and natural philosophers were convinced that scienceprovided evidence for God’s providential creation. Naturalphilosopher Isaac Newton held strong, albeit unorthodox religiousbeliefs (Pfizenmaier 1997). By contrast, contemporary scientists havelower religiosity compared to the general population. There are vocalexceptions, such as the geneticist Francis Collins, erstwhile theleader of the Human Genome Project. His book The Language ofGod (2006) and the BioLogos Institute he founded advocatecompatibility between science and Christianity.

Sociological studies (e.g., Ecklundt 2010) have probed the religiousbeliefs of scientists, particularly in the United States. Theyindicate a significant difference in religiosity in scientistscompared to the general population. Surveys such as those conducted bythe Pew forum (Masci and Smith 2016) find that nearly nine in tenadults in the US say they believe in God or a universal spirit, anumber that has only slightly declined in recent decades. Amongyounger adults, the percentage of theists is about 80%. Atheism andagnosticism are widespread among academics, especially among thoseworking in elite institutions. A survey among National Academy ofSciences members (all senior academics, overwhelmingly from elitefaculties) found that the majority disbelieved in God’sexistence (72.2%), with 20.8% being agnostic, and only 7% theists(Larson and Witham 1998). Ecklund and Scheitle (2007) analyzed responsesfrom scientists (working in the social and natural sciences) from 21elite universities in the US. About 31.2% of their participantsself-identified as atheists and a further 31% as agnostics. Theremaining number believed in a higher power (7%), sometimes believedin God (5.4%), believed in God with some doubts (15.5%), or believedin God without any doubts (9.7%). In contrast to the generalpopulation, the older scientists in this sample did not show higherreligiosity—in fact, they were more likely to say that they didnot believe in God. On the other hand, Gross and Simmons (2009)examined a more heterogeneous sample of scientists from Americancolleges, including community colleges, elite doctoral-grantinginstitutions, non-elite four-year state schools, and small liberalarts colleges. They found that the majority of university professors(full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty) had some theistic beliefs,believing either in God (34.9%), in God with some doubts (16.6%), inGod some of the time (4.3%), or in a higher power (19.2%). Belief inGod was influenced both by type of institution (lower theistic beliefin more prestigious schools) and by discipline (lower theistic beliefin the physical and biological sciences compared to the socialsciences and humanities).

These latter findings indicate that academics are more religiouslydiverse than has been popularly assumed and that the majority are notopposed to religion. Even so, in the US the percentage of atheists andagnostics in academia is higher than in the general population, adiscrepancy that requires an explanation. One reason might be a biasagainst theists in academia. For example, when sociologists weresurveyed whether they would hire someone if they knew the candidatewas an evangelical Christian, 39.1% said they would be less likely tohire that candidate—there were similar resultswith other religious groups, such as Mormons or Muslims (Yancey 2012). Anotherreason might be that theists internalize prevalent negative societalstereotypes, which leads them to underperform in scientific tasks andlose interest in pursuing a scientific career. Kimberly Rios et al.(2015) found that non-religious participants believe that theists,especially Christians, are less competent in and less trustful ofscience. When this stereotype was made salient, Christian participantsperformed worse in logical reasoning tasks (which were misleadinglypresented as “scientific reasoning tests”) than when thestereotype was not mentioned.

It is unclear whether religious and scientific thinking arecognitively incompatible. Some studies suggest that religion drawsmore upon an intuitive style of thinking, distinct from the analyticreasoning style that characterizes science (Gervais and Norenzayan2012). On the other hand, the acceptance of theological and scientificviews both rely on a trust in testimony, and cognitive scientists havefound similarities between the way children and adults understandtestimony to invisible entities in religious and scientific domains(Harris et al. 2006). Moreover, theologians such as the Church Fathersand Scholastics were deeply analytic in their writings, indicatingthat the association between intuitive and religious thinking might bea recent Western bias. More research is needed to examine whetherreligious and scientific thinking styles are inherently intension.

2. Science and religion in Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism

As noted, most studies on the relationship between science andreligion have focused on science and Christianity, with only a smallnumber of publications devoted to other religious traditions (e.g.,Brooke and Numbers 2011). Relatively few monographs pay attention tothe relationship between science and religion in non-Christian milieus(e.g., Judaism and Islam in Clark 2014). Since Western science makesuniversal claims, it is easy to assume that its encounter with otherreligious traditions is similar to the interactions observed inChristianity. However, given different creedal tenets (e.g., in Hindutraditions God is usually not entirely distinct from creation, unlikein Christianity and Judaism), and because science has had distincthistorical trajectories in other cultures, one can expect disanalogiesin the relationship between science and religion in differentreligious traditions. To give a sense of this diversity, this sectionprovides a bird’s eye overview of science and religion inChristianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

2.1 Science and religion in Christianity

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, currently thelargest religion in the world. It developed in the first century ADout of Judaism from a group of followers of Jesus. Christians adhereto asserted revelations described in a series of canonical texts,which include the Old Testament, which comprises texts inherited fromJudaism, and the New Testament, which contains the Gospels of Matthew,Mark, Luke, and John (narratives on the life and teachings of Jesus),as well as events and teachings of the early Christian churches (e.g.,Acts of the Apostles, letters by Paul), and Revelation, a propheticbook on the end times.

Given the prominence of revealed texts in Christianity, a usefulstarting point to examine the relationship between Christianity andscience is the two books metaphor (see Tanzella-Nitti 2005 for anoverview). Accordingly, God revealed Godself through the “Bookof Nature”, with its orderly laws, and the “Book ofScripture”, with its historical narratives and accounts ofmiracles. Augustine (354–430) argued that the book of nature wasthe more accessible of the two, since scripture requires literacywhereas illiterates and literates alike could read the book of nature.Maximus Confessor (c. 580–662), in his Ambigua (seeLouth 1996 for a collection of and critical introduction to thesetexts) compared scripture and natural law to two clothes thatenveloped the Incarnated Logos: Jesus’ humanity is revealed bynature, whereas his divinity is revealed by the scriptures. During theMiddle Ages, authors such as Hugh of St. Victor (ca. 1096–1141)and Bonaventure (1221–1274) began to realize that the book ofnature was not at all straightforward to read. Given that original sinmarred our reason and perception, what conclusions could humanslegitimately draw about ultimate reality? Bonaventure used themetaphor of the books to the extent that “libernaturae” was a synonym for creation, the natural world. Heargued that sin has clouded human reason so much that the book ofnature has become unreadable, and that scripture is needed as itcontains teachings about the world.

Christian authors in the field of science and religion continue todebate how these two books interrelate. Concordism is the attempt tointerpret scripture in the light of modern science. It is ahermeneutical approach to Bible interpretation, where one expects thatthe Bible foretells scientific theories, such as the Big Bang theoryor evolutionary theory. However, as Denis Lamoureux (2008: chapter 5)argues, many scientific-sounding statements in the Bible are false:the mustard seed is not the smallest seed, male reproductive seeds donot contain miniature persons, there is no firmament, and the earth isneither flat nor immovable. Thus, any plausible form of integratingthe books of nature and scripture will require more nuance andsophistication. Theologians such as John Wesley (1703–1791) haveproposed the addition of other sources of knowledge to scripture andscience: the Wesleyan quadrilateral (a term not coined by Wesleyhimself) is the dynamic interaction of scripture, experience(including the empirical findings of the sciences), tradition, andreason (Outler 1985).

