Part I: Method in Theology and Science

We begin with the question of methodology: how are we to relate theology and science? I will take the question as broadly including issues in epistemology and the nature of scientific and religious language, as well as issues more clearly arising in methodology per se. The past four decades have seen a variety of important such methodological proposals; here we’ll briefly review some of the most promising. I believe we’ll see that, though they differ significantly on key questions, they still form a somewhat continuous developmental path, leading from early insights to cutting edge research questions. But before exploring this path - “critical realism” - a brief word about how the purported relations can be classified is appropriate.

Contributed by: Dr. Robert Russell