The Failure of Natural Theology

The Failure of Natural Theology
Author: Jeffrey D Johnson
Publisher: New Studies in Theology Series
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2021-09-15
Genre: Natural theology
ISBN: 9781952599378

Aristotle's cosmological argument is the foundation of Aquinas's doctrine of God. For Thomas, the cosmological argument not only speaks of God's existence but also of God's nature. By learning that the unmoved mover is behind all moving objects, we learn something true about the essence of God-principally, that God is immobile. But therein lies the problem for Thomas. The Catholic Church had already condemned Aristotle's unmoved mover because, according to Aristotle, the unmoved mover is unable to be the moving cause (i.e., Creator) and governor of the universe-or else he would cease to be immobile. By seeking to baptize Aristotle into the Catholic Church, however, Thomas gave his life to seeking to explain how God can be both immobile and the moving cause of the universe. Thomas even looked to the pantheistic philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius for help. But even with Dionysius's aid, Thomas failed to reconcile the god of Aristotle with the Trinitarian God of the Bible. If Thomas would have rejected the natural theology of Aristotle by placing the doctrine of the Trinity, which is known only by divine revelation, at the foundation of his knowledge of God, he would have rid himself of the irresolvable tension that permeates his philosophical theology. Thomas could have realized that the Trinity alone allows for God to be the only self-moving being-because the Trinity is the only being not moved by anything outside himself but freely capable of creating and controlling contingent things in motion.

The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion

The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion
Author: Peter Harrison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2010-06-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0521712513

This book explores the historical relations between science and religion and discusses contemporary issues with perspectives from cosmology, evolutionary biology and bioethics.

Divine Teaching and the Way of the World

Divine Teaching and the Way of the World
Author: Samuel Fleischacker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2011-04-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191617253

Samuel Fleischacker defends what the Enlightenment called 'revealed religion': religions that regard a certain text or oral teaching as sacred, as wholly authoritative over one's life. At the same time, he maintains that revealed religions stand in danger of corruption or fanaticism unless they are combined with secular scientific practices and a secular morality. The first two parts of Divine Teaching and the Way of the World argue that the cognitive and moral practices of a society should prescind from religious commitments — they constitute a secular 'way of the world', to adapt a phrase from the Jewish tradition, allowing human beings to work together regardless of their religious differences. But the way of the world breaks down when it comes to the question of what we live for, and it is this that revealed religions can illumine. Fleischacker first suggests that secular conceptions of why life is worth living are often poorly grounded, before going on to explore what revelation is, how it can answer the question of worth better than secular worldviews do, and how the revealed and way-of-the-world elements of a religious tradition can be brought together.

Scientific Theology: Reality

Scientific Theology: Reality
Author: Alister E. McGrath
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2007-01-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567031233

The second volume of an extended and systematic exploration of the relation between Christian theology and the natural sciences, focussing on the examination and defense of theological realism

The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology

The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology
Author: Russell Re Manning
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 647
Release: 2013-01-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199556938

The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology" explores the diversity and vitality o natural theology, both historically and as an issue of contemporary concern.