Several Christian authors have attempted to integrate science andreligion (e.g., Haught 1995, Lamoureux 2008, Murphy 1995). They tendto interpret findings from the sciences, such as evolutionary theoryor chaos theory, in a theological light, using established theologicalmodels, e.g., classical theism, kenosis, the doctrine of creation.John Haught (1995) argues that the theological view of kenosis(self-emptying) anticipates scientific findings such as evolutionarytheory: a self-emptying God (i.e., who limits Godself), who creates adistinct and autonomous world, makes a world with internalself-coherence, with a self-organizing universe as the result. Thedominant epistemological outlook in Christian science and religion hasbeen critical realism, a position that applies both to theology(theological realism) and to science (scientific realism). Barbour(1966) introduced this view into the science and religion literature;it has been further developed by theologians such as Arthur Peacocke(1984) and Wentzel van Huyssteen (1999). Critical realism aims tooffer a middle way between naïve realism (the world is as weperceive it) and instrumentalism (our perceptions and concepts arepurely instrumental). It encourages critical reflection on perceptionand the world, hence “critical”. Critical realism hasdistinct flavors in the works of different authors, for instance, vanHuyssteen (1998, 1999) develops a weak form of critical realism setwithin a postfoundationalist notion of rationality, where theologicalviews are shaped by social, cultural, and evolved biological factors.Murphy (1995: 329–330) outlines doctrinal and scientificrequirements for approaches in science and religion: ideally, anintegrated approach should be broadly in line with Christian doctrine,especially core tenets such as the doctrine of creation, while at thesame time it should be in line with empirical observations withoutundercutting scientific practices.

Several historians (e.g., Hooykaas 1972) have argued that Christianitywas instrumental to the development of Western science. Peter Harrison(2009) thinks the doctrine of original sin played a crucial role inthis, arguing there was a widespread belief in the early modern periodthat Adam, prior to the fall, had superior senses, intellect, andunderstanding. As a result of the fall, human senses became duller,our ability to make correct inferences was diminished, and natureitself became less intelligible. Postlapsarian humans (i.e., humansafter the fall) are no longer able to exclusively rely on their apriori reasoning to understand nature. They must supplement theirreasoning and senses with observation through specialized instruments,such as microscopes and telescopes. As Robert Hooke wrote in theintroduction to his Micrographia:

every man, both from a deriv’d corruption, innate and born withhim, and from his breeding and converse with men, is very subject toslip into all sorts of errors … These being the dangers in theprocess of humane Reason, the remedies of them all can only proceedfrom the real, the mechanical, the experimental Philosophy[experiment-based science]. (1665, cited in Harrison 2009: 5)

Another theological development that may have facilitated the rise ofscience was the Condemnation of Paris (1277), which forbade teachingand reading natural philosophical views that were consideredheretical, such as Aristotle’s physical treatises. As a result,the Condemnation opened up intellectual space to think beyond ancientGreek natural philosophy. For example, medieval philosophers such asJohn Buridan (fl. 14^th c) held the Aristotelian belief thatthere could be no vacuum in nature, but once the idea of a vacuumbecame plausible, natural philosophers such as Evangelista Torricelli(1608–1647) and Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) could experimentwith air pressure and vacua (see Grant 1996, for discussion).

As further evidence for a formative role of Christianity in thedevelopment of science, some authors point to the Christian beliefs ofprominent natural philosophers of the seventeenth century. Forexample, Clark writes,

Exclude God from the definition of science and, in one felldefinitional swoop, you exclude the greatest natural philosophers ofthe so-called scientific revolution—Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo,Boyle, and Newton (to name just a few). (2014: 42)

Others authors even go as far as to claim that Christianity was uniqueand instrumental in catalyzing the scientificrevolution—according to Rodney Stark (2004), the scientificrevolution was in fact a slow, gradual development from medievalChristian theology. Claims such as Stark’s, however, fail torecognize the legitimate contributions of Islamic and Greek scholars,to name just a few, to the development of modern science. In spite ofthese positive readings of the relationship between science andreligion in Christianity, there are sources of enduring tension. Forexample, there is (still) vocal opposition to the theory of evolutionamong Christian fundamentalists.

2.2 Science and religion in Islam

Islam is a monotheistic religion that emerged in the seventh century, following a series of purported revelations to the prophetMuḥammad. The term “Islam” also denotesgeo-political structures, such as caliphates and empires, which werefounded by Muslim rulers from the seventh century onward, including theUmayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman caliphates. Additionally, it refers to aculture which flourished within this political and religious context,with its own philosophical and scientific traditions (Dhanani 2002).The defining characteristic of Islam is its belief in one God(Allāh), who communicates through prophets, including Adam,Abraham, and Muḥammad. Allāh‎’s revelations toMuḥammad are recorded in the Qurʾān, the centralreligious text for Islam. Next to the Qurʾān, an importantsource of jurisprudence and theology is the ḥadīth, an oralcorpus of attested sayings, actions, and tacit approvals of theprophet Muḥammad. The two major branches of Islam, Sunni andShia, are based on a dispute over the succession of Muḥammad. Asthe second largest religion in the world, Islam shows a wide varietyof beliefs. Core creedal views include the oneness of God(tawḥīd), the view that there is only oneundivided God who created and sustains the universe, propheticrevelation (in particular to Muḥammad), and an afterlife. Beyondthis, Muslims disagree on a number of doctrinal issues.

The relationship between Islam and science is complex. Today,predominantly Muslim countries, such as the United Arabic Emirates,enjoy high urbanization and technological development, but theyunderperform in common metrics of scientific research, such aspublications in leading journals and number of citations per scientist(see Edis 2007). Moreover, Islamic countries are also hotbeds forpseudoscientific ideas, such as Old Earth creationism, the creation ofhuman bodies on the day of resurrection from the tailbone, and thesuperiority of prayer in treating lower-back pain instead ofconventional methods (Guessoum 2009: 4–5).

The contemporary lack of scientific prominence is remarkable giventhat the Islamic world far exceeded European cultures in the range andquality of its scientific knowledge between approximately theninth and the fifteenth century, excelling in domainssuch as mathematics (algebra and geometry, trigonometry inparticular), astronomy (seriously considering, but not adopting,heliocentrism), optics, and medicine. These domains of knowledge arecommonly referred to as “Arabic science”, to distinguishthem from the pursuits of science that arose in the west (Huff 2003).Many prominent Arabic scientists were polymaths, for example, OmarKhayyám (1048–1131) achieved lasting fame in disparatedomains such as poetry, astronomy, geography, and mineralogy. Otherexamples include al-Fārābī (ca. 872–ca. 950), apolitical philosopher from Damascus who also investigated musictheory, science, and mathematics, and the Andalusian Ibn Rušd(Averroes, 1126–1198), who wrote on medicine, physics,astronomy, psychology, jurisprudence, music, geography, as well asdeveloping a Greek-inspired philosophical theology.

