Science and the Study of God: A Mutuality Model for Theology and Science

by Alan G. Padgett

Religion and science today are often seen as enemies battling for human hearts and minds. In this new book Alan Padgett takes a postmodern turn, arguing that they can and should work together collegially, developing a worldview that is at once spiritually meaningful and scientifically sound. Pursuing a perspective that he calls the mutuality model, Padgett highlights the contributions that both religion and science make to a full understanding of the world and our place in it. He argues convincingly that the natural sciences and theology, even though they have their own domain as disciplines, can rationally influence each other without giving up their distinctive methods. The book explores the nature of informal reason and worldviews, the character of theology as a spiritual and academic discipline, and the question of what counts as natural science. Along the way, Padgett discusses such topics as thermodynamics, time, resurrection, and the historical Jesus to illustrate his powerful mutuality model.

Genres: Religion

232 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

Reviews

[Daniel Clemence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to rate this book at first. The central thesis of the book is that theology and science can be analysed together. It critiques the position of "scientism" in which science is positioned above all other forms of epistemological views. The book is a dialectical debate between science and theology as to whether they can be reconciled.

Chapter 1 seeks to seek a mutual understanding between science and theology. This chapter looks at how theology has much to explore about reality. Chapter 2 seeks to debate between science and theology, trying to reconcile the two positions. Chapter 3 is a critique about the research into the historical Jesus. This chapter lays out the problems with the view that Jesus can be studied in a historical sense without bias. In this, there is no way to have an "objective" view of Jesus of history. Chapter 4 puts forward the idea that science has a world view and cannot be seen as purely objective. Chapter 5 is a sort after dialogue between theology and science from the view of process theology. Chapter 6 looks at how the study of theology can be seen through the lens of worship. Chapter 7 links theology time and thermodynamics together. Chapter 8 is about incarnation and historical science whilst Chapter 9 is the conclusion.

I think this book gives an interesting mix of ideas, particularly critiquing science from a post-modern Liberal Christian view. It is important to identify how bias influences work and theology can be far more honest with its position of belief. After all, Pete Enns states how all theology starts with an adjective.

What I found problematic though is the fundamental asymmetry in epistemological assumptions between theology and science. What I mean by that is that the author fails to acknowledge not that science is unbiased and theology isn't, but that science is based on empiricism and theology is much more a priori in its process. To that end, there is a dialogue between theology and science, it could become somewhat one way in that empiricism cannot be applied to every part of religion. Otherwise much of religion would be considered false. To this end, theology could be useful in ethics boards of experiments.

Another issue is that parts of the book weren't a dialogue of science at all. For example Chapter 3 on the myth of hunting for the historical Jesus isn't about science. Science isn't the process of verifying history because it cannot be observed. Jesus like 99% of people cannot be scientifically proven since there is no way to observe whether he existed as he left no evidence.

I also would have liked more emphasis on Process Theology. The parallels between Process Theology and the development of science was kind of ignored and would have been an intriguing analysis.

An interesting dialogue between science and theology.

[Kim]

So far, I am having trouble staying interested. So many words to say what he is GOING to talk about. Just talk about it already.