Reasoned Faith

The clash between religion and science or between a religious and a so-called modern worldview has been the subject of countless symposia, conferences, and books, but rarely has the story been told in such personal terms as here. Not all of the contributors are scientists or theologians, much less that rare hyphenate the scientist-theologian, but all are thoughtful individuals who have had to face the challenge of creating a personal synthesis of religious belief and scientific or modern knowledge.

What comes across ringingly in the essays by Robert John Russell, Philip Hefner, and Arthur Peacocke is not the threat that science poses to religion but rather the invitation it offers to expand our horizons vastly.

But it is not the scientific worldview per se that offers the sole challenge to historic faith. There are other challenges as well, such as historical consciousness, modern psychology, and religious pluralism. In offering a brief for a non-dualistic, non-patriarchal creation-centered spirituality, philosopher Michael Zimmerman reveals how a long-term study of Buddhism led him back to the Christianity he had abandoned.

The clash of worldviews takes a different turn in the essay by novelist Chaim Potok, who speaks of how the ancient world of Rabbinic Judaism and the modern world of secular humanism "nourish my very self," which ties in neatly with early church historian Robert Wilken's reminder of the role tradition and memory play in Christian intellectual life. Systematic theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg outlines the ways in which the modern science of history has changed his discipline. Rosemary Haughton, Frank Birtel, and Thomas O'Meara ring changes on what Haughton once memorably called "the Catholic thing" in all its catholic variety; and Emilie Griffin shows how the task of creating a "working faith-hypothesis" of one's own requires a bold exercise of the imagination.

Finally, philosopher Anthony Flew argues that his views on God have neither changed nor been falsified in forty years!