A major impetus for Arabic science was the patronage of the Abbasidcaliphate (758–1258), centered in Baghdad. Early Abbasid rulers,such as Harun al-Rashid (ruled 786–809) and his successorAbū Jaʿfar Abdullāh al-Ma’mūn (ruled813–833), were significant patrons of Arabic science. The formerfounded the Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), whichcommissioned translations of major works by Aristotle, Galen, and manyPersian and Indian scholars into Arabic. It was cosmopolitan in itsoutlook, employing astronomers, mathematicians, and physicians fromabroad, including Indian mathematicians and Nestorian (Christian)astronomers. Throughout the Arabic world, public libraries attached tomosques provided access to a vast compendium of knowledge, whichspread Islam, Greek philosophy, and Arabic science. The use of acommon language (Arabic), as well as common religious and politicalinstitutions and flourishing trade relations encouraged the spread ofscientific ideas throughout the empire. Some of this transmission wasinformal, e.g., correspondence between like-minded people (see Dhanani2002), some formal, e.g., in hospitals where students learned aboutmedicine in a practical, master-apprentice setting, and inastronomical observatories and academies. The decline and fall of theAbbasid caliphate dealt a blow to Arabic science, but it remainsunclear why it ultimately stagnated, and why it did not experiencesomething analogous to the scientific revolution in WesternEurope.

Some liberal Muslim authors, such as Fatima Mernissi (1992), arguethat the rise of conservative forms of Islamic philosophical theologystifled more scientifically-minded natural philosophers. In theninth to the twelfth century, the Mu’tazila (aphilosophical theological school) helped the growth of Arabic sciencethanks to their embrace of Greek natural philosophy. But eventually,the Mu’tazila and their intellectual descendants lost theirinfluence to more conservative brands of theology.Al-Ghazālī’s influential eleventh-century work,The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfutal-falāsifa), was a scathing and sophisticated critique ofthe Mu’tazila, which argued that their metaphysical assumptionscould not be demonstrated. This book vindicated more orthodox Muslimreligious views. As Muslim intellectual life became more orthodox, itbecame less open to non-Muslim philosophical ideas, which led to thedecline of Arabic science.

The problem with this narrative is that orthodox worries aboutnon-Islamic knowledge were already present before Al-Ghazālīand continued long after his death (Edis 2007: chapter 2). The studyof law (fiqh) was more stifling for Arabic science thandevelopments in theology. The eleventh century saw changes inIslamic law that discouraged heterodox thought: lack of orthodoxycould now be regarded as apostasy from Islam (zandaqa) whichis punishable by death, whereas before, a Muslim could only apostatizeby an explicit declaration (Griffel 2009: 105). (Al-Ghazālīhimself only regarded the violation of three core doctrines aszandaqa, statements that challenged monotheism, the prophecyof Muḥammad, and resurrection after death.) Given that heterodoxthoughts could be interpreted as apostasy, this created a stiflingclimate for Arabic science. In the second half of the nineteenthcentury, as science and technology became firmly entrenched in Westernsociety, Muslim empires were languishing or colonized. Scientificideas, such as evolutionary theory, were equated with Europeancolonialism, and thus met with distrust.

In spite of this negative association between science and Westernmodernity, there is an emerging literature on science and religion byMuslim scholars (mostly scientists). The physicist Nidhal Guessoum(2009) holds that science and religion are not only compatible, but inharmony. He rejects the idea of treating the Qurʾān as ascientific encyclopedia, something other Muslim authors in the debateon science and religion tend to do, and he adheres to theno-possible-conflict principle, outlined by Ibn Rushd (Averroes):there can be no conflict between God’s word (properlyunderstood) and God’s work (properly understood). If an apparentconflict arises, the Qurʾān may not have been interpretedcorrectly.

While the Qurʾān asserts a creation in six days (like theHebrew Bible), “day” is often interpreted as a very longspan of time, rather than a 24-hour period. As a result, Old Earthcreationism is more influential in Islam than Young Earth creationism.Adnan Oktar’s Atlas of Creation (published in 2007under the pseudonym Harun Yahya), a glossy coffee table book thatdraws heavily on Christian Old Earth creationism, has been distributedworldwide (Hameed 2008). Since the Qurʾān explicitlymentions the special creation of Adam out of clay, most Muslims refuseto accept that humans evolved out of hominin ancestors. Nevertheless,Muslim scientists such as Guessoum (2009) and Rana Dajani (2015) haveadvocated acceptance of evolution.

2.3 Science and religion in Hinduism

Hinduism, the world’s third largest religion, includes diversereligious and philosophical traditions that emerged on the Indiansubcontinent between 500 BCE and 300 CE. The vast majority of Hinduslive in India; most others live in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and SoutheastAsia (Hackett 2015). In contrast to the major monotheistic religions,Hinduism does not draw a sharp distinction between God and creation(while there are pantheistic and panentheistic views in Christianity,Judaism, and Islam, these are minority positions). Many Hindus believein a personal God, and identify this God as immanent in creation. Thisview has ramifications for the science and religion debate, in thatthere is no sharp ontological distinction between creator and creature(Subbarayappa 2011). Philosophical theology in Hinduism (and otherIndic religions) is usually referred to as dharma, and religioustraditions originating on the Indian subcontinent, including Hinduism,Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, are referred to as dharmic religions.Philosophical schools within dharma are referred to asdarśana.

One factor that unites dharmic religions is the importance offoundational texts, which were formulated during the Vedic period,between ca. 1600 and 700 BCE. These include the Véda(Vedas), which contain hymns and prescriptions for performing rituals,Brāhmaṇa, accompanying liturgical texts, andUpaniṣad, metaphysical treatises. The Védaappeals to a wide range of gods who personify and embody naturalphenomena such as fire (Agni) and wind (Vāyu). More gods wereadded in the following centuries (e.g., Gaṇeśa andSati-Parvati in the fourth century CE). Ancient Vedic ritualsencouraged knowledge of diverse sciences, including astronomy,linguistics, and mathematics. Astronomical knowledge was required todetermine the timing of rituals and the construction of sacrificialaltars. Linguistics developed out of a need to formalize grammaticalrules for classical Sanskrit, which was used in rituals. Large publicofferings also required the construction of elaborate altars, whichposed geometrical problems and thus led to advances in geometry.Classic Vedic texts also frequently used very large numbers, forinstance, to denote the age of humanity and the Earth, which requireda system to represent numbers parsimoniously, giving rise to a 10-basepositional system and a symbolic representation for zero as aplaceholder, which would later be imported in other mathematicaltraditions (Joseph 2000). In this way, ancient Indian dharmaencouraged the emergence of the sciences.

