recent publication by the CPS co-directors...
2006
Clayton, Philip. “Biology, Directionality, and God: Getting Clear on the Stakes for Religion-Science Discussion.” Theology and Science, 4, no. 2 (2006) 121-27.
__________. “Emergence from Physics to Theology: Toward a Panoramic View.” Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 41, no. 3 (Sept. 2006): 675-87.
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At its best, the emergence debate provides a helpful model of what religion-science scholarship can and should involve. (At its worst in represents the faddishness and bandwagon effects to which our field is also prone,) Those involved in the debate must pay close attention to concrete theories and results in the natural sciences. They rely on the careful conceptual distinctions that philosophers of science draw concerning complexity, novelty, and organization. The resulting views about human mentality and consciousness are tested against these results and checked for their adequacy to the phenomena of human experience. Emergentist theories of nature and personhood have entailments for one's theory of religion and for theological reflection; conversely, theological accounts may constrain one's interpretation of emergent phenomena. In my response to the four symposiasts I draw out these deeper dimensions of the emergence debate.
__________. “The Emergence of Spirit: From Complexity to Anthropology to Theology.” Theology and Science 4, No. 3 (November 2006): 291-307.
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The contemporary naturalist should be pulled in two different directions by the growth of science. On the one hand, the sciences suggest nature's self-sufficiency as a closed and coherent system; on the other, they hint at what we may credibly view as a transcendent source for nature. The idea of a transcendent source does not negate science, but it does undercut claims on behalf of science's self-sufficiency. As a naturalist and exemplary experimentalist, Robert Boyle retained the highest respect for natural order. Boyle's unrelenting naturalism, however, left his belief in God untouched, whereas the more radical naturalism of our day rings forth from pulpits and pens of theologians. There is no place within science for purely empirical proofs of the existence of God or God's purposes within evolutionary history. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to reflect philosophically and theologically on the biological data and what they might portend. I take my lead from emergence theory, the study of emergent complexity in natural history.
Cobb, John B., Jr. “Interview – Passages: Life in Retirement.” Religious Studies News (March 2006), 16-17.
__________. “A Normative View of Progressive Christianity.” Available at http://www.progressivechristianwitness.org/pcwsearch.cfm.
__________. "Experience and Language." Chromatikon II (2006): 137-149.
Faber, Roland. “Transkulturation. Dogmatische Überlegungen zum wesen des Christentums im Fluss.” In Inkulturation. Historische Beispiele und theologische Reflexionen zur Flexibilität und Widerständigkeit des Christlichen, eds. R. Klieber and M. Stowasser. Wien: LIT, 2006, 160-187.
__________. “Prozesstheologie.” In Theologien der Gegenwart. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006, 179-97.
Griffin, David Ray, John B. Cobb, Jr, Richard A. Falk, and Catherine Keller. The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God: A Political, Economic, Religious Statement (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.
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amazon.com]
What do you get when you put three theologians together with an attorney? Not a joke, but a deadly serious, academic analysis of our nation, its past and its future. This collection of nine essays addresses the ideological and practical evidence and consequences of what the authors see as an often disguised imperial agenda inherent in the founding and development of the United States. The authors, besides sharing the conviction that the United States "is seeking to become the world's first borderless empire" whose imperialist policies constitute "the primary threat to the survival of the human species," share an affinity for the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. While they object to imperialism on "political, economic and ecological grounds" as well as on "religious-spiritual-moral grounds," they spend most of the book making their secular statement; only the last three essays speak directly of religion. Keller's contribution contains a particularly interesting "debate" between the people she calls "Bush-Doctrine Idealists and the great idol-smasher John Calvin." Students of American history, government and political science, will feel quite at home within these pages, but nonacademics may need to dust off their college texts to remember the particulars of, say, the Marshall Plan.
