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There is a long and venerable tradition of Christian reflection upon natural philosophy, or as we now call it, natural science. Since the world is God's creation, Christians who value all of God's gifts, including the natural world and their own reason, have wished to incorporate the sciences along with the best theology into a meaningful world view, at once scientific and faithful to the gospel. Origen's First Principles, written in the second century A.D., was the earliest attempt to formulate such a comprehensive Christian world view; the most impressive is doubtless the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, who reconciled Aristotelian science with Christian theology.
While I do not believe that science provides a true challenge to faith in the long run, there can be large areas of apparent conflict between religion and science. In fact, the historical connections between them are a fascinating study in complexity and a good antidote to the usual stereotypes. The burgeoning interest in the religion-and-science dialogue has even created a new chair in religion and science at Oxford University, which has just been filled by the historian John Brooke. Professor Brooke recently gave the prestigious Gifford Lectures with his colleague Geoffrey Cantor (another historian of science). The published version of the lectures, Reconstructing Nature, provides us with a rich array of thinkers across the centuries "whose science and theology were interrelated in interesting, unpredictable, and extraordinarily diverse ways."
Most thoughtful religious intellectuals would agree that we are faced with significant new challenges to religion from the biological sciences, at least on the face of things. After the work of Einstein, Bohr, and Hubble, the physical sciences no longer seem the threat they once did (if indeed they ever were). Since the days of Darwin, on the other hand, biology has provided a series of apparent challenges to Christian thought. Recent developments in genetics and in biotechnology have only increased the need for a new synthesis between the best science and the very best Christian theology. I believe this to be a fundamentally communal project, involving Christian scholars from many domains in fruitful dialogue and discussion. In deed, B&C has proved to be one locus in which such open and reasonable debate has taken place.
Anyone interested in a Christian approach to the philosophy of science will welcome Del Ratzsch's Science and Its Limits. A reliable and readable guide, it is the first book I would put in the hands of anyone who is new to the subject. The book first appeared some 15 years ago under the title The Philosophy of Science, and was a very useful textbook in my classes. Now updated and expanded, it should serve a new generation of readers well.
Ratzsch begins with a historical survey, including a brief new section on postmodernism. He canvasses the major issues in philosophy of science, including data and theory choice, realism and antirealism, and the limits of science. A large section is devoted to issues of religion and science, including the question of whether science poses any challenge to Christian faith. Here Ratzsch follows Alvin Plantinga and "Reformed epistemology" (no surprise from a Calvin College philosophy professor!). There is a new chapter on the intelligent design movement as well. All told, a good read at a good price.
Those who find their philosophical appetite stimulated by Ratzsch may wish to move on to a recent book from the pen of Anthony O'Hear. O'Hear is a seasoned philosopher and teacher. In Beyond Evolution: Human Nature and the Limits of Evolutionary Explanation, he writes in that wonderful British tradition of clear, thoughtful, and considered philosophy. The main purpose of this book is to swim against a current trend to reduce those great Platonic verities of truth, beauty, and goodness to biological categories. Some (though not all) sociobiologists and evolutionary epistemologists insist that our "moral" behavior, and our rationality, can be fully explained in Darwinian terms. O'Hear sets himself against this trend. He fully accepts biological evolution, but presents cogent arguments why our attraction to, and use of, truth, beauty, and goodness cannot be explained on biological grounds. Self-conscious animals, once they evolve, behave in ways which natural science cannot fully explain. While I do not accept all of his conclusions (what philosopher would?), I believe he makes a good case against any simple biological reductionism.
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