Around the sixth–fifth century BCE, the northern part of theIndian subcontinent experienced an extensive urbanization. In thiscontext, medicine became standardized (āyurveda). Thisperiod also gave rise to a wide range of philosophical schools,including Buddhism, Jainism, and Cārvāka. The latterdefended a form of metaphysical naturalism, denying the existence ofgods or karma. The relationship between science and religion on theIndian subcontinent is complex, in part because the dharmic religionsand philosophical schools are so diverse. For example,Cārvāka proponents had a strong suspicion of inferentialbeliefs, and rejected Vedic revelation and supernaturalism in general,instead favoring direct observation as a source of knowledge. Suchviews were close to philosophical naturalism in modern science, butthis school disappeared in the twelfth century. Natural theology alsoflourished in the pre-colonial period, especially in the AdvaitaVedānta, a darśana that identifies the self, Atman,with ultimate reality, Brahman. Advaita Vedāntin philosopher AdiŚaṅkara (fl. first half eighth century) was an author whoregarded Brahman as the only reality, both the material and theefficient cause of the cosmos. He formulated design and cosmologicalarguments, drawing on analogies between the world and artifacts: inordinary life, we never see non-intelligent agents produce purposivedesign, yet the universe is suitable for human life, just like benchesand pleasure gardens are designed for us. Given that the universe isso complex that even an intelligent craftsman cannot comprehend it,how could it have been created by non-intelligent natural forces?Śaṅkara concluded that it must have been designed by anintelligent creator (C.M. Brown 2008: 108).

From 1757 to 1947, India was under British colonial rule. This had aprofound influence on its culture. Hindus came into contact withWestern science and technology. For local intellectuals, the contactwith Western science presented a challenge: how to assimilate theseideas with their Hindu beliefs? Mahendrahal Sircar (1833–1904)was one of the first authors to examine evolutionary theory and itsimplications for Hindu religious beliefs. Sircar was an evolutionarytheist, who believed that God used evolution to create the currentlife forms. Evolutionary theism was not a new hypothesis in Hinduism,but the many lines of empirical evidence Darwin provided for evolutiongave it a fresh impetus. While Sircar accepted organic evolutionthrough common descent, he questioned the mechanism of naturalselection as it was not teleological, which went against hisevolutionary theism—this was a widespread problem for theacceptance of evolutionary theory, one that Christian evolutionarytheists also wrestled with (Bowler 2009). He also argued against theBritish colonists’ beliefs that Hindus were incapable ofscientific thought, and encouraged fellow Hindus to engage in science,which he hoped would help regenerate the Indian nation (C.M. Brown2012: chapter 6).

The assimilation of Western culture prompted various revivalistmovements that sought to reaffirm the cultural value of Hinduism. Theyput forward the idea of a Vedic science, where all scientific findingsare already prefigured in the Véda and other ancienttexts (e.g., Vivekananda 1904). This idea is still popular withincontemporary Hinduism, and is quite similar to ideas held bycontemporary Muslims, who refer to the Qurʾān as a harbingerof scientific theories. Responses to evolutionary theory were asdiverse as Christian views on this subject, ranging from creationism(denial of evolutionary theory based on a perceived incompatibilitywith Vedic texts) to acceptance (see C.M. Brown 2012 for a thoroughoverview). Authors such as Dayananda Saraswati (1930–2015)rejected evolutionary theory. By contrast, Vivekananda(1863–1902), a proponent of the monistic Advaita Vedāntaenthusiastically endorsed evolutionary theory and argued that it isalready prefigured in ancient Vedic texts. More generally, he claimedthat Hinduism and science are in harmony: Hinduism is scientific inspirit, as is evident from its long history of scientific discovery(Vivekananda 1904). Sri Aurobindo Ghose, a yogi and Indiannationalist, who was educated in the West, formulated a synthesis ofevolutionary thought and Hinduism. He interpreted the classicavatara doctrine, according to which God incarnates into theworld repeatedly throughout time, in evolutionary terms. God thusappears first as an animal, later as a dwarf, then as a violent man(Rama), and then as Buddha, and as Kṛṣṇa. Heproposed a metaphysical picture where both spiritual evolution(reincarnation and avatars) and physical evolution are ultimately amanifestation of God (Brahman). This view of reality as consisting ofmatter (prakṛti) and consciousness(puruṣa) goes back to sāṃkhya, oneof the orthodox Hindu darśana, but Aurobindo madeexplicit reference to the divine, calling the process during which thesupreme Consciousness dwells in matter involution (Aurobindo,1914–18/2005, see C.M. Brown 2007 for discussion).

During the twentieth century, Indian scientists began to gainprominence, including C.V. Raman (1888–1970), a Nobel Prizewinner in physics, and Satyendra Nath Bose (1894–1974), atheoretical physicist who described the behavior of photonsstatistically, and who gave his name to bosons. However, these authorswere silent on the relationship between their scientific work andtheir religious beliefs. By contrast, the mathematician SrinivasaRamanujan (1887–1920) was open about his religious beliefs andtheir influence on his mathematical work. He claimed that the goddessNamagiri helped him to intuit solutions to mathematical problems.Likewise, Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), a theoreticalphysicist, biologist, biophysicist, botanist, and archaeologist, whoworked on radio waves, saw the Hindu idea of unity reflected in thestudy of nature. He started the Bose institute in Kolkata in 1917, theearliest interdisciplinary scientific institute in India (Subbarayappa2011).

3. Contemporary connections between science and religion

Current work in the field of science and religion encompasses a wealthof topics, including free will, ethics, human nature, andconsciousness. Contemporary natural theologians discuss fine-tuning,in particular design arguments based on it (e.g., R. Collins 2009),the interpretation of multiverse cosmology, and the significance ofthe Big Bang. For instance, authors such as Hud Hudson (2013) haveexplored the idea that God has actualized the best of all possiblemultiverses. Here follows an overview of two topics that generatedsubstantial interest and debate over the past decades: divine action(and the closely related topic of creation), and human origins.

3.1 Divine action and creation

Before scientists developed their views on cosmology and origins ofthe world, Western cultures already had an elaborate doctrine ofcreation, based on Biblical texts (e.g., the first three chapters ofGenesis and the book of Revelation) and the writings of church fatherssuch as Augustine. This doctrine of creation has the followinginterrelated features: first, God created the world exnihilo, i.e., out of nothing. Differently put, God did not needany pre-existing materials to make the world, unlike, e.g., theDemiurge (from Greek philosophy), who created the world from chaotic,pre-existing matter. Second, God is distinct from the world; the worldis not equal to or part of God (contra pantheism or panentheism) or a(necessary) emanation of God’s being (contra neoplatonism).Rather, God created the world freely. This introduces a radicalasymmetry between creator and creature: the world is radicallycontingent upon God’s creative act and is also sustained by God,whereas God does not need creation (Jaeger 2012b: 3). Third, thedoctrine of creation holds that creation is essentially good (this isrepeatedly affirmed in Genesis 1). The world does contain evil, butGod does not directly cause this evil to exist. Moreover, God does notmerely passively sustain creation, but rather plays an active role init, using special divine actions (e.g., miracles and revelations) tocare for creatures. Fourth, God made provisions for the end of theworld, and will create a new heaven and earth, in this way eradicatingevil.

