This book reframes the discussion between Christian theology and contemporary science, arguing that when Christians treat theology as their first truth discourse, it is good for both science and religion.
Paul Tyson argues that creedal Christianity has much to contribute to the ongoing conversation. He explains that the three usual approaches to science and religion--opposition, demarcation, and synthesis--assume that fixed and essential definitions of science and religion are possible. However, both science and religion as we actually practice them are historically situated ways of engaging with the natural world and transcendence that are in a continuous process of development and decay. We have come to separate natural knowledge (science) from faith and moral beliefs (religion), leading to serious difficulties in integrating knowledge and meaning, facts and values, and immanence and transcendence.
At the root of these dissonances is the difficult relationship between a naturalistic philosophy that purports to be a scientific realism and the things that make us human: transcendence, faith, meaning, and purpose. This is the result of science displacing Christian theology as Western modernity's first truth discourse. However, Christian theology contains deep resources in its approach to knowledge and reality that have not been brought to the science and religion conversation since the late nineteenth century.
This book contains an intellectual history of theology's engagement with science during the modern period, critiques current approaches, and makes a constructive proposal for how a Christian theological vision of natural knowledge can be better pursued.