We live in a period of history wherein scientism—the belief that modern scientific progression still has the inchoate capacity to unlock the mysteries of the universe one observation at a time/the belief that science has become the new magisteria, the new authority and foundation upon which human knowledge and progress will flourish—by and large underwrites the confidence of our age; the confidence in the indomitable human spirit to overcome and meta-narrativalize reality (although postmodernity seeks to deconstruct most of that mentality; nevertheless, it is still present, I would contend, in society at large). That said, I wanted to share a word from Thomas F Torrance on how he sees the relationship between the ‘hard’ sciences and Christian theology; it is rather illuminating relative to how the culture wars so often paint things in stark and competitive terms. Torrance writes:

It is towards the encouragement of that kind of dialogue that this book is offered, in the hope that it may help people who are interested in natural science as well as those interested in Christian theology. What is intended here is not that theology should take into its material content ideas that derive from natural scientific knowledge of the universe, any more than natural science should incorporate into its developing stock of ideas distinctly theological conceptions. That would be both unscientific and untheological, and could only bring theology and science into useless conflict with one another. What is envisaged here is an exercise in conjoint thinking where theological science and natural science have common ground with the rationalities and objectivities of the created order but where they each pursue a difference objective. So far as theology is concerned, the claim is advanced that theology cannot be pursued in any proper and rigorous way in detachment from the determinate framework of the spatio-temporal universe with which God addresses his Word to us and calls us to know and love and serve him. It is, I believe, indifference to that framework of objective rationality, or the isolation of theology from natural science, that lies behind the sense of lostness and bewilderment, as well as the sloppiness and ambiguity of thought, so often manifest in contemporary theological literature. On the other hand, it is through that framework seriously that we are enabled to hear the Word of God in such an objective way that we do not confuse it with the creaturely things we tell ourselves about one another and are tempted to project into God. It is through deep-going dialogue with science and submission of our own theological conceptions to the critical questions it addresses to us that we are helped to purge our minds of pseudo-theological as well as pseudo-scientific notions, and so are enabled to build up theological knowledge in a positive way on its own proper ground: God’s self-revelation and self-communication to us in the incarnation of his eternal Word in Jesus Christ.[1]

When you read Torrance, no matter what it is from him, you will always have this underlying sounding of the patristic voice therein. Even here we can get a sense of Torrance’s enjoyment of patristic thought on the logoi derivative of the Logos of God built into the fabric of intelligible reality (intelligible precisely because the order of the universe is contingent upon the living Word of God—creatio ex nihilo). And as is also typical with Torrance, no matter what he writes it will always be conditioned by his concentrated effort to see the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ as regulative of all things; that all reality has it teleology from and in the Alpha and Omega, Jesus Christ. Beyond that, and this is quite fruitful I think (in regard to opening vistas towards a protagonistic relationship between hard science and Christian theology), Torrance wants science and Christian theology to be framed in a harmonious dialogical combine; one which is not currently present for many a Christian and/or scientist. This book (from whence I take the quote), helps offer a way forward for thinking Christian theology and Science together; while at the same time honoring their proper distinctions relative to disciplinary realities and subject/object material.

[1] Thomas F. Torrance, Christian Theology&Scientific Culture (Belfast: Christian Journals Limited, 1980), 8-9.