Related to the doctrine of creation are views on divine action.Theologians commonly draw a distinction between general and specialdivine action. Unfortunately, there is no universally accepteddefinition of these two concepts in the fields of theology or scienceand religion. One way to distinguish them (Wildman 2008: 140) is toregard general divine action as the creation and sustenance ofreality, and special divine action as the collection of specificprovidential acts, often at particular times and places, such asmiracles and revelations to prophets. Drawing this distinction allowsfor creatures to be autonomous and indicates that God does notmicromanage every detail of creation. Still, the distinction is notalways clear-cut, as some phenomena are difficult to classify aseither general or special divine action. For example, the RomanCatholic Eucharist (in which bread and wine become the body and bloodof Jesus) or some healing miracles outside of scripture seem mundaneenough to be part of general housekeeping (general divine action), butstill seem to involve some form of special intervention on God’spart. Alston (1989) makes a related distinction between direct andindirect divine acts. God brings about direct acts without the use ofnatural causes, whereas indirect acts are achieved through naturalcauses. Using this distinction, there are four possible kinds ofactions that God could do: God could not act in the world at all, Godcould act only directly, God could act only indirectly, or God couldact both directly and indirectly.

In the science and religion literature, there are two centralquestions on creation and divine action. To what extent are theChristian doctrine of creation and traditional views of divine actioncompatible with science? How can these concepts be understood within ascientific context, e.g., what does it mean for God to create and act?Note that the doctrine of creation says nothing about the age of theEarth, nor that it specifies a mode of creation. This allows for awide range of possible views within science and religion, of whichYoung Earth Creationism is but one that is consistent with scripture.Indeed, some scientific theories, such as the Big Bang theory, firstproposed by the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître (1927), lookcongenial to the doctrine of creation. The theory seems to supportcreatio ex nihilo as it specifies that the universeoriginated from an extremely hot and dense state around 13.8 billionyears ago (Craig 2003), although some philosophers have argued againstthe interpretation that the universe has a temporal beginning (e.g.,Pitts 2008).

The net result of scientific findings since the seventeenth centuryhas been that God was increasingly pushed into the margins. Thisencroachment of science on the territory of religion happened in twoways: first, scientific findings—in particular from geology andevolutionary theory—challenged and replaced biblical accounts ofcreation. While the doctrine of creation does not contain details ofthe mode and timing of creation, the Bible was regarded asauthoritative. Second, the emerging concept of scientific laws inseventeenth- and eighteenth-century physics seemed to leave no roomfor special divine action. These two challenges will be discussedbelow, along with proposed solutions in the contemporary science andreligion literature.

Christian authors have traditionally used the Bible as a source ofhistorical information. Biblical exegesis of the creation narratives,especially Genesis 1 and 2 (and some other scattered passages, such asin the Book of Job), remains fraught with difficulties. Are thesetexts to be interpreted in a historical, metaphorical, or poeticfashion, and what are we to make of the fact that the order ofcreation differs between these accounts (Harris 2013)? The Anglicanarchbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) used the Bible to date thebeginning of creation at 4004 BCE. Although such literalistinterpretations of the Biblical creation narratives were not uncommon,and are still used by Young Earth creationists today, theologiansbefore Ussher already offered alternative, non-literalistreadings of the biblical materials (e.g., Augustine 416 [2002]). Fromthe seventeenth century onward, the Christian doctrine of creationcame under pressure from geology, with findings suggesting that theEarth was significantly older than 4004 BCE. From the eighteenthcentury on, natural philosophers, such as de Maillet, Lamarck,Chambers, and Darwin, proposed transmutationist (what would now becalled evolutionary) theories, which seem incompatible with scripturalinterpretations of the special creation of species. Following thepublication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), therehas been an ongoing discussion on how to reinterpret the doctrine ofcreation in the light of evolutionary theory (e.g., Bowler 2009).

Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett (2003) have outlined a divine actionspectrum to clarify the distinct positions about creation and divineaction in the contemporary science and religion literature. Theydiscern two dimensions in this spectrum: the degree of divine actionin the natural world, and the form of causal explanations that relatedivine action to natural processes. At one extreme are creationists.Like other theists, they believe God has created the world and itsfundamental laws, and that God occasionally performs special divineactions (miracles) that intervene in the fabric of laws. Creationistsdeny any role of natural selection in the origin of species. Withincreationism, there are Old and Young Earth creationism, with theformer accepting geology and rejecting evolutionary biology, and thelatter rejecting both. Next to creationism is Intelligent Design,which affirms divine intervention in natural processes. IntelligentDesign creationists (e.g., Dembski 1998) believe there is evidence ofintelligent design in organisms’ irreducible complexity; on thebasis of this they infer design and purposiveness (see Kojonen 2016).Like other creationists, they deny a significant role for naturalselection in shaping organic complexity and they affirm aninterventionist account of divine action. For political reasons theydo not label their intelligent designer as God, as they hope tocircumvent the constitutional separation of church and state in the USwhich prohibits teaching religious doctrines in public schools(Forrest and Gross 2004).

Theistic evolutionists hold a non-interventionist approach to divineaction: God creates indirectly, through the laws of nature (e.g.,through natural selection). For example, the theologian John Haught(2000) regards divine providence as self-giving love, and naturalselection and other natural processes as manifestations of this love,as they foster autonomy and independence. While theistic evolutionistsallow for special divine action, particularly the miracle of theIncarnation in Christ (e.g., Deane-Drummond 2009), deists such asMichael Corey (1994) think there is only general divine action: Godhas laid out the laws of nature and lets it run like clockwork withoutfurther interference. Deism is still a long distance from ontologicalmaterialism, the idea that the material world is all there is.

Views on divine action were influenced by developments in physics andtheir philosophical interpretation. In the seventeenth century,natural philosophers, such as Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, developeda mechanistic view of the world as governed by orderly and lawlikeprocesses. Laws, understood as immutable and stable, createddifficulties for the concept of special divine action (Pannenberg2002). How could God act in a world that was determined by laws?

One way to regard miracles and other forms of special divine action isto see them as actions that somehow suspend or ignore the laws ofnature. David Hume (1748: 181), for instance, defined a miracle as“a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition ofthe deity, or by the interposal of some invisible agent”, and,more recently, Richard Swinburne (1968: 320) defines a miracle as“a violation of a law of Nature by a god”. This concept ofdivine action is commonly labeled interventionist. Interventionismregards the world as causally deterministic, so God has to create roomfor special divine actions. By contrast, non-interventionist forms ofdivine action (e.g., Murphy 1995, Russell 2006) require a world thatis, at some level, non-deterministic, so that God can act withouthaving to suspend or ignore the laws of nature.

In the seventeenth century, the explanation of the workings of naturein terms of elegant physical laws suggested the ingenuity of a divinedesigner. The design argument reached its peak not with WilliamPaley’s Natural Theology (1802/2006), which was a late voicein the debate on the design argument, but during the seventeenth andearly eighteenth century (McGrath 2011). For example, Samuel Clarke(cited in Schliesser 2012: 451) proposed an a posterioriargument from design by appealing to Newtonian science, callingattention to the “exquisite regularity of all the planets’motions without epicycles, stations, retrogradations, or any otherdeviation or confusion whatsoever”.

Another conclusion that the new laws-based physics suggested was thatthe universe was able to run smoothly without requiring an interveningGod. The increasingly deterministic understanding of the universe,ruled by deterministic causal laws as, for example, outlined byPierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), seemed to leave no room forspecial divine action, which is a key element of the traditionalChristian doctrine of creation. Newton resisted interpretations likethese in an addendum to the Principia in 1713: theplanets’ motions could be explained by laws of gravity, but thepositions of their orbits, and the positions of the stars—farenough apart so as not to influence each othergravitationally—required a divine explanation (Schliesser 2012).Alston (1989) argued, contra authors such as Polkinghorne (1998), thatmechanistic, pre-twentieth century physics is compatible with divineaction and divine free will. Assuming a completely deterministic worldand divine omniscience, God could set up initial conditions and thelaws of nature in such a way as to bring God’s plans about. Insuch a mechanistic world, every event is an indirect divine act.

Advances in twentieth-century physics, including the theories ofgeneral and special relativity, chaos theory, and quantum theory,overturned the mechanical clockwork view of creation. In the latterhalf of the twentieth century, chaos theory and quantum physicshave been explored as possible avenues to reinterpret divine action.John Polkinghorne (1998) proposed that chaos theory not only presentsepistemological limits to what we can know about the world, but thatit also provides the world with an “ontological openness”in which God can operate without violating the laws of nature. Onedifficulty with this model is that it moves from our knowledge of theworld to assumptions about how the world is: does chaos theory meanthat outcomes are genuinely undetermined, or that we as limited humanscannot predict them? Robert Russell (2006) proposed that God acts inquantum events. This would allow God to directly act in nature withouthaving to contravene the laws of nature, and is therefore anon-interventionist model. Since, under the Copenhagen interpretationof quantum mechanics, there are no natural efficient causes at thequantum level, God is not reduced to a natural cause. Murphy (1995)outlined a similar bottom-up model where God acts in the spaceprovided by quantum indeterminacy. These attempts to locateGod’s actions either in quantum mechanics or chaos theory, whichLydia Jaeger (2012a) has termed “physicalism-plus-God”,have met with sharp criticism (e.g., Saunders 2002, Jaeger 2012a,b).After all, it is not even clear whether quantum theory would allow forfree human action, let alone divine action, which we do not know muchabout (Jaeger 2012a). Next to this, William Carroll (2008), buildingon Thomistic philosophy, argues that authors such as Murphy andPolkinghorne are making a category mistake: God is not a cause in away creatures are causes, competing with natural causes, and God doesnot need indeterminacy in order to act in the world. Rather, asprimary cause God supports and grounds secondary causes.

While this solution is compatible with determinism (indeed, on thisview, the precise details of physics do not matter much), it blurs thedistinction between general and special divine action. Moreover, theIncarnation suggests that the idea of God as a cause among naturalcauses is not an alien idea in theology, and that God at leastsometimes acts as a natural cause (Sollereder 2015).

There has been a debate on the question to what extent randomness is agenuine feature of creation, and how divine action and chanceinterrelate. Chance and stochasticity are important features ofevolutionary theory (the non-random retention of random variations).In a famous thought experiment, Gould (1989) imagined that we couldrewind the tape of life back to the time of the Burgess Shale (508million years ago); the chance we would end up with anything like thepresent-day life forms is vanishingly small. However, Simon ConwayMorris (2003) has argued species very similar to the ones we know now(including human-like intelligent species) would evolve under a broadrange of conditions.

Under a theist interpretation, randomness could either be a merelyapparent aspect of creation, or a genuine feature. Plantinga suggeststhat randomness is a physicalist interpretation of the evidence. Godmay have guided every mutation along the evolutionary process. In thisway, God could

guide the course of evolutionary history by causing the rightmutations to arise at the right time and preserving the forms of lifethat lead to the results he intends. (2011: 121)

By contrast, some authors see stochasticity as a genuine designfeature, and not just as a physicalist gloss. Their challenge is toexplain how divine providence is compatible with genuine randomness.(Under a deistic view, one could simply say that God started theuniverse off and did not interfere with how it went, but that optionis not open to the theist, and most authors in the field of scienceand religion are theists, rather than deists.) Elizabeth Johnson(1996), using a Thomistic view of divine action, argues that divineprovidence and true randomness are compatible: God gives creaturestrue causal powers, thus making creation more excellent than if theylacked such powers, and random occurrences are also secondary causes;chance is a form of divine creativity that creates novelty, variety,and freedom.

One implication of this view is that God may be a risk taker—although, if God has a providential plan for possible outcomes, there is unpredictability but not risk. Johnson uses metaphors of risktaking that, on the whole, leave the creator in a position of control(creation, then, is like jazz improvisation), but it is, to her, arisk nonetheless. Why would God take risks? There are severalsolutions to this question. The free will theodicy says that acreation that exhibits stochasticity can be truly free and autonomous:

Authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation. Such freedom isbest supplied by the open contingency of evolution, and not by stringsof divine direction attached to every living creature. (Miller1999/2007: 289)

The “only way theodicy” goes a step further, arguing thata combination of laws and chance is not only the best way, but theonly way for God to achieve God’s creative plans (see e.g.,Southgate 2008 for a defense).

3.2 Human origins

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have similar creation stories, whichultimately go back to the first book of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis).According to Genesis, humans are the result of a special act ofcreation. Genesis 1 offers an account of the creation of the world insix days, with the creation of human beings on the sixth day. Itspecifies that humans were created male and female, and that they weremade in God’s image. Genesis 2 provides a different order ofcreation, where God creates humans earlier in the sequence (beforeother animals), and only initially creates a man, later fashioning awoman out of the man’s rib. Islam has a creation narrativesimilar to Genesis 2, with Adam being fashioned out of clay. Thesehandcrafted humans are regarded as the ancestors of all living humanstoday. Together with Ussher’s chronology, the received view inWestern culture until the eighteenth century was that humans werecreated only about 6000 years ago, in an act of special creation.

Humans occupy a privileged position in these creation accounts. InChristianity, Judaism, and some strands of Islam, humans are createdin the image of God (imago Dei). There are at least threedifferent ways in which image-bearing is understood (Cortez 2010).According to the functionalist account, humans are in the image of Godby virtue of things they do, such as having dominion over nature. Thestructuralist account emphasizes characteristics that humans uniquelypossess, such as reason. The relational interpretation sees the imageas a special relationship between God and humanity.

Humans also occupy a special place in creation as a result of thefall. In Genesis 3, the account of the fall stipulates that the firsthuman couple lived in the Garden of Eden in a state of innocenceand/or perfection. By eating from the forbidden fruit of the Tree ofGood and Evil they fell from this state, and death, manual labor, aswell as pain in childbirth were introduced. Moreover, as a result ofthis so-called “original sin”, the effects of Adam’ssin are passed on to every human being; for example, humans have aninclination to sin. The Augustinian interpretation of original sinalso emphasizes the distorting effects of sin on our reasoningcapacities (the so-called noetic effects of sin). As a result of sin,our original perceptual and reasoning capacities have been marred.This interpretation is influential in contemporary analytic philosophyof religion, for example, Plantinga (2000) appeals to the noeticeffects of sin to explain religious diversity and unbelief in hisextended Aquinas/Calvin model, i.e., why not everyone believes in Godeven though this belief would be properly basic.

Whereas Augustine believed that the prelapsarian state was one ofperfection, Irenaeus (second century) saw Adam and Eve prior to thefall as innocent, like children still in development. He believed thatthe fall frustrated, but did not obliterate God’s plans forhumans to gradually grow spiritually, and that the Incarnation wasGod’s way to help repair the damage.

Scientific findings and theories relevant to human origins come from arange of disciplines, in particular geology, paleoanthropology (thestudy of ancestral hominins, using fossils and other evidence),archaeology, and evolutionary biology. These findings challengetraditional religious accounts of humanity, including the specialcreation of humanity, the imago Dei, the historical Adam andEve, and original sin.

In natural philosophy, the dethroning of humanity from its position asa specially created species predates Darwin and can already be foundin early transmutationist publications. For example, Benoît deMaillet’s posthumously published Telliamed (1749, thetitle is his name in reverse)traces the origins of humans and other terrestrial animals from seacreatures. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed chimpanzees as the ancestorsto humans in his Philosophie Zoologique (1809).The Scottish publisher andgeologist Robert Chambers’ anonymously published Vestiges ofCreation (1844) stirred controversy with its detailednaturalistic account of the origin of species. He proposed that thefirst organisms arose through spontaneous generation, and that allsubsequent organisms evolved from them. He argued that humans have asingle evolutionary origin: “The probability may now be assumedthat the human race sprung from one stock, which was at first in astate of simplicity, if not barbarism” (p. 305), a view starklydifferent from the Augustinian interpretation of humanity in aprelapsarian state of perfection.

Darwin was initially reluctant to publish on human origins. While hedid not discuss human evolution in his Origin of Species, hepromised, “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and hishistory” (1859: 487). Huxley (1863) wrote the first book onhuman evolution from a Darwinian point of view, Man’s Placein Nature, which discussed fossil evidence, such as the thenrecently uncovered Neanderthal fossils from Gibraltar. Darwin’s(1871) Descent of Man identified Africa as the likely placewhere humans originated, and used comparative anatomy to demonstratethat chimpanzees and gorillas were most closely related to humans. Inthe twentieth century, paleoanthropologists debated whether humansseparated from the other great apes (at the time wrongly classifiedinto the paraphyletic group Pongidae) long ago, about 15million years ago, or relatively recently, about 5 million years ago.Molecular clocks—first immune responses (e.g., Sarich and Wilson1967), then direct genetic evidence (e.g., Rieux et al.2014)—favor the shorter chronology.

The discovery of many hominin fossils, including Ardipithecusramidus (4.4 million years ago), Australopithecusafarensis (nicknamed “Lucy”), about 3.5 million yearsold, the Sima de los Huesos fossils (about 400,000 years old,ancestors to the Neanderthals), Homo neanderthalensis, andthe intriguing Homo floresiensis (small hominins who lived onthe island of Flores, Indonesia, dated to 700,000–50,000 yearsago) have created a rich, complex picture of hominin evolution. Thesefinds are now also supplemented by detailed analysis of ancient DNAextracted from fossil remains, bringing to light a previously unknownspecies of hominin (the Denisovans) who lived in Siberia up to about40,000 years ago. Taken together, this evidence indicates that humansdid not evolve in a simple linear fashion, but that human evolutionresembles an intricate branching tree with many dead ends, in linewith the evolution of other species. Genetic and fossil evidencefavors a relatively recent origin of our species, Homosapiens, in Africa at about 200,000 years ago, with someinterbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans (less than 5% of ourDNA) (see Stringer 2012 for an overview).

In the light of these scientific findings, contemporary science andreligion authors have reconsidered the questions of human uniquenessand imago Dei, the Incarnation, and the historicity oforiginal sin. Some authors have attempted to reinterpret humanuniqueness as a number of species-specific cognitive and behavioraladaptations. For example, van Huyssteen (2006) considers the abilityof humans to engage in cultural and symbolic behavior, which becameprevalent in the Upper Paleolithic, as a key feature of uniquely humanbehavior. Other theologians have opted to broaden the notion ofimago Dei. Given what we know about the capacities formorality and reason in non-human animals, Celia Deane-Drummond (2012)and Oliver Putz (2009) reject an ontological distinction betweenhumans and non-human animals, and argue for a reconceptualization ofthe imago Dei to include at least some nonhuman animals.Joshua Moritz (2011) raises the question of whether extinct homininspecies, such as Homo neanderthalensis and Homofloresiensis, which co-existed with Homo sapiens forsome part of prehistory, partook in the divine image.

There is also discussion of how we can understand the Incarnation (thebelief that Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became incarnate)with the evidence we have of human evolution. Some interpretChrist’s divine nature quite liberally. For instance, Peacocke(1979) regarded Jesus as the point where humanity is perfect for thefirst time. Teilhard de Chardin (1971) had a teleological,progressivist interpretation of evolution, according to which Christis the progression and culmination of what evolution has been workingtoward (even though the historical Jesus lived 2000 years ago).According to Teilhard, evil is still horrible but no longerincomprehensible; it becomes a natural feature of creation—sinceGod chose evolution as his mode of creation, evil arises as aninevitable byproduct. Deane-Drummond (2009), however, points out thatthis interpretation is problematic: Teilhard worked within aSpencerian progressivist model of evolution, and he wasanthropocentric, seeing humanity as the culmination of evolution.Current evolutionary theory has repudiated the Spencerianprogressivist view, and adheres to a stricter Darwinian model.Deane-Drummond, who regards human morality as lying on a continuumwith the social behavior of other animals, conceptualizes the fall asa mythical, rather than a historical event. The fall representshumanity’s sharper awareness of moral concerns and its abilityfor making wrong choices. She regards Christ as incarnate wisdom,situated in a theodrama that plays against the backdrop of an evolvingcreation. As a human being, Christ is connected to the rest ofcreation, as we all are, through common descent. By saving us, hesaves the whole of creation.

Debates on the fall and the historical Adam have centered on how thesenarratives can be understood in the light of contemporary science. Onthe face of it, limitations of our cognitive capacities can benaturalistically explained as a result of biological constraints, sothere seems little explanatory gain to appeal to the narrative of thefall. Some have attempted to interpret the concepts of sin and fall inways that are compatible with paleoanthropology. Peter van Inwagen(2004), for example, holds that God could have providentially guidedhominin evolution until there was a tightly-knit community ofprimates, endowed with reason, language, and free will, and thiscommunity was in close union with God. At some point in history, thesehominins somehow abused their free will to distance themselves fromGod. For van Inwagen, the fall was a fall from perfection, followingthe Augustinian tradition. John Schneider (2014), on the other hand,argues that there is no genetic or paleoanthropological evidence forsuch a community of superhuman beings. Helen De Cruz and Johan DeSmedt (2013) favor an Irenaean, rather than an Augustinianinterpretation of the fall narrative, which does not involve ahistorical Adam, and emphasizes original innocence as the state thathumans had prior to sinning.

4. Future directions in science and religion

This final section will look at two examples of work in science andreligion that have received attention in the recent literature, andthat probably will be important in the coming years: evolutionaryethics and implications of the cognitive science of religion. Otherareas of increasing interest include the theistic multiverse,consciousness, artificial intelligence, and transhumanism.

4.1 Evolutionary ethics

Even before Darwin formulated his theory of natural selection,Victorian authors fretted over the implications of evolutionary theoryfor morality and religion. The geologist Adam Sedgwick (1845/1890: 84)worried that if the transmutationist theory of The Vestiges ofCreation (Chambers 1844) were true, it would imply that“religion is a lie; human law is a mass of folly, and a baseinjustice; morality is moonshine”. Evolutionary theorists fromDarwin (1871) onward argued that human morality is continuous withsocial behaviors in nonhuman animals, and that we can explain moralsentiments as the result of natural selection. Michael Ruse (e.g.,Ruse and Wilson 1986) has argued that our belief that morality isobjective (moral realism) is an illusion that helps us to cooperatebetter.

Contemporary evolutionary ethicists argue that our ability to makemoral judgments, which Joyce (2006) terms our “moralsense”, is the result of natural selection. This capacity hasevolutionary precursors in the ability of nonhuman animals toempathize, cooperate, reconcile, and engage in fair play (e.g., deWaal 2009). Some philosophers (e.g., Street 2006, Joyce 2006) arguethat the evolution of the moral sense undermines the purportedobjective, mind-independent status of moral norms. Since we canexplain ethical beliefs and behaviors as a result of their long-termfitness consequences, we do not need to invoke ethical realism as anexplanation.

Some ask whether evolutionary challenges to moral beliefs apply in ananalogous way to religious beliefs (see Bergmann and Kain 2014,especially part III). Others have examined whether evolutionary ethicsmakes appeals to God in ethical matters redundant. John Hare (2004),for example, has argued that this is not the case, becauseevolutionary ethics can only explain why we do things that ultimatelybenefit us, even if indirectly (e.g., through the mechanisms of kinselection and reciprocal altruism). According to Hare (2004),evolutionary ethics does not explain our sense of moral obligationthat goes beyond biological self-interest, as evolutionary theorypredicts that we would always rank biological self-interest over moralobligations. Therefore, theism provides a more coherent explanation ofwhy we feel we have to follow up on moral obligations. Intriguingly,theologians and scientists have begun to collaborate in the field ofevolutionary ethics. For example, the theologian Sarah Coakley hascooperated with the mathematician and biologist Martin Nowak tounderstand altruism and game theory in a broader theological andscientific context (Nowak and Coakley 2013).

4.2 Implications of cognitive science of religion for the rationality of religious beliefs

The cognitive science of religion examines the cognitive basis ofreligious beliefs. Recent work in the field of science and religionhas examined the implications of this research for the justificationof religious beliefs. De Cruz and De Smedt (2015) propose thatarguments in natural theology are also influenced by evolved cognitivedispositions. For example, the design argument may derive itsintuitive appeal from an evolved, early-developed propensity in humansto ascribe purpose and design to objects in their environment. Thiscomplicates natural theological projects, which rely on a distinctionbetween the origins of a religious belief and their justificationthrough reasoned argument.

Kelly Clark and Justin L. Barrett (2011) argue that the cognitivescience of religion offers the prospect of an empirically-informedReidian defense of religious belief. Thomas Reid (1764) proposed thatwe are justified in holding beliefs that arise from cognitivefaculties universally present in humans which give rise tospontaneous, non-inferential beliefs. If cognitive scientists areright in proposing that belief in God arises naturally from theworkings of our minds, we are prima facie justified in believing inGod (Clark and Barrett 2011). Ryan Nichols and Robert Callergård(2011), however, argue that this defense only works for perceptualfaculties, memory, and reliance on testimony, not for the mix ofculture and evolved biases that constitute religions, as that does notform a Reidian faculty. Others (e.g., Visala 2011) claim that thecognitive science of religion has neither positive nor negativeepistemological implications.

John Wilkins and Paul Griffiths (2013) argue that the evolved originsof religious beliefs can figure in an evolutionary debunking argumentagainst religious belief, which they formulate along the lines of GuyKahane (2011):

An Illusion Of Harmony Science And Religion In Islam Pdf 2017

Causal Premise: S’s belief that p iscaused by the evolutionary process X

Epistemic Premise: The evolutionary process X does nottrack the truth of propositions like p

Conclusion: Therefore, S’s belief that pis not justified (warranted)

Wilkins and Griffiths (2013) hold that the epistemic premise cansometimes be resisted: evolutionary processes do track truth, forinstance, in the case of commonsense beliefs and, by extension,scientific beliefs. However, they hold that this move does not workfor religious and moral beliefs, because such beliefs are assumed notto be the result of truth-tracking cognitive processes. Some authors(e.g., McCauley 2011) indeed think there is a large difference betweenthe cognitive processes involved in science and in religion, but moreempirical work has to be done on this front.

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Other important works

Science And Religion In Ancient Greece

• Clayton, Philip and Zachary Simpson (eds.), 2006, The OxfordHandbook of Religion and Science, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
• Dixon, Thomas, Geoffrey Cantor, and Stephen Pumfrey (eds.), 2010,Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
• Harrison, Peter (ed.), 2010, The Cambridge Companion toScience and Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Stump, Eleonore and Alan G. Padgett (eds.), 2012, The BlackwellCompanion to Science and Christianity, Malden, MA:Blackwell.

Academic Tools

Other Internet Resources

• Plantinga, Alvin, “Religion and Science,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/religion-science/>. [This was the previous entry on religion and science in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — see the version history.]
• Wikipedia article on the relationship between religion and science.
• BioLogos.
• National Center for Science Education: Science and Religion.
• Evolution Resources by Kenneth R. Miller.

Related Entries

Comte, Auguste | cosmological argument | Hume, David: on religion | teleology: teleological arguments for God’s existence | theology, natural and natural religion

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Katherine Dormandy, Kelly James Clark, Isaac Choi, Egil Asprem, Johan De Smedt, Taede Smedes, H.E. Baber, Fabio Gironi, Erkki Kojonen, Andreas Reif, Raphael Neelamkavil, Hans Van Eyghen, Nicholas Joll, for their feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript. This research was supported by a small book and research grant of the Special Divine Action Project, specialdivineaction.org.

Copyright © 2017 by
Helen De Cruz<hde-cruz@brookes.ac.uk>